The Federal Censorship Commission

Yahoo! News - Fox Blurs Cartoon Rear End on FCC Worries

Networks are rolling over in front of the gestapo-like FCC. O.K., maybe that is too harsh, but this is getting ridiculous. I also read in Time magazine that Fox is refusing to air a commercial during the Super Bowl that shows Micky Rooney's backside flesh. As Rooney himself said, "there is nothing sexy about that!"

Comments

Eric said…
Point well taken regarding context. I definitely have different expectations on what I will see when I tune in to watch King of the Hill than when I tune in with Dominic to watch Dora the Explorer. Your reference to the Simpsons reminds me of the controversy that swirled around that show in its first few seasons. Many people complained that by tuning in to watch a "cartoon", there was an intrinsic expectation of a decency standard. Of course, this all becomes rather subjective. Personally, I tend to laugh when I see Janet's boob pop out, or Randy Moss fake-moon the Lambeau field faithful. I can also understand how some people would be offended. However, different things offend different people. This gets into the whole moral relativity question, which is an extended discussion. Some people might be offended by the gigantic, sweaty guys hitting each other during a football game. Others might be offended by Donald Trump's hair. To me, the question boils down to, "who decides what is offensive." In a micro-sense, the answer to that question is the individual person decides what is offensive, by turning off the television when necessary. In a macro-sense, the market can and will decide, which brings me (sort of) back to your point about expectations. The networks indeed are in the best position to enforce decency, but that enforcement should come from the impetus of the market as opposed to a Federal agency. I'm not trying to go all libertarian here, but the FCC, with less than a handful of commissioners that are appointed rather than elected, should not be in a position to determine what is broadcast over the airwaves. If anything, our elected representatives need to draw up some decency laws that clearly define what can and cannot be broadcast. However, I clearly favor a market based solution on this issue. If people are that upset about Janet's boob, they should stop buying Pepsi, Chevy's and whatever other products are advertised during the big game. If those companies start holding back their dollars, the networks WILL listen.
7:46 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The agony of victory....a.k.a. picking my jaw up off the floor

Allright. I've now had nearly 24 hours (although its taken me a couple of days to complete this post) to calm down, reflect upon and digest the improbable gut wrenching game yesterday in which the heavily favored Colts lost to the Steelers 21-18. I wrote last year of not being as emotionally attached to the Steelers as I have been in the past. I wrote last week of how I thought that I might be spending too much valuable time following the Steelers, especially since I have absolutely no control over the outcome of their games. Let me just say this: yesterday's game was probably in the top five emotionally draining, and ultimately gratifying, experiences of my life. Ouside of my wedding and the birth of my two sons, I can't remember being as nervous, deflated, joyful, stunned and exhilirated as I was yesterday----all withing about a ten minute stretch of seemingly neverending time! What could have been a devestating loss to live with in the offseason (and, forever, for Jerome
Read more

"The Axis of Evil and the Doctrine of Preemption Three Years On"

Jerod and I attended a lecture by Brookings Institution fellow Michael O'Hanlon last night at Park University in Parkville, MO. The lecture was part of the Jerzy Hauptmann Distinguished Guest Lecture series. As a Park University M.B.A. alum, I received an invitation to the 13th annual lecture in the series. I like going to events like this, especially since I was interested in the content of this particular lecture, of which the title was the title of this post. Dr. O'Hanlon described himself as a Sam Nunn Democrat at the beginning of the lecture. It's always difficult to prevent political feeling from entering into objective analysis, and I don't know how you measure the "objectiveness" of analysis, but I feel that most Brookings scholars are at least "fair", and Dr. O'Hanlon was no exception. His analysis of the doctrine of preemption was focused on the effectiveness of the doctrine, as opposed to any moral righteousness or implications of the
Read more

Removing a password that was created in a previous version from an Access 2007 database

Earlier this week I was banging my head against the wall trying to figure out how to remove a password from an Access 2007 database (file extension .accdb). The database was created in a previous version of access and subsequently "upgraded" to the Access 2007 format. I believe some type of a wizard was used to perform the "upgrade." The security model is evidently different in Access 2007 than in previous versions. It doesn't appear that you can set/unset database passwords. Instead, in Access 2007, there is an option to Encrypt with Password. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be logically similar to the earlier version password architecture, but there was no way that I could find to easily remove the password that had been created in the earlier version when using the Access 2007 interface. Access security has always been confusing to me, and I need to take the time someday to understand how the security model is supposed to work in Access 2007. An
Read more