Imus is gone

[Neal Pomea]

I reached my own conclusions about what Imus said quite independently of Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, and I think that's true for many people. Probably most. Can't pin this on Sharpton and Jackson. They don't lead me or most of America.

Basically, some people don't want others called ho' or the n' word, or gay, or retarded, not even in the "hilarious" way rappers and comedians do it. What's the problem with honoring that?

[Jazzmoose]

and the iranian parliament is bombed in the green zone, and few notice;

and imus is gone, and the ugliness;

and a large measure of our free speech, as well.

Huh? How is free speech affected? The man was fired because his sponsors bailed, not directly because of what he said. And even if it was directly because of what he said, that's something his boss is free to do as well. I believe your thesis needs a little work...

[RDK]

In all honesty, my first reaction to all this was why fire Imus when Michael Savage is still around...

Indeed. Savage was the most offensive guy I ever heard on the airwaves. Was glad to find that the local station just replaced him with Dennis Miller, who's at least funny. (Didn't even know that Dennis had a radio show...)

[Rooster_Ties]

and the iranian parliament is bombed in the green zone, and few notice;

and imus is gone, and the ugliness;

and a large measure of our free speech, as well.

Huh? How is free speech affected? The man was fired because his sponsors bailed, not directly because of what he said. And even if it was directly because of what he said, that's something his boss is free to do as well. I believe your thesis needs a little work...

100% correct, Moose. Thanks for saying that.

Edited April 13, 2007 by Rooster_Ties

[RDK]

and the iranian parliament is bombed in the green zone, and few notice;

and imus is gone, and the ugliness;

and a large measure of our free speech, as well.

Huh? How is free speech affected? The man was fired because his sponsors bailed, not directly because of what he said. And even if it was directly because of what he said, that's something his boss is free to do as well. I believe your thesis needs a little work...

100% correct, Moose. Thanks for saying that.

Of course CBS and MSNBC have every right to fire Imus, and loss of sponsorship is a pretty damn good reason. But while perhaps not a free speech issue per se, it is censorship, if only a priori. I fully support CBS' right to fire Imus, but I don't like the fact that they were arm-twisted by Sharpton's drummed-up outrage, which pretty much says "you can say what you want to about most things but say anything that i find offensive and disagree with and we're gonna make you suffer."

[ejp626]

Almost all white collar employees have to sign statements that they will not use racial slurs or sexist language, discriminate and generally they will behave themselves. Violating this policy is grounds for dismissal, particularly on 2nd or 3rd offense. That's how I view this, not as free speech issue, but an employer deciding to cut his losses.

[Big Wheel]

if only a priori.

That word, a priori. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Edited April 13, 2007 by Big Wheel

[Neal Pomea]

I fully support CBS' right to fire Imus, but I don't like the fact that they were arm-twisted by Sharpton's drummed-up outrage,

I don't know about Sharpton's outrage, but it was not fake for many, many people. I doubt that Sharpton has leverage to twist arms at CBS. Again, Sharpton had little to do with leading so many people into insisting on Imus' punishment and/or removal. Cannot blame or credit Sharpton with this, in my opinion. It is Imus and his team that shot themselves in the foot. Since he had said even worse things in the past, he drew little sympathy or spoken support this time around, even from his own guests.

I will miss his musical guests. Even his conversations with politicos and journalists. But not the "comedy."

[skeith]

and the iranian parliament is bombed in the green zone, and few notice;

and imus is gone, and the ugliness;

and a large measure of our free speech, as well.

Huh? How is free speech affected? The man was fired because his sponsors bailed, not directly because of what he said. And even if it was directly because of what he said, that's something his boss is free to do as well. I believe your thesis needs a little work...

100% correct, Moose. Thanks for saying that.

so you guys ought to get down on your knees and thank the corporations for their willingness to take a stand against racsim and sexism.

[RDK]

if only a priori.

That word, a priori. I do not think it means what you think it means.

um, yes it does. Wikipedia is your friend, but you're taking its philosophical definition out of context from how it's used in other applications.

a priori definition

adj.

1. Proceeding from a known or assumed cause to a necessarily related effect; deductive.

As in: yeah, okay, nobody is going to legally prohibit me from saying something, but if I say it I'm going to get in so much trouble that I'd better not say it after all. The result is the same: one is prevented from saying something out of fear of repercusion and reprisal.

