More Indecency

I have a dislike for rehashing past news. Once a position is stated, one should move forward to the next windmill lest you be accused of trying to capitalize on the redundant. But the other night, my best friend and I perused a stack of vinyl albums I had acquired back in the '60's and '70's and a little bit later on. We also discovered that an ancient piece of electronic equipment in my possession, a record player, was still functional. So we whiled the night away with the likes of Dave Brubeck, the Ramsey Lewis Trio, early Bob Seger and even an album by Laura Brannigan. Sometimes the past can bring a semblance of calm to ones life.

It occurred to me after reading a news article concerning a vote in the House of Representatives that maybe old news is still newsworthy. I blogged an article the other day about the Federal Communication Commission's mandate from the high an almighty above to save us from ourselves from the darkness of indecency in broadcasting. Remember how the government forbids outright censorship, but regales in the more subtle means.

The House, in its infinite wisdom and as a protector of freedom, overwhelmingly voted to give the FCC the authority jump the fines for "indecent" broadcasting from $32,500 to $500,00 for a company and from $11,000 to $500,000 for an individual. Talk about a disincentive to air nothing but old Shirley Temple movies.

Parade Magazine, one of the inserts in your local Sunday newspaper, recently posted its annual article naming the top 10 infamous and notorious dictators of the world. Five are cited for their extreme form of censorship of aspects of the media. While it is abundantly clear that the U.S. has not plunged into the abyss by curtailing all of the free speech afforded us by the Bill of Rights, the government has instituted a shrewd plan to remove certain freedoms allowing for a federal agency to hold the sole and exclusive power to dictate in an arbitrary and capricious manner.

Hopefully, somewhere along the way this nonsense can be stopped and maybe a definitive position of what is and isn't indecency can be advanced. For now, I'm going back to my victro