Are You Too Stupid To Use the V-Chip?

That's what Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center and others pushing for tougher content regulation of broadcast TV and radio say.

TV Watch, a transpartisan group that believes that viewers should decide what they want to watch (full disclosure: I'm a member), has produced a short video on the topic that is well worth watching.

You can check it out here.

Comments

[Rich Ard]

Nice gratuitous use of the "D'oh!"

[Jeff]

I say about 10% of the programming we get here at the station has V-Chip info that is either incorrect or faulty.

[joe]

I have a confession to make.

I'm too stupid to use the V Chip.

I have a V Chip button on my remote, and I live in fear that I, or my toddler, will press it accidently, and I'll lock out a channel I like and never be able to get it back.

This isn't something I proud of.

[Jeff]

Have they tried to air that spot as a PSA?

[DaveInBigD]

I'm too smart to use the V-Chip.

[joe]

Heh, I like this quote:

"Our research shows that 9 out of 10 parents who use tools like parental controls and the v-chip believe they are very helpful."

Similarly, my research shows that 9 out of 10 people who eat in Japanese restaurants believe Japanese food is yummy. 9 out of 10 people who use screwdrivers to drive in screws consider their screwdriver to be ver helpful. And 9 out of 10 people who support the Iraq War, support the Iraq War.

[Jennifer]

I'm far more interested in the one out of ten people who said, "I continue to use parental controls and the V-chip even though I don't think they do a goddamned thing at all."

[drf]

And, Joe:

don't forget that four out of five dentists surveyed recommended sugarless gum to their patients who chew gum!

(congrats on being a daddy!)

[moron]

I'm too stupid to use the V Chip.

The V- what?

[mediageek]

Has L. Brent Bozell ever held a real job?

[Andy]

Isn't L. Brent Bozell a Phil Hendrie character?

[Mo]

I'm not sure if this is nationwide or a local thing, but the local Fox affiliate has started to show a little quick clip telling parents to use their V-Chip to block questionable material from their children and directing them to a website or phone number for help if they don't know how to use it. It also explains all the TV ratings.

Of course, this is right before their primetime shows and since Fox has the bawdiest broadcast shows, it's probably to cover their own asses.

[dave_b]

Ok, I'm willing to let bipartisan slide, but transpartisan? Can we call you a bunch of trannies?

[Jeff]

Yes, the tenth person is into some techno-self-abuse. "I hate you, but I use you anyway."
Very European.

[Jim Walsh]

That's what Brent Bozell of the Media Research Center and others...say.

Laura Schlessinger said the same thing, i.e. that it's naiive and unrealistic to assume that individuals can decide for themselves what's morally appropriate without the aid of our Great and Glorious (when run by Republicans) Government. Just another reason why it's stupid to suggest a natural alliance between libertarians and conservatives.

Has L. Brent Bozell ever held a real job?

He's got his Uncle Bill (Buckley) to set him up...

[Jeff]

I thought Transpartisan meant a comb-over.

[Hillel]

As a Jew, I am very disturbed by the anti-Semitism that I encounter here. I don?t think it has anything to do with libertarianism, and I hope other bloggers will join me in denouncing it.
One must make a very important distinction between legitimate criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism. As a state, Israel does some things that are good and some things that are bad. Many legitimately argue that Israel?s occupation and oppression of the Palestinians is bad. To characterize opposition to the occupation as anti-Semitic is clearly dishonest and unfair.
Those who peddle conspiracy theories that make Israel at least partly responsible for the terrorists attacks against the United States of 9/11 are anti-Semites who hide behind legitimate criticism arguments. They draw on a long tradition of anti-Semitic stereotypes: Jews are powerful, devilish clever, and will stop at nothing to exert their control over the world. All they have to do is put their ?theories? out there and suggest that ?we need more evidence.? In fact, they care nothing about evidence. They care only about planting dark suspicions about Israel?s?and by extension, Jew?s?role and intentions in the world. Don?t be fooled by the anti-Semite?s denunciations of racism. It?s merely an attempt to give this particularly vicious racism an aura of respectability.

