Letters to the Editor
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Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May...
We *didn't* say "goodbye" when the drunk resorted to arms.
The whole country is "sleepwalking toward the precipice" because it "waits for leadership that is worthy it."
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So what, Gwool?
Does Imus being a misanthrope make his bigotry and bile any less offensive? What kind of an advertiser wants somebody who hates all of humanity as their spokesperson. Imus is an ass whose time has long passed. Good fucking riddance!
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GK is Projecting
...his guilt over taunting Unitarians and Southerners.
So on some level, he identifies. That's all.
(He's great at creamy nostalgia, but basic psychology and self-examination? Not so much.)
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Ho ho ho
You just don't get it do you? Why bother dividing these two men into different categories? They are the same animal. Imus dehumanizes black female athletes and Bush dehumanizes anyone who isn't rich, Christian and ultra right -unless they're friends of his daddy and live in Saudi Arabia. It runs in the family,who can ever forget his mother's comments on the huddled masses in the superdome after Katrina?What's wrong is the dehumanization. Imus deserved everything he got and Bush will be judged by history as the worst President America's ever had. Bush is coming to Australia soon, unfortunately, and they're already passing a law in the NSW parliament that allows 'random body searches' whatever the hell they are so Bush can be 'protected'. The question is who can protect us from him? Men like these are a disease and the disease is contagious. Look how easily Tony Blair caught it, in spite of his holier than thou attitude to politics. The cure is to stop making excuses for appalling attitudes and to stop living in denial and pretending Imus is not as bad as Bush. Or that Bush's badness is a mitigating factor for Imus. They both need to have consequences for their unacceptable behaviour.
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Wow, how topical
Next week's essay: Anna Nicole Smith. What's up with her?
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There is a difference
At what point do we draw a line when a public figure becomes disgusting? Do we truly believe that it is reasonable to come unglued when Janet Jackson has a "wardrobe malfunction" but to say nothing when Don Imus calls a group of college students racist/sexist names?
Yes, freedom of the press and freedom of expression are important, vital, necessary--but the people who heard or heard about Imus's comment also have a right to express their disgust and disdain for someone who would make such a comment. If sponsors and employers are put on notice that the general public finds such comments unacceptable, that is simple public relations.
What people say in a bar--probably after a few beers--is not judged the same way as what a "celebrity" says over the airwaves to thousands of people. People who go to a bar should know that there may be less than the most civil behavior. People generally don't take their children to a bar and people in a bar are free to respond to another patron's statement. Don Imus--loud mouth bully--probably didn't expect the objects of his derision to respond. They did and he is seeking other employment.
Did he learn anything? I doubt it--but it may make someone else a bit more cautious about making racist/sexist statements over the public airwaves. If you want to be like Don Imus, go to a bar and share your opinions with the other customers.
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Spoken like someone with no skin in the game...
1) Oh, can it, Gwool. _Again_, if Imus had said that about your sister or daughter, would you laugh it off as inconsequential? If not, then you are being a hypocrite as well as ignorant. If a black shock jock had said that about a white girls' team, he would have been lambasted endlessly for degrading their accomplishments (and sullying their "purity," because, as we all know, white girls are untouchable unless they are as bad as Paris Hilton. And even _then_...)
2) For the thousandth time, this wasn't just a one-off for Imus. Anyone who knows his history can tell you he put himself on the map as a shock jock in the first place by slamming black people way back in the late 60's, when he held a Black Panther lookalike contest (The prize--a jail term.) He got much press in the '70s for playing "Another One Bites the Dust" as Atlanta police were turning up victims of the Atlanta Child Murderer. And I won't even get into the "Williams sisters should be in NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC" stuff he let his minion get away with. In short, black people are his version of wife jokes--a sure-fire laugh getter he returns to often. That finally caught up with him, and rightly so.
3) And just because you were "flabbergasted" by your peer managers' remarks doesn't make you some kind of beacon of tolerance. If your own remarks were so bad you got called on the carpet for it, doesn't that tell you something? Every bigot has a line even he wouldn't cross, but that doesn't mean he isn't a bigot.
4) "Focus on actions, not words." Words _shape_ actions and attitudes. That is why people can be racist without ever having met a black person in their lives--because they buy the image of AAmericans presented to them without question.
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no time for nostalgia
Mr. Keillor risks becoming a caricature of himself with his wistful sighs and glances backward into the pastoral world of his childhood. He needs to get his head out of the lilacs--our country's problems won't be solved by the exit of GW Bush from the scene and the ascent of a "worthy leader," even if such a leader were to be found. The USA is colliding head-on with its karma, and each of us must be responsible for what happens next.
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Gosh, I wish
Prarie Home Companion was more like Bud's Lounge!
On the other hand, Mr keillor seems to have very little hope for the denizens of Bud's Lounge, and given he is well.... wait a minute!
Is Garrison Keillor turning into a prissy little tenure termite from some Midwestern English Lit. faculty?
Quick, somebody check if he has six legs.
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Wow!
It never occurs to Mr. Keollor that the outburst he hears in the back booth at Bud's Lounge has anything to do with why our country has the leadership, the war, and the radio (apart, of course, from "Prarie Home Companion) that it does?