Via old compadre Rick Klau's Blog, a story about some San Francisco Police officers in trouble over a joke video that's gotten out. Essentially some SFPD folks decided to do a home-video version of Reno 911, and now everyone's pissed.

Rick seems to think the officers in question should have known better, but I disagree. Look: people have every right to satarize their work life, even in an offensive fashion, even if they're police officers. That goes doubly if the satire is essentially a private communication (the video was indended to be used at a holiday party roast). I think it's absolutely ridiculous that we have such an immature and conflicted society that we can't handle these things.

I also think its ridiculous that the newsmedia felt it was legitimate to publish the video in the first place. It's not like anything illegal happened, and it's not like the video (at least what they show) is horrid or tasteless or overly hateful. It's amateur comedy. So what's the rationale for what seems to be a substantial violation of a community's internal/private workings? My guess is ratings, but we can't really admit that, so the official answer is outrage.

This phony sense of "outrage", the soberly-asked question "why in the world would you make such a video?", the mayor calling this a "wake up call," it's all highly irritating. Grow the fuck up, America.

Frankly, I'm skeptical that anyone is actually aggreved by this, and deeply dissapointed that their supposed offendedness is being taken seriously, even used to score political points. This is the sort of brain-dead/corporate political correctness that gives important values like diversity and tolerance a bad name. By responding critically, progressives (like Mayor Newsom) are only serving to provide cannon fodder to right-wing pundits and undermine what's left of America's liberal consensus.

Watch the video. I agree with the guy who made it completely. It's infantile to try to pretend that this is worth getting worked up about.

UPDATE: God fucking dammit! I shouldn't torture myself like this, but I decided to check the other link from Rick's site about a 49ers media-training tape that the SF Chron decided to publish. This apparently cost a lot of people their jobs, which is an injustice as far as I'm concerned. With the exception of brief nudity and a couple of f-bombs, this is nothing you would't see on SNL. Football players are grown-ups. Odds are they've seen boobies and heard the word "fuck" before. People should not loose their jobs for this.