Don’t let us get stupid, all right? — part deux

On Don’t let us get stupid, all right?

Merci beaucoup for all your kind comments:

rrgirl: a great big fat #15 and I’ll worry about #19 when I see it.
If I ever feel like this starts slipping towards #19 then I’ll know it’s curtains.

Barb: I miss the way the Keith-haters would come here only to be slapped silly. They must have all gone back to OlbermannWatch.
I thought that site had died, but it came back to life.

Karl: Keith-lovers have been fooled by KOIE, too– this is from Kos last month:
“Well you’ve only succeeded in changing my opinion about Keith Olberman, and it’s a shame we had to go to a site called “Keith Olberman is evil” to do so.”
Link for that Kos story- http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/3/24/15635/8103
So it’s not just Rex. (As evidence I present Exhibit A and Exhibit B.)

Don’t people “get” satire anymore?

Don’t people know how to spell “Olbermann”?

I try to cite all my references, but ESPN.com only archives the podcasts for about 6 months. I guess I could download and archive them myself, but that’s a bit extreme.

JL: Some of your obscure cultural references are too obscure for me but otherwise nice job.
Thanks. They’re too obscure for me, too, sometimes. I’ll go back and read an old post once in a while and think to myself “What?!?” — not remembering at all what point I was trying to make.

rc: alot of #16 and #18, no hint of #19. no ko-haters, either. i don’t miss them
I don’t miss them, either.

Not enough #16 in this world. It’s in short supply these days, an endangered species.

Scoop: I have enjoyed this place too. Thanks for providing it.
NSNP — No sweat, no problem.

I read A Call for Manners in the World of Nasty Blogs (full text is at the end of this post) almost three weeks ago and was planning to comment on it when the Imus situation hit the fan and then the Virginia Tech shootings occurred. I chose to write about those and then got a case of sensory overload from all the news coming out of Blacksburg, so cut back on writing for a while. (I already have too many irons in the fire, am burning the candle at both ends, and have too much on my plate to be able to write about everything that interests me. Which is almost everything. I marvel at the folks on The Daily Kos who write hundreds if not thousands of words every day — intelligently, passionately — on serious topics. It can be hard for me to make even one post a day sometimes. Perhaps I really do have ADD ….) But the topic remains relevant. You can’t legislate civility, but at least there are attempts to address the issue.

When I started reading blogs about 18-20 months ago I was impressed with how well so many people write, as well as with the depth and quality of discussion generated. But it didn’t take long to detect the distinct hostility of certain writers. I suppose that for some people the ability to write something — a lie, a slur, an insult — and get away with it is a thrill. (Scoop remarked “there is no social price to pay” for such behavior.) A cheap thrill. Personally, I just don’t see the point.

If someone is rude to you I guess that gives you the right to be rude in kind. (The Eye for and Eye Rule.) But do you really have to? I was introduced to the work of Alfred Adler many years ago and one of his tenets is to avoid the power struggle. Answering hostility with hostility doesn’t really get you anywhere and just elevates the level of conflict. Maybe part of the game is to sustain the conflict. Again, I don’t see the point.

Perhaps I don’t understand human nature. If this blog has any theme at all (and it doesn’t, really — I like being eckalectic, as our Esteemed #43 would say) it’s that there is heaven and hell in all of us. We all have an angel sitting on one shoulder and a devil sitting on the other. I like to think I listen to my angel more often than I do to my devil, but that’s not always the case. People need to exert more self-control and not give in to their devil so much.

Thanks to all who come here to read and share ideas. It’s been my good luck — our collective good luck, actually — to have attracted an intelligent and civil crowd. I’d call it a “critical mass,” except that it’s not like a massive number of people come here. But for those of you who do, give yourselves a Home Run Bell.

And speaking of civility and good behavior …

Simmons Says 3 Epithets Should Be Banned: Music producer Russell Simmons proposes that the industry ban the words “bitch,” “ho,” and “nigger.” I thought to myself “Hey, someone’s trying to do something ….” But then I read the rest of the article. The words would be banned in the clean versions of rap songs (what gets played on the radio) but remain intact in the unedited versions (what most fans buy). Simmons said “This is a first step. It’s a clear message and a consistency that we want the industry to accept for more corporate social responsibility.”

My reaction: “Dude, don’t let us get stupid.”

A much more eloquent analysis here: As Criticism turns to Hip Hop, Russell Simmons Creates the Perfect Dodge

Russell needs to listen to Stevie:

So make sure when you say you’re in it but not of it
You’re not helping to make this earth a place sometimes called hell

 

 
A Call for Manners in the World of Nasty Blog
By Brad Stone
Published: April 9, 2007

Is it too late to bring civility to the Web?

