November 4, 2003 by s.z.

Weapons of Mass Detraction has an excellent item about a book from the golden age we call the Reagan years, On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency by Mark Hertsgaard. In it, Hertsgaard demonstrated that (contrary to conservative urban myth) the press was not the evil "liberal" media denounced by folks like Pat Buchanan and Reed Irvine but in fact, served pretty much as stenographers for "the palace court"; re-writing press releases instead of doing what real journalists once did--"comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable," as the old saying goes.  A wonderfully written book, Hertsgaard discovered soon after that pretty much all of the avenues for promoting his tome were roadblocked as a result of his being a little too critical of his media comrades. There's more--it's a nice little review of a book on a timely topic.  Thank you for telling us about this book, Mr. Weapons, for the way things are going, we sure won't be hearing about it on TV. 6:54:33 AM

CBS Is Said to Cancel Reagan Mini-Series Under pressure from Republican and conservative groups, CBS is expected to announce as early as today that it is canceling its plans to run a two-part mini-series in November deconstructing the Ronald Reagan presidency, two people close to the decision said last night. They said the film would most likely instead be handed over to CBS's pay-cable sibling, Showtime. The announcement would perhaps the first time a major broadcast network has ever removed a completed project from its schedule because of political pressure and under the threat of an advertising boycott. And a scary precedent to be setting.  Here's a quote from NY Newsday "This decision goes beyond a television movie; it's precedent-setting in bowing down to conservative fringe groups," said a person close to Sony Pictures Television who asked for anonymity. Sony is the production studio for the project. "It creates a whole new environment for censorship on TV," the person added. And here's a snippets from the always fair and balanced ChronWatch: At this time, there are reports that CBS may be trying to sell this movie to Showtime.  This would be most welcomed news, as it would prove that the networks are concerned with our opinions and are listening.  If that is the case, then we will have emerged victorious. So, now that the Reagan-worshiping element of the Republican right has won the day and has seen that the networks ARE concerned with their opinions, expect more of these kinds of demonstrations.  And expect no network documentaries to be made dealing with anything which might be seen as unflattering to home-schooling, religious fundamentalism, or Republicans. 6:41:50 AM

