Josh McDaniels isn't nearly as offensive as CSI

I watched the Denver Broncos Thanksgiving game at a family celebration with small children. And when the network failed to bleep out Coach Josh McDaniels' profanity-laden tirade, I must admit I was, um, mildly amused. Sort of stoked actually.

I learned the next day that I'd had the wrong emotion. I was supposed to be offended and even outraged. As The Denver Post's Mark Kiszla wrote here and here:

What happened next for mothers, fathers and all the kiddies watching the game as part of the holiday celebration was reality TV gone bad... So much for the myth that the NFL is wholesome family entertainment. The public appetite for pumping-up violence and the unedited noise of the game's raw emotion is insatiable.

Fortunately, the NFL Network raced to apologize for their oversight. Leaving me with just one question:

Do any of these jackasses actually have children?

Watching a football game with a small child is a nightmare, not because of the occasional f-bomb, but because of nonstop promos for graphic television shows such as CSI. I turn off all of the commercials. Always. Because during the first week of the season the game segued into a promo that showed a mutilated corpse and a terrified woman, leaving my child ashen and me scrambling for the remote control.

The networks that broadcast NFL games can send their phony, hypocritical apologies to someone who cares. If they want to make football family-friendly, they should edit or ban show promos that feature dead bodies, sobbing victims, firing guns and tortured screams. As McDaniels himself might say, do your job and quit making shit up.

What to read when you're not reading the One Show Annual

Tom Morello once said that his musical inspiration was a horse. Not sure what that means. My inspiration is Wonderpets. But I digress.

Seeking influences from outside your industry is a good thing. It prevents reflexivity and tunnel vision. It's not that you shouldn't be reading The Denver Egotist and AdFreak. You should. And here are a few other publications that might influence your work in ways you can't predict:

infosthetics.com: In modern communication, Information design is as creative and important as graphic design or art direction. This blog highlights some of the coolest and most creative ways to visualize the data points that make up our world.

Various style blogs: Working on American Crew, most of us at Karsh\Hagan try to keep up with fashion. The Sartorialist, Streetpeeper, Selectism and Street Etiquette are a few blogs that have developed a following. Trendsetters reveal themselves through their clothing, and seeing their styles gives us insight on how to speak their language.

wired.com/underwire: According to Gareth, more Americans played a video game in the last six month than went to the movies. The Underwire is Wired's blog about both games and movies, plus everything else that influences geek-pop culture.

creativesocialblog.com: Increasingly, and especially in digital, the power of an idea isn't defined by how many consumers might see it, but by how many consumers pass it around, mash it up, and make it their own. Creative Social is a survey of that type of work.

wallpaper.com: Architecture one of the loudest and most lasting expressions of culture. This blog puts it in the context of design and fashion, linking humanity with the spaces we build ourselves.

[Ed. - Matt Ingwalson wrote this post for Karsh Connect and cross-posted it to his blog.