It's about the dreck that is passing for programming these days, and the propensity of major media to promote it because PEOPLE WATCH IT AND LISTEN TO IT. And therefore, advertisers support it.

For years, when I have dialed in, mostly by accident or channel surfing, Imus has been struggling to say something noteworthy. After more than 30 years, the man has run out of gas and needs to engage in the most basic -- and base -- level of banter just to keep it up. (pun intended,Don) At best, taken alone, he is offensively irrelevant.

More relevant, however, is the bombardment on the airwaves of what is tolerated as mainstream, and viewed as entertaining. "Judge Judy" screaming "shut up" at participants in her "courtroom", and calling them liars. Jerry Springer with his soulful..."take care of yourselves and others"..or whatever it is he says at the end of a marathon of expletives, clothes tearing and the most vile and degrading behavior in which people can engage. It's been ratcheting up for years as people have been immunized to ever higher levels of incivility. And Maury Povich, who daily profits from degrading attempts to tear people's lives apart by revealing who is, or is not, the daddy. "You have to get this out in the open," he tells an hysterical woman about to humiliate herself and her family and ruin her life, marginal though it may be. For what?

Money, ratings, and because there are people who eat it up like popcorn.

Last night I saw an ad for a new show called "the underbelly", or something like that, it is about pregnant women, and all the clips were "have you seen her nipples" to two guys buying a breast pump, and jokes about amniotic fluid. The pathetic level of taste we have descended to is inspiring sitcoms for crying out loud. It used to be just families treating each other like crap to a laugh track. Now we have to have mucus plug humor.

I'm guessing the most serious posters on this site don't watch or listen to these shows. Possibly they've dumped their cable, like me, because there is nothing worth watching...or turned it back on again, like me, to access the BBC and public television. (Let's not even talk about the endangerment under the Bush administration of the one source of decent programming we have, only because it isn't beholden to advertisers and the lowest level they pander to, and can adhere to quality standards...and p.s. why the GOP apparently would like to see it disappear. No commercial value? UnAmerican!)

The truth is, entertainment and information in this country has been not only dumbed down, but sucked dry of taste for many years. It's not the fault of the people who fling verbal excrement over the airways, it is the fault of the people who can't wait to be on the receiving end, and the people who stand idly by and let it escalate. Me included.

I'm adding the FCC and all its issues to my agenda. Unless we want to become the Jerry Springer Nation, I suggest others consider it too.

The MSM needs to relentlessly point out to any and all WH and other "Bushies" who are trying to spin this e-mail fiction that Congress is in possession of hard proof that the RNC e-mail system was being used to deliberately subvert the Presidential Records Act.

These people have had the limited intelligence or steroidal hubris to actually put in writing that they needed to use the RNC system in order to be able to do end-runs around ethics and the scrutiny thereof. Courtesy of Jack Abramhoff and Karl Rove's Susan Ralston, among others.

Where do they now get this ridiculous story of being overzealous in the use of the RNC system in their attempts to conform to the law? Somebody needs to talk to those doggone eager beavers, folks. They just got carried away and were overly cautious in trying to obey the letter of the law....

It's beyond unbelievable...but why don't reporters hammer them with it. They just keep reporting the drivel that is on the menu as "today's special lame excuse"

All I can say is...Leahy's bite had better be as good as his bark.

Thanks, hnutsworth. Now I know where the signature anus came from. I never read "Breakfast of Champions", although I have it in my library. My favorites were all the first books, including my very first, "God Bless you, Mr. Rosewater"...then "Slaughterhouse Five", "Cat's Cradle"... which I discovered in college in the early 70's. I just pulled "Breakfast of Champions" (anus, page 5) off the bookshelf and will start it tonight as my tribute to the passing of this literary behemoth....the likes of which I am afraid we will never again see. A man whose work has transcended two/three consecutive and very intellectually distinctive generations is a life worth celebrating.