Ted Stevens brings the pork home to us in Alaska, but nobody here is under any illusion that he is a moral man. He is famous for his temper, but if you want to see a Category 5 hurricane on a 6.2 richter scale, ask him about his "premature baby" born 5 months after his marriage. His son is a disgraced politico from Anchorage, who got Dukester type wealth from shady fish deals, and from his promotion of the Special Olympics.

Why is it perfectly OK for any sleazeball oil company, airline, or food company to regulate itself without any government oversight, while I'm forced to watch only crap that government busybodies and right-wing so-called "family advocates" WANT me to watch? To quote the honorable George Carlin, "There are two KNOBS on the radio. One changes the station, and one --- turns it off!"

Give the censorship advocates the information they want so they can censor their own content, and leave the rest of us alone!!!

What really annoys me is that we went through all this "decency on television" thing ten or fifteen years ago, and the final resolution was to spend tons of money installing V-chips into almost every newly-manufactured television, so that people could police their own television in their on household for content.

Now that the V-chips are everywhere, it seems none of the people who fought for them can be bothered to figure out how to turn them on, so they want to police what everyone else is allowed to watch in order to preserve their own limited world-view.

That, or I guess they just can't trust themselves not to watch that new episode of CSI.

Where are the fact-checkers, please? Lloyd Bentsen. Bentsen. Bentsen. Not that anyone on the right is likely to complain about the mangling of _his_ name....

When are the Stevens' of the country going to realize that a show like "CSI" is the #1 show only because the majority of people are regular watchers? It is the very people they presume to represent who make this type of programming, and worse programming, popular and profitable.

Lechery, lechery; still, wars and lechery: nothing else holds fashion. Which is, of course, from Troilus and Cressida, Act V, sc. ii.

Complaints about the erosion of free speech and censorship from TV networks that fill their schedule with unpaid actors on reality shows in order to cut costs or wall to wall talking heads on news channels, or from hate-radio broadcasters just this side of Radio Tehran in terms of 'balance' I think are disingenuous. Are we to believe they care? Or is it really the premium channels and the tiny handful of shows that are still scripted and acted that they're protecting?

In either case I'm tempted to want to call their bluff. Let's outlaw TV or water it down to a 'Y7' rating 24/7. Let's just pull the plug. Let's set up a commission that gets to vote on every show, every day, every channel, every market. Let's ban satellite TV and internet broadcasts. What would it cost us? The opportunity to watch young people eat live bugs?

Dear USA,

I have spent 99% of my life in the US. I have been living in Barcelona for the last few months and from this perspective, the squables over appropriate TV content seem bizzar and wrong. To have this argument revolve around sex just doesn't make sense over here. TV shows are rarely as violent here as in the US but it is not uncommon to see a breast durring "Family Hours". Also, the news shows the news. We are shown the death from wars and natural disasters. This is considered reality not some strange, forbiden blasphemy. And the icing on the cake, and anal retentive wimps please read no furthar, every night after 1am there is hardcore porn on regular old TV. And guess what? Who cares and who is worse for it? People here seem pretty well adjusted. Hell, as I write this on a web form, I am one click away from video of any kind of sexual or violent nature. Please people, who cares if there is a titty on TV, boobs are fine. I could even go to the beach and see a couple pairs, legaly, consentually and even talk the the possesors. I could even play fresbee with a well adjusted spainard with knockers exposed. If you want to crack down on TV, make them adhere to their obligation to inform the public of important matters. In there unbalanced exchange for our profitable national airwaves, they have certainly failed us at that.

Maybe some one should send Ted Stevens and Brent Bozell to Europe. Then maybe they wouldn't complain about what's on US TV. We have the most puritanical TV in the Western World already.

The rightwingers complain about the Liberal "nanny state" all the time, yet here they are trying to be the ultimate nannies. It's just like the Justice Department's attmepts to control porn. There seems to be a huge diconnect between the fact that porn is such a huge business and money-making industry and their notion that it goes against community standards. Who do they think is buying all of th=is stuff. There's a parallel there to Bozell's question about who wants to see disturbing themes on TV shows...apparently all of the people who make the CSI and L&O shows such huge ratings hits do. It drives the puritans crazy that they are such a small minority.

You pay for it. Or not. It's your choice. The cable industry has already launched an education campaign on the V-chip in anticipation of people like Sen. Stevens who want to impose their peculiar code of morality on them.

On the other hand, many consumers don't have a real choice. Over-the-air content sucks and the reception is bad, which is why most people have cable in the first place. In our area, we only get two of the Big Three networks; the other one is only available from a station 40 miles away. Regulating basic cable the way TV is regulated, therefore, might actually be a good idea.

Of course, stations on basic cable are already heavily bowlderized, sometimes to the point of being ridiculous. This would indicate that there really isn't a problem, right?

Then there is premium cable, like HBO. This is what all this is really about, isn't it? Uncut R-rated movies, Deadwood, and The Sopranos. Since you pay an extra fee over and above what you pay for basic service to get this content, what is the difference between premium, subscriber-sponsored cable TV, and other subscriber-sponsored media, such as Playboy Magazine. Nobody's forcing you to buy it. Nobody's forcing you to watch it, and with the V-chip, you the parent have full control over when and if your little munchkins get to watch it. So what's the problem, other than the fact that I get to watch TV that's entertaining (and commercial-free), and that bothers Ted Stevens?

Well boo-frickin' hoo.