CHARLIE SHEEN-THE NEXT CHAPTER AND FREE SPEECH-IT IS THAT

SHELIA NEVINS*-ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION?

The Taming of Charlie

      THE PROPOSAL-A NEW REALITY SERIES

              Charlie Sheen is kidnapped by his family and is forced into an

              intervention.  

        The program would feature Martin Sheen, our greatest President in the last 20 years, and Emelio Estevez the other Sheen son, plus old "tiger blood" Charlie himself.

         The series opens as the Sheen clan plans the kidnapping.  Cameras stay with the drama through out.  Charlie is grabbed, probably while he is ranting and raving someplace, taken to a remote location where he is confronted by the family and sent into a detox/rehab/personality transplant therapy.  This series could run weeks as we watch the man change from rocket fuel to decaf.  

         Would America watch?  I think so.  Would CBS recoup on their number 1 comedy, I think so.  Am I being absurd?  I think so.  But could this concept really play? I know so, sadly.

A LONG WAY FROM PERSON TO PERSON HUH?

         What would Ed Murrow say?  For those of you who miss the point of this reference,
the pioneer broadcast journalist had this to say about television


       "This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and even it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it's nothing but wires and lights in a box." 

Where will it take us?

SPEAKING OF SPEECH

     Many are upset with the Supreme Court's decision upholding the right of the Westboro Baptist Church to protest military funerals. Even the chief justice called the speech at the center of the specific case before the court, "hurtful."

       I consider the Westboro Baptist Church protests  to be awful, perverted, morally reprehensible and frankly nuts.  Still, free speech is free speech and one of the underpinnings of our republic is the first amendment to the Constitution.

          Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting 

          the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the

          right of the people to assembly, and to petition the Government for a redress of 

          grievances. 

    In their anger and disgust some loose sight of the fundamental importance and  beauty of Amendment I.  It sets us apart among other nations, and it also says that we are a proud and philosophically "big" enough people to sustain the excesses, even when they are hurtful, inflammatory  and ignorant, as are the words and signs and presumably the people of the Westboro Baptist Church.  

        I find absolutely nothing reflective of my understanding of Christian faith in their 

words and actions.  But then it is not for me to judge.  That is ultimately for their God, who I suspect is more than disgusted at their behavior.  In the meantime our freedoms of 

religion and press offer ample space for people of better conscience to define the Westboro Baptist Church as the cretins they are.  Maybe they could invite Charlie Sheen to the guest pulpit-that is until Sheen is saved from himself.

*Shelia Nevins is the programming executive at HBO who has created such luminary programs as Taxi Cab Confessions.  To be fair, she has also

presided over important and quality programming as well.

See you down the trail.