TODAY's QUOTE Like millions of Americans, my family and I gathered around the television for a celebration. Instead, that celebration was tainted by a classless, crass and deplorable stunt. ~ Federal Communications Commission chief Michael Powell Yesterday's Entries 2001: Comments from the Countess of Condems TODAY's READ Venus Envy BOOKS READ THIS YEAR Angels and Demons On TV Everybody Loves Raymond FOOD Breakfast: Cheerios with banana TODAY's WEATHER Stormy Weather
|
KEEPING ABREAST OF THINGS 3 February 2004 Well, what a silly tempest in a teapot. Continuing the history of family good taste, Janet Jackson bared it all for the biggest television show of the year and the media is so shocked at the appalling act that they have replayed it endlessly on all stations and the talk shows are talking of nothing else. (I just heard it is "the most replayed TV moment ever." Finally something more appalling to American sensibilities than Madonna kissing Brittney Spears.) You can find it everywhere on the Internet, up close and personal. You can play it frame by frame and savor every split second (it lasted exactly 1.3 seconds, I heard one news report say) over and over again. The really great comments I like are from the parents who are shocked... shocked, I tell you... that Janet’s pastie-covered breast would spring forth spontaneously for a split second. Their children will now be warped for life. Civilizations will crumble. Horses will run wild in the streets. Of course these are the same parents who probably didn’t spirit their kids out of the room when the ads for erectile dysfunction products came on. ("What’s an erection, Daddy?") Now the FCC is "launching a full-scale investigation." Of what, for God’s sake? The FCC????? I mean–c’mon. What in the world will a "full scale investigation" uncover? (Pardon the pun) If there’s going to be a federal investigation of anything, I can think of a lot better things to investigate than Janet Jackson’s breast. I myself found the SuperBowl disgusting too, but it had nothing to do with inappropriate, juvenile nudity or guys finding ways to stay erect for hours. I found it disgusting that a 30 second ad criticizing the Bush administration was rejected by CBS. The ad probably lasted less time than Jackson’s baring of her breast. It was the most tame of all of the finalists in the running for the slot. It had ONE sentence displayed: "Guess who’s going to pay off Bush’s $1 trillion deficit." Erections are OK to talk about, but let’s not hint that there might be something less than wonderful about the Bush administration. While CBS is apologizing all over the place for the inappropriateness of Jackson’s stunt, it didn’t stop them from giving lots and lots of coverage of Richard Hatch’s nude torso frolicking about on the lastest Survivor beach. Oh sure, they blurred the dangly bits, but it certainly was a heck of a lot more offensive than the split second breast-baring. (But then they planned that one and knew they could...uh...titillate Survivor fans by talk about whether he would or would not disrobe again this time. The problem with Jackson’s stunt is that they couldn’t promote it ahead of time!) I am by no means excusing Jackson and Timberlake. They were stupid. But this whole thing has been blown so totally out of proportion that it’s just ridiculous. In other news, yesterday was Groundhog day. And I was very stupid. I decided to be funny and to celebrate "groundhog day" we'd have sausage for dinner. (get it? ground hog?) So I went to the supermarket and picked up a package of sausage, then I went thru the store and did the rest of my shopping. It was only as I was standing in the check-out line that I realized that I had bought chicken sausage, so we were going to celebrate ground hog day with a bit of ground chicken. Sigh. Instead we had leftover lamb. |
|
PHOTO OF THE DAY
|
||
For more photos, please visit My Fotolog and My FoodLog |
||
Weight Lost to date: 43.8 lbs
<--previous | next-->Journal home | bio | cast | archive | links | awards | Fotolog | Bev's Home Page |
Created 2/3/04
