April 30-May 6, 2009
editorial@boulderweekly.com

Shit by any other name…
How did that famous Shakespeare line go? A rose by any other name would smell  as sweet? Well, no offense to the Bard, but that’s total bullshit. If that were the case, we wouldn’t drool over any gadget that begins with the lower-case letter “i” and kidney pie would be as popular a dish as chocolate cake. We wouldn’t feel so bound to the Lake of Fire if God merely “darned” us like a sock. And certainly no one would be turned on if you said you wanted to F-bomb on your futon.

You see, sometimes a word means exactly what we want it to mean, and no substitution or euphemism will suffice.

But leave it to the FCC to rally up the Puritans in America against four-letter words.

A recent Supreme Court ruling states that federal regulators have the authority to hammer down on broadcast TV networks that use what they call “fleeting expletives” — in other words, when someone slips in an isolated “fucker”or “cock” or “Jon Bon Jovi.”

The ruling came after Bush-era officials pressed the FCC to induce hefty penalties for any form of swearing, whether or not they were scripted, and whether or not they “derived from sexual meaning” (apparently, not only are we not supposed to say “fuck,” but we’re also not supposed to talk about fornication). And after a six-year battle between network TV and the FCC, the Supreme Court threw down the gauntlet, siding with the folks of the FCC. The decision ruled only on the authority of the FCC to enforce such strict limitations. The Supremes made no decision as to whether or not those restrictions violate our First Amendment right to free speech.

Well, since our robed justices decided to overlook that First Amendment issue in this particular case, we here at the non-network broadcast publication Boulder Weekly will step in on their behalf to comment: Fuck that!

Were there no need for George Carlin’s seven forbidden words, we wouldn’t be so inclined to let them loose, whether in pain or ecstasy or daily descriptions of Bush-era officials. Let free speech live the fuck on!

At least it’s a job
During a recession, you take any job you can get, even if it means knocking on strangers’ doors. And lucky for those who’ve been hit by recent layoffs, the U.S. census is filling a few of those jobs. It can’t be that bad, right? All you really have to do is knock on the door, give someone a survey to fill out, check the address and maybe take a few notes. Oh, and deal with potentially insane people yelling at you to get off their property while they wave a gun in front of you — the official, “I mean business” gesture.

Well, hopefully that’s not something U.S. census workers have to deal with much, but census worker Alex Goulder recently had a run-in with a nutjob from Allenspark when he came to collect information. Terence Housh, a 53-year-old man, was arrested on suspicion of felony menacing after Goulder called the cops to report that the man, wielding a rifle, was yelling, “This is private land!

I’m not telling you anything!” Apparently, when police got in touch with Housh, he explained that, yes, he had an assault rifle on his lap the whole time, as he always does (Really!?! Always!?!), but that he had done nothing wrong.

Well, at least Goulder has a job. And, it turns out that in that particular job, you really do get to see the kinds of individuals that make up this fine country of ours — and as a bonus, you may get to see their guns, too. What’s next? Perhaps fava beans and a nice chianti.

Joyride or kidnapping?
What do you do when your truck gets stolen? Jump on the back of it, of course. Then, hang on for dear life while the hijacker takes you on the ride of your life. Oh, and call the cops with your free hand. That’s what Torrey Lang, a truck driver from Atlanta, did when his trailerless semi-truck was stolen. He hopped on the back and called the cops while clinging to the back of the truck as the driver took the stolen vehicle first on surface streets, then on the interstate. After an hour-long police pursuit, authorities shot the truck’s tires causing the vehicle to slow. Lang took that opportunity to jump off the slowly moving semi and run to safety. Then, once the truck came to a complete stop, more than a dozen police surrounded it, broke the drivers’ side window, opened the door and pulled the suspect from the vehicle. The suspected hijacker, Milo Banks, 27, is set to be charged with fleeing and attempting to elude, kidnapping and theft by taking.

Now, we certainly don’t sympathize with this dude, but we do have to wonder, can it really be kidnapping if someone jumps onto your ride while you’re trying to elude police? We’re not even sure if the guy knew the truck’s owner was back there clinging to a moving vehicle. It kinda seems like it was that dude’s choice to take part in the joyride. He could have just called the cops, you know?