Idiots.

Brent Bozell's Parent's Television Council (for the record, I'm a parent, but I'm not a member) made myriad complaints to the FCC about such shows as "Friends" and the "Simpsons." We all know how indecent those are. To be clear - the FCC prohibits indecent material from airing between 6am and 10pm; indecent material being defined as patently offensive (in context) descriptions of sexual and excretory organs or functions. Basically, the FCC's indecency definition was meant to be a clean way of prohibiting George Carlin's 7 dirty words, all of which (shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, tits). all of which are/were patently offensive descriptions of sexual or excretory functions or organs. Well, the religious right and its tools, including such imbeciles as Brent Bozell, have taken a somewhat...more liberal interpretation of the "indecency" definition. The issue becomes - why can Oprah discuss "Tossed Salad" at 4pm and not be fined, yet Howard Stern is fined for the same discussion at 9am? (And I've heard both - don't think Oprah was using the word in a clinical context.) Finally, the FCC has denied certain complaints by Bozell's flunkies. Here are some examples:

"One complaint involved an episode of NBC's 'Friends' that aired in May 2003. In it, a female character, her husband and the husband's ex-girlfriend talk about a fertility treatment at a medical office. A complaint over 'The Simpsons,' which airs on Fox, included a scene from a November 2003 episode in which students carried picket signs with the phrases 'What would Jesus glue?' and 'Don't cut off my pianissimo.' "

Such groups, when pandered to by a reactionary FCC, will ensure that all television and radio entertainment and information that airs will be held to the standard of a hyper-sensitive complainant. All adult-themed and oriented shows (Desperate Houswives, Friends, South Park, etc.) will have to be scrubbed clean so that an unmonitored 7-year-old will be able to watch it. The right likes to complain about creeping totalitarianism and government control, yet when idiocy like this hits, they have nothing to say.