Paralysis of the Mind

Say what you want about the Iraqi (s)election, but the simple fact that nearly 60% came out despite a large section of the country boycotting the election AND the fact that some people -- for good reason -- were terrified of being shot if they voted... and OUR perfect democracy couldn't get 60% if we offered free lotto tickets and beer to the first 110 million voters? That's fucking outrageous. Someone wake me up when we get back to being a democracy for the people, okay?

Oh, and they got candidates from all over running for Prime Minister, even though other candidates and U.S. chosen leaders have been getting killed at an alarming rate? And in our country, we choose from TWO legitimate candidates every four years? (Note: I'm a big fan of multiple parties, but let's be realistic here.) I wonder what the California recall would have been like if Grey Davis, Gary Coleman and Mary Carey (yes, the porn star) got chuffed a week before election day. You think the big man "Gub-an-ahtor" would be in the running? Please, he'd be drinking scotch in Martha's Vineyard with Ted Kennedy laughing about "Gully-for-nia" and "participatory democracy".

Call me bitter, call me cynical, but in comparison, we have an ass-load of work to live up to a group of people who have been screwed so many times that just the act of casting a vote -- under any circumstances -- makes them feel a little better. Sure, we could have brought them TRL or Iraqi Idol instead, but what the hell, our TNT-democratic-mushroom-cloud-laying-mother-president wanted to go for the full vote and voila: people voted. As opposed to this country where we pay a great lip service to the sheer might of democracy, and then people can't be arsed to vote for their mayor because hey, that might take 10 minutes out of their year.

Thanks for voting, Iraq. Thanks for nothing, countrymen.

The enduring image of the OJ Simpson trial, at least to me, was the one camera shot, taken somewhere in America (I forget where exactly) showing a woman's shelter. The shelter took in beaten and abused women, and most of them shown on this day were black. They were crowded around the television, and when Simpson was let free they exploded in crazed and tearful joy.

The women did not see themselves as the beaten, they didn't identify themselves as the woman, and they certainly did not side themselves with the white Nicole Brown. On this day, they were black, and Simpson was the black man who finally proved there was some equality in America: the rich -- of ANY color -- can avert justice.

I see mainly the same thing looking at the confirmation of Condolezza Rice. She's applauded as some equal rights hero, a black woman in a position of power that no minority has ever seen before (although, in the interests of fairness, had Madeline Albright not already been SecState already, there would be more feministic hoorays). She's a woman, she's black, she is very intelligent and now higher within the highest circle of power in the world.

But what I don't see is why this should make anyone happy.

It is certainly one thing to win a battle for equality by being better than necessary. But it is entirely another to win a battle for equality without being good enough to begin with. Miss Rice simply must be one of the most incompetent individuals in government service today. I'd like to say I'm sour grapes because she represents as mindset I find abhorrent and is a front-person to a regime I cannot bear, but I'm not: she was the National Security Advisor through the period of the greatest foreign attack on American soil since the War of 1812. The attack on 9/11 was many things to many people, but one thing everyone should be able to agree on is the fact that our security failed catastrophically.

Ignoring "Bin Laden Intends to Strike Inside U.S." is one thing, and being a toady to the President is another, but if our nation is serious about defense and security, then how can Miss Rice possibly move anywhere but out of a government job? She skated completely on any accountability. Rice said at the beginning of the Iraq war she would be taking a "leadership" role in the reconstruction. We can't know the inner workings of Bush's cabinet, but has a single idea been put forth publically by Rice? Not one. This is the stuff of a big promotion? For real?

Yet most people overlook Rice's "accomplishments" entirely because they're simply impressed that a black woman can make it so far. Believe me, this is not held to either blacks, women, or Americans. Lots of people who wouldn't accept such an unsuccessful term from a guy/white guy/white woman just say "Look, she's accomplished enough just by getting this far."

