I just read a note about the classic Sesame Street. A few days ago I also read some comments on Entertainment Weekly's letters' page (the one with Johnny Depp as Sweeney Todd on the cover) talking about how offensive Al Jolson's portrayal of a black man singing in "The Jazz Singer" was, no matter the historical importance of the film. And I remembered a newspiece that appeared a few weeks ago about Halle Berry (love her, by the way) apologizing for a harmless jewish comment she made during The Tonight Show... then I also remembered about the guys at Warner Brothers re-editing cartoons to wipe away smoking, suicide and similar harmful issues from their classic cartoons...

As some of you may know, I'm a fierce advocate of free speech and these examples, my friends, are our own, slow road into a fascist state where you are liable for whatever you say or write, because someone might find it offensive. And it's not about thinking twice what you say, it's about being better off not saying anything. Is this progress? I see the same sickness of years past eating at our society, but see people are losing their interest in challenging or confronting the system. I see people getting offended by a film like Lions for Lambs because of it's leftist message, instead of realizing the real message is, whatever your beliefs are: THINK and ACT on them... I see publications like Mad Magazine losing their edge to make them more kid friendly (years ago you could read about politics, drugs and real social issues, now it's all inconsecuential). And now I read about people being horrified about an intelligent puppet show.

Guys, we've gone too far. Education lies in the hands of the parents. The media should not educate us, but be a showcase for different points of view and opinions. Of course it's more comfortable to sit down without people challenging us, hell, it saves us the trouble of thinking, standing up and shouting back an intelligent answer. We've become intellectually lazy and, even worse, AFRAID to speak out our minds. But nevermind, I see Britney Spears is in trouble again, I guess that's more important than the thousands of people dying of famine... oh, well.