BuzzMachine

Arafat dead

: It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Reporting for duty

: Tim Oren had a most cool time at war college and I only wish he could tell us more about citizens’ media and foreign affairs. But if he did, he’d have to delete us.

Ego v. id

: Robert Samuelson says in the Washington Post that it’s not red v. blue or issue v. issue; it’s psychological:

“Every liberal [thinks he’s] intellectually superior to conservatives,” Paul Begala, a former Clinton administration official, remarked on CNN. “Every conservative I know wants to think of himself as morally superior.” Though these are generalizations (as Begala admitted), they represent real psychological imperatives. Politics increasingly strives to feed these self-images. The easiest way to make your people feel better is to cast their people as immoral, stupid, evil, corrupt or greedy. Politics, news and entertainment merge, because all seek to satisfy psychological needs….

Although America isn’t polarized, our political and media elites are working hard to make it so.

Amen.

Patience

: Anne Applebaum in the Washington Post uses the example of East Germany to say that even the smoothest transition to democracy isn’t a one-month affair. It takes a generation. That’s a lesson for Iraq.

F the FCC

: That’s not winter you feel coming. That’s the chill of the FCC regulating speech. An Iowa station decided not to run Saving Private Ryan for fear of FCC fines. Its statement:

As many of you may be aware, the Federal Communications Commission has changed its standards for certain content related to programming broadcast before 10pm. These changes followed the Janet Jackson incident at the Super Bowl earlier this year. The inconsistent manner in which the FCC is choosing to apply these rules puts TV stations like ours in a most difficult position. As this relates to Saving Private Ryan, our concern centers on whether the FCC would consider the context in which the intense adult language and graphic battleground violence is presented in the movie. Would the FCC conclude that the movie has sufficient social, artistic, literary, historical or other kinds of value that would protect us from breaking the law? Can a movie with an “M” rating, however prestigious the production or poignant the subject matter, be shown before 10pm? With the current FCC, we just don’t know. This is the case even though this same movie has been broadcast in primetime twice before on this station without complaint. Adding to our frustration is the fact that a fine motion picture like Saving Private Ryan can be shown on cable or satellite without any government agency restriction or regulation.

We regret that we are not able to broadcast a patriotic, artistic tribute to our fighting forces like Saving Private Ryan. However, on this Veterans Day, we do wish to pay tribute to all the men and women -past and present -who so nobly serve our country.

[via LostRemote]

: UPDATE: Lost Remote reports that 20 more stations dropped the movie.