[catesta]

(apparently Snoop said something to the effect that it is OK to call girls in rap songs hos because they really are hos - right)

Wrong. As loath as I am to defend Snoop, this is what he actually said:

[Rappers] are not talking about no collegiate basketball girls who have made it to the next level in education and sports. We’re talking about ho’s that’s in the ‘hood that ain’t doing sh–, that’s trying to get a n—a for his money. These are two separate things. First of all, we ain’t no old-ass white men that sit up on MSNBC going hard on black girls. We are rappers that have these songs coming from our minds and our souls that are relevant to what we feel. I will not let them mutha—-as say we in the same league as him.

I don't think the correct quote makes Snoop look much better.

Guy

Exactly.

Snoop goes on to say that he is talking about his lyrics coming from his mind, soul and are relevant to what he feels. So, does that mean if Imus admits to being a racist or being sexist all is good? After all would that not be the same? Imus simply says, "I ain't no black dude sittin' out there in Compton, I'm just speaking how I feel".

Snoop makes himself look like a fucking moron.

[RDK]

and the iranian parliament is bombed in the green zone, and few notice;

and imus is gone, and the ugliness;

and a large measure of our free speech, as well.

Huh? How is free speech affected? The man was fired because his sponsors bailed, not directly because of what he said. And even if it was directly because of what he said, that's something his boss is free to do as well. I believe your thesis needs a little work...

100% correct, Moose. Thanks for saying that.

so you guys ought to get down on your knees and thank the corporations for their willingness to take a stand against racsim and sexism.

You put a smiley there, but you have a valid point. Larry Elder (among others) argues that a corporation that's racist, sexist, or otherwise bigoted in its operations is "bad for business." If you refuse to hire (for example) blacks, you're closing yourself off to potentially valuable employees; if you alienate and fail to service minorities, you're limiting your customer base. If you have even the appearance of being bigoted, you'll drive away potential costumers who will no longer give you money. The actions by CBS and NBC prove this in the Imus case. If advertisers no longer want to be associated with a known (or even just perceived) racist/sexist, then the network will lose money. And if it's bad for the networks to be associated with someone like Imus... then off he goes.

[catesta]

Only problem is they (CBS,NBC) hung on to the guy all these years while knowing he made questionable or offensive comments before.

I'm curious if he collects on the rest of his contract. I think he has close to 5 years left.

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

This is evidently the straw that broke the camel's back.You may be able get away with acting like an arsehole for quite a while, but eventually you're going to get reamed.

MG

[JSngry]

Not because Imus' comments "weren't that big of a deal" or any bullshit like that, just because it's a goddamned willful surrender of strength.

Whose "strength" and what "strength"? Not being snarky, just don't get what you're saying here.

I'm talking about how the Rutgers women expressed feelings of hurt over Imus' comments, as if the man actually had power over their lives.

Look at the dynamic here - a group of obviously talented women with seemingly unlimited bright futures ahead of them versus a snarky, shadowy wretch of a radio "personality". Who's got more going for them in their respective lives at this point in time in terms of what the future holds? The women, obviously.

That is power, the power to be strong, stay strong, and to swat away the various gnats that try to pester you as you go through life. It's the power to look Imus in the eye and say, "hey - Right now I'm a mf-in' champion and you're just Don Imus, a snarky, shadowy wretch of a radio "personality". In 5, 10, 15 years, I'm going to be (fill in the blank), and you're still going to be Don Imus, a snarky, shadowy wretch of a radio "personality". So if you see any nappy headed hos in this room, why don't you get down on your knees and kiss all their asses, because it's gonna be a long time before you ever get this lucky again."

Or something like that.

But do we get that? No. What we get is expressions of hurt, of feeling cheapened, degraded. Well, ok, words can hurt, and these type words in this type context have a history, to put it mildly. But the recognition that these women are anything but nappy headed hos and that Imus is anything but a figure of real power should be made in a way that stresses where the real power in this group of people lies - with the bright & talented women. 100% with the bright & talented women.

Any "power" that Imus has is conceded to him by both his supporters and his detractors. His supporters' motivation is their own, but why the hell would anybody on the receiving end of his various barbs want to concede their power to him? The man is a gnat, and an aging one at that. He should be swatted away without too much effort. Instead, we get a procession of people who should know better (but apparently don't) willfully surrendering their power by empowering the gnat with a potency that he otherwise simply would not have.

