Another GREAT article. This one from the Washington Post's TV critic Tom Shales, taking on the FCC's Michael "Son of Colin" Powell. Again, read the entire article - it's like a fine rollercoaster, just keeps building and building, going faster and faster. Read it.
Oops. They got rid of the wrong Powell. The father unfortunately is going, but the son, even more unfortunately, remains behind.And it just gets better. Read it.
Colin Powell, as most Americans know, has "resigned" his position as secretary of state, though few in the inner circle of the coldhearted Bush administration will likely be shedding tears at his departure. Staying in office, however, and capable of wreaking havoc in American broadcasting until 2007, is Colin's son Michael Powell, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission and definitely not a force for good in America....
There was according to legend a face that launched a thousand ships. This is about a nipple that inflamed a thousand nut cases. Janet Jackson's brief breast exposure during halftime of this year's Super Bowl has led to hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, a wave of hypocritical hysteria with which Democrats as well as Republicans are only too happy to be associated, and a state of affairs that boils down to open season on the First Amendment, the bedrock of the Bill of Rights....
The madness reached its appalling apotheosis on Veterans Day: Sixty-five of ABC's 220 owned or affiliated stations declined to air the universally praised Steven Spielberg film "Saving Private Ryan," about American heroes of World War II, because the verboten F-word is spoken several times, and the FCC now fines stations sometimes astronomical amounts if even a few people file complaints over what they have heard.
This means Spielberg's acclaimed Holocaust film, "Schindler's List," cannot be shown again on a broadcast network because it, too, contains unpleasant language and, of course, graphic violence. See, it's about the Nazis, and they tended to be a little pushy. But realism is no defense, artistic excellence is no defense, even a consensus that the program in question constitutes a public service is no defense....
