Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines censorship with the simple sentence: to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable.
Anyone who’s ever presented a piece of art, writing or photographic interpretation of what they’re trying to express usually describes it as something else. Bullshit.
Now, what really ticks me off is that the word I chose to describe how I feel isn't going to be used. They’ll say BS, or bull puckey, or some other childish term that doesn’t offend those with soft ears or who are pure of heart.
I used to be able to write certain words and phrases and it would get published verbatim. As long as I didn’t drop an F bomb in all its grand glory, my column would be published exactly as I’d written it.
But it seems as The Coast News has started to infiltrate the more affluent areas of San Diego, I’m getting much less room to negotiate my point of view.
My column regarding the Hotel del Coronado was supposed to have the sentence, “That place is as scary as shit.” Instead, the S word was edited to say “you-know-what.” It made me look like a moronic second grader. I was instantly irate. I felt like pushing an old lady down a flight of stairs or punting a bag of kittens.
I couldn’t believe that the same newspaper that has let me run rampant for two and a half years was starting to censor the ramblings that fell out of my head and into newsprint every week. Then the realization of advertising money and who exactly was reading the paper became clear.
What I discovered next shocked me like I’d taken a leak on an electric fence. They don’t even run my column in the Rancho Sante Fe version of The Coast News. Apparently the thought of the wealthy reading my column and regurgitating their Starbucks all over the Persian rug is just too much for them to handle. God forbid.
Censorship has gotten to the point where simple words are offending the puritanical masses so profoundly that ridiculous sums of money are levied against those that dare verbalize a word that the FCC deems too ghastly to say in public.
George Carlin made national attention in 1978 when one of his comedy routines was played at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon. One thing lead to another and it was established that there were seven words that could never be spoken on air. The naughty police will wash your mouth out with soap. Nuns will punch you in the face and grandmothers will kick you square in the gonads.
As my editors have been pulling my leash even tighter lately, I thought I’d share these seven potty-mouthed words in terms that I’m allowed to express myself with.
They are poo, tinkle, fug, rhymes with bunt, a person who inhales a rooster, someone who engages in coital relations with a mother, and hooters. To me, those words are way more offensive than their predecessors.
Hitler’s a disgusting word to millions of people, yet I hear that every other day on the History Channel. Obscenity is an objective term and depends upon each person’s interpretation of what they find offensive.
Today we have a cadre of right-wing fascists who are trying to tell me what I can or cannot hear. Whether it’s FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin, or members of the Morality in Media Inc., they all want to lend a heavy helping hand and push me into believing what I can or cannot listen to. They “protect” us by trying to determine the difference between indecent (which is just below how I’d describe the Bush regime) and obscene (which of course ruins all moral fiber, forces us take drugs and make babies out of wedlock).
Our government thinks of us as retarded simians. The oligarchy believes that if we’re left alone long enough to think for ourselves, we might lose all social culture and start living in trees if we happen to hear a few four letter words.
So, take a deep breath and calm down. The next time you get home from work, sit back with a cocktail, let your bitch outside, say hello to your neighbor Dick and change your pussy’s litterbox. You might try cooking up some shittake mushrooms and use your remote
cuntrol, er control to waste away the rest of your night.
Quite simply, they’re just words. Air and guttural sounds emitted from our throat and larynx, changed and altered by our tongue and teeth so as to become coherent for us to understand.
We are the one’s who give them meaning and the power to offend us.
Personally, I have better things to worry about.
