"You know, Fox turned into a hardcore sex channel so gradually, I didn't even notice!" -- Marge Simpson
Granted, this was fully tongue-in-cheek, but that was from an episode in 1995. It's amazing how prescient some comedy can be...The Onion also regularly comes up with its fake articles that somehow manage to come true. This happens regularly enough, in fact, that James Taranto over at Best of the Web Today at WSJ's OpinionJournal.com has a semi-regular section of his page devoted to such happenings. This quote popped into my head this morning while I was shaving and listening to 850 KOA, which reported on the well-known cable network Showtime and their new slogan, which they began advertising this weekend: "The Best S*** on Television". Seriously. It does make sense; I remember my high school days, when we would joke about the soft-core porn that Showtime would put on Friday nights after 9:00 pm, inspiring us to refer to the network as "Ho-time."
I myself have noticed the declining standards of decency on cable television, particularly on the Turner-sponsored TBS and TNT. Just over the weekend, I watched a couple of movies on these stations and noticed two HUGE examples in editing profane language that used to be no-brainers: g--d--- and a--holes. As most of you will attest, the first has almost universally been shortened to just d---, with the more blasphemous part removed entirely, while the "holes" in the second example is the universally-removed part. And yet, I noticed two different cases, g--d--- in Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider, and a--holes in Austin Powers: Goldmember, that somehow evaded the editors' notice entirely. I've spoken before on declining standards, even on the main networks during early prime-time, in which shows such as Ugly Betty and The Office, both of which occupy the standard general-audiences 6:00pm Eastern/7:00 Central timeslot, routinely have obvious innuendos and frank discussion of sexual topics.
Perhaps the idea is, "well, the kids are probably watching Cartoon Network anyway, so who's going to get upset about this?"
Interesting factoid: OU's football program accounts for 30% of the expenses of the Athletic Department as a whole, but it accounts for 70% of the department's income. And you want to say that football is a bad thing? Next time you shout about Title IX, consider what might happen if the football program where curtailed or worse, shut down altogether. How many women's sports would survive if the Athletic Department budget were to lose 70% of its income? Division III, anyone?
(OU FOOTBALL DISCUSSION DISCLAIMER: This post will conclude after this last section, so if you aren't interested at all in OU football, you can close the browser window/tab now.)
So I can't contain it any longer; I'm ready to say that Sam Bradford and DeMarco Murray will combine to lead OU to a national title game, if not this year, then probably next year. I know it was only North Texas, but who can argue with the Josh Heupel/Jason White-like numbers that Bradford put up? 21 of 23, 363 yards, 3 TDs? Bradford nearly broke Heupel's debut-game passing yardage record...IN THE FIRST HALF. He tied White's record for consecutive completions at 18, and the streak could continue into the Miami game, considering that streak consisted of his last 18 straight completions. He's OU's quarterback for the future, and it appears we'll be lucky to keep Keith Nichol, who will want to play as The Man, not some backup riding the pine.
And what about DeMarco Murray?? All I can say is, WOW. He had a tremendous game, not necessarily in terms of yardage, although he did have 100 all-purpose yards to go with those 5 TDs. He showed flashes of what is to come with him, and I know he will only get better.
That's the crazy thing...BOTH of these guys are only going to get better. Ponder that for a moment...they're already putting up numbers that better-known, acknowledged Sooner greats put up in their tune-up games, and these guys are just redshirt freshmen. The true test for both will come this weekend against Miami, but regardless of the outcome, this weekend's complete rout of North Texas gives the Sooner Nation tremendous, sincere hope for the future, for the first time in a few years.
Along that line, one other thought struck me, because I had almost the same conversation with Dad the other night that I had back in September of 2000..."if we can get past Texas, we should be OK." This season, for its own reasons, has shades of being like that 2000 season, and we all know how that turned out.
Thanks for reading along.
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