ScottW said:

"Marc Phillips" wrote in message
...
I think it's pretty apparent that the reason why RAO has become mostly
about
politics these days is because of the very strange things that are
happening in
our country, not to mention the rest of the world. This really hit home
this
morning when I was listening to Howard Stern on the radio. No one's
really
brought up what he's going through this week because I don't think there
are a
lot of his listeners posting regularly on RAO, but basically about
one-tenth of
his audience weren't allowed to listen to his show today because of
FCC-imposed
suspensions. The funny thing is, Infinty Broadcasting has been
scrambling to
find out what they did wrong, and they can't get an answer.

Infinity is Stern's home. It was the Clear Channel affiliates that pulled
Stern
(a whopping 6 channels)and it was Clear Channel that punched out
Sponge Bob (or whatever his name was). Stern is just pitching a hissy
fit in a typical Stern publicity stunt.
Clear Channel was gonna drop Stern anyway, why promote a major
competitors guy?

That may be a premature conclusion. Trust me, this is just the beginning. You
have to realize that this is all the result of one exposed breast on TV. Our
Puritan roots are once again revealed. And you wonder why the rest of the
world laughs at us?

You know, once in a while I feel like we're going to far, constantly pushing
the envelope of good taste, pushing vulgarity for vulgarity's sake. Nowhere is
this more evident than on Stern's show...during the commercials, which
advertisers design to appeal to what they think is Stern's core audience.
They're offensive because they're shallow and crude. But Yustabe is right when
he says that Stern's show has become mild, even boring over the years.

This is not about what Howard says or does on his show. This is an attempt at
a clean sweep. This is the return of the Moral Majority type of wrongful
thinking.


Basically, broadcasters have been under siege ever since Janet Jackson
showed
off her floppy, almost forty-year-old tit at the Super Bowl. In the last
few
days, shock jocks like Stern have been getting fired left and right for
doing
things they've been doing for years. Now, Stern himself is trying to
resign
because he can't do the show he's been doing for more than twenty years.
His
plan is to switch over to an uncensored satellite radio program, and
since he
has about 12 million loyal listeners, this will probably be a major coup
for
the new satellite radio industry. (I have XM, and I love it. It's far
superior to regular radio in every conceivable way.) Major chunks of
Stern's
show have been getting censored over the last few days.

Did you hear all the right wing radio guys complain that government
censorship is a slippery slope? Savage, Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly,
John & Ken etc. They all came out against government imposed
controls.

That's because this is not a liberal/conservative thing.


Is it a coincidence that Stern has been openly calling for the ousting of
Bush?
Is it a coincidence that Stern has been making fun of that hysterical
Congresswoman from New Mexico whose son was needlessly traumatized by
that lone
nipple and has been screaming melodramatically at any network executive
unfortunate enough to show up to her hearings?

At the same time, "The Passion of the Christ" is breaking opening day box
office records. For anyone who is unfamiliar with the actual content of
this
movie, it is basically two solid hours of a man being tortured to death.
Roger
Ebert made the very interesting observation that if that man was anyone
other
than Jesus Christ, the film would have been rated NC-17...he calls it the
most
violent movie he has ever seen. Other critics have gone on to say that
sitting
through this film is tantamount to being punished for our sins, it's that
unendurable. One woman in Wichita actually had a heart attack and died
while
watching it, a relatively healthy woman in her fiftied who was actually a
local
broadcaster. And yet we Americans are seeing this in droves...why?

Tell me again how this country is headed in the right direction.

Explain to me why we should judge the direction of the country
on box office returns?

This film has earned $50 million in its first two days. It will go down
probably as one of the biggest box-office hits of all time. And it's little
more than a snuff film, with Jesus as the victim. You don't think that's a
reflection of our society?


If we judge the direction of America
based on anything Hollywood does, I think we would be sadly
mistaken. 3 Months ago we were lining up for Return of the King.
What direction were we headed then?

We wanted to be entertained. Now we want to be punished.

Boon