Opinion

Boobs are Obscene

Vox Clamatis…

Chris Jones
Managing Editor

A lot of progress has been made. In the last 50 years television has been transformed from the “vast wasteland,” as it was then called by FCC Chairman Newton Minnow, into a toxic waste dump. Now, spurred to action by the appearance of a bare boob at the Super Bowl, government and the broadcast industry took swift corrective action. Two illustrious congressmen have introduced a bill banning eight profane words as well as “compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle and infinitive forms).” The FCC has fined Clear Channel, and Clear Channel has stopped broadcasting Howard Stern and fired Bubba the Love Sponge.

Under the proposed new rules, broadcasting President Bush’s famous characterization of a reporter as an “asshole” will be illegal. This is truly unfortunate because it means a substantial diminution of the president’s already impoverished vocabulary.

It must be admitted that the loss of Howard and Bubba doesn’t represent much of a blow to the first amendment. Howard Stern is a jerk who panders to the smutty fantasies of adolescent morons and Bubba the Love Sponge once had a pig castrated and killed on his program. Nevertheless, the removal (unfortunately only in a few markets in the case of Stern) of these two programs does exactly nothing to eliminate obscenity from broadcasting.

The real obscenity which pervades American media is not pornography; it is monopoly. The American consumer of cable media is precluded by law from having any input through his local “cable administrator” (the municipality in which you live) as to programming. Local cable administrators can evaluate every aspect of cable service except the actual content of broadcasts. They can demand a better signal, they can demand better maintenance; they can even demand lower rates. They just can’t demand that programming conform to community standards or, for that matter, to any standards. The explosion in bandwidth occasioned by industry conversion to digital signals has been a gold mine for cable operators and broadcasters. The more bandwidth available, the more channels they can supply. The more channels broadcast, the more ad revenue they can generate and the more they can charge consumers. The only fly in the ointment is that, besides advertising, operators feel a slight obligation to also broadcast what is euphemistically known as “content.” In other words they have to actually provide programming: something that someone, no matter how mindless or idiotic, might conceivably watch. Content costs money and quality content costs even more money. But, as long as the consumer has no say in the matter then why care about quality? Even the most worthless and objectionable programming can be sold if it can be “bundled” with something the consumer might actually want. Do you want C-span or the Weather Channel? No problem, you just became a subscriber to the 700 Club and FOX News.

And so, programming has become cheaper and cheaper. Talk shows Like Jerry Springer, self proclaimed the “Worst Show on Television” make millions of dollars with little expense other than the hiring of body guards to keep the “guests” from killing each other. Then someone had an even better idea – why have “guests” or actors at all? Why not make the audience into actors? Voila! The “reality” show was born. In essence, the consumer is now paying $49.95 a month to watch himself! And an unseemly sight it is.

But, if the state of TV entertainment is appalling, it pales in comparison to what now masquerades as news programming. Once rightly treated as a public trust, news programming has become little more than a deadly mix of propaganda and sensationalism. As Fox News (subsidiary of cable operator, satellite owner and content producer News Corp.) has led the flight from ethical news reporting they have been followed notably by MSNBC, CNBC, and CNN. FOX continues to have the unmitigated gall to describe themselves as “fair and balanced” while in actual fact they have abandoned all but the pretense of balance in either news reporting or their political panel shows. Fox’s latest outrage against journalistic standards is a Republican circle jerk, the “Beltway Boys,” in which a varied cast of right wing loons takes turns getting worked up over the marvels of George Bush’s policies.

The real obscenity in broadcasting today is the legal monopoly granted to the cable industry and the inability of the consumer to influence any aspect of program content or quality. Let the consumer unbundle the wheat from the chaff and the problem of broadcast indecency will disappear. Congress is willing to spend time banning curse words, but do you think they will stand up to the cable monopoly and the boobs at Fox? Not a chance.

(If you really need to know the eight banned words just go to http://thomas.loc.gov/ and type in H.R. 3687.)

Avoiding the Fog:

An Attempt to Regulate Campus Smoking

Leah San Mateo
Ebbtide Staff Reporter

In the process of attending class every day, we should never feel that our health is threatened. The campus security and staff of Shoreline Community College seem to take their jobs seriously and make sure that each student is getting his or her needs met as comfortably and pleasurably as possible. In an attempt to keep students and staff alike from the billows of fog that smokers create around campus, a recent policy has been made to restrict smoking to designated smoking shelters. In past years smoking was not permitted in any common areas or within 30 feet of a door to a building. It was only allowed in certain areas marked around campus.

With this new policy, it seems as if smoking populations around classrooms and common areas would be reduced and I applaud the college for taking such actions. However, in my everyday experience walking to and from class, smoking around classrooms and paths all around campus continues to prevail. Personally, it is highly irritating and inconvenient to walk by and through groups of smokers. I simply would like to get to class without the tiresome necessity of covering my face to keep from inhaling cigarette smoke.

The college has made wonderful steps toward solving the problem of smoking on campus, but it seems that it needs to take it a step further. If students are to change their actions and smoke in permitted areas only, then something must be done to let students know that they are breaking policy and it matters.

I am sure, by observation and asking other students, that many and most likely the majority of students are unaware that any such policy about smoking on campus has even been issued. I myself learned of it only by a teacher’s mention of it. I propose that more fliers be posted around campus, in highly visible places, so that the student body is more aware of the issue and will more likely abide by the policy. Also, if in some way the college could really enforce the policy, maybe by giving out fines, smoking in non-permitted places would surely go down. Obviously, more action needs to be taken here.