The Monk Bought Lunch

if you're selling those puppies i'll have the one with the nose ring, and other grown-up thoughts

Emma contrasts American and British attitudes re: television and "obscenity" today and I just want to offer for your consideration a couple of thoughts- bring up a couple of points if you will- or maybe just one before we cut to a commercial.
What gets me about Nipplegate, Boobapalooza, the tempest in a c-cup, the halftime show in which Janet Jackson's breast was exposed or whatever other cute nickname you want to use for the "costume malfunction", is this:
I frequently watch the network news, and when Tom Jennings or Peter Brokaw tell us that the whole WMD thing was, turns out, kinda made up, or about how environmental protection laws are going the way of, uh, trees, or about how the Bill of Rights is being treated like the thong on a roofy'd-out sorority sister, they say things like "people are concerned" or they're "worried" or "some poeple are upset that..." etc.
But what's the one word we've heard more than any other since Sunday afternoon?
Yep.
"Outrage".
Peter, Tom, and Dan:
"Viewers were outraged..."
"The NFL is outraged"
"CBS is outraged".
All those "man on the street" interviews: "I'm outraged! I was watching it with my kids!"
Okay so your kid saw a titty. What did it do to him/her, exactly? Force you to tell him/her what it was?
I was watching with my friend and his 10 year old son. My friend and I looked at each other, said "did we just see what we thought we saw?".
The kid's like "yeah, so?".
Prob'ly just traumatized, poor little bugger. I can see him on his analyst's couch, circa 2025:
"Everything seemed okay, 'til January 2004...".
Well, anyhooter, it's good to know what it takes to get folks outraged around these parts.