So.....yeah....

[Flabajaba2213]

There has been no activity on the forum in some time......so....yeah.....how about Howard Stern?

I'll admit, I don't listen to him often. However, I know what will happen. If he is taken off the air, he won't be the last. Eventually other radio personalities will go. Then tv shows. And finally...the same fate will befall the internet. Even pages like Final Draft will be deleted or blocked because of "content".

Now, here is what annoys ME. Parents say that he is a bad influence on theri kids. He is a poor rolemodel. Kids shouldn't be allowed to listen to him. Now, correct me if I am wrong, but isn't reglutaing what kids do the responsibility of, oh...I don't know, the PARENTS?

You think listening to Stern is a bad influence on kids? It is nowhere near as bad as not having an adult around. You know what occurs on his radio show. That is why it is at night! You don't want your kids listening to Stern, try acting like a parent!

That is all I have to say about that.

[Patach]

It's been inactive for three months, I think I'm getting the message here, so I'll opine on a couple issues.(Ones that would most likely avoid a column cartoon from me)

The FCC is simply insane on censorship. I remember when a host on NPR slipped the "F" word by accident during a show, the next day she was fired. Really disturbs me.

I do think that there should be more things that help parents censor television, Internet, and other forms of influence for their kids... in their own homes. The responsibility of anybody's influence is a simple rating label in order to guide parents into what is okay for their child. Other than that, it's in the parents' and schools' hands to limit such material.

Speaking of which, anybody remember the V-Chip?

[Flabajaba2213]

Don't even remind me of the V-chip.

One of my friends had it. Out of around 60 TV channels, there were between 25 - 35 that could be seen at any given time. Sometimes, the history and discovery channel were even blocked. =P

I personally feel that we are way to protection oriented when it comes to the media. Why do people think that Howard Stern exists? Because we HAVE all of these rules, regulations, and people who are paranoid when it comes to something different.

Of course, the parents can't keep a watch on their kids all the time. The problem is that there is no really efficient way to handle this problem without making a lot of people mad, no mater what you do.

[Patach]

Personally, I think Howard Stern wouldn't exist based on assumption that without censorship more shocking people would be in his place .

I can understand the difficulty of keeping children away from horrible content 100% of the time, but the first thing to do to eliminate this kind of censorship is to allow parents the tools to censor specific items in their own home. Whether that be V-chips or Netnannies, or what not... giving easy tools for parents to use in order to make sure little Todd doesn't watch Erotic Confessions on Cinemax will mean not just that this would ease problems at home, but also keep faulty parents from blaming art for ruining their children.

That's the realistic situation, IMO.

The more unrealistic solution would be to eliminate uncomfortable boundaries with sexuality and abstinence. I don't encourage the elimination of uncomfortable boundaries of violence for good reasons, but it's good to try and teach kids the beauty of unreal violence, and the horror of real. Perhaps in given time, this could become a plausible solution.