Giving the organization a higher priority than the functions it performs is common in our culture. This is epitomized in television, where we allow the commercials, the "special message," to break the continuity of even the most important communication. There is a message all right, and the message is that art gives way to commerce-polychronic advertising agencies impose their values on a monochronic population. In monochronic North European countries, where patterns are more ho- mogeneous, commercial interruptions of this sort are not tolerated. There is a strict limit as to the number as well as the times when commercials can be shown. The average American TV program has been allotted one or two hours, for which people have set aside time, and is conceived, written, directed, acted, and played as a unity. Interjecting commercials throughout the body of the program breaks that continuity and flies in the face of one of the core systems of the culture. The polychronic Spanish treat the main feature as a close friend or relative who should not be disturbed and let the commercials mill around in the antechamber outside. My point is not that one system is superior to another, it's just that the two don't mix. The effect is disruptive, and reminiscent of what the English are going through today, now that the old monochronic queuing patterns have broken down as a consequence of a large infusion of polychronic peoples from the colonies.