DVD player to edit movies / Technology allows viewer to bypass offensive content

I have watched this kind of trend with some amusement--religious conservatives trying to remove objectionable material from dvds or editing out such material. Seems like a continuation of the "breast heard around the world," even though some of this has been in the in the works for some time.

On one hand, I am unbelievably sympathetic. I don't have children, but I can't imagine raising kids in a world with 24 hour porn and the bombardment of images on tv and elsewhere. I can respect the desire to protect children from some of this, though sometimes wonder about what people choose to protect their children from--breasts and sexuality v. environmental or documented health hazards. I sometimes think that parents have decided that any sexuality is bad and they must keep their children unaware of that, while not sweating the fast food or other ingested horrors.

Anyway, I do acknowledge that many parents would be glad to have some ability to watch a film with their kids in the room without fear. And that this world feels a little over-sexualized. I remember watching some advertisement (pre-Janet) and marveling in the sexual imagery, all the while feeling a little sick about it. The sexual imagery was fine, and I have no problem with that, but the marketing and commercialization added with the ubiquitous nature of the material started to bother me. I also wondered (as I am sure many did) where these trends would go? Was total nudity or sexual representation on tv just around the corner? Probably not, but I understand the concern. And then we have Bob Dylan on a Victoria's Secret ad. That ain't right.

So now we have the backlash of the breasts. Since Janet we have Clear Channel developing a conscience and Howard Stern gaining friends in weird places (and enemies). ER takes out a breast (of an older woman in a decidedly non-sexual setting) out of fear of offending, and Janet herself is on a permanent (it seems) 5 second delay. It must be weird walking around like that! :) John Ashcroft's AG office has pushed for cuts in some anti-terrorism funding, but has an office devoted to stopping porn.

Like I said above, I have sympathy for the parents. I also hate the increased sexualization of the kids--the image of Jon Benet Ramsey flirting around at age 4 or 5 is sickening. Britney's continued slutification of young singers is also bothersome.

But the reaction bugs me all the same. First, it seems backward and decidedly pre-modern to obsess about nudity like this. Second, and most important to me, it is all about the priority. We can file an investigation on Janet's breast within 24 hours, but it takes six months to investigate the outing of a CIA operative. We can clean up Clear Channel's radio waves (and by clean up, we mean getting rid of the potty mouths, we certainly don't mean getting rid of the hate-spewing pundits) but we can't address the issue of a shrinking number of corporations who control our access to information. We can obsess about porn, but not address poverty, environmental issues, decreasing civil liberties, growing hatred of Americans overseas, etc.

It just all seems so damn out of wack.