But that's wrong, and worse, that's an insidious form of racism. Like with the OJ verdict, what does this say? We hold certain groups to a lower standard of accomplishment? We shouldn't hate what we consider our own kind? We have to "stick together?" That's wrong, all of it. I can understand "girl power"... I can understand pride in yourself and your heritage. But once you're ignoring issues in someone else because they share your gender or skin color...? Why, the next step is to hate people who don't share your gender or skin color or religion!

Think one doesn't lead to the other? White pride is a code word for racism, always has been, probably always will be. That isn't an accident or some mistake; it's really just a starting point. And the Republicans know it. Clarence Thomas was run entirely on the basis that they could ram a radical conservative judge through Congress if he were black. And look where that ended up: we allowed a porn-crazed nutball who terrorized Anita Hill before to become the least qualified person allowed to sit on the Supreme Court in our history.

America was supposed to smooth out these divisions... the melting pot and all that. It obviously hasn't, and these divisions are bubbling right under the surface of our country's veneer. Are they getting better? Maybe. But until we call an incompetent woman on what she is, we're proving that color, gender and religion still mean more than skill.

Oddly enough, I've posted several things in the last 2 weeks that apparently have been lost into the mists of time, space and the internet(s).

So, I start again... with the 13 best things of 2004.

13. Janet Jackson's Nipple: I've never been more turned on in my life, and after I saw it, I couldn't help myself as I robbed 2 banks, shot three elderly Christians and slaughtered a herd of innocent sheep. Or else, I didn't care, and enjoyed the fallout immensely. I've never liked Janet Jackson, after all, and we know that most Americans have too much Puritanical time on their hands.

12. The Innocent Shall Suffer... BIG TIME: Despite the crap-fest that is American creativity, I found myself enjoying a few wild shows, not the least of which is my new favorite cartoon du jour: Aqua Teen Hunger Force. There's just something about a talking carton of fries, a homicidal milkshake and a childish ball of rolling meat. Throw in a convicted sex offender next door, and you've got yourself a show, my friend. I highly recommend, if you have never seen the program. Also, the must-read books of the year include the Philip Roth tome "The Plot Against America" (chilling), "Imperial Hubris" (oddly absorbing and insanely frightening) and of course, "America the Book" which is only the second book in my many years of... ahem... bathroom-time reading that had me laughing so hard I was unable to... you know... perform bathroom-time functions. In music... um... my favorite band broke up, so I think the bitterness precludes me from naming anything worthwhile.

11. Guiness commercials: If only, because, when you're wildly drunk on Guiness and someone says anything and you and 3 other people yell "Brilliant!"... it's funny.

10. Minimum wage hike in New York: A good first step, anyway. So now, Rico in the kitchen can afford a bicycle to ride to work in the below-zero windchill and 5 inches of snow instead of walking. God Bless America!

9. Take my job... please...: If today's conservative movement were smart (yes, it's mutually exclusive) they would not be so quick to outsource jobs. History, oddly enough, often repeats itself, and labor strife led to populism, which led to many of the reforms and reform movement that conservatives are now trying to rip down. The weird strain of statist Christianity/Divinity that goes along with the current movement is a little different, but eventually the right will run out of candidates they can pass off to the fundamentalists of America as being holy men, and the churchies will want to run Ned Flanders. That should be fun. Especially when labor gets pissed off enough to realize what's happened to it and... well, gosh, why DID unions start in the first place? If only they picked up a book...

8. Keith Olbermann, sexy news anchor: Yes, Mr. Olbermann DID win Playgirl's sexiest newscaster award, but more than that, he has finally brought a counterpoint show to a 24-hour news network. While Jon Stewart and the Daily Show grew up this year, Olbermann's show actually covered things that other media wouldn't touch with a 7-mile-long pole, such as recount efforts in Ohio, dirty election tricks (on BOTH sides, rather than just covering Republicans whining about how mean Democrats are while ripping up registration forms of black voters in the background of the shot) and his generally snarky, slightly left (but willing to bash either side, when necessary) and often amusing show has been a breath of fresh air on an otherwise ugly channel.

