Pipestone Flyer
Vol. 15 Issue 3, Leduc-Wetaskiwin Pipestone Flyer
It seems for the band Dire Straits, getting money for nothing is getting harder to do. After decades of air play on Canadian radio, the band and the song “Money For Nothing” have come under fire from the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC). They are claiming a word used in the song is unacceptable to gays.
Now when I first heard this I thought it was another government body attempting to silence the masses. For the record I am against censorship of any kind. The CBSC is a private group set up by broadcasters to do a variety of things including setting up a code of conduct and providing the viewing public an opportunity to question what they see on TV and radio. While I am against censorship this group offers people an opportunity to present their concerns and allows debate to occur on what is acceptable or not.
Is it better to have an industry group regulate themselves or let the government do it is something the public should decide? Or is it better to tell government and industry to pound salt and let us the public determine what is acceptable or not?
I have to question why certain words are used and others are rejected. I sometimes think to myself, “Man when will this crap end?” Then I realize that I shouldn’t use the word man because that may offend women. Okay, maybe we should have a committee look at these issues more, lets say appoint a chairman. Dang, I used the man word again. Okay, lets call this a chairperson instead. Nope, that won't work, that has the word “son” in it and that might offend the female audience. No I can't use female either because it has the word “male” in it.
Okay we need to call this person of the group the Chair. Nope that won't work either, it has the word hair in it and if the person appointed is a bald man that might offend him. Dang, I can't use the word bald either. So I guess words like cue ball, chrome dome or the name Kojak can't be used either. I should not even talk if someone is bald or not. When we describe people we have to get use to using descriptions that would make it hard to know if you are giving a description of a person or a table.
And when I think about it using the word Chair might offend furniture makers, because we are not talking about things people sit on. Dang this get confusing.
So we will appoint a human being to front this group and we can talk about all the things that can or can not be said in public. Wait a minute, this does exist. I think it is called Political Correctness. I might have to re-think this whole venture.
Society needs to re-think its attempt to silence the masses and take a step back. I also encourage everyone to check out the CBSC web site and learn more about them and what happened with the Dire Straits song. The more debate we get going on these issues the better society will be in the end.