The FCC has publicly reaffirmed its committment to keeping boobies and bodily functions in the Shame Closet where they belong*, assigning a whopping $4 million in fines to CBS for their disgusting portrayal of implied sexual relations and women's nipples.
But while Janet's Boob has garnered over half a million dollars in fines, Jack Bower can continue blissfully torturing and murdering, safe from any charges of "indecency." For you see, the human body is so shameful and dirty a thing that the only decent course of action is to beat it to a pulp (a Law and Order favorite), break its bones one by one (a la Jack Bower), chop it into bloody pieces (CSI has this down to...dare I say it?...a science), and riddle it with bullets (pick your crime drama). Showing a nude female torso is a crime against society, but showing a dismembered female corpse is damn good television. A glimpse of unclothed man-rump will lead to chaos in the streets, but a graphic depiction of murder will lead to ratings gold.
Sex-phobic? Who, us Americans? Naaaah.
Don't lose hope, though. While American standards of "decency" grow ever more fucked up, 1500 nude Venezuelans are on the right track:
- More than 1,500 Venezuelans shed their clothes on a main city avenue Sunday to pose for American photographer Spencer Tunick, forming a human mosaic in front of a national symbol: a statue of independence hero Simon Bolivar.
*Fun fact: the original seven dirty words banned by the FCC are shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits. Note that while two different parts of a woman's body are deemed offensive, no references to men's bodies make the list ("tit" is out, but "dick" and "cock" are in). Also note that "asshole," a body part which both males and females may possess, is okay. One is prohibited from using an offensive term for poo, but not from using an offensive term for a black person or homosexual. And, lest somebody mistakenly assume that these seven words are banned because they are simply considered too offensive for public life, we must all remember that case of Bono's F-bomb at the Golden Globes: a bureau of the FCC declared that it's okay to say "fucking," as long as you aren't actually talking about Teh Sex. Essentially, curse words are only offensive if they refer to the female body, going to the bathroom, or sex.
6 Comments:
Silly ZDK, if "dick" and "cock" were banned, then how would we refer to our favorite vice presidents and roosters?
Author, you'll get a sick pleasure from this one. I guess Bush and ilk are changing what Christianity signifies as much as they are America.
Americans, especially Catholics, approve of torture
http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/
archives2/2006a/032406/032406h.htm
By TOM CARNEY
Is the American public apathetic about charges its government uses and sponsors torture in its fight against terrorism?
Not apathetic, according to surveys. Fact is, a majority of Americans actually approve of the use of torture under some circumstances. What’s more, according to one survey, Catholics approve of its use by a wider margin than the general public.
“This may be a reaction to 9/11, the horrible loss of life and the atrocities of those acting in the name of Islam,” says Bishop John H. Ricard of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Fla., member of the bishops’ Committee on International Policy. “Some people feel the situation is out of control. They feel a vulnerability and a temptation to respond in kind. We have to resist that.”
A survey by the Pew Research Center in October showed that 15 percent of Americans believe torture is “often” justified, and another 31 percent believe it is “sometimes” justified. Add to that another 17 percent who said it is “rarely” justified, and you have two out of three Americans justifying torture under certain circumstances. Only 32 percent said it is “never” justified, while another 5 percent didn’t know or refused to answer.
But the portion of Catholics who justify torture is even higher, according to the survey. Twenty-one percent of Catholics surveyed said it is “often” justified and 35 percent said it is “sometimes” justified. Another 16 percent said it is “rarely” justified, meaning that nearly three of four Catholics justify it under some circumstances. Four percent of Catholics “didn’t know” or refused to answer and only 26 percent said it is “never” justified, which is the official teaching of the church.
**********
If this poll is accurate, than 41% of you unbelievers are against torture, 26% of Catholics are, and 36% of white Protestants and white Evangelicals are. I guess the Pope's got nothing on Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld for a certain ilk.
Just out of curiosity, Aleks, why haven't you started your own blog? You're plenty good at the snarky news commentary, so you could probably get some nice traffic if you started one.
Not that I mind having my very own news service living in the comments section here, though! :)
Humility, my dear girl, humility. Perhaps the one thing on God's steadily less green Earth that eludes your comprehension. And yes, I know Camelot as well as you do.
By the way, it's too bad you don't have any resident lurkers who claim that the Bush administrations overreaches are the fault of congressional Democrats for not outlawing warrentless wiretaps on American citizens, even though they did back when they had any power to write law. It would be interesting to read such a person's take on the fact that Bush does not feel inclined or obligated to follow laws. What an idiot and a "sheep" such a person would be.
Bush shuns Patriot Act requirement
In addendum to law, he says oversight rules are not binding
By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | March 24, 2006
WASHINGTON -- When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act's expanded police powers.
The bill contained several oversight provisions intended to make sure the FBI did not abuse the special terrorism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize papers. The provisions require Justice Department officials to keep closer track of how often the FBI uses the new powers and in what type of situations. Under the law, the administration would have to provide the information to Congress by certain dates.
Bush signed the bill with fanfare at a White House ceremony March 9, calling it ''a piece of legislation that's vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people." But after the reporters and guests had left, the White House quietly issued a ''signing statement," an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.
In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law's requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ''impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties."
Bush wrote: ''The executive branch shall construe the provisions . . . that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch . . . in a manner consistent with the president's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information . . . "
The statement represented the latest in a string of high-profile instances in which Bush has cited his constitutional authority to bypass a law.
After The New York Times disclosed in December that Bush had authorized the military to conduct electronic surveillance of Americans' international phone calls and e-mails without obtaining warrants, as required by law, Bush said his wartime powers gave him the right to ignore the warrant law.
And when Congress passed a law forbidding the torture of any detainee in US custody, Bush signed the bill but issued a signing statement declaring that he could bypass the law if he believed using harsh interrogation techniques was necessary to protect national security.
http://www.boston.com/news/
nation/washington/articles/
2006/03/24/bush_shuns_patriot
_act_requirement/
I do wonder what percentage of American Jews approve of torture (let's not hide behind shades and degrees), and whether that would vary whether the context was America or Israel.
Post a Comment
<< Home