Theos-Talk Archives (September 1998 Message tt00261)

In normal times, the material in Starr report as well as the accompanying
material would have raised a lot of objections from politicians in congress
and fundamentalists and others as unfit for TV and print media and is
corrupting the children.

Last year congress passed a bill for censoring Internet which was shot down
by courts.

Even AOL tried to list certain words as offensive and unfit and filtered
messages containing them ended up with strange results -- banned the word
*breast* and found that breast cancer victims could not discuss their life
threatening conditions.

All that has changed as millennium approaches.

Now everything is ok on TV and Internet, no matter whether it is XXX or
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.

What a shifting standard and USA is setting standards which rest of the
world to follow.

I am sure a lot of money could have been made by publishing the Starr
material if not for the fact that there is no copyright in them (sorry
folks, who think copyright law is the big club to use and misuse --
sometime ago someone claimed that unpublished material could not even be
disclosed under copyright law, which was totally wrong -- this coming from
a scholar and well read well known person).

What next? All the rating system will be overhauled with newer system soon.
Keep tuned in.