More Culture Wars Podcasts Available Now!!

On April 30, Ernabel Demillo and I hosted the last Culture Wars episode of this "season." It's now available for downloading at http://culturewars.libsyn.com or through a free subscription at I-Tunes. So be sure and catch this because new episodes will be returning only in September.

But our last spring episode had a great interview with presidential historian Nick Ragone discussing Barack Obama's first 100 days in office. I'd highly recommend you take a look at the link on the right to Nick's excellent blog, too!

Plus, we gave our spin to some of the top headlining news stories, controversies and even conspiracy theories. Check out our take on the swine flu - including Joe Biden's travel advisory - blogging by parents, the FCC ruling on curses in broadcasting, and the biggest question of the day: has Tupac Shakur really faked his death??

But in the meantime, do keep checking in on this blog throughout the summer and get a good fix of Culture Wars: the Blog Version!!

Most requested Culture Wars episode on podcast!

WSPC Culture Wars' most requested episode for podcasting - with guest Nadia Cornier of the Firebrand Literary Agency - is now available for dowloading on either I-Tunes or by going to http://culturewars.libsyn.com If you go to I-Tunes, search for the show by putting "Culture Wars" matched with either Barna Donovan or Ernabel Demillo. You can subscribe to the podcast for free!

Previous Culture Wars episodes aired since January are also available.

And be sure and let us know what you think of the show, what you think the most pressing current events issues are that we should talk about, or give us any kind of feedback at wspcradio@gmail.com

A Cool Culture Wars lineup takes shape for 4/16/09

Don't forget to tune in to the April 16th episode of WSPC Culture Wars! Our lineup of guests will include Firebrand Literary Agency founder Nadia Cornier. She will talk with us about kids' publishing and cultural controversies.

After our past episodes discussing those randy, sexting teens, we'll take a look at how the very big business of children's and Young Adult (YA) publishing deals with the tough issues of sex, sexuality, and all things controversial in a world of paranoid adults and extremely worldly kids.

You deffinitely don't want to miss it!!!

New podcasts of Culture Wars shows!

Be sure and check out http://culturewars.libsyn.com/ for more episodes of WSPC Culture Wars, including Paul Levinson's discussion of "sexting," Jennifer B. White talking about the publishing industry, PR, and the beginning writer, and Jeff Yang and Parry Shen talking about Asian American superheroes and comic books.

If you haven't been browsing the links over on the right side of the screen recently, be sure and check out Paul Levinson's blog post about sexting for more really great points about the issue, or click right here.

Comparing "Sexting" to Child Porn is Ludicrous

Check out this latest article about how a budding new moral panic, the teenage cell phone phenomenon of “sexting” is about to turn into the next salvo on free speech and expression in America.

The ACLU, to its credit, is at least taking on this Pennsylvania county’s paranoid and destructive attempt at prosecuting teenage girls who sent provocative pictures of themselves to their boyfriends over the cell phone. And this prosecution is taking place despite the fact that THE TYPES OF PICTURES SENT BY THE GIRLS ARE NOT CLASSIFIED AS ILLEGAL IN PENNSYLVANIA!!!!!!!! So what the &^$%ing %#&* happened to equal protection under the law?

What happened is the latest case in the ages-old social phenomenon of the moral panic. A moral panic usually ensues when some strange and unusual event, some aberant occurrence is suddenly blown out of proportion (most easily by the mass media) and cast as a pernicious crisis threatening all of society. Sexting is just the latest moral panic, right after the scientifically baseless media violence hysteria, the steroid paranoia, the violent video game hysteria, the Satanic heavy metal hysteria, the comic book moral panic of the 1950s, the Red Scare, and all the way back to the colonial witch trials.

Sexting, as so perfectly argued by Fordham Professor Paul Levinson on today’s Culture Wars radio show, is not child pornography. It is not created under the same circumstances and it is in no way an equivalent of child pornography. Child pornography is the victimization of children, the videotaping or photography of children against their will by a pornographer, for distribution and sale. Sexting is teenagers voluntarily taking pictures of themselves and controlling those pictures by distributing them to friends and boyfriends. It is sexual experimentation and rebellion by kids at an age when every generation of teenagers had been rebellious, when they have experimented with sex and sexuality. Comparing sexting to child pornography is ludicrous.

