Showing posts with label Parents Television Council. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Parents Television Council. Show all posts

Sunday, January 12, 2020

Damn, that's stupid!

When it comes to the wild and zany world of special-interest groups attempting to protect “America’s families” from all the so-called “filth” and “trash” of the mass media, a special prize needs to go out to the One Million Moms organization. An adjunct organization of the American Family Association—a rabidly anti-gay evangelical group that had once been correctly labeled as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center—it’s a collection of nutty extremists who have somehow managed to make headlines recently for the various (spectacularly) failed attempts at influencing popular entertainment. 

Their latest attempt at imposing their bizarre value system on mainstream culture is their call to boycott Burger King for their use of the word “damn” in a new Impossible Whopper ad. You can check out one of the stories on the kerfuffle right here. Apparently they seem to believe that “damn” is a curse word that will corrupt “impressionable” young children. How exactly the corruption will happen is not explained. What form the “corruption” will take is not explained either. So an impressionable youngster saying the word “damn” will lead exactly to what? Will that impressionable little tyke now turn into an ax-murderer? Maybe he’ll join a gang? Become a drug dealer? Not certain, and the million moms don’t seem to have any clear answers among them. I mean, maybe one or two of those million moms might have been able to elaborate.

Now these people seem to be gluttons for public punishment. Some might recall that just before Christmas the Million Moms called for a boycott of the Hallmark Channel for airing an ad that featured a lesbian couple’s wedding and their kiss. Although the Hallmark Channel at first cravenly caved to these yoyos, the channel soon realized that their ratings and business would be hurt much more severely by the backlash from…well, normal, tolerant, decent human beings who, luckily, make up a greater percentage of the American population than the members of homophobic fringe religious fanatics do. So then if the Hallmark Channel boycott wasn’t an embarrassing enough failure for the Moms, they now move on to something as idiotic as this Burger King “damn” boycott.

So I’m certain that Burger King will not lose too much sleep over the angry Moms and not give in to this silly request to change their commercial…that is if they know what’s good for their business. I’m sure they wouldn’t want to be known as the second business to cave in to the demands of cultural terrorists.

Oh, and one more note on the issue of cursing and its effects. What research exists on the subject seems to suggest that those who curse regularly in order to vent their frustrations in a stressful situation might actually possess a higher level of intelligence. Check out this article right here. This doesn’t surprise me since cultural conservative extremists like the American Family Association, One Million Moms, or the Parents Television Council appear to have IQs that make Flat Earth believers look like MENSA members.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Yes!!!!!!!!!!! Sanity in broadcast regulation!!!!

And let me say it again, "Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!" Broadcast regulation seems to have taken a small step into the 21st century at last with an appeals court striking down the FCC's indecency regulations as being unconstitutional. Outstanding!! Check out the story right here.

For anyone with a high enough IQ and enough of an attention span to read a simple sentence in the First Amendment, the idea that the FCC censoring the broadcast airwaves was unconstitutional should have been obvious. Of course, IQ requirements would exclude people like the general membership of groups like the Parents Television Council or Focus on the Family any such fundamentalist, ultra-right wing nutbags. So much fun can probably be had today and over the next few days visiting and reading their web pages and blogs and seeing them make even bigger fools of themselves than usual as they claim that "families are under attack."

The only people who have been under attack until now were Americans who knew how to raise their kids and how to manage their families, families that believed in the fundamental values of freedom of speech and expression and the arts, people besieged by gangs of Puritanical crazies who like to force their values on others.

Just like Barry Goldwater so brilliantly said, "You can't legislate morality," you can't legislate taste either, and you have no constitutional right to censor curse words or sex or violence in broadcasting either. Thank God the courts are showing some sanity at last with decisions like this.

Monday, June 7, 2010

What mental illness is Brent Bozell suffering from?


In light of the most recent rampage of the psycho FCC - prompted by the Parents Television Council's complaints about Fox's American Dad cartoon - I somehow got in the mood to read some more idiocy. Thus, for the first time in a while, I checked out some of the recent essays by PTC and Media Research Center head honcho, Brent Bozell.

Now, you see, the thing about Brent Bozell columns is that they're kind of like daytime soap operas. You can miss a number of them and not really miss anything new. They're all essentially the same, especially when he's complaining that somehow society's mores seem to change over time. At one point Bozell woke up and noticed that we weren't living in the 1950s anymore. So, of course, he complains about this a lot and throws around a lot of childish insult words like "smut," "trash," "sleaze," indecent," and "vile."

But the most recent little hissy fit by Bozell is about the musical TV comedy "Glee." You can check it out here, on the web page of the Media Research Center.

Just scroll down to the bottom of the screen and you'll see his piece, titled "The Glee Agenda." It's a play on the right wing paranoid phrase "gay agenda." Get it? Gay agenda? Glee agenda? If you look at the other Bozell columns, you'll see more of examples of his impish wit.

But reading this piece made me wonder what a mental health professional would make of the twisted mind that wrote the article. Bozell apparently feels like the producers of Glee are a bunch of left wing bullies who unfairly like to beat up on social conservatives. These social conservatives, you see, are really nice and decent folks...aside from the fact that they would like to force certain Americans into second-class-citizen status simply for what they do in the privacy of their own bedrooms. Thus, the article goes on and lists all the examples of Glee's meanness and rudeness and all the examples of their persecution of the Christian right. I was certain that at one point reference to the Christian diet of Roman lions would come up.

Just how exactly does Bozell find the audacity to complain about the mean satire of Glee after the sort of prolific name-calling he's been busy with in his editorial pieces? Just look around on the very same page and see Bozell referring to CBS as a "toilet network," to FOX as "television's dung pile," to the old FX show "Nip/Tuck" as "vile," and just browse the rest of his postings for all his sophomoric insults. But his work, of course, is nothing as terrible and intolerant as Glee making a joke about Sarah Palin, is it?

