Posted 2/11/2004 08:18:00 PM by Douglas

Why in the world is the Department of Education responsible for closed captioning of TV shows, anyway? First off, this isn't censorship. Saying that it's censorship because people that can't hear the dialog is like saying it's censorship because people don't want to hear the dialog. But that's hardly the issue:

The government is refusing to caption Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie, apparently fearing that the deaf would fall prey to witchcraft if they viewed the classic sitcoms.

Why is this the government's responsibility? If Friends is captioned, it's probably at the cost of its advertisers. But to say all old sitcoms have to be made accessible to everyone, well, that's as absurd as the handicapped parking spot and the wheelchair ramp at the roller rink.

But. . .

Look at the list of stuff they don't want to take the time to caption:

• Bewitched
• I Dream of Jeannie
• Law & Order
• Power Rangers
• Sanford and Son
• Judge Wapner's Animal Court
• The Loretta Young Show
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

As absurd as this may seem, I'm sure it's an impact to people with limited hearing. And the short end of all this is that there's some water-cooler dictator that decides that they're going to devote resources to captioning Scooby Doo, but not Ninja Turtles. Wouldn't you have loved to sit in on that meeting?

Did we learn nothing from first grade?!? If you bring treats, in this case, federal funds for closed captioning of TV shows, you have to have enough for everyone.