But sexting is also a wonderful boon to various groups of censorious crackpots and control freaks like the Parents Television Council (check out their web page where they bemoan the creeping immoral menace of sexting) and the rest of their meddling ilk who use this as an opportunity to push for more intrusive laws and regulations that control private behavior. And just be sure and take a look at the part of the Pennsylvania sexting article that describes some of the punishment the authorities want meted out to these girls. A forced “re-education” program? RE-EDUCATION?? The Soviet Union used to have re-education programs in the Siberian gulags!!!

So don’t believe for a microsecond that all the moral watchdogs and media crusader groups are as appalled and saddened and outraged by sexting as they claim. These folks are happy as can be every time they imagine another kid “sexting” a picture of herself. The more kids sexting, the better, they must no doubt be gushing in their most private moments. Every such incident is just more ammunition for these parasites to launch their assaults on free expression and civil liberties.

A Can't Miss Culture Wars Episode

Be sure and tune in to the March 26th episode of WSPC Culture Wars, when we talk to Fordham University Communication Professor and Science Fiction author Paul Levinson. Dr. Levinson, a strong supporter of our show and St. Peter's College, will talk to us about the intrusion of ideology and political dogma into the world of science and research.

Plus, Dr. Levinson has debated PTC head Brent Bozell and challanged him on the fact that his regressive and repressive organization has virtually no scientific basis for their anti-speech agendas. You must check those out on YouTube!

Also, Jennifer B. White, author of The Witch and the Devil's Son, will talk about aspiring authors trying to beat the odds and breaking into the big, bad world of New York commercial publishing. In this economy, the deck might be stacked against writers, but Jennifer, a PR professional, has tips for guerilla marketing tactics and how talented and imaginative first time writers can get their work some attention.

More Culture Wars podcasts available!

More episodes of the WSPC Culture Wars radio show are available on podcast for downloading right here.

Be sure and check out our most attention grabbing episode yet, our debate with the head of the New Jersey chapter of the Parents Television Council from February 5.

In hindsight, I realize that our discussion with that woman was entirely too long to make the point that her organization has no proof, scientific basis, or even understanding of the issue of negative media effects. If you read her blog entry about our exchange right here, you will realize that she does a much, much better job of trashing the PTC's repuation than I ever could. Just read through her entire blog entry and take a close look at her defense of the nature of the PTC and why my criticisms are unfair. The PTC, she explains, is not a scientific organization and they can not be expected to offer scientific proof to back up their claims about all these horrific, heinous and brutal effects of the media. Need I say any more?? A major PTC figure basically admitting that everything they argue is essentially worthless because they can prove none of their assertions. What a gem!

But make sure and listen to the entire broadcast because everything that she argues - including her endorsement of PTC members threatening a school's donors - are loud and clear and easily understandable...contrary to her blog suggestions that her comments were made intentionally hard to hear.

Then, for a guest arguing the different side of the story, make sure and download our talk with USC sociologist Dr. Karen Sternheimer.

For more of Karen Sternheimer, check back in to the Culture Wars podcasts this week and hear our discussion with her about the modern celebrity culture and the social networking phenomenon. Then read more of Dr. Sternheimer's thoughts about identity and social networking at the Everyday Sociology blog.

WSPC Culture Wars Podcast Available!

Podcasts of Culture Wars episodes are being made available at http://culturewars.libsyn.com/

Check out the entire hour broadcast on January 22...the infamous episode that inspired the disapproval of the New Jersey chapter of the Parents Television Council.

Take a listen and let us know if the brief discussion of my book, The Asian Influence on Hollywood Action Films was dangerous, subversive, and threatening enough to family values and The American Way of Life to warrant threats of boycotts against St. Peter's College. E-mail your comments to wspcradio@gmail.com

What I'm still convinced of is that God must love crazy people, because He makes so many of them...and they're all members of whacko media watchdog groups like the PTC and they're listening to our show.

Now at least they can enjoy our programs over and over again! Hey, we take 'em where we can get 'em.

More episodes are being uploaded over the next few days!!