If Brent Bozell truly can't understand what prompts certain TV producers to take shots at social conservatives - especially in light of the censorship campaigns the PTC has been engaged in recently - PTC members should take some of those funds their donors lavish on them and help pay for Bozell's psychiatric care.

By the way, it's disappointing that the Media Research Center page no longer gives the readers of Bozell's columns the opportunity to offer feedback. I wonder why he would not be interested in getting some commentary. But since the PTC loves to mail complaints so much, here are a couple of e-mail addresses at the MRC people can send their own complaints to:






How long will FCC keep caving in to home-grown terror?

Having neglected the blog for a little while now, I must get back into the swing of things here with commentary on yet another reason why the FCC needs to be, once and for all, declared as an unconstitutional entity. Or, at the very least, the specific powers of the FCC to regulate expression in the broadcast media must go.

The FCC has gotten around to fining the FOX network for a January 13th episode of their successful cartoon series American Dad where a series of jokes were made that could be interpreted as a man masturbating a horse. Again, folks, this was an episode where double entendres suggested sexual activity between a man and a horse.

Of course, the people who got outraged over this was America's own home grown cultural terror network, the Parents Television Council. They bombarded the FCC with their complaint letters again, and once again the commission rolls over for this group of thugs and takes censorious action against broadcasting.

What I would love to hear the PTC explain, however, is what sort of a heinous effect they see coming as a result of this episode. Will we now have an epidemic of impressionable children going out and masturbating horses? Media effects are usually the PTC's dread fears. They are usually harping about the horrific EFFECTS of video games and violent movies and TV shows - with a shocking lack of understanding of the concepts of causality and basic social science research, as this blog had repeatedly demonstrated. So is this what the PTC seriously believes?

I would love to see them proven right!!

I am so eager to see the next epidemic of children masturbating horses.

For any members of the PTC reading this, this is an open invitation to prove me wrong!!

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Teenagers should have sex!


So the headline got your attention. Cool!

What I am actually getting at with this post is a slightly spoilerish comment on the new romantic comedy Valentine's Day. I try to keep from giving anything major away about the film, but the main point of this piece will deal with several characters on the end of the movie. So if you want to know absolutely nothing about the end of the film, don't read any further than this paragraph. Go catch the flick, then come back and read the rest of the post.

So, where were we?

This big, all-star-cast romantic comedy came out over the Valentine's Day weekend and the movie is pretty much what I expected from it, except for a very peculiar turn of events on the end. Or, perhaps not so peculiar given the times we're living in and the growing cultural influence - or growing cultural threat!!! - of some of my favorite people in the world...you know, all the wing-nuts I've been complaining about here in regards to Howard Stern and the meaning of a study on the sex lives of teen boys.

Now as I understand it, the film is not getting positive reviews for the most part. Some reviews I've read, like one on the Ain't It Cool page, were downright vitriolic. The reviewer said it inspired hatred in him and the desire to shoot baby ducks...or something to that effect. And yes, I agree, the film was not great at all. It was mostly predictable and formulaic. Maybe aside from two characters - a traveler on a plane who strikes up a conversation with Julia Roberts, and a little kid who has a crush on someone in his class - you can predict exactly what will happen to every single character. But, come on, this is a romantic comedy called Valentine's Day, released on the Valentine's Day weekend. Who's expecting an Oscar-worthy picture here full of "very important performances?" Nobody! This is the sort of film a lot of guys will be dragged to by girlfriends and wives. Just take it for what it is. But then there is that ending...

OK, again, SPOILERS coming up...

The plot of the film follows a huge cast of characters and their trials and tribulations on Valentine's Day. It basically has two types of characters, the ones who think they're happily in love and looking forward to a great Valentine's Day, and ones who are single, with a bad track record of relationships, and who detest the holiday. Of course, the ones who think their relationships are perfect suddenly face some serious and painful crises, and the cynical ones wind up finding true love. And among all these characters we have two teenage couples. What happens to both these couples on the end is kind of mind-boggling.

One couple is kind of average and awkward, yet in love and planning on losing their virginity together on Valentine's Day during their lunch break. The other couple - pictured above, teen superstars of the moment, Taylor Lautner and Taylor Swift - are the buff track star and his hot, but slightly ditzy, dancer girlfriend. Although it's not stated clearly, the track star and the dancer might also be heading for major sex at some point on Valentine's Day. The girl, in fact, drags a giant bear around with her for most of the movie (the gift from the runner), shows it off to everyone, and gushes about what a great guy her boyfriend is and how much they're in love. Watching this, you think there's going to be some major sex action going on between them before V-Day is over. Except there's no sex! Neither of the teenage couples winds up having sex!!

What happens instead, is that the girl from the average couple gets a gentle lecture from the grandfather of a kid she's babysitting about the importance of waiting until they're older, until the time is right, etc. and so forth. A very ABC Family Channel moment. Naturally, the girl takes the speech to heart, tells her boyfriend that they should wait, and they wind up just "making out" instead. Making out, of course, is just kissing without going all the way, mind you. And the guy almost looks relieved that his girlfriend doesn't want to do it after all. As a matter of fact, he appears to behave very much like the majority of the teenage boys in that study the Parents Television Council PR spokesperson never read.

Now, I can kind of see this happening. There's nothing wrong with this.

Except the hot runner/dancer couple don't have sex either! That, on the other hand, makes no sense. In fact, up until the end of the film, I thought that they probably had sex already, and probably had a LOT of sex. There is one scene where they're interviewed for a V-Day fluff news piece by a camera crew and they're so horny they can barely keep their hands off each other. Now despite this scene, I can somehow kind of buy that they maybe haven't yet had sex. Maybe they, too, were planning on it and preparing for V-Day. But for them to suddenly stay all proper and chaste and Parents TV Council, Focus on the Family-approved just makes no sense. I mean, just go back and see the film again and watch those two characters up until their final scene in the movie. Those two are so hot for each other that there's no way they would not screw that night.