The conversational free-for-all on the Internet known as the blogosphere can be a prickly and unpleasant place. Now, a few high-profile figures in high-tech are proposing a blogger code of conduct to clean up the quality of online discourse.

Last week, Tim O’Reilly, a conference promoter and book publisher who is credited with coining the term Web 2.0, began working with Jimmy Wales, creator of the communal online encyclopedia Wikipedia, to create a set of guidelines to shape online discussion and debate.

Chief among the recommendations is that bloggers consider banning anonymous comments left by visitors to their pages and be able to delete threatening or libelous comments without facing cries of censorship.

A recent outbreak of antagonism among several prominent bloggers “gives us an opportunity to change the level of expectations that people have about what’s acceptable online,” said Mr. O’Reilly, who posted the preliminary recommendations last week on his company blog (radar.oreilly.com). Mr. Wales then put the proposed guidelines on his company’s site (blogging.wikia.com), and is now soliciting comments in the hope of creating consensus around what constitutes civil behavior online.

Mr. O’Reilly and Mr. Wales talk about creating several sets of guidelines for conduct and seals of approval represented by logos. For example, anonymous writing might be acceptable in one set; in another, it would be discouraged. Under a third set of guidelines, bloggers would pledge to get a second source for any gossip or breaking news they write about.

Bloggers could then pick a set of principles and post the corresponding badge on their page, to indicate to readers what kind of behavior and dialogue they will engage in and tolerate. The whole system would be voluntary, relying on the community to police itself.

“If it’s a carefully constructed set of principles, it could carry a lot of weight even if not everyone agrees,” Mr. Wales said.

The code of conduct already has some early supporters, including David Weinberger, a well-known blogger (hyperorg.com/blogger) and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. “The aim of the code is not to homogenize the Web, but to make clearer the informal rules that are already in place anyway,” he said.

But as with every other electrically charged topic on the Web, finding common ground will be a serious challenge. Some online writers wonder how anyone could persuade even a fraction of the millions of bloggers to embrace one set of standards. Others say that the code smacks of restrictions on free speech.

Mr. Wales and Mr. O’Reilly were inspired to act after a firestorm erupted late last month in the insular community of dedicated technology bloggers. In an online shouting match that was widely reported, Kathy Sierra, a high-tech book author from Boulder County, Colo., and a friend of Mr. O’Reilly, reported getting death threats that stemmed in part from a dispute over whether it was acceptable to delete the impolitic comments left by visitors to someone’s personal Web site.

Distraught over the threats and manipulated photos of her that were posted on other critical sites — including one that depicted her head next to a noose — Ms. Sierra canceled a speaking appearance at a trade show and asked the local police for help in finding the source of the threats. She also said that she was considering giving up blogging altogether.

In an interview, she dismissed the argument that cyberbullying is so common that she should overlook it. “I can’t believe how many people are saying to me, ‘Get a life, this is the Internet,’ ” she said. “If that’s the case, how will we ever recognize a real threat?”

Ms. Sierra said she supported the new efforts to improve civility on the Web. The police investigation into her case is pending.

Menacing behavior is certainly not unique to the Internet. But since the Web offers the option of anonymity with no accountability, online conversations are often more prone to decay into ugliness than those in other media.

Nowadays, those conversations often take place on blogs. At last count, there were 70 million of them, with more than 1.4 million entries being added daily, according to Technorati, a blog-indexing company. For the last decade, these Web journals have offered writers a way to amplify their voices and engage with friends and readers.

But the same factors that make those unfiltered conversations so compelling, and impossible to replicate in the offline world, also allow them to spin out of control.

As many female bloggers can attest, women are often targets. Heather Armstrong, a blogger in Salt Lake City who writes publicly about her family (dooce.com), stopped accepting unmoderated comments on her blog two years ago after she found that conversations among visitors consistently devolved into vitriol.

Since last October, she has also had to deal with an anonymous blogger who maintains a separate site that parodies her writing and has included photos of Ms. Armstrong’s daughter, copied from her site.

Ms. Armstrong tries not to give the site public attention, but concedes that, “At first, it was really difficult to deal with.”

Women are not the only targets of nastiness. For the last four years, Richard Silverstein has advocated for Israeli-Palestinian peace on a blog (richardsilverstein.com) that he maintains from Seattle.

People who disagree with his politics frequently leave harassing comments on his site. But the situation reached a new low last month, when an anonymous opponent started a blog in Mr. Silverstein’s name that included photos of Mr. Silverstein in a pornographic context.

“I’ve been assaulted and harassed online for four years,” he said. “Most of it I can take in stride. But you just never get used to that level of hatred.”

