The description is apt. I heartily agree with the writer who said this is of a piece with similar issues whose intent is to whip up a fury of righteous indignation: gay marriage, the Pledge of Allegiance, the war on Christmas. It would be downright comical if it weren't for the fact that what it is at issue is government censorship of thought. As others have said, HBO should surely fall outside the debate, given its extra cost on top of basic cable. And, with cable at large, I sure haven't had much problem using the lockout feature to set a ratings threshold that requires a parental code. Wow. So much work.

What I get angry about are things like stupid Coors beer ads (remember arch-conservative Pete Coors running for the Senate in Colorado?). Here, this family values drug pusher almost never misses an opportunity to use big breasted twins or some such to gyrate in silver bikinis and create hardons in association with his legal drug. This raises the issues of ads in general, which are the only breach in the lockout scheme. I can be watching football (drinking a beer) with my kids around, and on come ads for sadistic horror movies, CSI's latest pedophile-burning-children's-body-parts episode, or a bunch of hip 20-somethings having the time of their lives with the aid of alcohol (I particularly liked explaining the recent Bacardi (?) ads bragging, "It gets the job done" or something like that. Gets what job done? Girls drunk enough to sleep with you, or you drunk enough to enjoy yourself?). Same thing happens in the evening, during so-called Family viewing hours. (Note, I love a good bevvy or few as much as the next adult ... but I resent having my kids socialized to see alcohol as the great facilitator of fun and good-time chicks. Sorta undermines the whole parental message, you know?)

The so-called Moral Right is in a continual lather that society at large is not constrained by their medieval values. So, they seek to impose them. Instead, the answer, as always, is for people to simply make choices, but the Right can't seem to stand letting us do as God set forth�making our own choices. The only time I get steamed by what's on TV is when I make those choices (recording Sopranos and Deadwood for later viewing, and making sure the kids can't watch R-rated movies when I'm not in the room), only to have them subverted by adult-targeted advertising that encroaches into "family" programming.

I just say let's keep the ads appropriate to the viewing hour, and let everyone navigate their own way through the reality of breasts, sex, violence, and drugs in regular programming. Want to pimp CSI during the NFL? Just tell us when it's on, not the grisly details of the crime. Want to pimp alcohol during the game? Let's start by regulating Pete Coors, et al, who peddle the notion that their drug is the gateway to hipness and good times. But then, we're running up against good-ol' big business, and business's right to free speech, which seems to trump Liberal Hollywood's right to free speech that one must pay and then choose to see.

I don't disagree, King. The only thing I would add is that the good-ol-boy network says as much about the conservatism of the NFL (and sports franchises in general) as it does the potential for racism. Play the odds, hire the known quantity, make the choice that no one (as you've pointed out) can blame you for later when it doesn't work out. I've never understood the annual musical chairs pageant, especially in baseball, where one retread after another fails one place, and is hailed as the savior in his next appointment.

I'm a Packers fan, and I though, "Oh no" when Mariucci was hired by Detroit. Fortunately, Matt Millen is in charge, so we didn't really have to worry (and obviously, the Packers have their own NFL-Europe house to attend to). Chicago, which has assembled a dominant defense to counterbalance its inability to find a good quarterback, is much more formidable. I think coaches are somewhat overrated. Basically, suck enough, long enough, get enough high draft picks, and you'll be back in the hunt. That's how the NFL is built, and success largely falls on the GM's acumen. The owners need to realize that there are a lot of talented qualified coaches (apparently Norm Chow was similarly rebuffed over the years because of his last name), and that going outside their comfort zones isn't going to be the make-or-break move they imagine. The real question for any coaching candidate is who will comprise his staff, and what do they see happening with the players on hand, and the system to be implemented.

Barry Switzer always said at Oklahoma (and at Dallas) that "there's no magic playbook. We just out-athlete people."