Washington curiosities

Anyone who doubts that Washington, D.C., can be a strange place should consider two back-to-back events in the Dwight Eisenhower Executive Office Building last Thursday.
President Bush participated in two bill-signing ceremonies, held just 15 minutes apart on separate floors of the building, Both were heralded as landmark events by supporters of the legislation.
In the first ceremony, the president signed the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2005.
Bush commented on an increase in the use of profanity on television over the last decade or so, especially during the hour between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., when many families are watching TV. He noted that since 2000, the number of indecency complaints received by the FCC has increased from just hundreds per year to hundreds of thousands. "In other words, people are saying, we're tired of it, and we expect the government to do something about it," the president said.
Actually, the dramatic increase represents an aggressive campaign in recent years by people who support greater censorship of television broadcasts. While television programming may have gotten ruder and cruder in recent years, it certainly has not done so in a way that would naturally account for a thousand-fold increase in complaints.
But whatever the reason for those complaints, Congress and the administration had a ready remedy: draconian fines for broadcasters who are deemed to have offended viewers. The new act increased the possible fines for broadcasters by a factor of 10 -- from $32,500 per incident to $325,000, with a provision that daily fines for repeat offenders can accrue to $3 million.
To his credit, the president noted that the primary responsibility for protecting children from indecent programs lies with the parents, who control the on-off button. But that observation didn't get as much applause as the announcement that broadcasters could be fined $325,000 for offending some Americans' delicate sensibilities.
The next appearance
Minutes later, President Bush appeared before an entirely new crowd, in a different room, to sign what he described as the most sweeping overhaul of federal mine safety law in nearly three decades.
The MINER Act of 2006 includes some important protections for the men and women who risk their lives every day, especially in the nation's coal mines.
Among those attending this signing ceremony were family members of miners who have died in recent mine accidents and Randal McCloy Jr., the sole survivor of the Sago, W. Va., mining accident in January.
The new law, the first major improvement in mine safety legislation since 1977, requires that miners have two hours' worth of oxygen on hand while they work, rather than one. Mine operators also must store additional oxygen supplies underground and must put new communications equipment and devices to track lost miners in mines within three years.
Fines for mine operators who willfully violate mandatory health or safety standards will face fines that could rise to four times those of the old law. The maximum fine is $250,000 (or $500,000 for a second conviction).
Response to tragedy
Thirty-three miners have died in the United States so far this year, a 50 percent increase over the toll of 22 for all of 2005.
To our knowledge, no one has died from shock from the profanity broadcast on television between 8 and 9 p.m. -- no one was even injured during the infamous Super Bowl wardrobe malfunction by singer Janet Jackson. And yet, the fine for broadcasting indecency is $325,000 to $3 million. Does that seem disproportionate, compared with the mine safety maximums?
And then there is this: While the Federal Communications Commission has been resolute in levying fines against offending television stations, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported in March that the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration had failed to collect fines in 8,000 cases of unsafe mine operations over a two-year period.
The acting head of the agency told a U.S. Senate committee that a computer glitch was the culprit and that collections would be resumed.
Something tells us that if it had been revealed that the FCC had failed to collect fines from TV stations that broadcast 8,000 naughty words, there would have been a campaign to flood Washington with hundreds of thousands of complaints.