One public bid to improve the quality of dialogue on the Web came more than a year ago when Mena Trott, a co-founder of the blogging software company Six Apart, proposed elevating civility on the Internet in a speech she gave at a French blog conference. At the event, organizers had placed a large screen on the stage showing instant electronic responses to the speeches from audience members and those who were listening in online.

As Ms. Trott spoke about improving online conduct, a heckler filled the screen with personal insults. Ms Trott recalled “losing it” during the speech.

Ms. Trott has scaled back her public writing and now writes a blog for a limited audience of friends and family. “You can’t force people to be civil, but you can force yourself into a situation where anonymous trolls are not in your life as much,” she said.

The preliminary recommendations posted by Mr. Wales and Mr. O’Reilly are based in part on a code developed by BlogHer, a network for women designed to give them blogging tools and to guide readers to their pages.

“Any community that does not make it clear what they are doing, why they are doing it, and who is welcome to join the conversation is at risk of finding it difficult to help guide the conversation later,” said Lisa Stone, who created the guidelines and the BlogHer network in 2006 with Elisa Camahort and Jory Des Jardins.

A subtext of both sets of rules is that bloggers are responsible for everything that appears on their own pages, including comments left by visitors. They say that bloggers should also have the right to delete such comments if they find them profane or abusive.

That may sound obvious, but many Internet veterans believe that blogs are part of a larger public sphere, and that deleting a visitor’s comment amounts to an assault on their right to free speech. It is too early to gauge support for the proposal, but some online commentators are resisting.

Robert Scoble, a popular technology blogger who stopped blogging for a week in solidarity with Kathy Sierra after her ordeal became public, says the proposed rules “make me feel uncomfortable.” He adds, “As a writer, it makes me feel like I live in Iran.”

Mr. O’Reilly said the guidelines were not about censorship. “That is one of the mistakes a lot of people make — believing that uncensored speech is the most free, when in fact, managed civil dialogue is actually the freer speech,” he said. “Free speech is enhanced by civility.”

Tom Seaver Day

This date in Mets history — April 26: The inexplicable happened on this date during a period of years. Tom Seaver started for the Mets on April 26 in 1970, 1971, 1972 and 1974 — four times in a span of five years. He won each time, pitched a complete game each time and never walked a batter. His composite pitching line for the four starts was 36 innings, 24 hits, four runs, all earned, no walks and 25 strikeouts. His ERA: 1.00.

The Racial Calculus, or “Ni hao ma, Les Moonves?”

The plot thickens.

CBS fired Don Imus, but they don’t seem to lack for radio personalities looking to get a cheap laugh by using racial “humor.”

CBS Radio Show Hosts Suspended After Phone Prank

By Jacques Steinberg
Published: April 24, 2007

CBS Radio suspended two hosts from an FM station in New York City yesterday after an Asian-American advocacy organization complained about the broadcast of a six-minute prank phone call to a Chinese restaurant that was peppered with ethnic and sexual slurs.

The call was first played on “The Dog House With JV and Elvis,” a mid-morning show on WFNY, on April 5, the day after Don Imus made his comment about the Rutgers women’s basketball team on WFAN, another CBS-owned station. The call was then replayed on “The Dog House” on Thursday, a week after Mr. Imus was fired by CBS Radio.

In the skit, a series of apparently unsuspecting employees of a Chinese restaurant are berated by a caller who tells one woman he would like to “come to your restaurant” to see her naked, especially a part of her body he refers to as “hot, Asian, spicy.” The caller also attempts to order “flied lice,” brags of his prowess in kung fu and repeatedly curses at several employees.

In a statement on Sunday, the four New York-area chapters of the Organization of Chinese Americans, an advocacy group, demanded an apology from the show’s two hosts and from CBS Radio, and called for the firing of the hosts and their producer.

In an interview yesterday before the suspensions were announced, Vicki Shu Smolin, president of the organization’s New York City chapter, said she was mystified that CBS would allow the call to be broadcast in the first place and then would permit it to be replayed in the aftermath of the Imus incident. (“The Dog House” has been waging a broad campaign in support of Mr. Imus both on the show and on its Web site.)

“I just see plain ignorance in the CBS management — of the community, of who we are, of what we’re all about,” Ms. Shu Smolin said. “If they don’t fire the D.J.’s, it will be a double standard.”

She promised to rip a page from the playbook of the Rev. Al Sharpton, who led the charge for Mr. Imus’s dismissal, by staging protests of CBS Radio and boycotting advertisers on WFNY.

“They don’t think they’re going to get any backlash from the Asian-American community,” she said. “They’re definitely wrong.”

