weeping, I'm wondering if you read the entire Boyer piece, and what you thought of it.

I didn't finish it, but read like five out of the seven pages this morning online. What did I think?

I didn't detect a thesis or anything, it was basically a profile, and I kept waiting for delivery of the headline about Olbermann's changing cable news or whatever it was.

I guess the most notable part to me was when Olbermann said he expected to be terminated after his commentary against Bush et. al., I think it was. He said he expected to be fired and that if it had to happen, he'd go out with integrity, for a worthy cause.

I respected that stance greatly. If only more in the media had that kind of attitude, putting their sacred calling above their own careers.

Oh, also, I found all the stuff about his rivalry with O'Reilly to be kind of pathetic. I enjoy watching his anti-Bill-O schtick, but he lets himself be dragged down, imo, by getting in the weeds like that.

So on the one hand, I find Olbermann to be a man of integrity, or at least he appears to be, while on the other, he's sadly narcissistic. Whatever, he's human.

Was there anything in particular in the article you'd like to call my attention to?

And to you and Faulkner Jr.: can you even imagine your reaction if Phil Griffin was talking about African Americans the way he talked about Hillary Clinton supporters?

Right, then there was the Griffin stuff. My reaction? I don't know, Joan, I don't really expect much from the MSM, is my point.

I used to work in a newsroom, back in another life, and I wasn't very impressed with the people I worked with, which was a major reason I didn't stick it out. I just wasn't very inspired in that atmosphere of commercialized news.

I guess my point is that I agree with you about standards, it's just I think you're missing the forest for this particular sexist tree, if you will. (God, that was lame, forgive the failed metaphor.)

In every way, Joan, I'm quite accustomed to being marginalized, mocked and ignored. As a black person, as an academic, as an artist, as someone who doesn't think the United States is the greatest country on earth, etc.

I'm so used to being offended I don't get offended anymore, except, of course, by you, when you've exasperated me, because I think you should know better.

I can't think of something that might be analogous to women staying with brutal jerks that would work for African Americans, so let's not go there. Let's just stick with: I know they're unhappy, but they'll be back b/c they have nowhere else to go. I know, it sounds like the way a lot of Democrats have acted for a lot of years.

Precisely. I don't really consider myself "the typical black voter," but still, I've identified as such my whole life and yes, have grown quite accustomed to being taken for granted as a part of that demographic. And yes, it sucks; welcome to my/our world. Oh, plus, it's not just as a black voter I've been treated this way, but of course as a leftist one as well. I'm on the fringes and am accustomed to being treated as such.

One of the factors involved in my campaigning for Nader. So don't think I don't understand the nature of the grievance. I do. Fiercely.

I'm not pretending it's never been said; it's precisely because it has been said I know you both mustn't have really taken it in, if you snapped back at me like that.

I'm sorry, Joan, I may have snapped, but I really didn't mean it in a snappy way. Maybe I did. Maybe I snapped precisely for the reasons you state: that this is nothing new.

Maybe on some level I resent the fact that you can be nearly a decade older than I am and yet not have come to terms with this kind of treatment. Maybe there's some kind of entitlement or something I sense and maybe I'm just bitter that you're presenting this to me (I know, not just me) as if I'm supposed to be outraged.

And I am outraged, as I say, it's just that there's so much to be outraged about, it's not clear to me why this, of all things, of all things that have been going on in the MSM for all these years, should get everyone's attention.

Oh, and it's good to know I can rap Fox over calling Michelle Obama "baby mama," but it's time to leave MSNBC alone.

I know you're not talking to me on this, because as I said, I'd welcome a serious critique of MSNBC. My only objection was that this issue is just the tip of the iceberg.

I hope this makes some sense, Joan. If I'm not being clear, as sometimes happens because I don't edit, please let me know and I'll try again.

Olbermann's problem is ego. An obvious point, sure, and one that naturally afflicts most on-air personalities, but underneath it, I think he's got a lot to offer.

I do appreciate his wit and even his bombast, on occasion; though I usually find it over the top, it's usually apt.

And frankly, in an age of a pathetically docile media, he is a breath of fresh air.

I even like Matthews, I just don't take him very seriously.

He's so busy saying condescending things about intellectuals it never occurs to him he might actually learn something from them (us) and that carrying a lunchbox to work does not necessarily make one wise and virtuous.

Whatever, man.

That's Hollywood.