Help us find Annie
FCC overreaching
Apparently it's budget review time for the Fried Catfish Conspiracy, because they are working hard to justify their existence with all the "decency" brouhaha they've stirred up. The way things have been reported the last few weeks, it appears the FCC is well on its way to becoming a sort of little-league IRS. I'm sure the feds can use the money that the fines will produce; they always manage to piddle away every last dollar that comes their way.
More absurd is the outraged little cadre of too-loud Christians who have finally figured out how to use technology to amplify their complaints exponentially. Between e-mail and fax broadcasting, you can make yourself a pain in the neck without even spending much money on paper and postage. So before the FCC reacts to this huge increase in the number of complaints, they ought to consider whether the number of COMPLAINERS has increased, or whether they are just working more efficiently.
Nobody is forced to watch TV or listen to radio, so I don't understand the outrage. These folks seem to go out of their way to expose themselves to stuff that offends them, which runs counter to common sense. I'd bet several hundred of them have bought satellite radio subscriptions, solely so they can cluck self-righteously about Howard Stern. Now, if Stern lived next door to me, and I had to overhear his garbage, it would be a different story.
That out-of-control loudmouth Michael Savage describes US radio, TV and movies as a "sewer pipe spewing forth garbage," and that seems to be the general sentiment among this crowd. Well, while researching this piece, I walked around the house and checked all the radio and TV sets. I went next door and asked if I could check theirs too. Funny thing: every last TV and radio I saw had a working on/off switch and a working channel-changer! The only places I have ever felt forced to watch something offensive have been hospital and doctor's waiting rooms, where some staff member controls the remote, and the TV is on some high wall mount where you can't reach the off switch. (More about this anon.)
By the way, I also checked the Bill of Rights, and did not find any language asserting the people's right not to be offended.
The history of Christianity has generally included the practice of "shunning" those who offend the mores of the majority group. If poking the off button on a TV remote is all that's necessary, why make all this other fuss? As far as movies are concerned, my mom is in her mid-80s, hasn't seen a movie in a theater since the first run of "Lady and the Tramp" 54 years ago, and says she doesn't feel she has missed anything.
Which brings me to an interesting point about "decency." How many of these complainers do you suppose have ever chided someone they've encountered in a store, being rude and profane? Apparently not many, because every time I find myself doing this (perhaps once a week), both the perpetrators and the shopkkeepers look at me as if I had three heads.
The teachers I know are subjected to verbal abuse and cursing, not only at PTA meetings, by daily in the classroom, by fourth-grade students! I think a bit of one-on-one accountability would change this far more quickly than two years worth of fussing over Janet Jackson's bare titty.
When I was about 17, I got tossed out of a Pep Boys store when in the course of a disagreement over a purchase, I'd used the F-word. Forty-one years later, that lesson still sticks with me. During the decade I owned a retail establishment, I might have set some kind of record for ejecting "customers" who were being profane, blasphemous, or even just rude.
When we ask the federal government to tell our neighbors not to be so bloody impolite, we are asking that government to take on powers that are bound to have unintended consequences. So perhaps it's time for individuals to take some responsibility over "decency," and let the FCC go back to whatever it normally does, such as sending out for bagels and coffee.