Author Barbara Oakley on the Next Culture Wars

Be sure and catch today's episode of Culture Wars when Dr. Barbara Oakley discusses her book, Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend, looking at the history of and the current science behind the behavior of the successfully sinister.

From brutal dictators to Machiavellian manipulators, murderous sadists, and rapacious corporate swindlers, Dr. Oakley discusses the research of where and how evil thrives.

The Battles of Culture Wars

Check out a lengthy article about our Culture Wars show and our PTC run-ins.

I haven't yet discussed the boycott and donor issue here, but this story goes into the matter in detail. Once our ongoing podcasting delay has been resolved, everyone can listen at their convenience and hear how this matter played out on the program.

Satan is Watching You!?

So do these look like the eyes of the Antichrist?

Some Detroit politicians think so and they, apparently, have nothing better to do these days than waste time trying to get an MGM casino billboard removed. Check out the story here.

It looks like the good folks of Detroit put a lot of intelligent thought into the kinds of people they elect into office.

Although this example is absurd, stupid incidents like this help highlight one of the major problems of life in modern America: knee-jerk impulses to get the government to control speech and expression. If some nut-jobs in Detroit are disturbed by this billboard, thinking it shows the eyes of Satan looking at motorists (these people are probably close kissing cousins to the good folks who thought the theme song of the old Mr. Ed TV show contained Satanic lyrics when played backward and who had nothing better to do with their time than look for Satanic messages in Judas Priest and Black Sabbath songs), is it really the job of the local government to step in and censor MGM advertising?

The best part of the story is about the pastor's outrage at families with kids in the car having to see the billboard. The pastor, of course, could advise all those parents who might be disturbed that the same Bill of Rights that protects that billboard is the one that lets them go to church and worship any way they want.

As one of our Culture Wars fans recently wrote us, "Isn't America great?"

It sure is, even as it lets so many lunatics run around, mount protest campaigns, and get media attention.

Or this could be just another prelude to 2012!!!!!

Octomom Should Do Porn (?)

...and that was the question for our listeners on the last episode of Culture Wars.

With the nice turnout of opinions on the great chimpanzee controversy, we'd love to know what Culture Warmongers think of the last strange turn in Nadya "Octomom" Suleman's bizarre saga. Apparently she has gotten a $1 million offer to do a porn flick with Vivid Entertainment. Check out the story here.

It is interesting to read that Suleman will be given as much input on the "plot" and the overall development of the film one would expect any major star to get. Vivid CEO Stephen Hirsch has promised to work out the deal with Suleman in such a way that she will be satisfied and comfortable with the finished product. Whoever said the porn industry was sleazy?

So let us know what you think? Should she do it because the money she's earning will keep her from leaching off California's citizens? Or have you had enough of Suleman and wish all news of her would just disappear? Is this tacky and morally offensive? Or maybe you can't wait until it comes out so you can add the video to your library of Vivid Entertainment classics?

Send your comments to wspcradio@gmail.com

Presidential analysis on Culture Wars

Don't miss today's live broadcast of Culture Wars for some interesting takes on the Presidency and op-ed controversies!

Presidential historian Nick Ragone joins us to discuss his impression of the State of the Union address...and whether President Obama will stay more popular than God.

Over the past week, we also got some interesting listener feedback on the New York Post chimpanzee controversy. We'll read all them on the air today. Don't miss it!

The posts are back! I promise!!

...with more apologies to the readers! From now on anyone can fantasize about violent retribution if they need to go an entire week without an update on this page.

I must confess that during the fun and excitement of a long holiday weekend, there was too much I let get in the way of updating the blog. To confirm the suspicions of some of the people who've written the Culture Wars e-mail account (wspcradio@gmail.com), I might even have been up to some no good. Some of the show's PTC listeners have accused me in the past of being in favor of everything immoral, so at least now I need to be honest. I did rip the wings off of a few flies the last couple of days and tripped an old lady.

But at least the past week has provided some really interesting - and exciting - research to mull over. Check out this article about a study from Europe showing that playing video games is actually good for kids! And I endorse the study because it actually takes the social research approach to its data gathering, talking to video-game-users about the meaning of the video games in their lives. So they eschew the correlational and content analytical nonsense. Good for them!!

