Update
Well, I nearly got there. Alas, the PCB from my fried MP3 player is irrepairable. Still, I got the HDD out of it and my colleague formatted it for me in his USB HDD casing and now I've got my own 5GB HDD waiting for its own casing. Kewl.
Rant
Having said that, let me say this:
Why does anyone think that a PayPal Donate button on their blog is going to result in a cash infusion? Oh ho ho jetzt gibt's Ärger! I have NEVER seen a blog that was worth giving someone money because I read it. I don't know whether the audacity or the stupidity of the person bothers me the most. "Compelling" arguments for donations run the gamut of "I need some money to cover the Typepad charges" to "I might not be able to afford my high speed internet access becasue my tithe is sending my current accout into the red." Get a clue, get a life and get a new fucking church! If the tithe is causing you hardship, you may need to forgo either some of your bandwidth or some of your salvation. I know which I'd be choosing; nobody touches my 2MBps cable connection!
General Musings
How does censorship affect you? I don't mean how does it impinge on your right to enjoy what you want, when you want, because it does that to all of us. I mean how does it make you feel? I find that my immediate reaction is "For fuck's sake MTV! It's 2am, can't I just hear the words to the song without having the expletives deleted?" I promise, I won't complain. If it bothers me, I'll change the channel. The thing is, I just hate to have decisions made for me. If you ask my wife, I can't make a decision to save myself but that is not the point! The point is, why am I not allowed to make the choice myself.
The argument for censorship is in many ways valid. If my contention that we should be free to see / hear / read what we want was to go through, we'd have no argument against abominations like child pornography et, so I suppose that the crux of my argument is that whilst I am not in favour of being told what I can and can't see / hear / read etc, I know that there are things that should not be seen / heard / read. I know what I think is right and I know what I think is wrong, so as an adult, I apply my own judgement of right and wrong to the situation and generally noone gets hurt.
Of course, who is to say that what I think is right? But who is to say that what the various censorship collectives say is right either? Let's take the example that was trotted out regarding Nipplegate. Let's leave the whole thing of "was it an accident or not?" out of it and focus on the supposed harm that was caused by its occurrence. Scores of people had the audacity to contact the TV network and the FCC to complain that they had been scarred and suffered trauma by seeing what amounts to nothing - the nipple is even covered by that little sunburst thing. FFS get over it!!! Most of us have seen a nipple (or part thereof) and most of us are spending just about every waking minute of our lives waiting to see another one! Or maybe that's just me....
However, now that the networkresponsible for the fiasco scored a $550K fine, all the other channels are running for cover. Many network affiliates refused to show Saving Private Ryan because of fear of reprisals over the content. It just seems so hypocritical that the smallest amount of female flesh is deemed highly offensive and grossly inappropriate (Perhaps drawing a slightly longer bow than necessary methinks but, granted, the broadcast was during 'General' viewing time) but you can show all the cartoon violence and even real-life violence you want and nobody bats an eyelid.
Make of it what you will. In my opinion, it is ridiculous, but since I don't have to live there, I don't need to worry. There is a very good post about the infringement of First Amendment rights by the FCC.
Which brings me back to how censorship makes me feel: patronised and insulted. Should we live in a Nanny State where everything we do and think and feel and enjoy is regulated by some watchdog organisation? It really seems like the wowsers are back behind the wheel and they're ruining it for the rest of us!
---End Transmission---
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2 comments:
Why that censorship rant? You live in a country where the people can decide whether the authorities should be allowed to levy taxis. Who cares about Americans and their moral crap. They've disgraced themselves for good anyway.
That is true, however, the people decided that they would allow the government to levy taxes - also disgraceful.
But the reason for the rant was that I was getting pissed off at having the MTV (which I pay for) censored at 2am. Anyone liable to be affected by (zB) Eminem saying a rude word, was in bed, and if they weren't their parents should have been shot and the children made wards of the state!
The rest was just a diatribe - my favourite way to spew out hatred.
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