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     .* O . .   ..   ..O  ..    369            02 Jun 2001             ) ( ')
   .*   O O* o o  o o  o o  o                                         (  / )
  *  ***O O  O O  O O  O O  O                                          \( _)|
 *      O o  o.*..o.*..o.*..o. .net            "Censorship"                 *
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       *    /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_                                          *
      *    |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'              by Tim R                   *
      *   '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)                                      *mE0w*  o
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         'Anada is cat-friendly..o*`       

        What can I say, I’m a conservative type of guy.  I’m not a professed
 Republican, I didn’t vote fore Bush and nothing could have made me, but then
 again I tend to agree with more of their philosophies than that of most
 other political parties.  So what difference does this make?  Well, in one
 respect I diverge wildly from this.  What is this topic?  Freedom of
 expression in art, music, and movies.

        It has in recent times become something of a pasttime to blame the
 media for acts of violence.  By some accounts Columbine was not the fault of
 two deranged teens but in fact Doom and Marilyn Manson, which is of course
 bullshit.  Now, I can easily separate reality from what I see and hear --
 hell, my favorite movies and music are usually pretty gloomy in mood.  But
 some argue that since there are those that can’t, we need to protect them
 from it.

        The problems with this is that you can’t tell who won’t be able to
 handle that type of entertainment.  I also firmly believe that it is the
 person who commits these acts, and if they don’t have one depressing
 suicidal song to blame, they will find another.  Finally I believe it is
 wrong to prevent those who can handle such materials from being able to see
 or hear them.

        So what am I to do?  Well, considering the world we live in, I
 haven’t seen the end of media being blamed for violent crimes.  I guess I’ll
 just have to live with this pet peeve and bitch about it to any who will
 listen, unless of course the media coverage of this blame shifting causes me
 to go on a murder spree.

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 ( o.o )  (c) Anada e'zine                              anada369  by Tim R  o
  > ^ <                                                                     o
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