[dead_elvis]

I'd completely forgotten about the V-chip until recently poking around the menu on my TV. I'm not sure most people even know about it. It got a lot of publicity in a short time when the law was passed, but it wasn't implemented for years and by that time parental outrage had moved on to other pastures.

[Jennifer]

Did Cavanaugh delete a post blaming V-chip problems on the Jews? Because otherwise, I'm wondering what Hillel's post is referring to.

[Jennifer]

Oh, I see. It was cut and pasted into multiple threads.

[smacky]

Jennifer,

Take note of Hillel's posting methods. We will utilize that method when we advertise for "Hit and Run's Girls Gone Wild".

[joe]

I don't doubt that that sort of thing happens, Hillel, but you should be careful of falling into the trap of denouncing things that "remind you" of racist statements, when they don't themselves contain any racist content.

The Mossad, like any other competent spy agency, engages in conspiracies. I'm not going to give them a pass from this criticism because they're Israeli.

AIPAC, like the NRA and AARP, is a very powerful "insider" special interest lobbying shop, that wields a great deal of clout in Washington. They don't become immune to criticism about special interest manipulations of the government because the advocate for Israel.

Ari Fleishcer was fiendish, clever, and dishonest. I'm not going to pretend he was holy, dimwitted, and straightforward.

And I'm not going to respect people who try to shut me up about any of the above.

[Evan Williams]

Jennifer, it was a pre-emptive strike. Hillel had a premonition that I was going to post the following:

The V-Chip is tantamount to Hitler's treatment of the Jews!

Seriously, what was that tirade all about?

[Jennifer]

Aw, shit. Hillary Clinton is calling for a federal investigation of the video game Grand Theft Auto:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/
2005-07-14-clinton-game_x.htm?csp=15

Y'all can blame the Democrats if you want, but I think it's the Jews who are really behind it.

[drf]

Evan, it was from the "Zut Alors" thread from yesterday. The exchange happened towards the bottom. Tim C summed it up pretty well.

cheers,
drf

[jbk]

Jennifer,

Best H&R post ever.

[Lowdog]

Ha! Yes, Jennifer, Hillary is a tool of the evil jews! 🙂

joe - totally. I've had to defend myself from being accused as anti-semetic because I can be outspoken against Israel and it's policies. There is a difference.

[Evan Williams]

Fuck hillary in her stupid ass.

They'll have to pry my copy of GTA:SA from my cold, dead hands...

[Russ D]

Aw, shit. Hillary Clinton is calling for a federal investigation of the video game Grand Theft Auto:

Can't wait for Grand Theft Auto:Hilary Clinton's Village edition. Might even undersell Microsoft Bob.

Unless it works like a real city where you're the city cop impounding cars from alleged drug dealers and auctioning them off, then using the money to start a hired truck firm trying to get a contract with Mayor Daley.

[thoreau]

Regarding Hillary and video games: Didn't Lynn Cheney testify before the Senate several years ago concerning Eminem? I guess this stuff just never goes away.

FWIW, I found it funny that his most controversial CD was the one that includes such lyrics as

"But don't blame me when little Eric jumps off of the terrace,
You should have been watching him,
Apparently you ain't parents!"

or

"And they blame it on Marilyn and the heroin,
Where were the parents at?"

To me it makes total sense that people would be most offended by a rapper who tells parents to take responsibility for their children.

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

I have a V Chip button on my remote, and I live in fear that I, or my toddler, will press it accidently, and I'll lock out a channel I like and never be able to get it back.

I can no longer access my calendar in Outlook for this very reason.

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

Fuck hillary in her stupid ass.

You can. I'm too busy stomping people in the streets.

They'll have to pry my copy of GTA:SA from my cold, dead hands...

The world is my GTA. Excuse me whilst I got run over that nurse down in the parking lot. I bet some money will fly out of her body.

[Steven Crane]

How about a Grand Theft Auto:Eminent Domain edition?

