"As a company, XM provides customers with tools to control what they listen to on XM." - From XM News Release on Opie and Anthony Suspension

Unless, of course, what you want to listen to is morally objectionable.   Then, you'll just have to go on the internet, where morally objectionable content is pretty much free.  We won't feature that trash no matter how much we're charging you for "premium" radio.

XM just suspended Opie & Anthony (You know those guys who featured people having sex in a church on their show, who told everyone the Mayor of Boston died in a car accident...) for comments made on their show last week by a homeless person who referenced some despicable sexual behavior directed at Condi Rice and the First Lady.

If I was an XM subscriber, I'd cancel my subscription today... not because I find that particular thing funny... I don't... It's wrong and it's awful...    it's the hypocrisy.

The last time I checked, we have Freedom of Speech in this country, right?  Well, sort of.  You're not allowed to scream fire in a crowded theatre, because your speech might cause harm to others.

Well, sort of...  because, it is a fact that when the media portrays high profile murders and suicides, there are identifiable instances of  copycatting that lead to people's deaths...   I mean, we know that the Virginia Tech killer referenced the Columbine kids by name...

But then, we go and cheer on David Blaine when he wants to go jump off the Brooklyn Bridge.  Wanna start making bets on how many kids start jumping off bridges in this country after that gets televised?

So then it becomes more about offending people than causing actual harm to others.  If you are offended by something, and you have a good PR firm working for you, you can basically get anyone else fired or off the air... even if those airwaves aren't public.  Suspending Opie and Anthony from XM is like suspending porn actresses from the Playboy Channel.  Certainly there are lots of people offended by the Playboy Channel... shouldn't we be taking away people's right to smut in that situation, too?

The firings of Imus, JV and Elvis, and now the O&A suspensions are a snowballing witch hunt.  Do I support what those people say?  No...  but I support their right to say whatever I want.  It's the same with flag burning.  I don't support anyone burning the flag in this country, but I wouldn't stand  in the way of anyone's right to burn it.  That's what freedom is.

And really, how in the hell does Howard Stern avoid all this?

This is a really dangerous precedent we're setting here.  We expect all this Web 2.0 user generated content to be successful in the face of this culture of fear?  Who in their right mind would opening share their thoughts with the world in this climate.  We're a bunch of crazy people... we must be, because its only a matter of time before the bandwagon shows up at your door.

I mean, as it is, I can never run for President because of this post and I'm sure there are others like it that people could pull apart out of context and fuel the media machine with.

And the worst part about it...  XM and all these other radio stations totally knew what they were doing when they hired these folks... and what you never see are executive's heads roll.  It's not the fault of the talent.  You want to suspend someone... suspend the people that oversee the talent..  because what they realize is that nice doesn't drive revenues on the radio, and these stations are hiring these shockjocks to generate cold hard cash.  It's a business and they knew exactly what they were getting, so they shouldn't act all surprised and offended when stuff like this happens.

Look...  there will be people in your life you won't agree with.  There will be others you will be offended by.  Others will try to hurt you with words.  The best thing you can do is ignore them.  Ignore them and they'll go away.  If people ignored Opie & Anthony they'd be off the air in a heartbeat...  but that's not happening. People are listening.  People want to hear. 

I don't want to be censored, protected, etc...  Just give me the tools and I'll do it myself, because I don't trust the religious right, special interests, or least of all the government to do it for me.

In other news, the Rev. Jerry Falwell was so happy over today's news that he kicked it.  Also, our soldiers are now banned from participation in the conversation, so sit there in the desert and like it and whatever you do, we don't want to here or watch a peep out of you. 

Open?  Participatory?  Free?  Yeah, right.

So Mayor Mike is trying to get the city to go green by instituting the same kind of anti-congestion tax that is currently in place in London, where cars are charged for entrance into the heart of the city during peak hours. 

Why?

Try driving in the city during rush hour.  That's why.

Hey, I'm a car owner in the city and I'm the first one to say that this is a great idea.  We all need to be using public transportation more...  cars are bad for the environment...  and the city is too crowded.  Some people are saying that this tax will hit the working class, but you know what?  The working class takes the subway.  The only people I know who drive into the city during rush hour are the rich suburbanites.  Stand outside a midtown parking lot during rush hour in the morning and look at the cars...  they're Porches, Mercedes, etc...   No family Trucksters here.   I'm all for it.  Bike to work!

Also, friends of mine who work for various political campaigns are saying on good authority that Bloomberg has decided to run for President in 2008.  I hope so.  I love anti-politicians, and he's not some old money rich guy... he's an entrepreneur... a self made guy.  What he lacks in personality, he makes up for in business savvy and I think its about time someone starts running this country with a little logic and practicality.   I'd vote for him.

