Obscenity

A battle over what constitutes "overtly sexual" art unfolded on Long Beach's trendy main thoroughfare on Monday, with an artist demanding that two of her abstract nudes be put back up on the walls of a public exhibition organized by a program that deemed them offensive.

A parents group is warning about explicit footage in a new Grand Theft Auto video game, even though a California law banning such material from being sold to children was struck down as unconstitutional Friday. Common Sense Media, a nonprofit group that reviews games, movies and other entertainment for children, sent out a message late Thursday warning against Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned. "Heavy violence, strong language -- and now nudity," the group said.

Another member of the media is in trouble for making inappropriate comments. Only this time, the subject was religion. ESPN personality Dana Jacobson has been disciplined for remarks she made Jan. 11 at a roast in Atlantic City, N.J., for colleagues Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic. According to various reports, Jacobson appeared inebriated when she used an expletive in connection with Notre Dame, Touchdown Jesus and Jesus.

The Federal Communications Commission said Friday that it planned to fine Walt Disney Co.'s ABC network $1.4 million for airing an episode of "NYPD Blue" in 2003 that showed a woman's nude buttocks. The company said it opposed the fine and planned to appeal. The FCC said it was seeking $27,500 for each of 52 stations in the Central and Mountain time zones that aired the scene in the 9 to 10 p.m. time slot in violation of federal restrictions against broadcasting "obscene material" between 6 a.m.

Grover Cleveland High School Principal Bob Marks has his limits. On Thursday, it was the labeled diagram of a vagina splashed across the front page of the student newspaper's Valentine's Day issue. Flustered teachers rushed to confiscate the publication, but with some copies already in circulation and the Reseda campus in an uproar, it quickly became a hot read for the school's roughly 3,700 students. And some of the contraband issues made their way home, getting a quick reaction from parents.

High above Wilshire Boulevard, scenes from the pilot of "Dexter" were illuminating a tiny editing room. From a couch, Bob Greenblatt, Showtime's president of entertainment, considered the original version of the bloody series about a well-meaning serial killer -- and compared it to the revised version he'd made for CBS. CBS will begin airing the 12 episodes of Season 1, or at least parts of them, tonight in another sign of how the networks are tiptoeing into edgier fare.

The Supreme Court this week may reopen for the first time in more than 30 years the debate over what qualifies as an "indecent" broadcast. The media environment has changed dramatically since 1978, when the court last ruled on this issue: Today's viewers and listeners are exposed to the more freewheeling cable TV, Internet and "shock jocks" on satellite radio.

As federal judges consider pivotal cases about what constitutes offensive TV and radio broadcasts, an expletive might best describe the state of the federal government's enforcement of indecency rules. It's all bleeped-up. Thousands of viewer and listener complaints about programs are backed up at the Federal Communications Commission, where officials acknowledge the legal limbo has tied their hands. The FCC is reluctant to rule on these cases until the U.S.

An attempt at humor -- something that Coach Pete Carroll said "we were just having fun with" -- backfired on the USC program this week, prompting the school to pull a video off youtube.com. The footage was of Carroll's son, Brennan, the Trojans' tight ends coach, putting a group of potential walk-ons through a series of drills during a tryout. Throughout, Brennan Carroll is shown hamming it up for the camera -- and using language laced with profanities.

Apparently, the Maricopa County Police Department can do without Shaq. Sheriff Joe Arpaio wants Shaquille O'Neal to return his special deputy sheriff's badges to the Arizona county because of profanity and a racially derogatory word the Phoenix Suns center used while mocking Kobe Bryant in a freestyle rap video that surfaced Monday on the Internet. "I do believe in free speech, but I don't believe that in law enforcement to use this type of language is proper," Arpaio said.