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.. 😉

News that Bugs…

Ok… So I read two news stories yesterday that bugged me and had to spout a little:

Special prosecutor named in CIA probe
Ashcroft bows out of blown-cover investigation

I’ve been wondering for a while what ever happened to this story but could guess. This one was TOTALLY predictable and pisses me off to no end. WHY are they just doing this NOW? (rhetorical question) The answer as far as I can tell is because the administration doesn’t care about figuring out who is responsible because they’re crystal clear on who ordered the leak. Furthermore, if they’re forced to ‘figure out’ who is responsible then they need some time to let the story cool and to find a sacrificial lamb.
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Remodel Reality

Is it just me or are there WAY too many of those reality shows on the air these days where a group of people come in, kick out the people who live in a house, and make their house nice (or often nasty actually). Seem to be the Queer Eye / Trading spaces wave is getting way too crowded and the quality sucks.

Kevin and I watched some LAME show last night called Clean Sweep or some such thing – essentially a group of folks come in, force people to empty their house and sell or pitch a portion of their stuff and in the mean time people re-model their house. So yea – the house was a PIT when they got there (though who’s to say they didn’t run around and muss it up before hand) and it wasn’t a whole lot better when they left. They just had a new hodge podge of tacky ‘restored’ furniture (they took their old stuff painted it and put new drawer pulls on it) bright colors, and tacky art and called it done.

Just sayin.. enough is enough..

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming! 🙂

December 1, 2003 – World AIDS Day

In case you think you don’t need to think about HIV and AIDS any more read these:

• CDC Reports AIDS Cases Up for First Time in Decade
  
• Study Shows Alarming Spread of Drug-Resistant HIV
  
• HIV/AIDS Statistics, NIAID Fact Sheet
  

And then save these away for safe keeping

• World AIDS Day
  
• National Institutes of Health – World AIDS Day
  
• San Francisco AIDS Foundation
  
• The Body: World AIDS Day 2003
  
• AIDS Education Global Information System
  

This isn’t just about gay men. Its not about injection drug users. Its not about people in far off lands. Its not about people from the 80s. Its here, its now, its real, and it effects every one of us.

Be safe, be educated, and be heard…

Rev. Robinson

So the following report was posted by the AP News wire recently:

Excerpts From Report on Rev. Robinson

Based on this report the Church has cleared Rev. Robinson of all charges.. THANK GOD!!!
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Freedom of Speech

Just found this article over at Electric Venom. My favorite quote from that article is this:

Austin told the judge Monday he “wasn’t really thinking” when he created the Web site. “I’d be devastated if someone used this information to harm others,” he said.

Read on if you want to hear my rant – but I’ll spare the rest of you! 😉
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