No Comedy Central in Searcy

I received an email from a friend telling me that a mutual friend of ours was going to be without Internet access in a week. For us this would be like cuting off our air supply…don’t laugh! This is no laughing matter!

This was his email to me:

She got tired of not having comedy central, so she switched to satellite. But now the fucking cable compan won’t sell her internet without cable tv!

And it being Searcy, there’s no other broadband provider…

So, she did find out why there’s no comedy central. It’s hilarious.
Ask her!

So I had to ask and this is what she wrote to me:

In 1997, there was a school-shooting in Jonesboro, Arkansas. It’s a small city in the northeast corner of the state, about 90 miles from Searcy. Around that same time, White County Video (as White County Cable TV was known at the time) was making a bid to include Comedy Central in its lineup, but the good citizens of Searcy heard about this animated series featuring children… maybe you’ve heard of it: it’s called “South Park”… anyway, the good citizens of Searcy somehow knew that in each episode of South Park one of the characters gets killed as a running joke. “Oh my god, you just killed Kenny! You bastard!” (How they knew that, since they don’t watch the show, is beyond me. I’m quite sure Jesus must have spoken to them
directly.) So the good citizens of Searcy decided to stage a letter writing campaign and petition drive to convince the local cable provider that Comedy Central should never be allowed to join the cable package as long as “South Park” stayed on the air. After all, our children might decide to take guns to school and shoot up their classmates after watching it.

Ironically, I have confirmed that Jonesboro’s only cable provider, Cox Communications, does provide Comedy Central. Seems the good citizens of Jonesboro, who personally experienced the school shooting tragedy, are not opposed to a little animated violence.

The General Manager of White County Cable TV told me that story yesterday. So I responded, “And how many thousands of letters will you be needing, then? How many signatures were on the petition?” And he said, “It’s not like that… your one voice is as important to us as any number of signatures on a petition…” If that’s so, why hasn’t my THREE YEARS of requesting Comedy Central brought about any change to their network lineup? Because he’s full of shit.

Blah blah… As Justin told you, I’m losing cable internet on the 23rd. There are no other broadband options in my area (DSL is already at subscriber capacity, so they’re not taking more customers). We might get satellite internet, but it will suck… and it’s expensive. I’m angry.