Ok, some will say that this outrage has brought Imus down. Professionally, it has, at least for now. But even that is a surrender of personal power to that of "the system". It's a concession that "the system" is what defines you, and the implication from that is inevitably that any/every individual, including young women with skills far above the average person has to be dependent on "the system" for validation at any level, including, it seems, personal. It implies that the system is your source, your definer, and your avenger. If you got it bad, take it to the system. If you want it good, take it to the system. The system is the Alpha & the Omega of who you are, who you can be, and who you should be.

Bullshit.

Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.

Bullshit.

Volunteered Slavery Sucks.

[RDK]

The "funniest" moment amid all this bullshit was when the Rutger's coach complained that Imus' words were already hurting her recruitment efforts for the b-ball team.

Oh how I wish Dave Chappel's show was still on so that he could murder this shit...

[catesta]

The "funniest" moment amid all this bullshit was when the Rutger's coach complained that Imus' words were already hurting her recruitment efforts for the b-ball team.

Oh how I wish Dave Chappel's show was still on so that he could murder this shit...

Yeah, what a crock.

It's not like women's basketball gets a lot of press, so no doubt the publicity has more than likely helped her and the school.

[catesta]

and the iranian parliament is bombed in the green zone, and few notice;

and imus is gone, and the ugliness;

and a large measure of our free speech, as well.

Huh? How is free speech affected? The man was fired because his sponsors bailed, not directly because of what he said. And even if it was directly because of what he said, that's something his boss is free to do as well. I believe your thesis needs a little work...

Free speech will be affected because of what the aftermath from this mess will be.

Watching CNN tonight I can already see it.

There are people out there that believe Imus should have been put in jail and others (including at least one board member here) believe he should be sued.

The shit is hitting the fan, my friend. How much shit? We'll have to wait and see.

Edited April 14, 2007 by catesta

[JSngry]

Free speech will be affected because of what the aftermath from this mess will be.

Watching CNN tonight I can already see it.

There are people out there that believe Imus should have been put in jail and others (including at least one board member here) believe he should be sued.

The shit is hitting the fan, my friend. How much shit? We'll have to wait and see.

Concede personal strength the system and the system will use it.

Don't anybody get me wrong - I'm glad Imus was fired. But if anybody thinks that he was fired for anything even remotely resembling "moral" reasons, grow up.

And contrary to the impression I might have left, I do understand the indignation of the Rutgers women. I'm just disappointed that they handled it in such a pussyass manner, and even more disappointed (although not surprised) that that was apparently their first course of action - turning a non-criminal personal grivance (and personal it ultimately is, no matter how much it speaks to broader issues) over to the system, which is rife with characters on every end of the ideological spectum who live for shit like this, bottom-feeders who lurk in wait of somebody who doesn't realize that the shortest distance between two points is to handle your own goddamn business and to handle it well. And that includes bringing a weasel like Imus down to size your own damn self, leaving him exposed for who he really is, and not go crying to the system, who will now use him as an object of both martyrdom & evil, all in the cause of blinding people to the power they have within themself. Of such things are industries made, and by such things are empires created. But whose industry & whose empire is this going to be, the Rutgers womens'? I think not. It could have been, it should have been, but they blew it. Piss-poor guidance, that's what they got, and too late now. Hopefully a lesson will be learned, but good luck on that one.

Culture of Community & Culture of Dependence are not the same thing, but it seems that in too many minds they have become that. The best communities are comprised of people who come together out of strength, not of neediness. We all got needs, but we all got strength too. Ain't enough people nurturing the strength and way too many people nurturing the neediness. Fuck that. You got a score to settle that don't involve the law, settle it your own damnself. Have some self-respect, be a mutherfukkin gangster about it (and that's what we all deep down inside dig about gangsters - in spite of how odious they are otherwise, they handle their own business) and get it done quickly and rightly. Anything else, and you're gonna be somebody else's bitch (no irony intended).

These women could/should have been able to cut Imus down to size their ownself. Shouldn't have been too hard. They're champions, and champions get it done. Instead, they fed into the steretype/industry of victimhood, and here we go again, more fire and next to no heat, the system doing what it does best - generating an illusion of substance while ultimately keeping things exactly the same.