Your character starts out with nothing but a diploma from Directional State U. a C+ average, and bootleg Dave Matthews CDs... but through the patronage of a connected uncle, joins the municipal government, slowly working his way from bulldozing abandoned tenements, etc...to winning the favor of various development syndicates by stealing land for them! He fights off angry voters, bribes judges and legislators... the big mid-game conflict happens when he even condemns his own uncle's house to put up an IKEA.

[Jeff]

Excuse me...
I've never considered the concept that "Jews are powerful, devilish clever, and will stop at nothing to exert their control over the world" as being the core of antisemitism. I thought it was the whole Christ-killer/unclean-race/dare-to-call-themselves-chosen rant. If it was all about intelligence and power I don't see as it would be a big deal.

Hillary's trying to become relevent again.

[Jennifer]

(Sung to the tune of "The Dreidel Song")

I am a lonely Jewess
I post on Hit and Run
But damn that ol' Rick Barton
he spoils all my fun.

Oh, Barton, Barton, Barton,
why do you hate me so?
Barton, Barton, Barton,
To hell I hope you go.

(Yes, I know I won't win any Weird Al Yankovic awards for this. But I'd like to see you do better in ninety seconds flat!)

[Sandy]

joe--

Don't be ashamed. The usability of most electronics is pretty horrific.

That being said, and excluding for the moment joe, Bozell may have a point. People are dumb enough to not only join his organization, but to not figure out anything that isn't beaten into them from birth.

Actually, scratch that. Most people don't want to traverse the learning curve unless it's a) very shallow (like the iPod) or b) very important to them. I temped at a Big Insurance Company in the early 90's when email was being introduced throughout the organization. They had a problem in that many executives thought such things were beneath them and wouldn't read their emails. This problem was solved by informing them (via printed-out memo) that ignoring emails would be grounds for termination. It had the desired effect.

It's far harder to negotiate the hurdles to get a driver's license, but idiot kids will figure out how to do it because they really wanna. So unless there's a financial or social incentive for people to figure it out (like, say, they're paranoiac conservatives who really want TV so they can see Swaggart or whomever), they won't figure it out.

None of that means that they really want Bozell dictating their viewing habits.

[Larry N. Martin]

Can you use the V-Chip to screen out Anti-Semitic programming? Or better yet, anti-anti-semitic programming.
Oh, and why does Brent Bozell and the MRC hate America?

[Patrick D]

Jeff,

The "Jews are powerful, devilish clever, and will stop at nothing to exert their control over the world" thing is the essence of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. So, yes, it is relevant to contemporary anti-semitism.

Whether it is relevant to anything appearing in H&R is another, seemingly absurd, question.

Hillel,

I can't say I care what you think "as a Jew." I noticed you slipped and wrote "Jew's" when it should have been "Jews'". Jews are not BORG. Why not try expressing yourself as an individual?

[Brett]

Hell, joe, I'm too stupid to realize if I even have a v-chip and, of so, remote control of it.

Is Bozell really WFB's nephew?

[Steve]

Jeff,

I hate to encourage Hillel's thread-jacking, but he's right on that point. The stereotype of Jews as cunning, greedy and behind a conspiracy to take over the world is a constant in anti-semitism. If it's not "the core," it's close. See: everything from "Merchant of Venice" to the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," to Hitler and modern Arab anti-Semitism. It's tied to the Christ-killer stuff, a lot of the time. I didn't see "Passion of the Christ," but my friends who did say the conspiracy to kill Jeebus has some classicly anti-semitic stuff.

[mediageek]

He's got his Uncle Bill (Buckley) to set him up...

Ah, suddenly it becomes so clear. This probably explains why he's involved in more organizations that are offended at this-or-that than I've got pairs of boxers.

[DaveInBigD]

It occurs to me that if you want people to figure out how their VChips work, make them come out-of-the-box set to only show TV-Y and nothing else. People will figure out how they work so that they can see something other than frickin Boobah and Barney.

[DaveInBigD]

Oh, and it might even piss people off enough that they think twice before letting the government mandate lame technology.