In 1975, Squeaky Fromme tried to assassinate Gerald Ford.   A Manson follower, she wanted to give old Charlie the opportunity to testify at her trial and spread his message to the world, knowing that it would be covered by the global media community.

If only she had a digital camera and the address of NBC...   that would have made mass distribution of hate much easier.

"After much debate", NBC decided to run clips (of course, spread out over time to get ratings) of the Virginia Tech killer's "Multimedia Manifesto" on national and online broadcasts. 

Right...  As if there was even a chance that NBC wouldn't have posted as much of this "news" as possible.  The twisted reality of human nature is that I'm sure NBC execs can't help but feel a just a little bit lucky it was them that got the video, not Fox, or *gasp* YouTube.  (We all probably would have if we worked there, despite the obviously tragic nature of the events.)  Score one for the peacock.  Because whereas 30 unfortunate students at VT accidently stepped on a landmine, NBC accidently fell into a goldmine.

Explain this logic to me.  If NBC Sports covered a baseball or football game, and someone ran out onto the field naked, they would go out of their way not to record the idiot so as not to encourage that kind of behavior.

Yet, the ravings of a lunatic who clearly references the Columbine killers by name that he learned, that we all learned, through the media...  that goes right up into the ether for mass consumption.

How can we justify the airing of this video as news?  Is this informative?  It's hard to argue that this won't encourage other troubled kids looking to lash out against the world. 

Kill as many people as you can, send the video to NBC, and become an insta-martyr.  It's that simple.

This is becoming a multimedia car-accident in the worst way...   and onlookers of car accidents often get into accidents of their own as they watch. 

Does the media encourage people to kill?  No...  but does the behavior of the media and borderline glorification of killers 'cause people to want to make a bigger splash--to go out in a blaze of glory killing off as many people as possible...  I gotta say its an awfully compelling argument. 

Isn't this kind of hate poisoning our airwaves worse than what Imus said... or hey, at least as bad? 

This kid committed this act knowing full well the scope of media attention this would draw.   He didn't kill 30 people out of blind rage.  He did it as a calculated statement to the world that he knew we'd all jump at the chance to broadcast.  It's not just NBC.  It's all of us.  Everyone who sticks to NBC over the next few days to see more clips.  Everyone, including myself, who publishes about it.  We are a media machine and Cho Seung-Hui is playing us like a violin.

The interweb did a fantastic job of fingering the wrong killer yesterday in the tragic events at Virginia Tech, due in much part to another Asian VT student's web presence containing photos and notes about guns.    For a day, he became the Richard Jewell of this incident and yesterday, the unfortunate victim turned gun lobbyist issued the following statement:

"I will be available for interview by a news agency to clear my name, talk about the experience, and give my opinion on how the situation could have turned out better if other students were allowed to be armed."

Right... that's what would have made this situation better:  More guns.  I hope no one interviews this guy, because I'd rather not have his 15 minutes of fame remixed and rebroadcast everywhere if he's going to be all gun crazy.  Because, really, the Walther .22-caliber semi-automatic and a 9 mm Glock that made their appearence weren't really enough.   These guns apparently had the serial numbers etched off, meaning that they were probably not purchased at the local Walmart.  Its this kind of thinking that makes people want to arm passengers on planes to fight terrorism, too.  A gun for everyone and no one will get shot, right?

How about making it impossible to get a gun in the first place?   Don't stats show that most gun deaths are either innocent people or victims of accidents, and not intruders/attackers?

Clearly, this guy had some major issues...  and more so than anyone, he himself is to blame...  not the school who was taken by surprise as any other school would have...not the media... not violent video games... but the one thing that sticks out in my head is that it is absolutely too damn easy to get a gun in this country. 

They should make a law that if you sell a gun to someone and that person uses it to shoot someone, you can get charged as an accessory to that crime...    That would lead to some real careful background checking, I think.

Now we have two "n-words".... the new one being "nappy". 

Until this week, I'm fairly sure that I've never even spoken or let alone thought this word before... but now I can't avoid it.  It's on TV left and right.  The fact is, more people heard the term "Nappy headed ho's" spoken by newspeople than heard it spoken originally by Don Imus in the first place.

It was a dumb comment...  It was wrong.  Don Imus was being a bully...  but you know what the best way to deal with bullies is?

Ignore them.

In fact, people were ignoring Imus on their own.  In 2005, Imus in the Morning had half the listeners he had ten years earlier.

When you get outraged over something and you create a taboo around words, you only increase the incentive for someone  looking to draw attention to themselves to use those words.