Sanity on Culture Wars! 2/12/09

Be sure and tune in to the February 12th show of WSPC Culture Wars when we talk to people who understand big words like “research,” “proof,” “correlation,” and “causality.”

In the wake of last week’s PTC debate, we are joined by USC sociologist, Dr. Karen Sternheimer, talking about her book, “It’s Not the Media: The Truth About Pop Culture’s Influence on Children.” For one of the most readable and concise works on why all the media violence arguments are little more than unfounded paranoia and dishonest flim flam by a bunch of censorious control freaks, buy a copy of this book as quickly as you can!

But that’s not all!!!

Also joining us will be Rick Biondi, former Libertarian congressional candidate from Arizona’s 6th district. He’ll discuss the viability of third party candidates in today’s political culture…and the inherent wisdom of all who call themselves Libertarians!

Don’t miss it!

A Dangerous Media Effect

Since I was just arguing media effects with the head of the New Jersey chapter of the Parents Television Council on Culture Wars, I can’t help but comment on what may be a truly dangerous media effect I just ran across. And no, it’s not people becoming more violent, or wanting more sex, or trying to bully each other, starving themselves after reading fashion magazines, or watching anything on TV. It’s the possible effect of atrocious journalism.

The FOX news web page has a link to an AP story about a study on video game use by college students, with the headline reading “STUDY: VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES BAD FOR MENTAL HEALTH.” Check it out here.

The article describes a study published in The Journal of Youth and Adolescence. It looked at the sort of people who play a great deal of video games. The researchers report that students who play a great deal of video games are also the ones who may have alcohol problems, use drugs, and have bad personal relationships. The gamers who enjoy the violent games are also the ones to have a lot of sex partners and bad personal relationships. We are told that there is a “clear correlation” between the video gaming habits of these students and the sorry state of their lives.

So this study is proof that video games really cause you to become and alcoholic, a junkie, perhaps a sex addict, and someone who can’t have a healthy relationship, right?

Wrong!

But, of course, going by the AP story, you might conclude exactly that. The way the story is written – and most people are going to get the majority of their science news from the mainstream media rather than reading a dense, jargon-laden academic journal – the average person might conclude that here is a study establishing a clear causality between video game use and behavior.

Except that the study does nothing of the sort. The study finds a correlation, which is NOT the same as causality. A correlation is merely the observation of changes between two variables. From a study like this, we can’t tell if playing video games turned these students into sex-crazed, alcoholic drug users, or if people who like their cheap frat house beer, smoke too much reefer, have sex a lot with different women (most of the problem gamers appear to be men) because they’re loose and licentious (or perhaps they’re just lousy in bed and get dumped after the first roll in the hay) will also play a lot of video games. Maybe if you’re a drunken screw-up to begin with, you might be a high-using videogamer as well.

Again, maybe these people were screw-ups to start with and they turned to video games in their screwed up state.

Of course the problem with this is that media-phobic control freaks like to jump on these stories and get all “active” and “concerned.” For example, we might have a lot of folks at the PTC with a great, big silly grin all over their face right now, writing an Op-ed about the “scientifically proven” danger of video games. Then they’ll be starting campaigns to pass new laws to control video game sales because “the research proves the dangers.” These are the people who are incapable of understanding the nature of correlations in statistics and incapable of grasping why a count of the number of punches thrown in your average Rocky movie is not a proof that Rocky movies cause people to get into fights.

But, nevertheless, these very concerned activists like to get active and pass new laws to control your life and behavior.

And the real culprit in all this is a sloppy reporter!

More State of Panic Coming Soon!!!!

The podcasts of Culture Wars will be available by early next week. You can tune in and listen to our PTC debate with sound enhancements correcting some of the level problems experienced in the studio today.

Be sure and check back in here and I'll let you know when you can hear our thrilling exchange and the NJ PTC's explanations of:

The rampant crime...

Out-of-control social diseases decimating humanity...

Children going wild in the streets...

The breakdown of all civilization...

...all caused by the mass media!!

And why colleges should be coerced and intimidated if they let anyone say anything that offends the high arbiters of taste, style, and morality!!

B.D.

The PTC on Culture Wars!

