Does Size Matter?

[Gary Freedman]

A TBD member left the following comment on my blog about Jean-Jacques Rousseau's sexual confessions: "Taken in total, such confessions compromise less than a fraction of a percent of his work. I doubt [any reader] would have noticed ...."

My response? Taken in total, the Jews have comprised, throughout history, less than a fraction of a percent of the world's population. You would doubt that anyone would notice them at all. But people do!

[Gary Freedman]

Sometimes people turn the single use of one word into a federal case.

When Cher tossed out an expletive during the 2002 Billboard awards, little did the audience realize Cher's fleeting potty mouth would become a federal case reaching the highest court in the land. But in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled the FCC could enforce its ban on offensive words of a sexual or excretory nature, because technological advances in voice recognition technology allow enforcement of a 2004 rule against fleeting expletives. The majority opinion declared the rule was neither arbitrary nor capricious, despite the fact that the fine was applied retroactively.

Cher's response to the ruling was too obscene to print.

[Gary Freedman]

I googled "Jean-Jacques Rousseau" + masturbation and got 4,320 hits. That's a good number. Apparently, people do notice.