And its not only about hate...   we have all sorts of taboos in this country that don't reflect our own individual moralities.  We're so scared of the kind of flash mob that went after Imus that we have to make grandiose gestures like firing a guy right in the middle of a radio telethon campaign for charity.  We have taboos about drinking... we push the drinking age to 21 and send our kids off to war before they can nip a beer and then we wonder why college binge drinking is such a big issue.   We've got so many taboos around sex that we can't even have an open dialogue with our kids about it, leaving them largely in the dark about sexual health.  We want to ban MySpace and limit what bloggers can say.  Janet Jackson pops a boob in the Superbowl and we're "outraged".  You think if we weren't so horrified by our own bodies and what we can do with them in this country that w

"Every other day
Another bitch another drop"

- This is Why I'm Hot - MIMS (#1 Rap Song in America This Week)

“... A victory for public decency. No one should use the public airwaves to transmit racial or sexual degradation.”

- Rev. Jesse Jackson  on the firing of Don Imus

"When it come down to these hoez
I dont love em....
...And anything fine im bag-gin it
And if she got a man, I dont care...
...Now the moral of the story is cuff yo chick"

- I'm a Flirt - R. Kelly (#2 Rap Song in America)

"...We cannot afford a precedent established that the airways can commercialize and mainstream sexism and racism."

- Rev. Al Sharpton commenting on the Imus Situation

I just want to know what's ok to say and when... that's all...

Although, as John Kerry proved, being "the devil you don't know" won't get you elected... so hopefully we get to know Barak better as this moves forward.  Here's his first step at talking with us:

I had only heard a little bit about the UCLA Tazer incident...   Student fails to produce ID, gets Tazed.

At first I was pretty ready to defend the police, b/c, as a former resident assistant in a dorm, I'm a big believer in strict security regulations on campuses concerning who should be there and who shouldn't.   I remember when Fordham students used to complain when security guards wouldn't let them into dorms they didn't belong in late at night, particularly after they were out drinking.  Some of the altercations definitely got pretty heated, but usually, the security guards stood pretty firm.

To the students, it was an annoyance... but I also saw the other side of it.  What if you let one someone slip by and someone gets beat up or raped?   Now you wish the security wasn't so lax.

But then I saw the video on YouTube...   it's pretty disturbing.

It made me stop and think.  Video is a powerful medium, but it's also a bit misleading.  We only see the Tazer incident.  We never saw the kid being asked to leave before the cops came or how he acted that made someone at the library call the cops.

It's hard not to have an emotional reaction to this.   The kid is yelling and screaming in agony and you immediately have a sympathetic reaction to him.

But then I thought about what he was screaming...  "Here's your Patriot Act..."    Lots of political messages....   I dunno... me personally, I think I'd just be crying my eyes out from the pain.  I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be making it into a political issue on the spot.  To me, here's a guy with a bone to pick with authority.

Ever got stopped by a cop?   Most of us are usually a little bit nervous.  I got stopped in September for allegedly doing (I hate to admit how lame this is, b/c I drive a Mustang with 300HP)... 49 in a 30.  (go ahead, giggle)    But yeah, I was nervous.  The LAST thing I was going to do would be to give the cop a hard time and not show my ID.  I listened carefully and complied.   I did not get Tazed.  That's the way most of us act.

Let's say this kid is there up to no good.  Let's say he's a kid with a history of violence who has been banned from campus who is there to mess with someone... if you're a cop... you just don't know without an ID.   When someone starts resisting, you get suspicious.  

So, I have to be honest, I think I'm ok with the initial Tazing.  If you are somewhere that requires ID, you don't show it, and you do not leave upon immediately being asked to, in today's world, I think you're really rolling the dice.  With all the school shootings and terrorism we have to live with, I think that's just common sense, really.  So, cops, if I'm somewhere I shouldn't be, and I don't listen to you when you ask for me ID, please Taze me. 

And yes, Tazing seems violent, but what are the alternatives?  Should the cops have hit him?  Pointed a gun?  How do you get someone who is resisting to leave?  Should they dress up in those goofy Sumo suits and belly bounce him out the door? 

That being said, I think the cops definitely got trigger happy.   Unless this kid was on steroids, I tend to think that one Taze should do it... and I'm not surprised he couldn't stand up.  That's like kicking them in the shins and threatening to kick them again if they won't stand up.  When you Taze someone, you should be able to yank them out right away and arrest them or kick them out of wherever they are or do what you need to do.  Threatening to Taze them again or threatening to Taze others isn't the right way to do it.  You Taze when you need to, not as part of a "negotiation". 

So, at the end of the day, I think this was a kid with an obvious bone to pick that acted in a way that got him on the wrong side of the law.  Add that to some Tazer happy cops who don't know the appropriate use of a dangerous weapon, mix in some YouTube, and you've got yourselves a mess.

The student should be suspended and so should the cops.  If I were this kid's parents, I'd be pissed at the police for not training their officers properly but also pissed at my kid for not listening to authorities from the start.