Nah, that's probably too optimistic.

[amanda]

More at SpeakSpeak.org, where you can also write the FCC in opposition to the complaint campaign the PTC launched earlier today.

[Herman]

Steve-
Spam/Thread-jacking for a good cause is still annoying and should not be encouraged.

Back on topic, if the V-Chip were more flexible in its programming it would be an asset. It would be real fun to set the V-chip in my TV up to censor Brent Bozell, Nelly and Paris Hilton every time they appeared.

[Jeff]

Steve & Patrick:
You might wanna spread this info around to the hate-mongers, because the only antisemetic stuff I've heard in the last three years has been pretty clearly centered on the fact that Jews
1: aren't Christian, or
2: aren't Muslim.
I'd hate to think that there all these people out there hating the Jews for the wrong reason.

[Steve]

Jeff,

Wikkipedia has some good entries on what I'm talking about, under both "rootless cosmopolitan" and "anti-semitisim."

[Steve]

In fact, here's an excerpt from the wikkipedia entry on "anti-semitism":

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Roman Catholic Church adhered to a distinction between "good anti-Semitism" and "bad anti-Semitism". The "bad" kind promoted hatred of Jews because of their descent. This was considered un-Christian because the Christian message was intended for all of humanity regardless of ethnicity; anyone could become a Christian. The "good" kind criticized alleged Jewish conspiracies to control newspapers, banks, and other institutions, to care only about accumulation of wealth, etc. Many Catholic bishops wrote articles criticizing Jews on such grounds, and, when accused of promoting hatred of Jews, would remind people that they condemned the "bad" kind of anti-Semitism. A detailed account is found in historian David Kertzer's book The Popes Against the Jews.

[Jennifer]

I'd hate to think that there all these people out there hating the Jews for the wrong reason.

C'mon, honey. ANY reason is the right reason.

[sam]

Frankly, as a person of Jewish cultural heritage, I find myself making anti-semitic comments quite a bit, simply because many of the Jews I meet (especially at college) just plain suck.
Also, IMO, the conflation of the fate of Jews globally with that of Israel is the worst, and most dangerous, idea to come out of Judaism since Christianity.

-sam

[mediageek]

Dude, a self-hating Jew? You are becoming a stereotype.

/South Park

[Skeptikos]

Hey, anyone know the answer to this one?

I've only been reading Reason for two, maybe 3 years. How many of the editors/writers here at Reason ridiculed Gore for pushing the V-chip?, I do seem to remember CATO doing so. And I think I'm safe assuming they did the same here.

Of course now they seem to like the idea...hmmm

[Rick Barton]

Hillel,

Not only are you off topic, now you're being an idiot. Yesterday we were talking about Israeli government prior knowledge of 9/11. NOT that "Israel was at least partly responsible for the terrorists attacks"

Other governments engage in conspiracies. Why not Israel's? All conspiracy theorizing about the Israeli government is obviously not a form of anti-Semitism.

Here are three articles about the Israeli government prior knowledge of 9/11, one from the Forward, a Jewish newspaper, and the other two are from Haaretz. a popular Israeli newspaper.

Spy Rumors Fly on Gusts of Truth

http://www.forward.com/issues/2002/02.03.15/news2.html

Spies, or students?

http://tinyurl.com/lqzw

Odigo says workers were warned of attack

http://tinyurl.com/o8lx

Hillel, are you now going to accuse Haaretz and the Forward of anti-Semitism?

[Chris]

Skeptikos: there is a difference between a gub'mint-mandated V-Chip and one voluntarily added by TV manufacturers because of customer demand.

[Rick Barton]

Brent Bozell is an authoritarian. He's not really worried about folks being able to keep the content that they wish to, away from their children. He's afraid people will make choices of what to watch that he objects to.

[Skeptikos]

Chris,

Well, now that wasn't my question, but since you "assigned" it.

Now neither of the below choices are good, but often life is a choice between two options, neither perfect...SO...

