Puritan watch

How's this for an example of an ever-encroaching puritanical streak sweeping through the most advanced nation on earth? Truly, it makes me wonder if we humans are ever going to progress when people can still get worked up about so little. Retarded is the word. Fox are going to pixelate a man's arse (or "ass") shown in a television show. Ridiculous enough at the best of times (who, exactly, is offended by buttocks? We've all got them, even family-values obsessed members of the FCC), but the show in question is a cartoon called The Family Guy. That's right, a cartoon arse is considered too controversial for US networks now. Meanwhile PBS are cutting from an imported BBC drama a scene that features (gasp!) a naked woman. It's not even a scene of a sexual nature, it's depicting decontamination after a dirty bomb is exploded. But the scene's gotta go - might offend someone and we can't have that. Thought: anyone who is "offended" by a naked human body needs help, not protection. Fuck these people, they deserve to be offended. Let's broadcast footage of bum sex into their homes 24 hours a day.

Of course, all the networks are imposing this draconian self-censorship on themselves after the furore last year when one of Janet Jackson's tits popped out during a halftime performance with Justin Timberlake at the Super Bowl. What a yawnathon that story was. I'd have to say that the only thing that would interest me less than Janet Jackson's music would be a brief glimpse of one of her prosthetic breasts. Even more ridiculous were the subsequent lawsuits, with people suing networks for "emotional distress" and other nonsense. Only in America, as the saying goes.

Makes me glad to live in the UK, where we tend not to get so excitable about these things. But we also need to be on our guard. The organised protests against the BBC last week after the broadcast of Jerry Springer - The Opera should alert us to the fact that there is a vocal and mobilised puritanical task force out there operating in much the same way as the religious right in the US. It will be interesting to see where they pop up next.