As a side note, it's also bizarre that for a movie called Valentine's Day, a movie that's all about love, one that's full of a lot of actors who've made some pretty steamy films in the past and whose fans might expect some pretty steamy stuff from again...you know, in a film called frigging Valentine's Day...there's NO SEX!!!! Nobody has sex in this film! And the Anne Hathaway character's phone sex doesn't count.

But back to the teenagers. How in the hell does this film end up with neither of these couples in bed and having loud, raunchy sex until all hours of the morning? Whatever happened to the evil, immoral Hollywood film makers out to corrupt the values of America, all on the urging of Satan's whisper in their ears?

It's perhaps because that the evil, immoral, libertine Hollywood is not as radical as bunch of Puritanical control freaks like the religious conservative far right claim. It's perhaps because Hollywood is really timid to its core, especially when a band of regressive, demented yahoos who like to threaten boycotts and letter-writing campaigns when every single film or TV program is not a cartoon about baby Jesus or Kirk Cameron kissing his real wife start writing complaints every time "hell" or "damn" is said on TV. Maybe someone got worried about that the film would become too "controversial" if teenagers actually had sex...even off-screen sex.

Could this film not have stayed "moral" if maybe one teenage couple had sex whereas the other one decided to listen to the old folks and wait? Like maybe if the film aspired to be more complex than a Disney Channel family sitcom? Like maybe if reflected a real world where decent people who loved each other could have different viewpoints about sex and lived different lifestyles?

Sex is a perfectly natural part of life and there is nothing wrong with it being dealt with honestly in films. Teenagers wanting to have sex and actually having sex is also normal and natural. Throughout history and up until about a hundred years or so ago, teenagers around 17 or 18 years old (the age of the characters in the film), would have been married and would have had three children already. Teenagers are perfectly capable of understanding the implications of sex and being able to deal with the emotional ramifications of sex. It makes absolutely no biological, evolutionary sense that a human should not be able to mentally and emotionally handle a sexual relationship at the time his or her body reaches its full reproductive capabilities...

Oh, but wait a minute, we mentioned evolution, didn't we? That's also a blasphemous idea that was whispered into the ears of evil men by Satan himself.

Or perhaps this film is not an entire cop-out after all. Credit should be given the movie makers for at least making two of the characters gay!

Thursday, February 11, 2010

An assault on reason by unethical frauds


Well, try as I might, it becomes just about impossible to escape the Parents Television Council's unrelenting assaults on mainstream American attitudes and values - not to mention basic reason and logic - all bolstered by non-existent data and a complete incomprehension of social science methodologies. I have written about this on the blog numerous times, but a new editorial - a call to censorious action, as their editorials usually are - by the PTC has just staggered me by the audacity of its unethical, dishonest misrepresentation of a study.

When I wrote about the PTC's mangling of the Kaiser Foundation's study on children's media use, I wrote that I felt that the PTC's laughable conclusions were due perhaps to their sheer ignorance, ineptitude, and blind ideological dogma, rather than willful dishonesty. I no longer say that after reading a piece by PTC member Melissa Henson. Here, she does not merely mangle social science data, but attacks the character of Fordham Professor Paul Levinson. Since I know Dr. Levinson, since I got a chance to read and listen to his defenses of free speech and expression, and know his honesty and integrity, Henson's article is especially offensive to me. But once you get a chance to read the actual study she uses to make her arguments, you realize that you just read the work of a con artist, a fraud, a liar who wilfully distorts clear data for her extremist social agenda.

You can read Henson's piece right here.

Now, not to put myself too high on a self-righteous pedestal or anything, but I do give my readers the references to everything I talk about. Henson does not.

But Henson's piece is an editorial piece on the web page of a group called The Church Report. They are an evangelical organization that characterizes its own social activist positions as "Christian. Conservative. Concise."

The meat of Henson's article - and its many underhanded, unethical distortions - starts right in the title: "TV Trash is Harming Our Children." This is a conclusion Henson reaches after having read a study on the sexual attitudes and behavior of teenage boys, put forth by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. The actual study itself can be read right here. You owe it to yourself to check it out. It's not a difficult read at all. Now Henson does tell us that the study has also been quoted in a Seventeen Magazine article. For a moment or two, this does make me wonder about Henson. Might her offenses be just a result of her obtuseness. Maybe she only read the Seventeen article and never bothered to check out the actual study. You can find it quite easily on Google! But, again, reading her sleazy little attack on Dr. Levinson, I hesitate to blame her absurd article on her ignorance alone. This is a profoundly dishonest and unethical editorial she writes. But, back to the meat of the article...

Henson tells us that the study has concluded that children are "harmed" by "trash" on television. She makes an argument for some causality when it comes to the kind of life children are living. She claims that somehow children - mainly boys - are hurting today and this harm has been caused by television. This could not be farther from the truth.

The study is made up of a several quantitative data sets, all compiled from surveys. That means the study lists numbers. Numbers as in statistics gathered by asking the subjects closed-ended questions and multiple choice questions where they could only choose from a given set of possible answers. Based on this research methodology, the study lists lots of percentages. So what do all these numbers tell us? As it so happens, the numbers paint a surprisingly positive picture of boys and their attitudes toward sex, toward girls, and sexual mores.
Now the authors of the study tell us this right in the beginning!! I'm not sure how Melissa Henson could have missed this. There is plenty to be happy about. In fact, I think the numbers of this study paint a portrait of America's young boys that shows a generation that is surprisingly mature, well-balanced, sensitive, and decent. We find out things like the fact that the majority of boys (66%) would rather have a meaningful relationship with a steady girlfriend than just sex, the same percentage would be happy in a relationship without sex(!), and a majority (75%) prefer to date an exclusive girlfriend instead of sleeping around and playing the field. Furthermore, 75% of the boys say they have more respect for girls who are not quick to say "yes" to sex, 56% are "relieved" when their girlfriends tell them they want to wait to have sex, 74% think other teenagers take sex "too lightly," and 75% want to lose their virginity with someone they are in love with. Moreover, there is also quite a bit of empowerment of girls in many of the relationships, with 78% of the boys saying that their girlfriends greatly influence their sexual decisions. Sounds pretty good, right?

