Selective Outrage

Mark Evanier posts about FCC Chairman Michael Powell’s outrage at the Superbowl half time show.

F.C.C. Commissioner Michael Powell says, “I am outraged at what I saw during the halftime show of the Super Bowl. Like millions of Americans, my family and I gathered around the television for a celebration. Instead, that celebration was tainted by a classless, crass and deplorable stunt. Our nation’s children, parents and citizens deserve better.”

I gather he’s talking about the fleeting shot of one of Janet Jackson’s breasts but he could have been talking about the endless procession of ads for pills that induce erections.

I’m considerably more outraged over the fact that Michael Powell has spent his entire tenure with the FCC trying to get control of our airwaves into as few hands as possible, to sell out our common scarce resource to the same few billionaires who already control almost all the broadcasting we see and hear. That’s what I find classless, crass and deplorable. Acting as a shoe horn to enable the cramming of every possible public resource into private hands is of significantly more lasting harm than the flash of Janet Jackson’s teta and of much higher importance to me. Powell is the kettle calling the pot crass.

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Dave Slusher is a blogger, podcaster, computer programmer, author, science fiction fan and father. Member of the Podcast Hall of Fame class of 2022.