I Blame Cable

So this Imus thing.... it lingers.

It's morphing faster than the T-1000 at the end of TERMINATOR 2.

First it was Imus, the racist.

Now left wingers are screaming for the heads of all the right wingers on the radio. (So much easier than debating the so-called Fairness Doctrine.)

Other cultural defenders are decrying the hypocrisy of Sharpton and Jackson, and rightfully curious as to how these two became the judge and jury as to what constitutes offensive speech.

One argument against Al & Jesse is that they've never come out against hip-hop and rap lyrics. Sharpton has promised that they're next. I doubt that this is a good development.

Bill O'Reilly and others have proclaimed that rap music is mostly to blame for the decline in Western culture, for the coarseness of everyday conversation and for the foul language used by our children.

I disagree.

I blame cable.

Follow me on this one...

HBO arrived in my home in Northeast Arkansas sometime in 1980, I believe. At that time, we received all of 13 channels. Four stations from Memphis, four from Little Rock, one from Jonesboro, WTBS from Atlanta, KXTX from Dallas, WGN and this new thing called HBO.

For the first time in the history of the American living room, uncensored movies were available over the magical little box that parents had trusted for 40 years.

Naked people, crude swear words, unbleeped comedy - it all came pouring into our homes - and we loved it.

Now, my satellite dish brings me FIVE different channels of HBO, along with a solid handful of cable channels that delight in providing the American public with lightly censored or uncensored material.

I'm in control of watch I watch on TV, no doubt about it. I don't blame Hollywood for making it all available to me.

But I DO wonder if our day to day life might be just a bit more civil - if maybe youngsters wouldn't be subjected to teenagers dropping F Bombs in McDonald's - if those bombs weren't going off with such regularity at home.