February 2, 2004 by lonbud

Keep Your Eye On The Bouncing Boob

NEWSFLASH: Janet Jackson has breasts!

Apparently, Michael Powell, Chairman of the FCC, and some unnamed number of the 89 million people watching television yesterday were not aware of that fact until Justin Timberlake exposed one of Ms. Jackson’s mammary glands at the conclusion of their raunchy duet during the halftime festivities at the Super Bowl.

The halftime program was produced by the folks at MTV, producers of other fine television entertainment such as MTV’s Spring Break, MTV’s Real World, and more forgettable fare showcasing young people’s propensity to simulate and talk about sexual behavior.

On the surface, it wouldn’t seem MTV is such a good fit with CBS, the venerable, conservative, legacy-network broadcaster of the Super Bowl. And according to a CBS spokesman today, MTV won’t be producing Super Bowl Halftimes in the future because CBS brass were “outraged” by the singers’ stunt.

For their part, MTV claimed to have been just as surprised as anyone else to see Ms. Jackson’s boob flopping there in the klieg lights, and both Ms. Jackson and Mr. Timberlake claimed through spokespeople the exposure was unpremeditated. Mr. Timberlake’s prepared statement referred to it as a “wardrobe malfunction.”

Ms. Jackson’s averral of innocence rings slightly hollow in view of the silver star nipple ring that alerted the world she also has those, but then, people are into all kinds of bizarre treatment of the sensitive areas of their bodies these days, so perhaps she’s just a little bit kinky.

Now comes Michael Powell, fulminating about his own personal outrage and promising an investigation into the matter, intimating significant fines could be in the offing. Excuse me? Does the hypocrisy of the current regime know no bounds? Where was Mr. Powell’s outrage in the face of Clear Channel’s virtual usurpation of the United States’ radio airwaves? Where was his outrage at Rupert Murdoch’s blatant gaming of the rules limiting the number of television outlets one entity could control? Where was his outrage when the FCC received more than a million expressions of public protest prior to the Commission’s relaxation of the rules designed to prevent corporate monopolies of the means of communication? Where is his outrage in the light of the prurient and salacious programming found running virulently throughout Mr. Murdoch’s Fox Network, including its flagship entertainment program, Fox News?

This is all so much hoo-ha, more likely than not designed by someone like Karl Rove to both take the public’s attention away from the burgeoning debacle in Iraq and the not-so recovering economy at home, as well as to provide “proof” that this administration can get “tough” when rules are broken. Look for more diversionary events as the Spring and Summer roll around and it becomes more and more clear that George W. Bush and his presidency have been every bit as bad for this country and the world as Al Gore’s people said they would be.