Free Porn Well, we got the word via TBOGG (whom we congratuate on his well-deserved 115,000 hits last month, and his very large. . .readership) that "Donald Luskin is a Stalker Day" has been postponed.  So, I guess I'll just turn the tapes over to the FBI and try to find something else to write about. Hmm, how about this editorial from today's Washington Times: Porn Goes Mainstream.  It's by Dave Berg (who is apparently NOT the "Mad Magazine's Dave Berg Looks at the Wacky World of Porn" Dave Berg, but instead some "Dave Berg is a Hollywood television producer and a columnist" guy).  In it he complains about how TV has become really pornified lately, mostly because of Fox's new drama "Skin."  But the rest of the culture is also going to hell, due to crossovers from the porn world.   Dave says: Perhaps biggest foray into the mainstream comes from porn queen Jenna Jameson, who was described by one Internet porn addict as a "cultural icon. Dave doesn't make it clear if HE's the Internet porn addict, or if he was just in rehab with him, but in any case, Dave clearly has his finger on the pulse of the Internet porn addicts, in regards to  their choice of cultutral icons.  So lets hear more about Jenna: Her book, "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star," comes out in May. She recently appeared on the cover of New York magazine and was featured in an E! True Hollywood Story profile in August. . . .Her picture currently graces a three-story-tall Times Square billboard. Abercrombie & Fitch, Pony and Jackson Guitars have used her in ad campaigns obviously aimed at a young demographic.  Network television offered her "Who wants to Be a Porn Star," a knockoff of "American Idol," in which she would have played a Simon Cowell-like role. She turned down the gig, citing her concerns about influencing young girls. At least she has higher standards than the networks.   Well, Jenna told Entertainment Weekly that she was offered the "Who Wants to Be a Porn Star" hosting role, but since nobody else has mentioned the offer OR the project, I'd take this story of "the corrupt networks and the porn star who's looking out for young girls" with a grain of salt.    And Jenna isn't the first porn star to write a sex book (I believe that would have been Bill O'Reilly with Those Who Trepass).  And since Dave doesn't say how the fact that she's been in porn movies makes Jenna's billboard and ads more detrimental to the morals of youth than, say, Victoria's Secrets ads and billboards, I don't know why he expects us to get all worked up now. Well, actually this is why: I think moral relativism has never been more, well, relative. I've witnessed an unbelievable coarsening of values in the media ever since Monica Lewinsky became a household name.  In the common era we'll call Before Monica, there were no references to oral sex in prime time or even late-night television. But in the contemporary After Monica era, the floodgates have opened. So, it's Bill Clinton's fault that our culture has become depraved and that Fox is now showing programs like "Skin" (AKA "Romeo Corona and Juliet the Pornographer's Daughter").  It's also his fault that porn stars are popular.  While many have alleged this previously, now that we have expert testimony about the absence of late-night TV blow-job refs prior to Monicagate, it's been proven. And Dave Berg IS an expert -- per the bio-line on a piece he wrote for "The Institute on Religion and Democracy," he's "a segment producer for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno." (FYI, here's a link to his IRD piece Commentary: Anti-War Protestants, in which he reveals that "one of the strongest regiments" in America's wicked, godless, secular anti-war army is "mainstream Protestant leaders."  While this might seem counterintuitive, it turns out that the Methodists and such are "mainstream Christians in name only, for they gird themselves for battle with the breastplate of left-wing ideology," which makes them non-Christian, because Jesus was okay with war.  The piece, written in the simpler days of May of this year, begins with the ringing statement, "The war in Iraq is coming to a victorious close.") But let's get back to Dave's claim that our society was fine and unrelative until Bill Clinton forced us to hear all about his sordid affair with Monica (by trying to keep it secret, thus obligating The Starr Report to reveal every salacious detail).  Is this really true?  I mean about the "no blow-job references on late-night TV prior to Monicagate"?  To find out, I did a Google search, looking for mentions of oral sex on TV prior to January 1998.  And what this search revealed is that the web contains LOTS of disgusting stuff.  Who knew?  So, while I had to abandon my research after about 40 minutes to avoid becoming one of those Internet porn addicts that Dave is always asking about cultural icons, during my time online I did learn that: (a) Howard Stern used to talk about oral sex on the air at least once a week prior to the Clinton revelations.  While this blow-job talk wasn't on TV, presumably kids had ears back then, and could be corrupted just as badly by the radio as by C-SPAN. (b) There were lots of jokes about Marv Albert and Hugh Grant on Jay Leno's show in 1996-97.  While the term "oral sex" may not have been used, people knew from the news accounts that that's what the references were to. (c) Back in January 1997, this joke item appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, per the network's "highlights for the week" press release: Last night, police in New Jersey pulled over what they thought was a drunk driver and it turned out to be a couple engaging in oral sex. The officers then issued a stern warning and a high five.  (d) In December 1995, David Letterman held up a copy of a fake book titled "Martha Stewart's Drive-In Movie Guide to Back Seat Oral Sex".  (e) That if you go to TV ACRES: Sex, Love & Naughty Bits, you can read about Martha's various Guides, and also learn many other interesting bits of trivia, such as: On a February, 1987 episode entitled "Bad Timing" on the sitcom THE HOGAN FAMILY [NBC/CBS/1986-90] the word "condom" was used for the first time in a sitcom script. And then there's this first: The first lesbian kiss on network television occurred on the 2/7/91 episode of the legal drama L.A. LAW [NBC/1986-94] which featured a prolonged kiss between two female lawyers, called by Gay Activists as a "lesbian kiss." The two "perpetrators" were the female attorneys C.J. Lamb (Amanda Donohue) and Abby Perkins (Michelle Greene). The C.J. Lamb character described herself as being sexually attracted to men but also as being "flexible." This episode was denounced by Reverend Donald Wildmon and his Christian-oriented American Family Association (aka "The Pervert Patrol") who monitored prime-time TV programs for what they perceive as sinful acts. And THIS! While undercover at a prison farm Farrah Fawcett in her role as female detective Jill Monroe exposed part of her right breast and nipple when she bent over during the October 20, 1976 episode "Angels in Chains" on the detective drama CHARLIE'S ANGELS [ABC/1976-81]. I think Bill Clinton is responsible for them all.  Anyway, while it is obvious that there were many more mentions of oral sex (by my estimation, a gross ton of them) on Leno's program after January 1998 than there were prior to the Lewinsky scandal, shouldn't the producers of The Tonight Show bear more blame for this than Bill Clinton? Seriously, don't the people who MAKE the show have some responsibility as to what appears on it? While we ponder that question, let's go back to Dave Berg: The new mainstream acceptance of porn is particularly dangerous because some of the most authoritative conservative voices, who would have spoken out, have been weakened for now: the pope and other Catholic leaders, Bill Bennett and Rush Limbaugh. As a result, there seems to be little awareness that a hideous trend is building up in Hollywood and mainstream media. The thieves who have been stealing our children's innocence are no longer doing it in the shadows. They're now operating in broad daylight Presumably only God is to blame for the failing health and speech of the Pope, but whose fault is it that Bill Bennett and Rush Limbaugh's conservative voices have been weakened?  Yup, Bill Clinton's. But surely there are other people who could take take on role of "authoritative convervative voice against porn."  How about Bill O'Reilly?  He likes to see himself as an authority figure.  He has a loud voice.  And best of all, he works for the Fox News Channel where he hosts "the most influential program in prime time."  Just think what he could do if he began denouncing "Skin" and the other sleazy programming on the Fox network.  I can only hope and pray that Dave Berg invites him to do this -- somebody must think of the children. 6:04:11 AM