In an e-mail message sent yesterday afternoon, a spokeswoman for CBS Radio, Karen Mateo, said that the two hosts, Jeff Vandergrift (JV) and Dan Lay (Elvis), had been suspended “without pay until further notice.” Mr. Vandergrift, Ms. Mateo said, had apologized on yesterday’s show. The show, which began on WFNY (92.3 FM) in January 2006, can be heard outside the New York City market only via the Internet.

Ms. Shu Smolin said she first learned of the “Dog House” broadcast on Saturday, in an article published by Ming Pao, a Chinese-language daily newspaper in New York. She said her organization had since sent e-mail messages to the general manager and program director of WFNY voicing its concerns, but had to resort to regular mail to reach Leslie Moonves, the president and chief executive of CBS.

“I can’t get any contact info on him,” she said.

It was, she acknowledged, an indication that her organization was not yet as media savvy as Mr. Sharpton’s.

Of particular interest is that the skit was aired on the day after Imus made his infamous remarks about the Rutgers basketball team and then was re-aired a week after he had been fired. Re-aired! Is that chutzpah, or what?

What did Les Moonves say about integrity?

CBS used to be known as The Tiffany Network. That was eons ago — when I was a kid and when Walter Cronkite was their leading man.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

It will be interesting to see how CBS responds to this. (Moonves sends all his people to sensitivity training?) And, as Shaun Powell pointed out in Only targeted group is outraged, if other ethnic groups will notice. My father went to college on the South Side of Chicago which was and is a predominantly African American neighborhood. I remember him saying how the black people never gave him a hard time and that all minorities were on the same side back then. Now we’re all on our own separate little islands.

Deadline? What Deadline?

On Well, heck …:

rrgirl : the three columns cover so many points, so well. kudos for lining them up together.

Karl : Thanks for posting this. I only get Timeselect writers when they get reprinted in the paper here, but not all of them do.

Thanks and you’re welcome. I should have remembered that TimesSelect articles eventually see the light of day to non-subscribers. My father’s local paper prints Friedman’s column about a week after it is published in the Times.

I wasn’t sure how to integrate the three columns into what I was saying, so I just listed them at the end of my post. (A lazy tactic. Il mio male.) Each column deserves a discussion of its own. But I did want to mention who I’d read and who was influencing my opinion. Those three columns stood out; I’d never read Powell before but like his work and have bookmarked his Newsday page. (I finally got around to listening to him on the 4.13.07 DP Show and really enjoyed the conversation. I hope Dan has him on more often.) I also read pieces by Gwen Ifill in the Times and Colbert King in the Post. I haven’t been reading the conservative media much lately. It’s been due to a combination of sensory overload and a lack of time. As much as I disagree with most of the right-of-center viewpoint I still think it’s important to be educated on the full spectrum of opinion. It’s not truly helpful when politicians, the media, pundits, etc. do nothing but preach to the choir. I also think the choir members need to broaden their repertoire or at least look into other styles.

I felt tardy making that post (We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us), as the Imus controversy seemed to become old news very fast after he was fired, especially in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings. I had three versions of that post — one relating to my Lent readings, one relating to my gardening exploits, and one relating to an article I read on blogging manners and civility. I spent such a long time trying to organize my thoughts on Imus that it seemed almost too late to write anything. Although it’s not like I’m on deadline here.

I have a problem with thinking linearly. My thought processes can be more like a shotgun blast rather than a neat Point-A-to-Point-B scheme. I also think I suffer from ADD, Adult Deficit Disorder. Why sit quietly and focus on writing when I can also listen to the DP Show or watch MLB.TV at the same time?

There is something to be said for multitasking degrading one’s efforts ….

(Let’s Go Mets! Top of the 7th, 2 out, Torrealba on first, Tulowitzki at the plate, 1-2 count ….)

The Best and the Brightest

At some point during the Mets game last night I clicked over to the New York Times Web site to see what was happening in the real world. This is another thing I like about baseball: I can either obsess over a game and focus on pitch sequences, fielders’ positions, etc. Or I can have the game on while I read the paper, cook dinner, or whatever. I watch MLB.TV via Internet Explorer (it crashes less this way) but do my main browsing with Firefox. So when I brought up www.nytimes.com I had the Firefox window positioned low on my screen so I could see the Mets game in the IE window. I saw this photo on the Times home page:

I couldn’t see the caption because of how I had the Firefox window positioned. I thought to myself “That looks like David Halberstam.” Then “Why on earth would David Halberstam’s photo be on the front page of the New York Times?”

And then a sudden “Oh no.”

My fear was confirmed when I repositioned the Firefox window so I could see the headline under the photo: David Halberstam, Author, Dies at 73.