I think so, although the study is not all a rosy picture. It does indicate that the knowledge of a lot of boys about safe and effective contraception and birth control techniques is sadly lacking. Furthermore, a lot of the classic double standards are still alive and well in boys, like expecting girls to take care of contraception. But what this data also seems to indicate is that the antidote is rigorous and thorough sex education for kids starting in the middle school years and into high school. Aye, but therein lies the rub, don't it...?
The sort of far right wing social conservatives like the Church Report organization and people like Henson's PTC/MRC/CMI organization have always fought tooth and nail to keep sex education and contraceptives from teenagers!

And what bothers Henson the most out of this entire report? A section of a sentence that tells us that boys "feel way too much pressure from society to have sex." At this part in her editorial, Henson is off and going. Or, perhaps, we should say that she is flying off on auto-pilot, unreeling all the usual PTC talking points about the "trash" and "sleaze" and "garbage" on TV. This is where her editorial turns into a scummy little canard against Paul Levinson, insinuating that he prefers children to watch scenes of "bestiality," "adult/child" sexual contact, and contact between children and prostitutes. But even when it comes to that single statement of "too much pressure from society," Henson's conclusions perfectly demonstrate the usual PTC two-plus-two-equals-five logic. In the section of the study where the "pressure" from "society" phrase comes up, there is not one word about the media, about TV, about advertising, about the internet, or anything of the sort. Instead, in the same paragraph we are told that teen boys sometimes feel pressure to become sexually active from girls and that they might sometimes lie about their sexual experiences in order to stop OTHER KIDS from pressuring them into becoming sexually active. In fact, the study does mention that boys (as they always have since time immemorial, no doubt, and certainly well before advertising and TV) often lie about their sexual prowess, their conquests, and proficiency. In other words, the classic, teen macho "locker room" behavior. And this sort of sexual posturing has always been a part of adolescent and young adult male behavior. Anthropologists will even tell us that it might be a part of a genetically-programmed part of the male psyche with evolutionary advantages. One can find all that stuff in the sorts of book that The Church group people probably don't read much.

Now when it comes to analyzing the data to get some sort of a picture for where TV and all that sleazy, Satanic porn come into play, one should go to the later parts of the study and look at a table under the question "how much does each of the following influence your decisions about sex?" Do we not raise our eyebrows about the ambiguities in that question? Pop quiz folks: how can something like "decisions about sex" be interpreted in all sorts of ways? Moreover, the subjects gave their answers to this part of the survey by filing out a Likert Scale questionnaire. Those are the things that go on a spectrum between "a lot" to "a little." So, in other words, there is no discussion, no question and answer interaction between the researcher and the subject. But even so, the "influence" of porn is still below that of girlfriends, parents, friends, religion, and sex education in school. Below porn is information coming from doctors and TV only shows up on the list below that. Only "online" information about sex has less of an impact on boys than television.

But finally, I would also like to draw a bit of an attention to who exactly Melissa Henson is. Just what makes her so qualified to come to such drastic, apocalyptic conclusions about the study's data. Her bio under the editorial claims that she is a "noted expert on entertainment industry trends and the impact of entertainment media on children and pop culture." Yet her more extensive bio on the PTC web page tells us that she is merely the Director of Communication and Public Education (doesn't public education sound kind of Orwellian?) of the PTC. She's their PR person! She also somehow became a "noted expert" in social science research with only a BA in "Government" from the University of Virginia. In 1997, we are told, she started at the PTC as an entertainment analyst, documenting instances of inappropriate content on television." So she was one of the people watching hours of TV for the PTC, counting every utterance of a "hell" or "damn" on television shows.

In the words of Crystal Madison, the New Jersey chapter president of the PTC, one of our former Culture Wars guests who tried to rally the PTC to put financial pressure on St. Peter's College, the sort of "studies" the PTC conducts are worthless. Or, specifically in Madison's words (check it out right here) "we're not a lab, nor are we scientists."

Waiting for Howard!

I just needed to put one more post - perhaps not the last one - up about the Parents Television Council's new white whale on TV. Here is a link to their latest whining session about Howard Stern on Fox's American Idol.

This piece by the PTC almost reads like a self parody. If Saturday Night Live would ever revive their old Church Lady routine with Dana Carvey, the PTC could give them endless free material. But the best part of this whole farce is that the PTC's Tim Winter seems to be daring Fox to put Stern on the show and see the program disintegrate because of the "anti-family" tone it is sure to take on.

Sure, Tim, I'm sure that American Idol will wither and die of low ratings once they put on the most successful radio personality in history.

Tim, could you please say hello to the Easter Bunny for me, since it's obvious that you're living in a fantasy world. I would also ask you to say hello to Santa as well, but I don't want to keep endorsing that secular symbol of the liberal media's attack on Christmas.

I really, truly hope that Fox would rise to the PTC's little challange and continue soaring in the ratings. It would prove yet again that a demented group of terroristic whackos like the PTC and all their sister organizations like the MRC and the CMI and Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council are nowhere near to representing the values and tastes of the average American.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Support Howard Stern on American Idol!



If Howard Stern becomes a new judge on American Idol, I would whole-heartedly endorse the show, applaud it, and encourage everyone I know and everyone who reads this blog - especially if you are one of the "Nielsen families" - to watch and support the show. Howard all the way!!

