While I'd hardly be disturbed if Imus went off the air, I think the calls for his dismissal are at best counter productive, and at worst

Are his comments insensitive? Yes. Are his comments hateful? Maybe? Are his comments racists? Most likely. Are they a firing offense? I hardly think so. If someone I knew made a comment like that I'd cringe and say, "I don't think you want to be saying something like that." Obviously as a media personality he is under different rules, but part of his job is also to be offensive, and I'm not suprised he stepped over the line for which he should apologize. I'm happy to see the issue raised, but I think calling for his firing is more act of retaliation than productivity. Just don't hire him for the next job.

I am sympathetic to both parties involved. Seuss enterprise has legimate reason to protect it's copyright. It can hardly choose and pick what to defend. However it would've been in their benefit to grant Ryan use. That wouldn't have been too hard. However it's unclear to me when the copyrights have passed to an estate who has has the right. Sure someone can make that decision, but who is the voice of Seuss?

That said copyright, and intellectual property laws are wildly outdated. It's high time we review these laws and what they should be protecting, and how to best enforce them. The 21st century is a brand new age for both infringement and fair use.

King, I'm with you. I never liked Imus much. Didn't listen to him, and wasn'suprised that he a made a sexist and racist comment. Ultimately because it wasn't his listeners who were calling for his firing, I find the firing counter productive. His listeners are angry for taking away their man, and they're angry at the people who called for his firing. Who are his listeners? I imagine lots of white men. Now they're probably mad at black people, and women in general (wrongly so, but that's who they're going to be mad at). This does not engender actual discussion about what are important topics, sexism and racism, just anger. I'm all for the people raising attention to Imus's clearly racist and sexist comments, and the demands for an apology. Not standing for racist and sexist columns is best done by showing them for what they are instead of what seems like revenge seeking. Even if the root reason is not revenge it'll sure feel that way to Imus's listeners.

It's highlight there's nothing here that's defending the women. I often don't agree with broadsheet because they overreact, but too many people overreact in the commentary.

Mental illness can happen to anyone regardless race. However, I'm not suprised that it was Asian-American male who violently lost it. A tragedy like that in VT requires a number of factors. 1) a mentally ill individual 2) cause to set off said mentally ill individual 3) access to guns

We had all three at VT. There's no question in my mind that Asian American males face obstactles and pressure from family and society that are different from their other ethnic and gender counterparts. Does that alone make any Asian American man a time bomb? Hardly, the key piece is still the mental illness. However, it's likely for a perputator to be male, and societaly more marganalized. Guys are more violent, and Asian-American men are typically more marganalized than the average white male.

p.s. I appreciate the american spelling of Cho's name given how unlikely Cho would refer to himself at Cho Seung-Hui.

I think this is one those great topics that on the surface seem simple, but at heart shows how complex things really are. I'm with Carol on this. Why shouldn't woman be able to wear what they want? But clearly wearing the Hajib is for relegious reasons so for a secular government to prohit it does make sense. Just because the deamands come from women make the demands empowering to women. Just in the same way a Wal-Mart pharmacist shouldn't be alloweed to turn away a customer seeking birth control. Obviously not the same, but as always there is a slippery slope. People like to think individual rights are individual, but in reality individual rights constantly conflict with other individual rights. There are no easy answer that makes it right for everyone.

The fact that more attention in the last few decades is being to women's health does mean less attention is paid to men's health. I just don't think this is a bad thing. If anything it's probably restoring some balance to what was over an overemphasis on men's health to the detriment of women. Given that there are limited resources, tradeoffs will always have to be made. The question is has the pendulum swung too far? I personally doubt it, but that's a matter for study.

I'll echo other readers sentiments, when i say the aside from the editorial pages the journalism in the journal is oustanding. I don't know what kind of manager murdoch is, and what kind of corparate culture he instills but I imagine it will be different from the current rulers at the Dow who are said to be paternalistic and protective of it's employees. I do not think the reign of murdoch will be so kind to the many center and left of center reporters who do the actual reporting at the Wall Street Journal.