SpeakSpeak News

Once upon a time, there was a cable company named Adelphia. It wasn’t the biggest cable company in the land, but it was ranked #5 – and #5 is waaaaay better than #6.

One day, the little-cable-company-that-could decided it would offer adult programming to its adult subscribers. See, sometimes adults like to watch, well, “certain programs,” that are made for adults by other adults. It’s sort of like when kids watch “SpongeBob,” or when Mommy watches “Trading Spaces,” or when Daddy watches “American Chopper.” These “certain programs” are like “American Chopper” for horny people.

What’s “horny?” I’ll tell you when you’re older.

Anyway, Adelphia decided to tap in to the horndog market and offer extra-special programming just for adults. Why? Well, because the adults would give Adelphia money, and if Adelphia got more money then it could maybe become the #3 CABLE COMPANY in the country! Number 3 is waaaaay better than #5!

Now, parents are really protective of their children. Remember Hansel and Gretl’s parents? It’s sort of like that. Parents will do anything to protect their children from the Big Bad World – that’s their job! So some people were really, really angry when the Kingdom of Adelphia announced that it would start selling these extra-special programs to adults.

In fact, in the province of Mississippi, there was a man named Donald WildMon who got sooooo angry. Donald WildMon had many followers, in Mississippi and in all of the other provinces, too!

Well, Donald WildMon and his many followers knocked on the door of the Kingdom of Adelphia, and they huffed and puffed. But before they could blow the house down, the Kingdom of Adelphia changed its mind.

Now, not to get off-track, but there’s this new monster named Alberto Gonzales. We’ll call him Grimzales.

Grimzales is one of the most powerful monsters in the whole wide world! He slays obscenity with his magical gavel. Anyway, followers of Donald WildMon are claiming victory over the Kingdom of Adelphia, saying it was the kingdom’s fear of Grimzales that made them cower in the corner of their castle.

The end.

The moral of the story: You might want it, but someone else doesn’t want it for their kids, so you can’t have it.

The American Family Association is issuing (another) alert about the now-infamous “We Are Family” video, starring SpongeBob in his queeniest drag get-up and his animated brethren. The video is to be distributed to schools nationwide on March 11th.

The AFA notes that

while nothing questionable in the video itself, the web site for WAFF contained elements that promote the acceptance of homosexuality, including a recommended reading list with such children’s books as ‘Heather Has Two Mommies’ and ‘Daddy’s Roommate.’ There was a “Tolerance Pledge” that encouraged signers to pledge respect for homosexuality, and work against “ignorance, insensitivity and bigotry.”

Read the alert – quick – before your children catch the gay. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

“University of Alabama students are reacting to a perceived attack on their First Amendment rights.

Last fall the Faculty Senate at the University of Alabama passed a resolution banning school-sponsored speech that could be considered homophobic, sexist, or racist. In response, the Student Senate passed a free-speech resolution that directly counters the so-called ‘hate speech’ resolution.

In the Agape Press.

A Buffalo, NY, television station has ceased its audio broadcast signal for people with visual impairments after receiving a complaint about a naughty word in a Tom Wolfe novel. The station offered 24-hour readings of newspaper articles, magazines, movie listings and books as a public service on its SAP channel. Fearing FCC fines, the station discontinued the service until its lawyers could advise them on the possibility of being fined.

Meanwhile, in February, the FCC proposed $65,000 in fines against several broadcasting companies for not making certain information available to hearing impaired viewers via closed captioning.

Note to broadcasters: You can’t win. Help us fight the PTC. They started this mess.

Broadcasting & Cable is reporting that lame duck FCC Chair Michael Powell has frowned upon Senator Ted Stevens’ idea of fining cable broadcasters for “indecency” violations. Powell called the potential move “difficult and unwise,” and pointed to a previous Supreme Court ruling that upheld different standards for cable broadcasters.

Kevin Martin, who is widely considered the front-runner for Powell’s seat (or chair, or whatever), is on the record as supporting indecency regulation of cable in lieu of “a la carte” programming (which the broadcasters steadfastly oppose).

“I was first exposed to the children’s entertainment insanity years ago when the sitcom I was writing for was cancelled and I was suddenly asked to pitch children’s shows. At the time, I didn’t know much about them. As I did my homework and pitched show ideas, I kept running into the same problem: they weren’t interested in shows that honored parents or taught a moral lesson.”

Here Come the Loonatics

The folks over at Focus on the Family are up in arms over Bill O’Reilly’s Monday night talking points. Apparently, they don’t like it when someone in the media criticizes them… even if it is someone on the Right. The best quote in the story comes from Mr. O’Reilly himself: “SpongeBob is a sponge. He’s not cruising the bars in West Hollywood".

Read the story and find out what Focus on the Family’s of “really meant to say about SpongeBob.”

“The simplest solution for consumers who don’t want their kids exposed to cable is to not write a check to the cable company. Those who still want their MTV can use the filters that make it easy to keep unwanted programming from their children. But, as with V-chips that let parents decide what youngsters see and hear on broadcast television, the filters won’t work unless someone exercises the right to say no. As the Supreme Court opinion clearly states, that person should be a parent, not Big Brother.”

In the LA Times.

Read this excellent article, “Congress Mulls Decency Rules for Cable TV,” in TechNewsWorld.

Cincinnati columnist Kaitlin McClellan hits the nutshell on the head:

“Although I understand and believe in the right for a person to have their own opinions, does that mean those people should be able to restrict everyone else?”

Censoring out of hand, takes away freedom

…[T]he Justice Department ought to be focusing on national security issues instead of dirty pictures. Let’s also, for the moment, ignore the fact that American courts have had momentous trouble over the last 40 years developing even the most basic definition of “indecent” or “obscene” material.

Anti-Obscenity Crusade Is Pure Politics, The Morning News (Arkansas).

Philly DJ Michael Smerconish on the difficulties of self-censoring:

Those %$#@-ing #%@$ at at FCC

A Mississippi columnist offers this lesson to fellow Mississippians, the American Family Association:

“People who see only a black-and-white world have problems with context. Context is the boil on the … gluteus maximus of smug self-righteousness.

“Context is what makes it OK for even strict Christians to pull his ox, or car, out of a ditch on Sunday, a day of rest.

And “context” is why Saving Private Ryan shouldn’t be edited to contain such lines as “oh, drat it, by gum, hold the phone, Nelly!”

AFA says FCC ‘blue’ it on ‘Ryan’ decision,
The Clarion-Ledger.