Now why do I write this? I admit that I've never watched an episode of American Idol all the way from beginning to end and I really could care less who wins each season and becomes the next big bubblegum music sensation. American Idol is just not my thing. There's no sex or violence on American Idol, so it doesn't really hold my attention. Maybe if the contestants could get into some fistfights or some good hair-pulling chick fights...perhaps.

But Howard Stern changes things and - most importantly!! - Stern's judgeship is now being opposed by America's own home-grown terror group, the Parents Television Council.

The PTC just started e-mailing their members and it's attempting to round up a protest campaign against Idol, trying to force the show to keep Stern out of the judge's seat. In other words, this group's terror campaign to push broadcasters into censoring themselves is up and going again. Just like their past intimidation campaigns have forced CBS to censor its Grammy broadcast (see posting below), they are attempting to bully and coerce the producers of Idol into caving in to the PTC's repressive, ultra-right-wing social agendas. And make no mistake about it, this is what the PTC's ultimate goal is...

Just why exactly is the PTC mounting its terror campaign against Fox and Idol this time and trying to bar Howard Stern from this show? Because of what Stern has said and done on his show in the past. Behavior on Stern's show is offensive to the PTC, it's behavior which the PTC in all its self-righteous wisdom as America's moral guardians, has defined as "indecent" and "offensive," and behavior which now should disqualify Stern from a show like Idol. Nowhere in its harangue against Fox (read it here), does the PTC even try to make its usual effects argument for why Idol should be censoring itself. Just what kind of an effect will Howard Stern's words have on "America's children and grandchildren" if they hear it on Fox?

Nothing the PTC can prove, of course. As usual!!

No, the anti-Stern hysteria campaign is just more of what the PTC usually tries to cram down America's throat. It's a war of values, and a war of trying to force a retrograde, repressive Victorian value system on 21st century society.

Perhaps if the PTC were were so outraged by people's past bad behavior, they could have campaigned to keep the Tim Tebow anti-choice ad off the Super Bowl as well. The Focus on the Family's own past behavior can easily be found through any quick Google search...or wait a minute, even by going to their web page right now. Some of the most virulent, intolerant homophobic hate-speech one might wish to try and stomach is all over the pages of Focus on the Family and its adjunct organization, the Family Research Council. If Howard Stern qualifies for the PTC's pressure campaigns, so does the Focus on the Family.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Beware the pink boards!! They steal souls!!!

This piece on the Reason magazine blog is just too priceless!

Ouija boards are made in pink to be marketed just to girls and, of course, some concerned parents are, well...concerned. And worried, and angry, and feelig all apocalyptic.

I would bet a whole lotta money right now that some of these people are Parents Television Council members. He, he, he...

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Fordham Prof's retort to PTC terrorists...

Check out this nice piece on CBS's self-censorship and comments from Fordham Professor Paul Levinson and the wing-nuts of the Parents Television Council.

Readers of this blog are already familiar with the fringe lunacy - bolstered by a thorough and spectacular level of ignorance of basic social science and constitutional law - of the Parents Television Council. If not, look at all my comments about this group in the archives on the right and below (especially my comments on their policies of threatening learning institutions).

The PTC and its head, Tim Winter, sent a "thank you" note to CBS for its heavy-handed censorship of the Grammy broadcast. The group seems to be happy that its terroristic campaign of letter writing to the FCC is paying off when broadcasters censor themselves. When TV networks choose to step on artists' rights to free expression out of fear of being punished by the FCC's unconstitutional powers to levy fines for broadcast content, the PTC feels that it has scored a point in the culture wars.

The only war the PTC is waging is on the most basic American, constitutionally-guaranteed, rights to freedom of speech and expression. When CBS takes these censorious measures to avoid the FCC, we see that the PTC's war is a true terror war. They are creating a chilling effect on free expression, creating a cultural atmosphere of fear and intimidation.

As I had written before, all people concerned with freedom of speech and democracy should exercise their own rights to speech, visit the web pages of the PTC and their adjunct groups like the Media Research Center, and let them know that Americans will no longer cave in to the pressure campaigns of cheap, mindless thugs and bullies.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

This is just too easy...



Last week the new Kaiser Family Foundation report on children's media use was released and it made a few headlines.

The crux of the report was something that most people who are somewhat aware of their surroundings, who are in the proximity of young kids - maybe if you go to the mall or get pissed off in a movie theater when all the cell phones are lighting up around you - pretty much expected to read: kids are using the media more than ever. They are using new media more than their elders and they are using what Fordham Professor Paul Levinson calls "new new media" (twittering, texting, blogging, YouTube, facebook) more than anyone. Frankly, Levinson's new book, "New New Media," is a much more enlightening and engaging read about these technologies and a book I highly recommend. The Kaiser study is a series of statistics based on surveys of teenagers...hey, it is what it is.

But now I just ran across something I was sort of expecting to see once the Kaiser study appeared: its paranoid misinterpretation.

The first people to point to the Kaiser report's statistics and issue portentous warnings about the decline and fall of civilization (again) are my good buddies in the Parents Television Council. The PTC is doing its usually thing in light of the study: jumping to completely unwarranted, censorious, hysterical conclusions. They can be read in their weekly warning newsletter right here.

The PTC piece is erroneously called "Children Overwhelmed by Media." This is impressive in itself because the very title of the article is already a misinterpretation of the Kaiser data. Some could call it a willful misrepresentation perhaps, an outright lie, but I really don't want to give the PTC that much credit. After my past experience with the PTC, including my debate with their 2008 "activist of the year," Crystal Madison, I've come to the conclusion that from the rank and file of the PTC and all the way to its top leadership, these people are simply too ignorant of social science research methods and data interpretation to even come up with a sophisticated lie about a simple survey like the Kaiser study. The study does not talk about whether or not children are "overwhelmed" - the loaded, negative connotation of that term is obvious - but that children are using new new media a lot more than before and they are using media in a different way than their elders, than children in the past. Why does this data mean that children are "overwhelmed?" Who has ever conclusively proven and established what is a "normal" level of media use and what is "pathological?" Thus, what standard is the PTC using to determine that the media-use percentages of the Kaiser study qualify as "overwhelming."

