The Imus Mess.....
On the Imus affair I am of two minds and I cannot come to a conclusion. I listen to WFAN ( the Imus in the Morning flag ship station) on a regular basis, however only in the late morning and afternoon, so I did not really listen to Imus. Back in the early 1980's when I did local deliveries for a Fortune 500 company I did listen to Imus on the long gone WNBC until one day it occurred to me that he wouldn't like me because I'm fat. Or so I felt based on his "humour" So I simply stopped listening. Before I get into this further I will also note his charity work and his place in the mainstream political debate, including his hounding of the administration on the recent Walter Reed Army Hospital scandal. AND I will also note that he has made many comments that were tasteless.......
WHAT he said was wrong on so many levels. It was a poor attempt at humour. To call anybody a "nappy headed 'ho" is just wrong and deserved punishment. The fact that this was directed at the Rutger's women's basketball team is worse. IMHO we have a large gap between women's and men's sports in college and that gap comes to light after graduation. A top college male athlete can look forward to 10's of millions of dollars in pro sports. A top female? Maybe, if she is the best a couple of million in the WNBA and some endorsements. The point is that basketball got these women into Rutgers, but they know that to make it after college, no matter how good a basketball player they are, they need that diploma. So to call these girls " ho's" degrades them even further, IMHO. So yes Mr. Imus should have been punished..............
HOWEVER... There is a very strong Orwellian overtone to all this. Who can say what, when, and where all come into play here. Free speech and all that, and yes that bothers me too. As long as O'Reilly, Limbaugh, etc. still have a form, shouldn't Imus? Or Chris Rock? There is a fine line here and I'm not smart enough to say when and if it has been crossed or not, but if we are being selective about free speech, well then it isn't free is it? We have to be careful about what we wish for..........
IN the end, as in so many things about America in 2007, I think Mr. Imus' firing came down to the mighty dollar. For example Proctor and Gamble pulled it's ads not just from the Imus show, but from all the shows on MSNBC, for fear that one of their products could be rotated onto the Imus show's schedule. Similar things happened on the radio side. SO the mighty dollar speaks again. AND that is and was the BOTTOM LINE.........
IN the end I will lean towards agreeing with the firings. HOWEVER we need to examine and have healthy debate on ALL the implications of this action: racism, and censorship among the top topics. And until then all I can do is wish you all....PEACE..........................
WHAT he said was wrong on so many levels. It was a poor attempt at humour. To call anybody a "nappy headed 'ho" is just wrong and deserved punishment. The fact that this was directed at the Rutger's women's basketball team is worse. IMHO we have a large gap between women's and men's sports in college and that gap comes to light after graduation. A top college male athlete can look forward to 10's of millions of dollars in pro sports. A top female? Maybe, if she is the best a couple of million in the WNBA and some endorsements. The point is that basketball got these women into Rutgers, but they know that to make it after college, no matter how good a basketball player they are, they need that diploma. So to call these girls " ho's" degrades them even further, IMHO. So yes Mr. Imus should have been punished..............
HOWEVER... There is a very strong Orwellian overtone to all this. Who can say what, when, and where all come into play here. Free speech and all that, and yes that bothers me too. As long as O'Reilly, Limbaugh, etc. still have a form, shouldn't Imus? Or Chris Rock? There is a fine line here and I'm not smart enough to say when and if it has been crossed or not, but if we are being selective about free speech, well then it isn't free is it? We have to be careful about what we wish for..........
IN the end, as in so many things about America in 2007, I think Mr. Imus' firing came down to the mighty dollar. For example Proctor and Gamble pulled it's ads not just from the Imus show, but from all the shows on MSNBC, for fear that one of their products could be rotated onto the Imus show's schedule. Similar things happened on the radio side. SO the mighty dollar speaks again. AND that is and was the BOTTOM LINE.........
IN the end I will lean towards agreeing with the firings. HOWEVER we need to examine and have healthy debate on ALL the implications of this action: racism, and censorship among the top topics. And until then all I can do is wish you all....PEACE..........................
posted by eddie @ 4/15/2007 11:07:00 AM
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