Would you perfer greater regulation in video broadcasting in America

OR

Would you prefer tecnology that allows people to avoid the question and keep broadcast relatively "free".

It would be great to live in an anarchist state (hell, I've got my shotgon loaded and waiting) but till then?

[b-psycho]

I wonder...can you use the V-Chip thing to block out religious programming?

[Rick Barton]

Jennifer at 04:58 PM,

That Dreidel Song was just too cute, but I must confess that I'm a little hurt. You could have added a "just kidding" disclaimer. As you know, although I do beat up on both the Israeli government and our own government's foreign policy at will, I have never said, and never would, any thing bad about Jews (or Jewesses) in general. Hate you Jennifer? The Heavens forefend! (Hey, that was Shakespeare. You're an English teacher, aren't you?)

[Jennifer]

Actually, Rick, I thought the sarcasm was kind of implied by the context. But here, let me do it over in a more obvious fashion:

I am a little Jewess
I post on Hit and Run
But damn that ol' Rick Barton
he spoils all my fun.

Oh, Barton, Barton, Barton,
why do you hate me so?
Barton, Barton, Barton,
To hell I hope you go.
🙂

I hope that helps, Rick.
🙂

[Jennifer]

Wait a minute, that smiley-face "emoticon" thing came out looking really weird. Is it just me, or is its mouth about three times wider than its forehead?

(Yes, I know I leave myself wide open to some smartass comments with that remark. Would it be rude if I responded to these comments with a pre-emptive 'screw you'?)

[Rick Barton]

Thank you Jennifer. And it really is cute. Reminds me of an old Pee Wee Herman episode.

[Rick Barton]

Jennifer,

Umm, 'screw you' might not be the best pre-emption to employ at this time. (Oh, you mean you talk to much, I thought...never mind! Of course; you couldn't have meant that or you wouldn't have said, "leave myself wide open")

[Rick Barton]

Hey, I just got naughty on H%R for the first time, and it was by accident, and it was on the V-Chip thread!!

[Rick Barton]

H&R

[Brian Courts]

Well not to pile on to the thread-jack above, but since I've been busy and apparently missed out on all the fun... I might as well.

I don't doubt that that sort of thing happens, Hillel, but you should be careful of falling into the trap of denouncing things that "remind you" of racist statements, when they don't themselves contain any racist content.

Yes joe, I would generally agree with that, but unfortunately some people continue to make a sort of third class of statements - those that aren't explicitly racist but are distorted or asserted in such a way as to create a distorted image of events which it turns out are not actually supported by any evidence. When this is done in a way that also comports with those traditional stereotypes of Jewish conspiracies then you have to at least wonder why? Why try to advance a theory in a way wholly unsupported by available evidence that just happens to have all the worst hallmarks of anti-Semitism? I'll accept that it may just be a knee-jerk dislike for Israel that is not connected with anything Jewish, which, while not racist, is not exactly something to be proud of either. But then again, you also have to wonder what drives such a reaction? Opposition to policies regarding the Palestinians might be a reason for a general disapproval of the Israeli government, but it's hardly a reason to continue to distort the truth in an attempt to connect Israel to 9/11.

For example, some people continue to peddle the discredited theory that Jewish (or Israeli, if you prefer) WTC workers were warned of the attacks and stayed home. This nefarious rumor was circulated on many white supremacist and (unfortunately many rather mainstream) Islamic websites. Since there isn't really any evidence of this, the more subtle recent attempts tend to hide behind misleading headlines such as "Israeli WTC Employees Warned" (in that case it is more than misleading, it's a flat out lie) or even more cryptically "Odigo says workers were warned of attack."

When you do even a few minutes of research you find out that "workers" means two people. "Warned" means received an email from an unknown source on 9/11 that mentioned an attack, but didn't say anything about the WTC. Oh and as for any WTC connection (for if there isn't a connection, why is this even being brought up again and again and again...?), well it turns out that they were not in fact WTC employees at all but simply two guys thousands of miles away in Israel. And furthermore, it turns out their company, Odigo, had nothing at all to do with the WTC.

