Federal Communications Commission To The Parents Television Council: Quit Dicking Around!

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You may call President Nixon by his nickname, Dick. [1]
You may call the late President a dick, a synonym for jerk. [2]
You may not refer to RMN's sexual organ, using his nickname's homonym. [3]
You may not be able to say that ex-POTUS Richard Nixon "d***ed" the people of the United States. [4]
You may say that he dicked around too long with Watergate. [5]
You may say that he dicked the Vietnamese War. [6]

In a move guaranteed to absolutely muck up the Maginot Line of Decency, the F.C.C. denied 36 indecency complaints yesterday. Those complaints were filed by the Parents Television Council, conservative watchdogs that file thousands of complaints each year. This notoriously priggish group of killjoys has criticized the F.C.C's crackdown on indecency as not being punitive enough on broadcasters. Today, Tim Winter, executive director of the PTC, is squealing like a mortally wounded swamp sow.

The complaints booted by the F.C.C. stem from episodes of shows such as "NYPD Blue," "Dawson's Creek" and "Boston Public." The offending programs feature characters using a term that is a synonym for "jerk."[2] Other complaints the F.C.C. denied focused on episodes of "Friends," "Will & Grace," "Scrubs" and other programs in which the characters discussed sex.

We know that of the hundreds of thousands of words in the English language, there are seven you cannot say on broadcast TV.

Television may show buttocks. "NYPD Blue" had episodes in which both Dennis Franz and David Caruso's buttocks were shown (boo) as well as showing the buttocks of Kim Delaney and Andrea Thompson (hurrah).

Television is permitted to show dead people naked if they are piled in a mass grave [7]. The breasts and buttocks of non-white people are routinely shown in National Geographic TV specials. You may show the breasts and buttocks and even full frontal nudity of white people, if they are prisoners of war, or interned in a death camp [8]. It is OK to show a nipple if it has a sword or knife through it, but not if it has a ring through it. In fact, it's probably not kosher to show many of these parts if the person has a heartbeat. It was not OK when Janet Jackson aired her nipple out for three seconds.

It's hard to know what we know. Will the new F.C.C. Chairperson step up the crackdown, or continue to ease up the rules (if that is what is happening here)?. Rejecting these claims seems like an interesting step. The PTC, naturally, would like to see one of their own in the Chairman position. The next thing we hear from from the F.C.C. may well be a "course correction." Steady as she goes, fellas!

[1] Among others, nicknames for Richard include, Rich, Richie, Rick, and Dick.
[2] Or, a person, almost always a man, regarded as mean or contemptible.
[3] A vulgar synonym for the penis, along with Johnson, John Thomas, tallywhacker, member, one-eyed Jack, and hundreds of other synonyms. The Germans refer to all genitalia as "the parts of shame. "
[4] Since that usage alludes to the vulgar term for the act of sexual intercourse.
[5] Here, dicked means to spend time idly, or, fool around.
[6] Dicked, in this sense meaning "to botch or bungle."
[7] In numerous documentaries and news programs on The Holocaust and the German concentration camps.
[8] Spielberg's "Schindler's List," broadcast on national television, included several scenes of frontal nudity.
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