SwimFinsSF

Free Speech and the Air Waves

You know… I’m not the biggest fan of Howard Stern. I think he’s a brash blow hard who relies on shock appeal to maintain listeners with very little interesting content or important issues to justify the shock. Those who know me know that I’ve got a tendency to listen to obnoxious radio like the right wing shows and the relgious right – largely to sharpen my tallons. I listen to these to understand where they’re coming from because, even if I think their position is insane and hateful, at least it has been considered and refined over time and its hard to prepare to debate issues if you don’t understand the counter point.. But Howard Stern is a different matter – he’s just trying to shock for the pure sport of it often and invariably after listening to him for any length of time I find myself screaming ‘WHAT THE FUCK’ at the radio and changing the chanel.

All that said I find this very disturbing:

Radio giant suspends Stern in crackdown against indecency

Not because I need to defend the man.. But more from the perspective that any large radio or TV conglomerate having ownership of a large enough swath of the broadcasting frequencies has the ability to silence any perspectives that they don’t agree with and essentially inhibit free speech.. The idea that one company has the ability to control in any way what we see and hear scares the living shit out of me. Radio and TV already has a frightening ability to influence the perspectives of the politics of this country by controlling how information is presented and the only saving grace in this is the fact that ownership is distributed and no single opinion dominates… The idea that a ‘holding company’ can control the content of its affiliates is very dangerous…

anyway… I need to get back to work… just pushed my buttons so I figured I’d say something.. Now back to your regularly scheduled broadcast.. 😉

To Put things in Perspective

Here are a Couple of Fun links to put things in perspective! 🙂

70% OF EXISTING MARRIAGES MAY ALREADY BE GAY

The Onion | Massachusetts Supreme Court Orders All Citizens To Gay Marry

FINALLY

FINALLY – A USB Device that is worth cluttering up my machine with. 🙂

iDuck

and

The Travels of iDuck

A Great Article

I woke up this morning to find this article linked from Google’s news – its well worth the read:

Mullen: Utah’s petty little stand can’t stop gay-marriage avalanche

Congratulations!!!

Congratulations to all my friends who got hitched this weekend… I’m so excited that everyone was given this opportunity. I’m so proud to live in a city that not only allows for this kind of thing but does it with excitement and enthusiasm. I’m so grateful to have a Mayor that, and the beginning of what I hope to be a great political career, has the balls to stand up for what he believes to be right and stand behind it… And I don’t give a damn what other people think about it – its not about them or the santity of their marriage – its about security, civil rights, and the love of individual couples. I couldn’t have put it more eloquently myself:

“The issue here is simple: the state’s Constitution does not permit discrimination at all, anywhere. We are in full compliance with our state’s equal protection clause prohibiting discrimination in any form. While some may believe that separate and unequal institutions are acceptable, we will oppose intolerance and discrimination every step of the way. San Francisco is a city of tolerance and mutual respect and we will accept nothing less than full civil rights for all our residents,” said Newsom.

Congratulations to ALL of you! 🙂

• Matt and Brian
  
• Randy and Rick
  
• Patrick and Chuck
  
• Eric and Jeff
  
• Tom and Randy
  
• Guy and Trey
  
• MJ and ‘The Missus’ 😉
  

And everyone else!

New Cool Quote

Thanks to Shadow Footprints I’ve got another quote to add to my list of favorites:

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.
— Dr. Seuss