With apologies to the constant reader - as Stephen King would say - for the lax updates over the past week, I just wanted to announce that the Culture Wars radio show, hosted by yours truly and Ernabel Demillo, will have a special presentation this Thursday. The head of the New Jersey chapter of the Parents Television Council will join us to discuss her organization and their agendas and views of the media.

While this blog had been critical of the group, there is nothing we support more than free speech and the opportunity for everyone to exercise their rights to free expression. Thus, Culture Wars will give the PTC the chance to speak up tomorrow and air their views.

Tune in and decide for yourself!

B.D.

Go screw yourself with a broccoli!

The culture wars roll on and on! With the approach of the Super Bowl, we have the approach of more ridiculous advertising controversies. Check it out right here.

Apparently NBC is already trying to prevent any possible trouble with the Super Bowl broadcast by refusing to air an ad for vegetarianism by PETA. Too sexual, they argue. One part of the ad, according to NBC’s interpretation, suggests that an actress is “screwing herself with a broccoli.”

Now, unfortunately, we can’t see this for ourselves and decide whether or not this is appropriate because NBC is letting itself be bullied into acting like our broadcast nannies. We must be protected from ourselves because we are too dumb to handle a simple TV ad, or we are such incompetent parents that we don’t know how to raise our children so they are not scarred and corrupted for life by a vegetarianism ad.

The root of all this, of course, is the fact that Super Bowl broadcasts are now anniversaries of the Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” and the Parents Television Council’s reign of terror. Following the Jackson situation, the FCC went psychotic and issued more fines against broadcasters in the following year than fines it had proposed issuing in the previous 10 years. This was all due to the prompting of the members of the PTC.

I am certain that these champions of censorship will soon enough be celebrating their ability to keep more expression they don’t like from the airwaves. Check out their web page and keep an eye on this, I suggest. Or, better yet, since these folks like to start complaint campaigns – the home page of their organization has no fewer than THREE links to file an FCC complaint – maybe people can take the time to send them a message and let them know that Americans don’t appreciate their First Amendment rights being trampled upon by bullies and cheap thugs.

The culture wars, in the meantime, will keep rolling on the web broadcasts of WSPC Culture Wars as well. Every Thursday at noon, Eastern time.

Violent Films are Good for You

On our January 22 show, we had such a rollicking good time (soon to be available on podcast) on Culture Wars that a few interesting moments still come to mind. Actually a couple of moments where we talked about a few nicely controversial things that might not have been as well-elaborated upon as they should have been.

Like my reflections on being accused of being the anti-Christ just a couple of days after Christmas…during a get-together with friends I haven’t seen in some two years. Since this is not something that happens to you (or at least to me) every day, you kind of wind up scratching your head over it for a while. But it is amusing.

It happened while talking to an old friend about my book, The Asian Influence on Hollywood Action Films. This was a friend I can still remember shooting the breeze with about ninja action movies during junior high lunch periods. But now he was all bent out of shape about my book. A once really cool guy was chastising me about concluding that violent Asian action films are actually good for society because they uncover the erroneous nonsense about so much of the anti-media, anti-violence crusades carried on by all the too-tightly-wound do-gooders on the left and the right. These films, I told him, were made in cultures where the media are much more explicit and violent than ours, yet their violent crime rates are miniscule compared to those of the U.S.

“But hasn’t all the research proved…?” he said.

No, actually it hasn’t.

But my friend, a new father, is now a devout reader of the works of those tireless protectors of America’s hearts and souls and impressionable kids, the Parents Television Council. “This organization quotes all the great studies showing all the correlations between media violence and crime and sexually explicit TV and pregnant teens…”

Which, I needed to explain, was just about proof that the people running this bottom-feeding organization must never have passed an introductory-level research class in college. Anyone arguing that correlations prove causality could certainly never pass my research methods class at St. Peter’s College. “Correlation does not prove causality” is a mantra that every beginner-level student should be able to recite if kicked out of bed in the middle of the night. (An increase in the number of storks nesting in a town as the number of newborns increases is a correlation too) So, no, if your once-sweet little baby girl is turning into a nonstop nymphomaniac while addicted to Sex in the City, it does not mean that S.I.T.C. caused the little angel to go astray.

Nevertheless, throughout the rest of my stay at my friend’s house, I continued feeling kind of unwanted.

B.D.