Am serial al gore

When it was said and done, it's unlikely that many minds were changed by the hearing. Although, despite the protestations to the contrary, quite a few senators and witnesses had explicitly argued in favor of government action.

As Sen. Exon put it at one point that day: "Mr. Chairman, if we're not federal regulation and we're not talking about federal legislation, what is the reason for these hearings in front of the Commerce Committee? Tipper Gore, who always insisted she was anti-censorship, in her book exhorted readers to file petitions with the FCC to "request inquiries into the license renewals" of TV and radio stations that broadcast "excessively violent" content.

Huge retailers like Walmart would not sell "labeled" records, period, cutting out a huge slice of the marketplace for "labeled" artists. Some smaller stores were threatened with eviction if they stocked "labeled" records. The city of San Antonio barred "labeled" artists from performing. Maryland and Pennsylvania debated bills that would require retailers to personally label objectionable content and keep it in an "adults-only" area of their shops. The case was eventually dismissed by a judge.

Though groups like 2 Live Crew and N. The collapse of the record industry, which began over 20 years ago, has made "Parental Advisory" labels quaint.

But the threat posed by the ideas that inspired them remains. Censorship stigmatizes art and the artist. It makes transgressive ideas less available and turns arbitrary authority to unelected and unaccountable actors. Diving into this time capsule is instructive in showing just how fevered arguments over the boundaries of free expression almost always are.

These hearings also demonstrate how moral panics cause wild overreactions, ill-advised and damaging government action — always conducted with a sense of altruistic moral superiority.

It's no coincidence that in the years since Congress has held hearings on the supposedly society-destroying influence of rap lyrics, video games, and the TV show "Beavis and Butthead. It's kind of ridiculous that Zappa, Denver, and Snider proved to be the common-sense civics experts in a room full of people at, or adjacent to, the levers of power. But these were the heroes we needed at the moment: the scary rocker, the gentle folkie, and the smartass weirdo composer.

Times Internet Limited. All rights reserved. For reprint rights. Times Syndication Service. It was a First Amendment showdown for the ages. Anthony L. Tipper Gore testifies at the Senate hearings on rock lyrics on September 19, Moral panics were the order of the day.

Al Gore 's wife, Tipper, was upset that a Prince album she bought for her daughter had risque lyrics. She literally made a federal case out of it. As politicians and their wives implicitly threatened the music industry and the First Amendment , the unlikeliest trio of musicians — avant-garde composer Frank Zappa, hair-metal howler Dee Snider, and safe-as-milk singer-songwriter John Denver — passionately defended artistic freedom before the federal government simply because it needed to be done.

But in the end the censors got what they wanted. This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author. Frank Zappa testifies at the Senate hearings on rock lyrics in Singer John Denver testifies at the Senate hearings on rock lyrics on September 19, Sign up for a weekly brief collating many news items into one untangled thought delivered straight to your mailbox.

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What does ManBearPig mean? What's hot. Where does ManBearPig come from? Examples of ManBearPig Sure, you get the occasional clunker are we the only ones who hated that Al Gore manbearpig episode?

I haven't seen the manbearpig episode since it came out, but I don't recall feeling like it was a denial of climate change. Al Gore is just inherently fun to mock because of his weird combination of passion and dryness. It is hard to think of any recent failure in international politics this comprehensive, this swift, this humiliating. The plunge from the brink of victory to the pit of defeat must be as unpleasant as it is familiar to the winner of the popular vote; in his latest essay in Rolling Stone he gives his own best analysis of why he keeps losing.

Few American politicians could write an essay this eloquent or this clear. Few people in the world can command this kind of attention for their thoughts. Even so, the results of all this talent and effort are exactly the opposite of what the former vice president would wish; the essay illuminates his shortcomings more than his strengths and makes crystal clear that if global climate policy is going to change, then Al Gore must get out of the way.

Let us begin with a basic question of judgment. The former vice president has failed to grasp the basic nature of the kind of leadership the global green cause requires. Vice President Gore, like all who aspire to lead great causes, must reconcile his advocacy with his conduct — that is, he must conduct himself in a way that is consistent with the great cause he seeks to promote.

Not all character flaws are inconsistent with positions of great dignity. Other statesmen have combined great public achievement with failure in their personal lives.

Franklin Roosevelt was neither a good father nor a good husband; Edward VII was a better monarch than man. But while some forms of inconsistency or even hypocrisy can be combined with public leadership, others cannot be. A television preacher can eat too many french fries, watch too much cheesy TV and neglect his kids in the quest for global fame.

But he cannot indulge in drug fueled trysts with male prostitutes while preaching conservative Christian doctrine. The head of Mothers Against Drunk Driving cannot be convicted of driving while under the influence. The head of the IRS cannot be a tax cheat.

You can be a leading environmentalist and fail to pay all of your taxes. You can be a leading environmentalist and be unkind to your aged mother. You can be a leading environmentalist and squeeze the toothpaste tube from the middle, park in the handicapped spots at the mall or scribble angry marginal notes in library books.

But you cannot be a leading environmentalist who hopes to lead the general public into a long and difficult struggle for sacrifice and fundamental change if your own conduct is so flagrantly inconsistent with the green gospel you profess. If the heart of your message is that the peril of climate change is so imminent and so overwhelming that the entire political and social system of the world must change, now, you cannot fly on private jets.

You cannot own multiple mansions. You cannot even become enormously rich investing in companies that will profit if the policies you advocate are put into place. You may well be right, and those changes may be necessary — the more shame on you that with your superior insight and knowledge you refuse to live a modest life.

Francis of Assisi understood the point well.