So in the end you're just left to ponder where exactly is the relevance of such a "warning" which doesn't mention the target, is given to two people thousands of miles away from the target, who happen to have no connection to the target, working for a company with no connection to the target. Let's face it, to buy into this crap you'd have to believe that people smart enough to either pull off this coordinated attack, or to have discovered its immanence, were stupid enough to warn two nobodys (no offense to them) thousands of miles away and unconnected to the targets while also failing to tell them of any targets... for Christ's sake (no pun intended) what kind of warning is that!? And why!?

Could it simply be that Israel is no stranger to terrorist attacks and that the only connection between this "warning" and 9/11 was that it happened on, well, 9/11?? With this (non)story offering not a shred of support for the intended thesis, why, pray tell, bother to even mention it at all? To do so clearly creates certain impressions which are wholly unsupported by the facts. It is not unreasonable to question the motives of those who continue to advance such conspiracy theories with no evidence. And, I'd argue, it is also not unreasonable to suspect that other stories similarly proffered as support for this thesis will similarly fail in that role when subjected to even the most minimal scrutiny to be demanded of a fair-minded assessment of evidence.

[Stevo Darkly]

I've never considered the concept that "Jews are powerful, devilish clever, and will stop at nothing to exert their control over the world" as being the core of antisemitism. I thought it was the whole Christ-killer/unclean-race/dare-to-call-themselves-chosen rant. If it was all about intelligence and power I don't see as it would be a big deal.

In the case of the Jews, the religious angle can be used as cover, but the root of anti-Semitism is that many people fear that Jews can outcompete the pants off them economically (and they are often right--household income of Jewish Americans is about 170% of the national average, circa 1970). Naturally they see this as something unfair that must be "corrected," or so they tell themselves.

I used to work for an older Japanese-American guy who believed that the root of (almost) all ethnic prejudice is economic competition and the suspicion that someone else has an unfair advantage.

The day after this guy left California to attend school in St. Louis, the rest of his family got sent to an internment camp in Utah, Camp Opal. He thinks one of the reasons people supported the internment camps was that it removed Japanese as competitors on the West Coast, where they tended to work hard and prosper.

Thomas Sowell, in a number of his books, says this is common. A minority group is often seen as being "disproportionately" prosperous, and also of being clannish and not giving people outside their own group an even shake. This feeling is/was directed toward Chinese in Malaysia, certain minorities in Africa, Mormons in America ... heck, even white males. (The last two are my observation, not Sowell's.)

It's pretty common, not unique to the situation of the Jews. The situation of American blacks, where whites pretty much had to convince themselves that blacks were inferior in order to justify slavery, is not typical. Today, the really vitriolic hatred of blacks comes from lower class whites who complain that blacks are getting special breaks not available to themselves.

[Rick Barton]

Brian,

Note that Justin Raimondo, who makes a scholarly and careful case for Israeli government prior knowledge of 9/11 in his book...

Terror Enigma: 9/11 And the Israeli Connection:

http://tinyurl.com/ag3dz

...is skeptical of the Odigo story:

http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=6371

(scroll down)

You can access many other sources germane to the story here:

http://www.antiwar.com/israeli-files.php

[Apostate Jew]

Well, we are devlishly clever but no we don't want to take over the world or frame up the Arabs for the Twin Towers.

But all you Gentiles better watch it because not only have we got guns and tanks now but we've also got the bomb. Any of you Bartonites get uppity and we'll vaporize the lot of you.

Jennifer, I thought we established weeks ago that you are not in the club. Go through the initiation (conversion) and you'll get your International Conspiracy Decoder Ring and your Zionist Oppressor Club Membership Card.

Rick, make sure you use the adjective rabid because that's the type of Zionist I am. Some Gentiles are so stupid they'll believe anything about us.