By the way, as a side note, one should go ahead and check out who some of the most committed activists of the PTC are by visiting their web page, http://www.parentstv.org/, and looking at the "grassroots" link. This has information on all their regional directors, including brief biographical information. What's obvious is that none of these people have any real background in social science research whatsoever. They appear to be a lot like the busybody neighbor, Gladys Kravitz, in the old "Bewitched" sitcom; the shrill, judgmental prude who can't make it through the day without sticking her nose in other people's lives. The sole reason for the PTC's existence is for its own censorious prudes to stick their noses in other people's lives and tell them how to run their families.

As for the PTC analysis of the Kaiser study, as you read on, you find it getting more and more amusing as it goes along. The more I think about it, as a matter of fact, the more convinced I am that I can use this as a piece of teaching aid in the future when I need to illustrate the most incompetent way to misinterpret the basic meaning of statistical data. But anyway, just after summarizing the Kaiser study, the PTC goes on to its rant about the data's "Impact." Naturally, according to the PTC brain turst, this data conclusively proves that children are harmed, they are turned ignorant, violent, sexually promiscuous band of little savages. The article rails against all the "harmful" media content children are now exposed to, including pornography and violence.

Except, of course, that the Kaiser study says nothing of the sort. First, the Kaiser study does not talk at all about the specific content of the information its subjects view or listen to. The PTC assumes that the subjects are watching porn and violence. And need we bring up the old joke about what you do when you assume...? Ok, sure, let's bring it up: you make an "ass out of U and me." The PTC, though, seems never to hesitate in making asses out of themselves. Second, the Kaiser study very clearly states that CAUSALITY IS NOT TO BE INFERRED from this data. Even when the data claims that more of the children who are the heaviest media users (47 percent of the children with high-use levels) tend to have lower grades (C or lower), the authors write "the study cannot establish a cause and effect relationship between media use and grades." This conclusion, by the way, is not merely "political correctness," as the PTC founder Brent Bozell has claimed in his past articles when he cavalierly equated a statistical correlation with a causality, it is a FACT!! Maybe kids who are lazy, unmotivated slackers in school to begin with tend to waste time on their iPods and their computers and smart-phones more than the over-achieving kids. Generations of slackers have found ways to waste their time long, long before the arrival of new media. Moreover, I'm also just kind of impressed by the fact that even 53 percent of the new new media's high users DO NOT get bad grades.

But such a laughably incompetent interpretation of simple statistics is not much of a surprise when it comes to the PTC, its activist members, or any of their adjunct organizations like the Media Research Council or the Culture and Media Institute. These are the folks who put links on their web pages to studies that prove the exact opposite of what the PTC et al. is trying to argue. These are shrill, authoritarian censors who, apparently, are too busy to be bothered to read a study past its title. Perhaps they should ask their illustrious advisory board, made up of such intellectual giants as Pat Boone and has-been Disney actor Dean Jones, to do a better job of advising them about the meaning of very basic scientific data.

Monday, December 7, 2009

The last days of the FCC...I hope!

Check out this piece on Yahoo News I was recently interviewed for here.

Of all the possibilities posed by converging media, especially the movement of so much broadcast material to the cable and the Internet, what especially excites me is the coming obsolescence of the Federal Communications Commission.

Since the FCC has no regulatory power over the Internet or cable, a very-near future (the nearer the better!) of online entertainment should be completely free and unfettered, completely independent of the meddling of a bunch of ill-read, double-digit IQ Church Ladies like the members of the Culture and Media Institute, the Parents Television Council, the Family Research Council, and the rest of their moralistic ilk. These are the folks who usually like to start their letter writing campaign to the FCC every time they hear the words "hell" or "damn" on TV, then turn around and claim to represent the values and sensibilities of the "average American." I don't think so!

But this sort of puritanical control over expression in the broadcast media will see its days numbered in the world of digital convergence and the move of ever more entertainment content to the Internet. And it's about time the FCC and its unconstitutional assaults on free speech was put out of commission for good.

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Cowardly ABC and lying PTC

ABC television needs to be sent a different set of protest letters for their cowardly cancellation of Adam Lambert’s performance on Good Morning America. This time, the letters should be sent by a true cross section of America, people who, once in a while, actually take ideas like free speech, freedom of expression, and freedom of choice seriously.

ABC, you see, was sent some 1,500 letters by members of the Parents Television Council following Lambert’s homoerotic performance on the American Music Awards. By ABC’s own admission, that was something they considered a small number of complaints. Nevertheless, they suddenly got paranoid over a fringe group of censorious thugs like the PTC and suddenly cancelled Lambert’s scheduled appearance on GMA. What gives? Over a small number of protests??

The PTC’s own reaction to this, however, has been a display of their usual duplicity. According to this article, Dan Isett, the Director of Public Policy for the PTC, suddenly backpedaled from the group’s usual policy of advocating ever-more draconian and bizarre efforts at censoring broadcasting (the PTC are the yahoos who believe that shows like Ugly Betty and Lost and Law and Order are obscene and the government is justified in keeping them off TV). According to Isett, “the idea that he (Lambert) should be scrubbed from TV completely is not where we’re going.”

Yeah, right! The PTC are not in favor of censoring anyone…Sure, Danny, anyone with half a brain, or any passing familiarity with your scummy organization will even believe that for a second.

