This is Steven Pinker in TNR. Perhaps the greatest mystery is why politicians, editors, and much of the public care so much.
PNSFW, particularly if you read the web through software for text to speech synthesis, and you are not wearing headphones, despite the fact that the 4-ft high walls of your cubicle do nothing to block the noise from disturbing your co-workers. The Bono episode highlights one of the many paradoxes that surround swearing. When it comes to political speech, we are living in a free-speech utopia. Late-night comedians can say rude things about their nation's leaders that, in previous centuries, would have led to their tongues being cut out or worse. Yet, when it comes to certain words for copulation and excretion, we still allow the might of the government to bear down on what people can say in public.
Meanwhile, the FCC focuses on What Really Matters: The head of the Federal Communications Commission has circulated an ambitious plan to relax the decades-old media ownership rules, including repealing a rule that forbids a company to own both a newspaper and a television or radio station in the same city.
What the F***? | 
