If the American Family Association thinks it can get Desperate Housewives, one of the most popular shows currently on television, taken off the air with a boycott of sponsors they should think again. DH is the fourth most popular show on television, averaging 23 million viewers this season. If the AFA gets a gets a few sponsors to leave there will be many more waiting to fill the vacancy. I’m a passive viewer of DH, but it’s arguably a big hit all over the country — especially in Red States it seems — and has been sold all over the world where it is also a huge hit.
I love the response by Don Wildmon when asked why he and his ilk don’t just turn off the television: "…if we don’t like drunk drivers on the highway, to stay off the highway?" Yeah, sure, because drinking and driving, which can cause death and destruction, is the same as an offensive television show. IDIOT!
Via AMERICAblog.
That is the headline of an AP article detailing how the Supreme Court, in an 8-0 ruling, held that federal extortion and racketeering laws cannot be used to ban demonstrations. Here’s the key word: demonstrations. This headline makes it sound as if the anti-abortion cabal won a major victory, but that’s just not the case. Freedom of speech and assembly won here. I may not like the way in which anti-abortion activists attempt to shame those seeking abortions, but they have the right, just like everyone else, to assemble and express their views. If you read further down in this article you’ll see that several groups, including the AFL-CIO, joined in the case because they feared the repercussions.
I guess it seems a little unseemly to say this, but wow is this really cool!
Wow, what a weekend for losing well-known actors and writers:
Don Knotts I’ve written about previousy, but McGavin is best known for two roles: the dad in A Christmas Story and for playing Kolchak on Night Stalker, a show that was an inspiration for Chris Carter to create The X-Files.
If you haven’t read Octavia Butler’s science fiction, then you should. I first discovered her after coming across Kindred at a yard sale. At first, it seemed like any other time travel story, but the twist here was that a young black woman and her white husband were being pulled back in forth in time between the present and the pre-Civil War South. She used that setting to touch on a lot of subjects and I was hooked. The rest of her science fiction was, for me, less accessible, but it as certainly original and groundbreaking.
Take a look at this little piece of our nation’s history. And to think, they were sitting in a box, hidden away for 50 years!
Comparing Bush failures to Bode Miller’s disastrous turn at the 2006 Winter Games might be stretching it, but it sure is fun to read.
Via James Wolcott.
Is it really a surprise the US Chamber of Commerce would endorse someone like Tom DeLay? I doubt even a jail sentence would stop them from endorsing the man.
One of country’s comedic greats has passed away. Don Knotts rarely got the credit he deserved for being a comedic genius. I can remember coming home from school and sitting down with my brother to watch The Andy Griffith Show and always laughing at the antics of Deputy Barney Fife, for which he was five Best Supporting Actor Emmy a row — something I don’t think anyone else has done. Later, he tickled the funny bone as Mr. Furley on Three’s Company. My favorite Don Knotts film was Disney’s The Apple Dumpling Gang. He and Tim Conway had me laughing so hard I could barely breath. They just don’t make comedians like Don Knotts anymore.
If you’ve never read terrorism expert Richard Clarke’s novel, The Scorpion’s Gate, you should. Once again, fiction is looking too much like real life.
Calling South Dakota’s recent abortion bill a Rapist Rights Bill might be pushing the limits, but this bill is so heinous that I see no problem with doing that. It’s most astonishing to me that so many "pro-life" women embrace laws like this. Laws which make them second class citizens and little more than breeding stock. Laws that actually require they die in order to bring a fetus to term. I understand their desire to stop abortions based on the religious beliefs, but is this the answer? This law basically reduces them to baby-making machines under the control of the state, their husbands, their fathers, and their ministers. This is wrong on so many levels, and yes the law actually elevates the rights of a rapist above those of the victim. Again, making women into little more than chattel.
Via firedoglake.