chipping away at the v

sen ted stevens (r-ak) held a hearing on "decency" today. i have little doubt nearly all his colleagues envied him.

the US senate has to be the most prudish and puritanical legislative body in the western world. i still recall the judiciary committee's reaction to anita hill's testimony: hushed, shocked, and stunned.

it will come as no surprise that the pretext for much of the fuss is to protect children. that's the reason congress mandated putting v-chips in tv sets and programming them to use a hollywood-type rating system instead of something adults could use too.

about 2 out of 3 tv-owning households have no kids, but we all have to pay for a v-chip when we buy a tv, so why can't we set them to weed out whatever content we don't like?

say i have no problem with sexuality, nudity, or strong language but prefer to avoid violent shows—or any other combination. the v-chip could've been set to do more content-specific screening, but congress chose to follow jack valente's recommended ratings instead.

that's representative government?