"...we are so beautifully, deeply screwed." Morford on Boobgate

[villager]

<snip>

This is the message: A woman's bare breast is a horrific and disturbing thing, completely inappropriate for an afternoon of wholesome macho homoerotic skull-bashing NFL violence and endless hours of nauseating commercial crassness -- unless the woman is, you know, a cheerleader. Now rush off to bed kids, and read your Bibles while Mommy and Daddy pop some Zoloft and Levitra and crack a few Bud Lights and head off to the fetish dungeon to lick our new Ford GT. Got it.

Yes, a woman's flesh is unspeakable evil. However, umpteen erectile-dysfunction commercials and crotch-biting pisswater Bud Light commercials and toxic-junk-food commercials and faux-macho truck commercials and the ad featuring two old people beating each other up over a bag of greasy potato chips, why, that's just tasteful, healthy capitalism. Is that it, Mike? Politicians? Just want to be clear.

Because there is no outcry. There are no snide FCC honchos or uptight politicians hurling the terms "vile," "disgusting" and "crude" at the true poisons of the culture, like those above -- not to mention politicians' own oil cronyism or easy lies about war, or the decimation of our foreign policy. You want to talk vile and disgusting, senator? Have you seen the new BushCo budget?

Most telling side note: Bono, of U2, was barred from performing a song about AIDS awareness at the Super Bowl because he is "too political," given how he fights for those horrible un-American causes of peace and Third World debt relief.

But pseudo-gangsta P. Diddy can pimp like a talentless thug and Kid Rock can, well, be Kid Rock and NFL players can kneel in smarmy bogus prayer rituals, praying fervently to crush the other team's vertebrae and win a shiny trophy. My God but we are so beautifully, deeply screwed.

<snip>


More right here:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2004/02/04/notes020404.DTL

[indepat]

1. Mark, in his inimitable style, has put this issue squarely in perspective

[agingdem]

2. Talk about delicious revenge...

This is the same CBS that pulled the Ronnie and Nancy bio-pic; the same CBS that refused to air the Moveon.com ad...sooo, Janet's boob is more obscene than bending over for the Bushies..?

[villager]

6. perhaps CBS karma...

...coming through?

[waterman]

3. I enjoy Mark, but can't help thinking he's ripping off Hunter Thompson

a bit with his style. And of course, Hunter may also be stealing from some one, but I'm not sure who and I kind of doubt it anyway.

[villager]

4. well don't forget it was Emily Dickinson...

...who pioneered use of the Internal Capitalization so beloved of gonzo journalists!

[kalian]

5. Absolutely brilliant!

Although its scary to ponder the possibility that this country is
no more... Just like the Roman empire at its epitome of decadence.
Lost in its own illusions of grandeur...