Clear Channel: Pride Is OK As Long As It's Not Too Proud

Clear Channel has been censoring Pride advertisements in St. Petersburg, Florida:

Clear Channel refused to comment on the matter to local media, but I think the difference between the accepted and rejected ads is pretty clear. Gays are OK, as long as no sex is implied. The two women on the beach seem to be getting along quite nicely, and the two men, while looking right at the camera, are shirtless and touching in a really not-straight-bro way. The drag queen is barely showing any skin and the two men in the family are sitting a comfortable distance apart (wonder what Clear Channel would have thought if they were together and the kid was on the left?).

But I'm really wondering why Clear Channel gets to make this decision at all. Their business depends directly on public subsidies - if the government didn't build roads in a particular area there would be no people to look at a particular ad. People can't avoid looking at their ads while driving because people are attentive to the road, so people have an interest in and a right to determine what messages are presented, or not presented, along the roads they built.

Obviously no one's going to go forcing them to explain themselves or reverse their decision. St. Petersburg Pride has removed all of their ads, saying they "would not allow Clear Channel to dictate what message we could convey." As well they shouldn't.

H/T Dean Mundy on Twitter, who does not necessarily endorse what he tweets.

Pure Genius

When Tom McMahon came up with the anti-Semitic, prejudicial bastardization of the COEXIST bumper sticker, Sykes thought it was "pure genius."

McMahon has just posted one of his four squares that Sykes will probably wet himself over.

It has it all. Racism, anti-Semitism and most importantly, egocentrism. It is the trifecta of the Hate Right. I'm sure it will be only a matter of time before McMahon gets his own talk show, or at the very least, a regular column at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Just For Capper

Since he's such a taskmaster, I've decided to humor capper and post a little something I found as I was surfing the Cheddarsphere today. In a post over at his blog, The Way I See It!, Cudahy blogger Randy Hollenbeck posted a few of his favorite pictures of Barack Obama:







Now call me crazy - and you wouldn't be the first to do so - but the pictures above strike me as being more than a little racist, and not even in a subtle, *wink wink, nod nod* kind of way. Now I'm sure some will say, "Zach, don't you think you're making a mountain out of a molehill?" and I'll say I don't think I am. While I know these kinds of prejudiced and racially insensitive aren't representative of how all conservatives feel, they sure don't do much to dispel the idea that there's a large group of conservative folks who can't bear the thought of an African-American serving as President.

EDIT: In order to see the pictures in true size, you'll need to right click and then click on "view image."

EDIT EDIT: I emailed Randy and commented on how racist I felt the pictures were, and his response was to ask what I felt was racist.

Dumb Ass Comments Of The Week

Even as James T. Harris got his post right, he has a comment by a James Pawlak which qualifies as the dumb ass comment of the week:

Curious that the Milwaukee media has not reported on the name of the bar from which this "gentleman" went to his death OR the description of the offenders (Latinos?) OR called on the City Aldermen to shut down that Bar as they did for one where there was a justifiable killing of thugs by armed security guards.

And to make sure he clinched this dubious honor, he also leaves an equally repulsive comment on the site of Dad29, who had posted on the same subject:

Of course the Milwaukee Urinal will not publish the name of the bar (Did it fly a rainbow banner at half-staff) or the description of the Latino killers and, if they are taken, the fact of their citizenship status.

Mr. Pawlak, it doesn't matter where he was before he was robbed and murdered, nor does it matter what his sexual orientation might have been. The ethnicity of the killers also does not matter. What matters is that a person was senselessly murdered.

To indicate otherwise does not help the matter at all, nor does it do anything to prevent further similar tragedies. It only serves to make you look like a dumb ass.

Pride in Prejudice

If there was ever any doubt what was really the issue with the decision to revisit crack cocaine sentences, Michael J. Cheaney at Jessica McBride's Media Matters made it crystal clear. The amazing thing is that Ms. McBride, who famously moderates comments at her site, allowed this one to go through.

Not only are they about to let out a bunch of crackheads, The state of Wisconsin will also be handing out Get of of jail free cards to ALL black people accused of a crime if Jim Doyle has his way.

[my italics]

Ah, I get it now: crackhead = black people.