7. Farenheit 9/11: When Michael Moore wasn't getting stabbed in the back for being liberal and fat (apparently, both of these are now against the law) he somehow found the time to say a lot of things that the media either ignored or overlooked (depending on how you look at the media). I didn't agree with all of his conclusions, but I couldn't help but note his facts all lined up very neatly. 'Course, as I said in my "worst" list below, Moore took a lot of flack from people too scared to allow facts into their worldview, and that was a shame. But if F9/11 served one purpose beyond educating Americans, it put the media -- at least for a moment -- on notice. Where WERE these stories, exactly?

6. A what now?: Bang the gong, for blogs arrived in 2004. Whether it was seeing Markos interviewed on CNN (amusing, vaguely thrilling) or hearing newscasters chew on the word blog as though it were a piece of grisly meat, the arrival was sudden and stunning, but mostly to anyone who'd never heard of a blog before. Instead, now blogs keep the story alive -- for better or for worse -- until the media get off their high horses and deign to cover these "maybe" stories... which, 50% of the time turn out to be a lot better than the nonsense they already cover. Major hits for Daily Kos, Atrios, TPM and.... well... Freepville, Instahack and Wonkette put the world on notice that we're here, we're... um... digital, get used to it.

5. Dick Cheney's Daughter: It's hard to like Dick Cheney. But I can give him grudging respect: I appreciate the way he treated his daughter up to the middle of 2004. From all accounts, he never once treated his daughter poorly because she was a lesbian, and I'm quite sure he wasn't prepared for THAT conversation when it first came up. I would certainly say that the treatment of his daughter could be used as a way to shatter some of the nation's misconceptions about homosexuality, and if Cheney were a leader, perhaps it would. Unfortunately, he's not... he's a CEO, and his daughter's sexual preference can't make him any money so it's best left forgotten. Still, compare Mary Cheney to the daughter of Alan Keyes... and you'll see one well-adjusted family versus a family where the father is batshit crazy.

Of course, once John Edwards pointed out to America that Dick's kid was gay, Lynne Cheney had that -- hilarious -- freakout, showing that she was most NOT okay with her kid being called gay (imagine if she freaked out the same way if Edwards referred to her kid as "left-handed" and then consider the humor) proving that the author of a lesbian Western romance novel can be close-minded too. But Dick soldiered on, water rolling off the back of a very rich duck. For this, I'm willing to tip my cap.

4. No, Tucker Carlson, you're a dick: Jon Stewart found himself in what must have been the oddest position this year: suddenly elevated to a major media star. The Daily Show is one of the funniest programs on television, and Stewart is a big part of that, but his constant preaching of journalistic ethics really stirred the waters. A comedian? Telling the media to get with it? Sounds outrageous until you see the show: the Daily Show regularly scooped the networks on just about everything... and all it took were a few people in a room saying "Do you think these two things have any connection?" Or as I like to call it: journalism.

Taken to task by Tucker Carlson on "Crossfire" one afternoon, Stewart tried to preach his gospel that argument shows did nothing and journalism is dying, so Carlson sneered at him and said "Maybe you should start a journalism school." To which Stewart shot back the best line of 2004: "Maybe you should GO to a journalism school."

To me, that sums up pretty much all of the major media in 2004: back to school. Of course, Stewart didn't lose any points by calling Carlson a dick later in the program either!

3. Abu Ghraib: Yeah, yeah, okay, I *hear* ya... we besmirched our reputation *snort* of being fair and equitable *giggle* and now the rest of the world *slaps knee* will look at us differently *unrestrained laughter leading to lingering chest pain*

So, it's less funny with that whole "pissing off Muslims" and "helping to destroy any possibility of mutual agreement to ensure mutual survival" but honestly, it really served as a wonderful... nay, delicious pointer to every slack-jawed yokel in America whose eyes and mind are dead, but have just enough IQ left over to wave an American flag in one hand, hold a yellow ribbon in another, and mutter "Support our troops" over and over and over until the drool takes over.

