Wednesday, January 28, 2004
I changed my mind. I removed the post here that reduced me to the level of a 2nd grader.
I apologize to anyone who read it. *sigh* May the gods give me the strength to ignore stupid people.
posted by Kimber
at 3:33 PM ::
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I read on CNN this morning about the FCC asking to be allowed to increase the fines for "indecency" on the airways from $27,500 to $275,000. And they are actually going to initiate 8 Words You Can't Say On TV. (Obviously George missed one)
My thinking on censorship has morphed a lot since I became a mom. Personally, I don't care for porn and that sort of thing much. I have watched it but it just doesn't appeal to me. My dad the child molester was a porn addict. I found all kinds of books and magazines in his closet and read some of them when I was a young kid. I was curious. All kids are curious.
I think that sort of thing does damage to people and families. Especially when young kids are exposed to it. I don't allow it in my house. My hubby has had some issues with it in the past and I finally came to a point where I was either going to kick his ass out of the house or find a compromise. So I told him if he just can't live without it he needs to get his fix outside the house.
But what about the borderline stuff... The stuff they are allowing on network TV these days. I don't mind most of it. Some of it I'm a bit shocked made it on. But my criteria these days is whether or not I would let my kids watch it. And the fact is, there aint' much on that I would let my kids watch. When we watch TV we watch videos. When we had cable we watched the Discovery channels, Disney, Nick Jr, Noggin, Animal Planet, that kind of thing.
Which brings me around to thinking about the whole legislative censoring of the airwaves. Do I think it's a good thing. Yes and no. Everyone has different tastes and everyone has something to say. I would be a lot more eager to stand up for Entertainment's First Amendment Rights if it weren't for the fact that most of the sex and violence on the airwaves today is completely gratuitous. They are only producing that stuff because they know it will sell, not because they have something profound to say with it. The people like my dad the child molester will flock in droves to buy/see that vacuous drivel because someone will be boffing someone or something else or blowing them/it up.
But you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater, as it were. Slippery slope and all that.
So while I defend to the death your right to say it, I don't think you should be allowed to say it wherever and whenever you want to. With the advent of cable there are 500 different specialty channels. They have the Golf channel, the Game Show channel, goodness knows how many cartoon channels... I think there is now enough room for everyone to say what they want to say without filling network TV and public radio channels with it. If you want to see porn, there are tons of channels for that. If you want to see R-rated television, tons more of those. I'm sure there is a Blow Stuff Up channel out there somewhere you can watch mass killing and dismemberment 24-7. So I really don't feel that anyone's rights are being trampled on by making free public channels a bit more of a safe-haven for families.
One of my nutty friends invited me to be in an email discussion group on religion. It was 5 or 6 christians, an agnostic and me. And at one point we got off on the topic of street corner preachers. Actually, come to think of it we got off on it because there was one prostheletizing outside my office building that day at the top of his lungs. And it became a freedom of speech thing with them saying it's great and me saying he really needs to keep that sort of thing on a more one on one basis. They were telling me that if I didn't want to listen to it I should have just walked away. Well, truth be told, I was in my office working at the time and really couldn't walk away. I was stuck there. But it made me mad that they were telling me I should let this person force me out of any area because his right to spew overrode my right not to listen to the spewage.
To relate this, some people, like us, can't afford cable. We have rabbit ears on our TVs to get the 4 or 5 local channels available in our area. So our only option at this point in order to keep our kids away from that kind of non-kid safe viewing is to let them chase us off. We watch videos. Or PBS when we can get it to come in. I would like to be able to watch a grown up show once in a while that I can let my kids watch too. There is only so much "Blues Clues" that one can take before one starts to go insane! LOLOL When I was a kid, they had something called Family Hour where the spicy stuff wasn't shown until after 9 pm (central). That way all the kiddies were in bed and wouldn't be exposed to the spice as it were. That really doesn't happen anymore that I can see and I really think they ought to bring it back. I know my kids are in bed by 8 pm (eastern). The time between getting home from work/school and bedtime is filled with eating, talking, playing etc. But before they go to bed, it's nice to sit down and watch a little TV to give everyone a chance to get settled down. We used to take that time to watch things like Animal Planet and Discovery Channel where we could talk about the shows that were on and sort of have some learning time as well. *sigh* I want my cable back.
So anyway, there you have it. My thinking on the subject.
posted by Kimber
at 10:51 AM ::
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