re: jj challenges robtcohen to duel for the most boring prize

how is a baptist culture differentiated from anabaptist culture?

b conveyance is black camaro with hollywood cut-out mufflers versus

black wagon with neat horse apple pooper scooper

b secret favorite movie is "thunder road" versus that secret pennsylvania

fantasy favorite film: "the night the lights went on in lancaster"

most significant ceremonial ritual: dunk 'em young versus sprinkle 'em old

baylor preacher bears versus house of david bearded hirsutes

a copyrighted article is being

re-posted to the alt.philosophy n.g. under my layman's interpretation of "fair
use"

Pol Wants to Pre-Screen Amish Show

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 7/8/2004 3:32:00 PM

The office of Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.) has put in a call to UPN asking for a
private screening of controversial new reality show Amish in the City. UPN
announced a July 28 debut for the series Thursday.

Last March, UPN decided to go ahead with the series, which looks at the Amish
right-of-passage known as rumspringa, despite requests from some legislators
and Amish groups that it pull the plug. They argued that the series would
exploit the religion and pointed out that being filmed violates prohibitions on
graven images.

A Pitts staffer says the news of the debut took them by surprise and that they
put in the call to UPN almost immediately. "We want to make a fair judgment of
the show," said the staffer, "though regardless of content we still believe the
filming was an extreme violation of their religious beliefs. Pitts has about
18,000 Amish constituents in a district that includes all of Lancaster County,
Pa.

During Rumspringa, Amish youth are allowed to live outside of the community and
its restraints, then reenter-or not-of their own free will. Evoking a sort
of Amish version of MTV's Real World, youth journeying outside the community
are brought to the city to live with urban youth, with UPN chronicling the
interaction.

(ER viewers got a taste of the ritual in a story arc last season featuring a
couple on the spiritual journey, one of whom decides to return to the
community, while the other does not.)

"We have total respect for what critics and Congressmen are saying," said Dawn
Ostroff, UPN's president of entertainment, in announcing the green light last
March. "We have every intention of treating the Amish and their heritage with
the utmost respect and decency."

Ostroff reiterated that sentiment Thursday in announcing the special two-hour
premiere: "Foremost in our minds as we went forward was to treat with the
highest respect the young Amish people who were entering a world they had never
before experienced," she said.

No word yet on whether UPN will provide Pitts and company with the private
screening, but a UPN spokesman said the network is considering holding a panel
and screening of the show at the TV Critics Association summer tour July 20.

Pitts' initial reaction to the announcement of the show last February was to
hold a news conference on a Lancaster, Pa., farm, and ask UPN "not to put our
Amish youth in a cage to be laughed at like animals at the zoo."

And what if Pitts gets his private screening and doesn't like what he sees? The
staffer wasn't commenting beyond saying: "We are keeping our options open."

Amish In the City will be a weekly hour series, airing Wednesday at 8-9.


UPN identified the urban youth in the show as "a handsome swim teacher, a
fashion-forward party girl, a colorful club promoter, a busboy/musician, an
inner-city student, and a strict vegan." Among the new experiences for the
Amish were a trip to the ocean, a helicopter ride to a resort and hitting the
red carpet for a movie premiere.












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