Don't get me wrong, I do support some of the troops. The good ones, the smart ones, the ones that are trying not to piss off the rest of the world, the ones who aren't too enraged and too well-armed to be totally sane. But you know what? Fuck the other ones. They think it's funny to abuse prisoners? They think it's pleasant to smoke and drink and eat pork and make pig noises in front of devout Muslims? They think it's okay-cool to kill "towel-heads" or "sand-niggers"? I hope they're the first ones up against the walls when the jihad REALLY gets rolling.

But this is still a good thing. For a few minutes, at least, there was blinking and the refrain of support slowed... at least for a little. This is good. Once America starts believing in the infallability of its armed forces, suddenly we're in Russia and it's winter and Jews, blacks and "them queers" are getting frog-marched places.

What Miss White Trash 2004 (a.k.a. Lynndie England) proved -- publically -- is that random broad support comes back to bite you in the ass. No doubt, there's plenty more of these stories out there all over the place. And, no doubt, someone... somewhere -- probably bearded and wearing something on his head -- is taking note and waiting to spread the word to the rest of the world.

That's our legacy, love it or leave it, and we either need to clean up our OWN clouded minds about our perfection, or else someone else is gonna do it for us.

2. The First Debate: I wanted to believe in John Kerry so very badly last year because it was basically him or a hole in the ground. Now that we're in said hole, it's easy to bash Kerry or his campaign. This is unfair: Kerry's campaign was run as well as possible, and Kerry acquited himself very well through the whole of the campaign. It's hard to reach out to those who don't wish to be reached by logic, reason, intellect, or... well, democracy.

But every worry I'd had, every bad thought, every possible emergency I thought could possibly happen was laid to rest the night of the first debate. There was Kerry, cool and in command, obviously ready to rock, and on the other side, there was Bush, spluttering, unable to even summon his most basic talking points. Kerry looked like a president, sounded like a leader, and talked like a statesman. Bush sounded, perhaps, worse than ever. Nobody was surprised by Bush's complete lack of speaking ability, but it seemed like everyone was surprised by Kerry's total mastery. I watched, half in awe, half in shock, as pundit after pundit proclaimed Kerry a major winner. I read -- quickly -- a few comment on fasci-- right-wing blogs discussing the horrible performace of their favorite murderer, and the abject disappointment they shared. And there were the liberals, crowing about their guy, really for the first time in the election.

It was a wonderful moment, and without a doubt, the best political night in all of 2004. When the brownshirts come knocking, it'll be one that'll keep me warm.

1. Victory, at last: I really wished this could have been the second-best thing of the Fall season. Unfortunately, t'wasn't to be. But thank goodness, the Red Sox FINALLY accomplished what millions of Americans have been trying to do for years: shut New Yorkers up for five seconds.

Of course, that's the bitter side, and since I live in the state, I'm surrounded by Yankees fans on a near-constant basis. But it wasn't about them, it was about us better known as the Red Sox Nation, we who have sat and watched our team blow it too many times, watched things fall short too often... who bandied the old joke "The Red Sox got my father and now they're coming for me." But not anymore. We saw it happen... and in April, when baseball gets rolling again, it's a whole new ballgame in rooting for the Red Sox. Will it be another 86 years? Hey, what do I care: I was there in 2004!

And we were all there, last year... a season of torture and triumph, all neatly wrapped up into Condolezza Rice earning a promotion. So, okay, it wasn't the best year on record. But at least, George W. Bush can't be re-elected again... until we scrap the 2008 election... I'm gonna go lie down...

* - cut to 13 because I was starting to get depressed.

