Panderrific!

So our very own Sen. Hulk (R. Anger Management) holds hearings where the "stakeholders" for tv smut get to hash it out. And who's invited? Industry execs and two right wing religious astroturf groups whose sole interest appears to be censorship.

You know, I'm somewhat disturbed by the easy availability of smut on tv, but that's not the real scandal. The real, and huge, scandal is twofold: 1) the FCC has, over the course of 25 years, absolutely gutted its enforcement of regulations requiring educational programming for children, and 2) over the same period of time, PBS has been forced through funding cuts to commercialize its own children's programming to attract sponsors. The problem is not that there is a lot of inappropriate tv out there - the problem is that there is not a lot of appropriate tv as an alternative. Remember, SchoolHouse Rock and the Cosby Kids were on commercial tv - now there's nothing but crappy animation based on Hasbro action figures (they're NOT dolls, ok!)

But, of course, the real problem involves a market failure, which Republicans are, through a unique mental defect, unable to discern. So, better to pander to the christian fascists, who, as usual, present a bad answer to a non-problem ...