The  New York Times has an editorial today about the FCC’s policy to free the world of “fleeting expletives” going before the Supreme Court, and urging the Court to shut down the FCC idyllic vision of the airwaves.

While some (like my potty-mouthed Satyr-wannabe friend Randazza) 1st Amendment proponents wrap themselves in expletives, for the shock value if not to inure others to the idea that they are just words, not bullets or knives or other things that cause physically pierce your heart, I tend to avoid them.  Not because I’m some Puritan throwback, but because I find them to be jarring and send folks off-course from whatever it is I’m trying to say.  I also think we do best to communicate with more specific language.  But that’s me.

I have no problem with cursing otherwise, and I’ve taught my children (Randazzo would be so proud of me) that curses are just words like any other that people use to express themselves, but that if you can accomplish the same expression with words that are more socially acceptable, it will serve them better and avoid needless controversy.  My kids have never felt a great need to curse.

It bothers me that there is so much cursing on television.  Much of it seems pointless, unnecessary to the dialogue and inserted for shock value.  It’s gratuitous stuff during the family hour, and I would prefer if it wasn’t there.  I wish that the folks who produced these shows would try to avoid it unless it serves some particular purpose,  I wish they would show some restraint and maturity; just because they can doesn’t mean the should.

But there are times when expletives are consequential, a necessary and natural part of the story.  That historical shows and figures are censored to eliminate reality is shocking.  The fear that moves such as the FCCs $550 million penalty for Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction (I blinked and missed it) has caused producers to rewrite history to sanitize it to avoid the ire of the FCC.   

There are also times when they just happen, because real people saying unscripted things sometimes curse. 

The commission suddenly changed course in a case involving the 2003 Golden Globes Awards show, which included the singer Bono’s uttering a single expletive as he accepted an award. Reversing its long-held precedents, the F.C.C. decided that Bono’s lighthearted slip made the broadcast indecent.

I don’t necessarily like it when it happens, but it does not bring my world crashing down.  I don’t become outraged.  I don’t write my Congressman.  I don’t call the FCC.  It’s a word, for God’s sake.  Just a word.

Didn’t we get past all this a long time ago?  Hadn’t we reached a point where we were going to move beyond Leave it to Beaver?  Sure we all know that those shows didn’t display life as we (or anyone else) knew it, and that it created a fictional world that would offend no one, anywhere, ever.  We were ready for a world a little more real.  We were tough.  We could take it, without our heads blowing off.

When some comments made by Cher and Nicole Richie on a Billboard Music Awards show (I have no clue what was said, as I somehow missed the broadcast) were just too much for important decision-makers at the FCC, they went into action, announcing their new rule that “fleeting expletives” would not be met with summary execution, or a fine, or both. 

Broadcasters challenged the commission’s new rules, and last June the New York-based United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit struck them down. Federal agencies like the F.C.C., which interpret Congressional laws, have to make reasoned decisions, and the court ruled that the fleeting expletive policy was not properly reasoned. It carefully dissected the F.C.C.’s analysis, which it rightly found to be “divorced from reality.” The court also noted that the commission’s rules most likely violated the First Amendment.

When the Second Circuit says these guys are “divorced from reality,” they should have realized that they were way out of line.  

What pushed the FCC to try to turn back the clock 50 years?  Perhaps it was the reaction to the occasional excess, or as will invariably happen, the fleeting expletive.  Did Hollywood push the envelope needlessly at times.  I think it did, but the solution is in what we watch and what we want from entertainment.  Not some man in a black suit pushing the censor button to protect out delicate ears.

The stakes in this case are much higher than whether awards shows can air a few bad words. The F.C.C. has used its new policy to turn itself into a roving censorship board. Among other outrageous decisions, it hit KCSM, a small public-television station in San Mateo, Calif., with a $15,000 fine for broadcasting “The Blues,” a PBS documentary about the musical form that, given the subject matter, understandably contains fleeting expletives.

Not only do I hope that the Supremes do as the Times urges, but can we put this to rest once and for all.  Both Ozzie and Harriet are gone.  It’s time for big daddy at the FCC to give up telling us what’s indecent.  We really need to move beyond this.  Does everyone realize this except the FCC?  Is there some special place where they hire people for the FCC to come up with stuff like this?  Perhaps Pleasantville?