13. Hooray for Scott Peterson: Scott Peterson became the first person in American history to cheat on, and then kill, his wife. At least, according to the amount of media coverage he recieved. Peterson was convicted under the newly created crime of "killing your wife" and everyone here at Paralysis of the Mind hopes and prays that this horrible type of crime never happens again... so that the media can cover more important things like Jen and Brad breaking up.

12. Tsunami, tsunami, tsunami: The event itself could very easily be the worst thing the world has seen for many years, but it's effects in America have been tragically comical. Americans across the country have been donating at a nice clip -- a great thing -- but remarks about how "incredibly giving" from some commentators made some other commentators note that America is not always incredibly giving. This touched off a firestorm of nonsense, with conservatives discussing how incredibly amazing and perfect and wonderful and beautiful and did we mention perfect America is and how our nation gives the most money to charities. Of course, they neglect to mention that percentage-wise (in comparison to our Gross National Product and our population) we give a very slim amount. In those terms, we're beating soundly by countries like Sweeden, a nation who -- and I say this with utmost respect -- should only beat us in terms of number of blondes in-country, hockey, and friendliness. No matter WHO is right in this argument, though, this shouldn't be a time to score points on it. I think both sides have -- at least -- a mostly reasonable point about giving, but we shouldn't be hung up on number, we should be hung up on what this money will actually DO. Furthermore, the media has done its best to actually cover something foreign, but still manages to navel-gaze by obsession about American contributions, and also continually noting the number of Americans missing. I certainly feel awful for those families, but they're JUST a part of the overwhelming tragedy, and to me, no more important than the other 500,000 people who are probably already dead. Why we have to obsess about our own when so many others around the world have lost theirs, I'll never really understand.

11. This Year in Contrarian: It was an excellent year for people to not be horrified by idiotic opinions. And of course, to be horrified by opinions that make some sense.
Michelle Malkin: Locking "the Japs" up in WWII was a good idea (no horror)
Howard Dean: Being excited in front of a crowd (death penalty, drag corpse through street)
Tom Coburn: Suggested death penalty for those who conduct abortions; as medical doctor, conducted several abortions (was elected with no horror)
Michael Moore: Perhaps sitting President, whose fortune comes from oil, was thinking about oil while creating foreign policy (death by stoning)
Richard Perle: Let's invade several Middle Eastern countries (considerable nodding, one man in back yells "Yeah, kill those f'n ragheads!)
Richard Clarke: The War on Terror is not going well, I was ignored before 9/11 (sentenced to 65 years of Chinese Water Torture)
George W. Bush: They hate us because of our freedom (nodding, cheering, Lee Greenwood playing somewhere in background)
Osama bin Laden: We hate you because your foreign policy sets up non-Muslim dictatorships in our lands and you prop up these puppet governments despite their horrible brutality so you can suck our oil dry (totally ignored)

10. The year in creativity: One more season of dumbing down movies and more proof that if you put a beat behind something, people will listen to anything. The top song of the year was "Yeah" by Usher, Lil Jon and Ludricis. The basic message of this song is... get ready for it... the word "yeah" which was repeated nearly 70 times. Ashlee Simpson continued to have a career. This is positively unexplainable, although her getting booed by 70,000 people at the Orange Bowl was heart-warming. Movie producers realized that everything had been done before and/or needed a sequel, so through the entire year there were exactly 2 non re-makes or prequels/sequels. One of these was "Garden State" which was excellent. Good luck on the other one... and there has yet to be a remake as good as the original. On television, things got more "real." Reality shows are approaching the "Friends" line for fakeness: pretty soon people will be touting sitcoms as more reality-based than reality TV. They will be correct in saying so. There, of course, were many wonderful books published this year. As soon as one is purchased in America, I'll let you know.