I’ve only read a couple of his books, but I really liked them a lot and considered him one of my favorite writers. (Likewise Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., who died earlier this month.) I also associate Halberstam with this painting, one of my favorites, because of his book “The Amateurs”:

The Champion Single Sculls (Max Schmitt in a Single Scull), by Thomas Eakins (1844–1916)

I guess it could be said that I’ve only read Halberstam’s “lesser” books, as his works on politics and history are much more significant in the grand scheme of things. But sports drew me to him in the 1980s and gave me that “Ah ha ….” moment when I realized I’d heard of him when I was a kid and he was writing against the Vietnam War.

The loss of an intelligent voice is sad, especially so in these times. His obituary notes:

Mr. Halberstam was killed doing what he had done his entire adult life: reporting. He was on his way to interview Y. A. Tittle, the former New York Giants quarterback, for a book about the 1958 championship game between the Giants and the Baltimore Colts, considered by many to be the greatest football game ever played.

Being a sports fan, it hurts a little to know that Halberstam won’t be able to finish this book. But he does leave a legacy of writing that will live on and in this way he will never die.

Well, heck …

I feel weird putting stuff up here that is available only through subscription. I haven’t done it often. It feels like I’m breaking the law. But I’ve seen this Frank Rich column (I cited it in my last post) on other Web sites. Sheesh. It’s everywhere.  Google “frank rich” + ” everybody hates don imus”  and you get  174,000 hits.  So I guess it’s OK to post here. I think.

—————–

April 15, 2007

Op-Ed Columnist

Everybody Hates Don Imus

By FRANK RICH

FAMILIAR as I am with the warp speed of media, I was still taken aback by the velocity of Don Imus’s fall after he uttered an indefensible racist and sexist slur about the Rutgers women’s basketball team. Even in that short span, there’s been an astounding display of hypocrisy, sanctimony and self-congratulation from nearly every side of the debate, starting with Al Sharpton, who has yet to apologize for his leading role in the Tawana Brawley case, the 1980s racial melee prompted by unproven charges much like those that soiled the Duke lacrosse players.

It’s possible that the only people in this whole sorry story who are not hypocrites are the Rutgers teammates and their coach, C. Vivian Stringer. And perhaps even Don Imus himself, who, while talking way too much about black people he has known and ill children he has helped, took full responsibility for his own catastrophic remarks and didn’t try to blame the ensuing media lynching on the press, bloggers or YouTube. Unlike Mel Gibson, Michael Richards and Isaiah Washington, to take just three entertainers who have recently delivered loud religious, racial or sexual slurs, Imus didn’t hire a P.R. crisis manager and ostentatiously enter rehab or undergo psychiatric counseling. “I dished it out for a long time,” he said on his show last week, “and now it’s my time to take it.”

Among the hypocrites surrounding Imus, I’ll include myself. I’ve been a guest on his show many times since he first invited me in the early 1990s, when I was a theater critic. I’ve almost always considered him among the smarter and more authentic conversationalists I’ve encountered as an interviewee. As a book author, I could always use the publicity.

Of course I was aware of many of his obnoxious comments about minority groups, including my own, Jews. Sometimes he aimed invective at me personally. I wasn’t seriously bothered by much of it, even when it was unfunny or made me wince, because I saw him as equally offensive to everyone. The show’s crudest interludes struck me as burlesque.

I do not know Imus off the air and have no idea whether he is a good person, any more than I know whether Jerry Lewis, another entertainer who raises millions for sick children, is a good person. But as a listener and sometime guest, I didn’t judge Imus to be a bigot. Perhaps I felt this way in part because Imus vehemently inveighed against racism in real life, most recently in decrying the political ads in last year’s Senate campaign linking a black Tennessee congressman, Harold Ford, to white women. Perhaps I gave Imus a pass because the insults were almost always aimed at people in the public eye, whether politicians, celebrities or journalists — targets with the forums to defend themselves.

And perhaps I was kidding myself. What Imus said about the Rutgers team landed differently, not least because his slur was aimed at young women who had no standing in the world of celebrity, and who had done nothing in public except behave as exemplary student athletes. The spectacle of a media star verbally assaulting them, and with a creepy, dismissive laugh, as if the whole thing were merely a disposable joke, was ugly. You couldn’t watch it without feeling that some kind of crime had been committed. That was true even before the world met his victims. So while I still don’t know whether Imus is a bigot, there was an inhuman contempt in the moment that sounded like hate to me. You can see it and hear it in the video clip in a way that isn’t conveyed by his words alone.