Blatant lies in the face of criticism and challenge are the PTC’s stock in trade. If one spends even a few moments looking over the PTC web page, they will be quickly overwhelmed by quote after quote, one article and essay after another, giving clear instruction and policy positions on how the group will fight to REMOVE various TV programs from the air because they deem such programming “obscene,” “filthy,” “sleazy,” “vulgar,” or “offensive.” They threaten to pressure advertisers to withhold support from TV shows until they are cancelled, yet a lying douche bag like Isett has the gall and the decency to say that censorship is “not where we’re going.”

But telling lies, even in the glaring media spotlight, has been a PTC specialty since its inception. The group’s founder, Brent Bozell, has threatened to publicly label advertisers as being complicit in murder for putting their commercials on professional wrestling programs that were proven to have contributed to children killing other children. NOT ONE SINGLE instance of a child killing another child has ever been proven to have been influenced by wrestling.

Bozell has also been less than perfectly honest about the political orientation of his group. The son of a former Joseph McCarthy speech writer, Bozell has repeatedly tried to claim – with the perfectly straight face of a sociopath – that the PTC is a nonpartisan organization and that he himself is not even a Republican. Yet on his bio on the PTC web page, he proudly claims to have been Pat Buchanan’s National Finance Chairman in 1992 and a one time president of the National Conservative Action Committee, which “helped elect dozens of conservative candidates over the past 10 years.” This is all on his web page! Check it out!!

As former pro wrestler Mick Foley writes so eloquently about Bozell in “Foley is Good: And the Real World is Faker than Professional Wrestling,” the PTC founder is “a charismatically challenged, lying sack of shit.”

But he’s not the only one of his kind at the PTC. The organization seems to draw pathological liars to its membership ranks like some kind of a magnet. The head of the New Jersey chapter of the group, one Crystal Madison, most often will say that she opposes censorship, but has told TV Newsday magazine that she is a PTC member to fight for a future where shows like Dexter and Family Guy will be “eradicated.” I don’t know, eradication kind of sounds like censorship to me. But those people who listen to my Culture Wars radio show will also know that Madison has been giving instructions to her supporters on how to pressure my college’s donors until the radio show of yours truly is removed from the air. Confronted about this, just like Isett, she backpedaled and claimed that financial pressure was not really an attempt at removing my show from the air. Yeah, Crystal, sure, we believe that!

Nevertheless, ABC television has chosen to cave in to the bully tactics of a group of transparent liars who represent values light years removed from the sentiments of mainstream America.

The PTC's endless whining...

...is now aimed at ABC TV for not censoring Adam Lambert's homoerotic performance adequately enough on Monday night's American Music Awards.

The Parents Television Council's bitching session is in its full glory on their web page. As usual, though, organization head cheese, Tim Winter, is long on colorful words and short on any actual substantive arguments as to why anyone seeing Lambert's performance might be harmed and why television should be censored and fined by the FCC.

Oh, wait a minute, I guess Winters' previous article about what research proves and does not prove about media effects (just scroll down on the PTC web page and you can find their "study" of violence toward women in the media) is supposed to answer any lingering doubts about effects. It's an interesting article, although one that might make anyone who passed a basic statistics class in high school howl with laughter. The article, explaining that correlations in statistical research amount to a causal effect, is sort of like someone publicly arguing that one can, in fact, travel faster than the speed of light.

I've come to believe that the average PTC "concerned activist" member might have a broad masochistic streak. These people somehow get off on completely humiliating themselves in public by saying and writing some of the most embarrassing foolishness one can possibly think of.

So, since these folks seem to enjoy abuse and like complaining, I still encourage people to complain to them. Various e-mail addresses may be found on their web page - and those of their adjunct organizations like the Culture and Media Institute or the Media Research Council. But here they are for your use and enjoyment:

grassroots@parentstv.org
editor@parentstv.org
contact.cmi@mediaresearch.org

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Hitler is sending Seth MacFarlane hate mail again

Well, there's something new and interesting to see again on the web page of the Parents Television Council.

And I really do enjoy visiting their web page a lot and I get excited every time they post something new there. I guess I enjoy their postings the same way most fans enjoyed watching The Jerry Springer Show. The PTC can make you feel good about yourself even on a bad day. They can make you glad that your mother and father weren't brother and sister and that you weren't born with an IQ lower than your belt size. That you're not slow-witted enough to be eligible to join the PTC.

The same goes for the pages of such PTC adjunct organizations as the Media Research Council and the Culture and Media Institute. I highly urge all to check them out and leave them some feedback.

But this time the PTC is calling for Microsoft to boycott all of TV writer/producer Seth MacFarlane's shows. According to PTC grass roots activist Gavin McKiernan, who certainly seems to have all the IQ qualifications to be a member of the PTC, all the MacFarlane cartoons like Family Guy and American Dad are guilty of purveying all the worst sort of civilization destroying content one can see in the media today. Why Seth MacFarlane shows, McKiernan whines, have jokes about feminine hygiene!!!! The horror!!

But it's unfortunate that McKiernan's harangues are sort of flabby and half-hearted this time. He doesn't even try to justify his censorhip-through-economic-thuggery with any sort of an effects argument. Seems he hasn't looked at the PTC's effects "research" lately (even those studies they post that proves the exact opposite of what the group is trying to argue)

However, I suppose MacFarlane's real sins are the way he spoke about the PTC, rather than the sophomoric, school yard "feminine hygiene" jokes on his cartoons. In MacFarlane's interview to The Advocate magazine, he said about being crticized by the PTC: "Oh, yeah. That's like getting hate mail from Hitler. They're literally terrible human beings. I've read their newsletter, I've visited their website, and they're just rotten to the core. For an organization that prides itself on Christian values—I mean, I'm an atheist, so what do I know?—they spend their entire day hating people. They can all suck my dick as far as I'm concerned."

Three cheers for Seth MacFarlane!