And a "shout out" to all the Christians out there. If your god was so great how come my ancestors were able to kill him? A John 3:16 that went "For god loved the world so much that he gave his only son to die of old age so that anyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" wouldn't exactly fill the pews, would it. And with what you had, you still needed the entire Roman adminstrative apparatus to break paganism. Pretty weak religion, you got there. If there weren't Jews you'd have to invent us.

Besides, the little lefty was asking for it by upsetting the financial markets.

[Jennifer]

I know, Apostate. It occurred to me later that the song would have worked better had the first line read "We are the Jewish people" rather than "I an a little Jewess," but it was something I whipped off at the spur of the moment.

We are the Jewish people
We post on Hit and Run
But damn that ol' Rick Barton,
He spoils all our fun.

Et cetera.

[Jennifer]

I don't see why y'all will let Barbra Streisand into your club but not me. I'm much prettier, and far less bitchy, and drag queens don't base entire careers on imitating me, and if *I* had been secretly in charge of the stock market in the Nineties there wouldn't have been all that nasty bubble-bust business, either.

[Thomas Paine's Goiter]

The stereotype of Jews as cunning, greedy and behind a conspiracy to take over the world is a constant in anti-semitism.

Listen here...you aren't going to get a better rate by kissing up to them.

[Ironchef]

Apple needs to design the V-chip controller, that'll make it user friendly.
The iV-chip.

totally. I've had to defend myself from being accused as anti-semetic because I can be outspoken against Israel and it's policies. There is a difference.

Sigh. I wish people could separate criticism of policy with ctiricism of people. If only the left would stop playing the race card because I'm against race-based preferences, err Affirmative Action.

[joe]

No, Apostate, you only THOUGHT you killed him. HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAA! Who's fiendishly clever now?

Brian Courts, fair enough. Just as people make the mistake I described above, there also seem to be people who are willing to accept genuinely antisemitic states because they are reminiscent of legitimate complaints about Israeli policy or the power of the corporate elite. It's the other side of the coin, and it's just as wrong.

[Rick Barton]

Jennifer,

I like the "I am a little Jewess," better...cuter and more realistic that the character speaks for herself. Perhaps you can bring it back next Chanukah. But please, remember the smiley-face emoticon or something. I don't want any newbees thinking that I don't like people who are Jewish. Maybe I'm being too sensitve.:)

[Jennifer]

But it's all a lie, Rick. Little I am, but Jewess I am not.

[Larry N. Martin]

Jennifer: Add the nose, and it doesn't look as strange.

🙂

[Rick Barton]

Jennifer,

Yeah, I thought so after reading your response to Apostate. By "more realistic", I meant for the character, any character, to speak in the singular voice. But whatever, it's just adorable. Maybe you can get a Weby award for it...

[Jennifer]

Larry-
I don't have the nose, but I have a Jewish last name, I secretly control the world banking industry, AND I perform arcane rituals using the blood of Christian babies.

But it still is not enough.

[Jennifer]

Oh. Larry was talking about adding a nose to my emoticon. Got it.

[Rick Barton]

Now I don't feel quite as embarrassed about my misreading at 9:45 PM

[Larry N. Martin]

Well, if you're jewish, then you probably need to add a really big schnoz to the emoticon:

:^)

:~) boxer's nose

:>) Aquiline nose

:O) A real honker

[Jennifer]

Jennifer's nose after Hillel finishes rearranging her face:

: % (

(Having one's nose broken and split in two would be a rather sad experience, I figure.)

[joe]

I juft hope they don't punsh me in da mouf 😕

[NoStar]

I like using the tilde~ for a nose in my emoticon
;~)

[Shawn Smith]

The only problem with the dash (-) nose is that IE will see the dash as a possible line break. If you put it somewhere besides the beginning of a line, you could end up with something like

blah, blah, blah, :-
)

A slightly missed decapitation? Uggh.

[Apostate Jew]

Now everyone wants to join the club.

Ceramists and cutlers will be pleased.

Jennifer's a pretty goyische name, by the way.

[poco]

Jennifer has shiksappeal! 😉

[Jennifer]

Jennifer's a pretty goyische name, by the way.

You want I should blame this on the diaspora?