Does that mean he should be silenced? The Rutgers team pointedly never asked for that, and I don’t think the punishment fits the crime. First, as a longtime Imus listener rather than someone who tuned in for the first time last week, I heard not only hate in his wisecrack but also honesty in his repeated vows to learn from it. Second, as a free-speech near-absolutist, I don’t believe that even Mel Gibson, to me an unambiguous anti-Semite, should be deprived of his right to say whatever the hell he wants to say. The answer to his free speech is more free speech — mine and yours. Let Bill O’Reilly talk about “wetbacks” or Rush Limbaugh accuse Michael J. Fox of exaggerating his Parkinson’s symptoms, and let the rest of us answer back.

Liberals are kidding themselves if they think the Imus firing won’t have a potentially chilling effect on comics who push the line. Let’s not forget that Bill Maher, an Imus defender last week, was dropped by FedEx, Sears, ABC affiliates and eventually ABC itself after he broke the P.C. code of 9/11. Conservatives are kidding themselves if they think the Imus execution won’t impede Ann Coulter’s nasty invective on the public airwaves. As Al Franken pointed out to Larry King on Wednesday night, CNN harbors Glenn Beck, who has insinuated that the first Muslim congressman, Keith Ellison of Minnesota, is a terrorist (and who has also declared that “faggot” is nothing more than “a naughty name”). Will Time Warner and its advertisers be called to account? Already in the Imus aftermath, the born-again blogger Tom DeLay has called for the firing of Rosie O’Donnell because of her “hateful” views on Chinese-Americans, conservative Christians and President Bush.

That said, corporations, whether television or radio networks or movie studios or commercial sponsors, are free to edit or cancel any content. No one has an inalienable right to be broadcast or published or given a movie or music contract. Whether MSNBC and CBS acted out of genuine principle or economic necessity is a debate already raging. Just as Imus’s show defied easy political definition — he has both kissed up to Dick Cheney as a guest and called him a war criminal — so does the chatter about what happened over the past week. MSNBC, forever unsure of its identity, seems to have found a new calling by turning that debate into a running series, and I say, go for it.

The biggest cliché of the debate so far is the constant reiteration that this will be a moment for a national “conversation” about race and sex and culture. Do people really want to have this conversation, or just talk about having it? If they really want to, it means we have to ask ourselves why this debacle has given permission to talking heads on television to repeat Imus’s offensive words so insistently that cable news could hardly take time out to note the shocking bombing in the Baghdad Green Zone. Some even upped the ante: Donna Brazile managed to drag “jigaboo” into Wolf Blitzer’s sedate “Situation Room” on CNN.

If we really want to have this conversation, it also means we have to have a nonposturing talk about hip-hop lyrics, “Borat,” “South Park” and maybe Larry David, too. As James Poniewozik pointed out in his smart cover article for Time last week, an important question emerged from an Imus on-air soliloquy as he tried to defend himself: “This phrase that I use, it originated in the black community. That didn’t give me a right to use it, but that’s where it originated. Who calls who that and why? We need to know that. I need to know that.”

My 22-year-old son, a humor writer who finds Imus an anachronistic and unfunny throwback to the racial-insult humor of the Frank Sinatra-Sammy Davis Jr. Rat Pack ilk, raises a complementary issue. He argues that when Sacha Baron Cohen makes fun of Jews and gays, he can do so because he’s not doing it as himself but as a fictional character. But try telling that to the Anti-Defamation League, which criticized Mr. Baron Cohen, an observant Jew, for making sport of a real country (Kazakhstan) and worried that the “Borat” audience “may not always be sophisticated enough to get the joke, and that some may even find it reinforcing their bigotry.”

So if we really want to have this national “conversation” about race and culture and all the rest of it that everyone keeps telling us that this incident has prompted, let’s get it on, no holds barred. And the fewer moralizing pundits and politicians, the better. Hillary Clinton, an Imus denouncer who has also called for federal regulation of violent television and video games, counts among her Hollywood fat cats Haim Saban, who made his fortune from “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.”

Listening to Les Moonves of CBS speak with such apparent sincerity of how his network was helping to change the culture by firing Imus, I couldn’t help but remember that one of CBS’s own cultural gifts to America has been “Big Brother,” the reality game show that cloisters a dozen or so strangers in a house for weeks to see how they get along. Maybe Mr. Moonves could put his prime-time schedule where his mouth is and stop milking that format merely for the fun of humiliation, voyeurism and sexual high jinks. If locking Imus and his team in a house with Coach Stringer and her team 24/7 isn’t must-see TV that moves this conversation forward, then I don’t know what is.

We Have Met the Enemy and He is Us

We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.
Speak or act with an impure mind
And trouble will follow you
As the wheel follows the ox that draws the cart.
    — The Dhammapada

What keeps you from behaving badly?

God? Religion? Personal ethics? Fear of being caught?