Power to the people (and as Duke said, the people are my people), and fuck the system.

[Larry Kart]

Jim -- I understand what you're saying now, but IMO you're over-thinking this by a fair margain. Once Imus let the shit come out of his mouth, all the Rutgers team had to do was not in fact be what he said they were (that was easy) and maintain a reasonable level of cool. As for asking them to somehow stiff-arm "the system" because they "could/should have been able to cut Imus down to size their ownself" -- well, first, "the system" already was at their door like a pack of Dobermans; second, it takes certain skills (and/or a good deal of luck) to bend "the system" to your own uses, and under those circumstances one would need to be saint or a genius to pull off what you say they could/should have been able to do; and, third, they were dealing in Imus with a fellow whose use of such skills was among his chief skills (witness his "I'm a good person" ranch for sick kids), however atrophied those skills of his proved to be in this case at this time. As someone said, here or elsewhere -- who the hell is Imus's P.R. guy, if indeed he has one.

Getting back to the Rutgers team's conceding its "strength," I afraid that once you become the focus of a human-interest story in our world, there is virtually no way out or back. Not only that, if you do try to shut the door on the Dobermans, some of them will find a way to say ... in this case, it might have been something like "Further reporting now reveals that some members of the Rutgers team were in fact what Mr. Imus said they were."

[Larry Kart]

Jim -- Furthermore, who are the people of your "Power to the people"? If they're readers of, say, People magazine or one of its equivalents, then they're as crucial a part of "the system" as the Dobermans or their kennel masters. The appetites that are fed are learned in part but not only.

[JSngry]

Sorry Larry, but when I heard the team captain - the team captain - say that all that the team had accomplishes on & off the court had been "taken away" (I believe that was the exact phrase she used) by Imus' comments, I nearly went ballistic. Taken away from whom? By whom? This is supposed to be a strong individual?

A simple "We don't really know who Don Imus is, and if this is any indicator, we don't really care to know, but apparently he is a small man with an even smaller sense of propriety. We have better things to do with our lives than engage ourselves in this type of petty nonsense, so please, let's leave it to those for whom such things have relevancy. We pity them, but we can't be entrapped by them and their pettiness." would have done the trick. That would have been Rutgersese for "Don Imus is a pathetic excuse of a man. We so ain't got time to be bothered, so fuck him and fuck all y'all who think we do".

And that's what needed to be said.

[JSngry]

Jim -- Furthermore, who are the people of your "Power to the people"? If they're readers of, say, People magazine or one of its equivalents, then they're as crucial a part of "the system" as the Dobermans or their kennel masters. The appetites that are fed are learned in part but not only.

The people are all of us. And we all need to wake the fuck up.

Difficulty of accomplishing that task is no excuse for not undertaking it. That's why we're where we are now in the first place.

[Larry Kart]

Jim: I have some (I think revealing) close-up stories I could tell about how "the system" actually works -- in particular, about the media and those who use and are used by it -- and I probably will tell one or two, but not until tomorrow. In any case, while I wish I could share in the thinking that to my mind underlies your "The people are all of us" etc., the most optimistic words I've come across recently are "Shit, under some circumstances, can be re-cycled."

[Big Wheel]

if only a priori.

That word, a priori. I do not think it means what you think it means.

um, yes it does. Wikipedia is your friend, but you're taking its philosophical definition out of context from how it's used in other applications.

a priori definition

adj.

1. Proceeding from a known or assumed cause to a necessarily related effect; deductive.

As in: yeah, okay, nobody is going to legally prohibit me from saying something, but if I say it I'm going to get in so much trouble that I'd better not say it after all. The result is the same: one is prevented from saying something out of fear of repercusion and reprisal.

Except that there's nothing that can be deduced as a "necessarily related" effect in this case. "Necessarily" means that B must logically follow as a result of A, but there's nothing nearly so deducible in this case. For example, I think there's a loose consensus that Howard Stern could probably get away with saying the exact same words and not get fired (because it's much more clear that it's part of his shtick, and not the "real" Howard Stern talking), so there's no good reason to deduce that Don Imus's firing can only produce the outcome of a chilling effect on everyone else's speech.

I still think "de facto" would have been a much better choice. (Sorry, the misuse of a priori along with people who screw up "e.g." and "i.e." is a pet peeve.)