9. Why sue, you'll be dead soon anyway: Ah, Tort Reform. Our good old buddy President Bush made the general dislike of lawyers a central issue in his campaign by promising to "eliminate frivolous lawsuits that clog up the system."
Bush, apparently, believes that malpractice suits, absestos contamination suits and worker's compensation suits are all frivolous and should probably be abolished. To me, this is a great idea. Just as soon as a doctor mistakenly removes his leg, stuffs a pound of abstebstos dust down his throat and throws him off a construction site. I'm sure he wouldn't sue. I also appreciate how strongly the right-wingers of America supported Bush in his quest to remove these suits. These were the same people who said weeks before the election that if Bush didn't win, they'd sue. Makes sense to me.

8. Bigger, Stronger, Creamier: Good 'ole sports. Just when you think a gambling isn't enough, along comes BALCO to take down heroes across the land. I don't really care that Sheffield, Giambi, Bonds and others took steroids. The assumption is hard to shake that EVERY big guy in on the juice. But when so completely and utterly caught as those three were and to try and keep denying it? Bonds: "I had no idea what was in the stuff I was given." Please! If there's something food-like on the ground, would Barry Bonds eat it without knowing? If there was a syringe full of clear liquid, would he inject it without knowing? Athletes live and die with their bodies, and the best ones always take very good care of them. This "I didn't know" is fucking crap, and worse yet, makes these guys not ONLY cheaters, but now also lying sacks of shit as well. Sheffield had the good grace to at least admit some wrongdoing, Giambi fought off some sort of cancer (his penance from doing steroids, perhaps) and now has basically lost his career. Bonds, meanwhile, is growing a second forehead and still ready to hit 130 homers next year. Ken Caminiti died from a heart attack at 42 this season. He admitted he was on steroids. That ought to be enough.

7. Short, sweet, sponsored by Cialis: How long until pets have corporate logos on them? Seems like everything else does. Thanks, NASCAR, for making corporate logos wildly popular. (Note: it really isn't NASCAR. I just despise racing.)

6. Farenheit Fallout: I enjoyed F911. I knew most of the facts Moore threw out there, and although I didn't always agree with his conclusions, I thought he made his case in a strong fashion. There is certainly reason to disagree, should you be able to pick facts out that you think are untrue. Luckily, there were few factual qualms. Unfortunately, the messenger was shot twice in the face for his message.

Due, perhaps, to the lack of factual qualms, those who disagreed with the movie threw up their own little smokescreen by deftly deflecting attention from the movie and what it said to Moore himself. And last summer, "I hate F9/11" and "Moore doesn't know what he's talking about" was almost ALWAYS followed by "No, I haven't seen the movie." I feel confident in saying "I'm pretty sure I'll hate 'Gigli'" or "There's no way I'll see another Ben Affleck movie as long as I live" but there's no need to go bashing something that I know nothing about. Critics see movies and review them in an unbiased fashion. Execept for those paid off by Sony, critics have no stake in how a movie does. Of course, when conservative commentators bashed F911, they tried to make it seem as though they were suddenly film critics. But of course, they DID have a stake in how the movie did. And the hardening of position continued, with people automatically declaring they wouldn't see it, wouldn't listen to it, and once more chose to live in a fantasy non-fact world. Speaking of...

5. The Passion: Thank Mel Gibson, a slightly nutty grew-up-anti-Semitic actor, for putting out the most brutal film of 2004. Mel made his religion look obscene. The movie could have caused horror. It could have sparked discussion... but no, people were overcome by emotion in seeing their savior beaten, brutalized, and nailed to the cross. Perhaps they're proud of it, I don't know. Either way, for a religion that has an incredibly sordid history, this was yet another mark that showed reason has failed in many minds of the true believers.

4. The FCC crackdown: Once more proving that parents can either spend a lot of time dealing with their children OR spend a lot of time whining to governement agencies about the horrors their children must face, the FCC got on its high horse and started dishing fines. Janet Jackson's breast -- that horrible, horrible unnatural thing -- Howard Stern's potty mouth (even from years ago, as the FCC went back through the archives to fine him) and even Fox Television (sadly, not the news side) were fined, censured, and whined about. There are, of course, simple solutions that don't involve government action. But actually "parenting" apparently isn't one of them.