For me, I’d have to say that the main culprits are my parents. I was raised a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away …. Good behavior was expected, just as doing well in school and respecting your elders was expected. It certainly isn’t like that any more. Our society has become one of In-You-Face-Ism. Call it “being assertive.” I am not an assertive person, and that has probably contributed to a certain degree of stress — like not being able to tell someone off or punch someone in the face when they really deserve it.

That being said, I truly am surprised by how rude people can be these days, in person and especially online. There’s a difference between being assertive and being rude. I don’t understand the point of being rude. I feel like a flawed dinosaur, as DP referred to himself (4.06.07 show, the “Keith Olbermann” segment, spoken in the context of college coaches not living up to their contracts).

Which explains why I also don’t understand how Don Imus got to where he got before The Fall. I can appreciate and enjoy outside-the-box opinion and humor. And even when I don’t, I respect a person’s right to free speech; if I don’t like something or someone I change the channel, choose to not buy his/her books, etc. I wasn’t aware how famous and powerful Imus was, or even how rude he’d been on his show until his comments on the Rutgers team became publicized.

I found this on The New Yorker’s Web site: Imus Versus Imus. Click the link to Richard Sandomir’s “Good Imus, Evil Imus” bracket, a very informative graphic (in .pdf format) chronicling many of Imus’ famous/infamous comments.

(I went to The New Yorker site looking for an article I’d read about the comic Sarah Silverman (who used the word “chink” and somehow was able to get away with it while Rosie O’Donnell has been taken to task for the little “ching-chong Chinaman” act she did. What? It’s OK for Jews to make fun of Asians but lesbians can’t? African Americans can do “ching-chong Chinaman,” too? Gosh, ethnic humor sure is confusing ….).

I am absolutely astounded at what Imus was able to get away with over the years. This subtracts from the moral high ground that MSNBC and CBS adopted after the Rutgers situation. Things got hot for Imus so they cut the dude loose. After he’d made millions of dollars over many years for them.

Les Moonves, president and CEO of CBS:

Many of you have come forward during this past week to share your thoughts and feelings. I thank you for that. At the end of the day, the integrity of our Company and the respect that you feel for CBS becomes the most important consideration.

Steve Capus, president of NBC News, on firing Imus:

… it was the only decision we could reach.

Yeah. Right. Gotcha. I have this image of them sitting in their fancy corporate offices (partially paid for by the profits that Imus’ show garnered) saying “Don Imus makes rude, racist, and degrading comments about people? I’m shocked! Shocked ….” in their best Inspector Renault impersonations.

Scoop on Nappy Heads in Hymie Town:

… But…if this was the only offensive thing Don Imus had ever said or done or that he and his crew had ever said or done, that would be one thing.

However, it was not.

It was part of a longstanding pattern of both words and actions. And “nappy headed” was the least of the words. …

The one thing you can say for Imus is that while he is a jerk at least he’s a consistent jerk.

(”Jerk” is the strongest epithet that my father has ever used — although if someone really gets him mad he’ll say “Damned jerk.”)

One of my high school science teachers was taken to waxing philosophical (you could do things like that in the good old days, when teachers didn’t have to spend all their time teaching students how to pass standardized tests) and once mentioned how the hard thing in life is to be consistent. It’s easy to say something (“I’m a good person”), another thing to live in accordance to your words. I.e., If you’re going to talk the talk, you’ve gotta walk the walk.

I cut Charles Barkley some slack for his use of the word “nigger,” but you folks are right. It’s a matter of being consistent:

On Anything Else Would Be Uncivilized:

CP: … As for who gets to use the n-word, I don’t feel deprived because I don’t “get to” use it. African Americans who use it just perpetuate it, negative meaning and all, even if Barkley says he uses it in a nice way.

Anonymous: You should read the Shaun Powell column that Dan mentioned on yesterday’s show. It’s more than just Imus. IT gives another opinion on the Imus story and on African Americans using the N-word and other slurs. Sharpton and Jackson don’t speak for us and neither does Barkely.

RB on Nappy Heads in Hymie Town:

I don’t remember when the word hoe became a black word, or that white people can’t say it. The word hoe comes from whore which has been around sense the bible days. The word is just a word but when used in the context it was given “nappy headed hoes” it becomes much more. Looking at it as a black female I don’t like and will not tolerate it being directed towards me. So in conclusion Imus gust took a gamble on his career. He is an adult and he is responsible for everything that comes out of his mouth

Thanks for sending me the link to Shaun Powell’s; I’ve missed a lot of DP Shows lately. This column, also by Powell, is very good as well: Only targeted group is outraged.

