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the spectrum

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cg…

Fifty years ago today, a San Francisco Municipal Court judge ruled that Allen Ginsberg’s Beat-era poem “Howl” was not obscene. Yet today, a New York public broadcasting station decided not to air the poem, fearing that the Federal Communications Commission will find it indecent and crush the network with crippling fines.

Another irony: WBAI, the Pacifica Foundation station in New York that plans to post “Howl” online, is the same station that took on the FCC more than 30 years ago over the right to air George Carlin’s comedy routine featuring the “seven dirty words.” The challenge led to a 1978 Supreme Court decision governing what naughty words can be broadcast and when.

WBAI won’t broadcast “Howl,” even between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., the hours the FCC has cordoned off for rougher language. WBAI program director Bernard White fears that the FCC will fine the station $325,000 for every one of Ginsberg’s dirty-word bombs. If each Pacifica station that aired the poem – and possibly repeated it – were to be fined for airing “Howl,” it could mean millions of dollars in fines.

(via)

I hereby call on all leftists concerned about freedom of speech to join me in demanding that the airwaves be privatized. Get government out of the spectrum!

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 7th, 2007 at 10:40 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Responses to “the spectrum”

  1. advertising » the spectrum Says:
    October 7th, 2007 at 4:44 pm

    [...] BlogNetNews.com » Connecticut wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerpt [...]

  2. bob Says:
    October 7th, 2007 at 7:55 pm

    Shouldn’t that be “both lefties”