3. Bigger, Stronger, Creamier, Law-ier?: Ah yes, and picking right back up, kudos to those hard-charging politicians, including George W. Bush (mentioned sports and steroids in his State of the Nation 2002), John McCain (gave baseball an ultimatum to clean up its act) and Joe Biden (threatened Bud Selig about steroids) for spending time worrying about sports when we've got several wars on. Really earning those tax dollars boys, I 'preciate it very much.

2. The Hearings: When Dick Clarke went before the 9/11 Commission, his first statement was an apology to the families of 9/11 victims. In the weird tenor of the post-Watergate times, that had been the first public government apology offered, and Clarke seemed to actually mean it. Not very surprisingly, soon after conservatives called the apology a "calculated political move"... something conservatives would know nothing about. Still, when you can ignore something called "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Inside U.S." I think you deserve a promotion, Miss Rice!

Didn't people get fired after the Watergate hearings?

1. The Very First Victory: Congratulations to President-elect George W. Bush. After narrowly losing in 2000, you convinced a country that rising debt, an awful economy, the worst failure in military defense since the War of 1812, mounting costs of health care, rising state and local taxes, a pair of failed wars, over 1,000 dead soldiers plus tens of thousands of wounded American soldiers, about 100,000 dead Iraqis, and no capture of Osama bin Laden... was the fault of homosexuals who wanted to get married. Sir, I tip my cap. You saw how blind our nation was, you saw how insulated and reactionary they are, you exploited every possible religious motif, you preached to the hicks, the militaristic, the misguided, and you brought them all home to you. Unfortunately, now you have an opportunity to do even more long-term damage to our nation. I hope you don't. But I'm a realist. Hey, good luck on getting Jeb in in '08.

Tomorrow, perhaps, something happier...

Christmas vacation is now over.

Anyhow, today is short. Tomorrow will be longer: my list of the 15 things that really sucked about 2004. The day after I will follow with the 15 best things about 2004. Somehow, someway, I imagine the Red Sox will be involved. Oh yeah, and that whole election thingy too.

Today, though, a startling fact, straight from Mediaweek.com via Eric Alterman's blog.

Remember the furor over Janet Jackson's breast? C'mon, it wasn't THAT long ago, was it? Remember how Fox was hit with a $1.2 million for Married With America because there was a tremendous public outcry... of 123 complaints to the FCC?

Well, giddyup. Because as it turns out, 99.8 percent of the complaints are complete bullshit.

I repeat. 99.8%

How can this be, you ask? I'll tell you, it's shorn mountain-man wannabe Brent Bozell the IIIrd who routinely goes from media outlet to media outlet to wail loudly about the state of media outlets. He founded the (!!! Warning: Slow-witted conservatives at following link !!!)Parents Television Council in 1995 to, um... well, I'd like to read about it but I get cross-eyed when I try to look at that site. Bozell founded the site to bring back that magical time in television land that conservatives get all misty about that never really existed in the first place. I'd accuse them of being overly existensial, but I don't reckon they'd get the joke.

Anyway, he decided to amp up the volume of whining in 2003 and 2004, and magically, the number of complaints ramped up from a few hundred in 2001 to near 14,000 in 2002 into an explosion of over 240,000 complaints in '03. And wheeeeeeeeeeeeere did those complaints come from? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Not that I'd *EVER* give the Fox Network the credit of any doubt, but fined 1.3 million dollars over what turns out to be FOUR seperate non-PTC complaints to the FCC?

I'm well aware that American government is set up to avoid tyranny of the majority, but that's ridiculous, absurd, obscene. And it's time to hit back. I think it's high time to start ridiculing these people with too much time on their hands, and I mean both the PTC and the FCC. Write an e-mail. It'll lower your blood pressure.

Oh yeah, and if you don't like what's on Fox... you're in the majority. Believe me.