Has anyone seen the Washington State Beef Commission’s “Powerful Beefscape” ad campaign? I just took these screenshots from the Times website. The campaign’s slogan is “The Power of Protein in the Land of Lean Beef.” You can view thumbnails of all the ads here, though the links to bigger pictures are broken.I’m more than a little disturbed by the campaign. Not just because the cook part of me remembers how much flavor the forces of lean sucked out of pork during the “pork: the other white meat” years. These beef mountains and cliffs are some of the most unappetizing food photos I’ve ever seen. The idea of hiking over a jiggly, striated terrain made up of chunks of flesh — you could even be killed by a flash flood of beef juices — revolts me. So does the thought of eating dinner by burrowing into the ground, scooping up hunks of terrain, and chomping down. Not to mention the massive manpower required to slaughter and carve up a planet-sized cow. Why couldn’t the Commission have reduced their scale? The campaign could have been “Come Stay in the House of Lean Beef,” with pictures of a room decorated in tri-tip tables and meatball throw pillows.