Don't let the door hit you on the way out!

Well, it looks like something positive can be said for a bad economy after all. According to this article, the bad financial times drove one of those busy body do-gooder pro-censorship family groups out of business.

Yessssss!!!!!

The National Institute on Family and the Media has closed up shop because of the bad economy. Of course I'm completely enjoying this because this is a group that's even more ignorant of basic social science research than the Parents Television Council and more insane than the Family Research Council (they, the supporters of Carrie Prejean and all things wholesome, homophobic, and holy until, at least, their wholesome media darlings start masturbating on sex videos).

Yesssssss!!!!!!!

These folks have been almost exclusively obsessed with video games and, as the article discusses, at one point seriously argued that the video game industry tries to persuade America's children to become cannibals.

To the concerned parents and activists of the National Institute on Family and the Media: Good riddance! We won't miss you!

Or wait a minute, maybe we will. People this nuts are just too entertaining.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Whoa!! The world is still here...

Well, after a short hiatus for a trip to the National Communication Association conference, I am stunned to realize that I get a chance to sit here and add to this blog. The world did not end exactly a week ago with the CW Network's broadcast of Gossip Girl. The Parents Television Council's fears and panic were in vain. I'm stunned.

Of course, on their web page they warn that they will keep an eye on the unfolding threesome storyline. I'm certain that the CW is very nervous.

I do still encourage folks to check out the PTC's page and decide for themselves just how much of a self-parody this group is. Then if you don't think their analyses of the evil threats TV poses are funny enough - including group head-honcho Tim Winter's assault on science, logic, rational thinking, and sanity in his essay about the "link" between teen depression and Internet use - check out the parody of PTC outrage in the new edition of Entertainment Weekly magazine.

Maybe the PTC will now look for new targets to pressure and harass. They might try and threaten the donors of colleges again.

Friday, November 6, 2009

PTC loons urging censorship...again

As we discussed on the last episode of Culture Wars, available for podcast download here, the regressive nutcases of the Parents Television Council are gearing up for yet another fun activity: "let's try and censor television again." They, most likely, couldn't find any small colleges to threaten with pressure tactics and letter writing campaigns to force donors to withhold money. Those good folks of the PTC tend to do that when college radio stations air opinions the organization disagrees with.

This time the target is the CW network's Gossip Girl TV show because America's impressionable young children are in dire peril yet again. The group is trying to pressure CW affiliates to pre-empt the show, scheduled to air on November 9. America's children need to be protected at all costs, they scream their shrill paranoia on their web page (and the web pages of other fringe extremist anti-media organizations).

The scientifically-illiterate buffoonery of this group has been discussed on this blog a number of times before. For example, the fact that they are incapable of understanding or explaining why a content analytical study does not prove a causal chain and neither does a statistical correlation. Or the fact that they post links to studies on their web page that prove the exact opposite of what the PTC is trying to argue.

These people are not just incompetent clowns but, unfortunately, a collection of bullies and thugs, a gang of home invaders that tries and muscle its way into your living room and control what you watch, what you listen to, how you raise your children, and manage your family. But if these people like to push broadcasters around and lobby the FCC to trample on the First Amendment, it's about time for level-headed, clear-thinking Americans to push back a little and let them know how they feel. The PTC can be contacted through their web page and on those of their various "grass roots" members and supporters. I would urge those who support the freedom of speech and free expression to do so.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Billy Ray is Da Man!!!


This article about Billy Ray Cyrus is a couple of days old only because I just ran across it by accident. I haven't made it a point in a while to keep up on all of Billy Ray's comings and goings. But I do love this article about him coming to his daughter's defense after she was criticized for dancing too close to a pole at the Teen Choice Awards. Apparently in the demented, perverse minds of all the country's concerned "family advocates" and media critics, the pole suggested strip clubs or some such nonsense.

Papa Cyrus, of course, disagreed and defended Miley in an Entertainment Tonight interview. Nice going!!
But now I wonder if he's still on the advisory board of a bunch of censorious, reactionary morons like the Parents Television Council, the kinds of people who would notice things like this in the first place and get outraged over the sleazy degradation of America's wholesome childhood and traditional family values.

Monday, June 15, 2009

An interesting summer read?



Here's an interesting-looking book I just ran across on amazon.com I'm considering putting on my summer reading list. It might just be a good beach read...hopefully. It's called "Censorship: The Threat to Silence Talk Radio."

According to its description, the book is a criticism of the Fairness Doctrine which, in my opinion, should never be reinstated. Its effect will certainly NOT be more ideas and points of view in broadcasting but less. This is a historical fact. During the years the Fairness Doctrine was in effect, there was a lot less politically oriented, opinion-oriented broadcasting than there is today. If broadcasters had to balance every single point of view with a counter argument, they just played it safe and easy and tried to avoid as much controversial talk as possible.

Today, of course, most of the folks afraid of the Fairness Doctrine are the conservative radio talk show hosts and their fans. Programs by Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or other conservative pundits would not exist under the Fairness Doctrine.

Now the book Censorship appears to be a strictly conservative-point-of-view critique of the Fairness Doctrine. Hannity even writes an introduction to the book. To be fair, though, the back of the book jacket even carries an endorsing blurb by arch-liberal Alan Colms.

While I am opposed to the Fairness Doctrine on principle, I am only a little bit skeptical about the commitment to free speech of what has recently emerged as the "conservative base" of the Republican party. These, by the way are the Moral Majority types, the ultra-right-wing fundamentalists who also rail against the "smut," "indecency," and "filth" of so much of TV broadcasting and shock jocks on other radio programs. You know, the Parents Television Council types. So I'm curious if this conservative defense of freedom in broadcasting is honest, or if it's merely a few disingenuous ultraconservatives talking the talk to save right wing radio while they would back the censorship of anything else they deem "offensive."