Thanks to those for leaving comments here. I list below links to other opinions on the Rutgers-Imus story. Dan Patrick mentioned a week or two ago that his son’s generation is different; he said “Kids don’t see race.” I’m no kid, but I don’t see race either. It’s not important to me. But it is an important issue, and the commentary that came out of Imus’ remarks has made me think about how I view race, bias, and language.

• Imus isn’t the read bad guy, by Jason Whitlock in the Kansas City Star
• Misogyny in the Morning, by Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post
• Everybody Hates Don Imus, by Frank Rich in the New York Times (requires a subscription to TimesSelect)

April is the cruellest month

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
    — The Waste Land, by T.S. Eliot

It occurred to me just a little while ago that today is the 12th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing and that tomorrow is the 8th anniversary of the shootings at Columbine. And while I was just a child I at the time I also remember when Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered.

And now April also has Virginia Tech.

It’s In The Game

DP’s taken heat from some listeners for his discussion of social issues. Especially so this past week, with the Rutgers-Imus situation, baseball’s Jackie Robinson Day commemoration, and now the Virginia Tech shootings. For some, “sports” means X’s and O’s, 40-yard dash times, and MVP voting. I’m not sure why, but for me sports have always existed in an arena greater than just the field of play. Perhaps it’s because I grew up in the ’60s and ’70s. I remember when John Carlos and Tommie Smith gave the Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics. I remember watching the Munich Olympics on tv when Palestinian terrorists kidnapped and murdered members of the Israeli Olympic team. I remember what a big deal it was as Hank Aaron closed in on and finally surpassed Babe Ruth on the MLB home run list.

I can see how people like to use sports as an escape. I certainly do. It’s perfectly fine to want to forget about the worries of the day, whether it be through “American Idol,” playing a video game, or watching sports on tv. But keeping real life close to the surface is important, too. It’s troubling when people care more about “Idol” contestants and the NFL draft than they do about what’s happening in the world.

So I like it that DP doesn’t shy away from discussing social issues and current events. It’s something that drew me to his show. I don’t always agree with him, but I respect his opinion. Sure, he does his share of schtick. But he also speaks with Joe Morgan about Jackie Robinson (it never occurred to me that Morgan played minor league ball during segregation — I just remember him from the Big Red Machine) and gives props to Steve Spurrier for his comments on the Confederate flag as well as Tony Dungy for speaking his mind on traditional marriage. And having Keith Olbermann on riles a segment of DP’s audience, even when they don’t talk about politics.

Joe Torre will certainly take some flack for his comments on handguns, but I appreciate that he doesn’t live his life in a vacuum. Even for sports guys, there is more to life than sports.

April 17, 2007, 8:52 pm
Torre Talks About Massacre

By Joe Lapointe

Tags: New York Yankees

At the end of Joe Torre’s pre-game news briefing before last night’s game against the Cleveland Indians at Yankee Stadium, one of the reporters asked the Yankees’ manager about the massacre at Virginia Tech on Monday, in which a student with two handguns killed 32 people and himself.

More than once in the ensuing discussion, Torre expressed strong opinions against handgun ownership. “I don’t know how anybody can defend the right to buy a gun,’’ Torre said.

He quickly added that he understands why hunters own rifles, but he said “sidearms and handguns’’ are dangerous, particularly in the hands of emotional young people.

“All the peer problems — girlfriends, boyfriends,’’ Torre said. “We put weapons in people’s hands.’’

Torre grew up in Brooklyn with a father who was a police officer and was abusive to his family, and four years ago he created the Safe at Home Foundation to combat domestic violence. Torre said television, movies and even sportscasts glorify violence in the American culture. He scowled when someone mentioned that gun advocates argued that more guns on the Virginia Tech campus would have made the students safer from the killer.

“That’s the N.R.A.,’’ Torre said, referring to the National Rifle Association. “Arm the citizens,’’ he added, with sarcasm in his voice. “That would make it safe.’’

Man, I hate making those phone calls.

I’m a huge news junkie, but even though I heard about the shootings at Virginia Tech yesterday morning it didn’t resonate with me until I heard more in the late afternoon and a reporter on radio said “Blacksburg.”

We have friends in Blacksburg.

They’re even on the faculty at Virginia Tech, but for some reason the news story didn’t hit home with me until I heard “Blacksburg.”

So I had to make that phone call, the one where you pray someone on the other end picks up, but where you’re also terrified that the person who picks up is going to tell you some very bad news.

On a personal level, we came out all right. Our friends are fine. Their toddler was in day care not far from the West Ambler Johnston dorm where the first shooting occurred, and “G” was teaching in a building not far from Norris Hall where the second shooting occurred. Too close for comfort. And they don’t know if their all students are safe.

I’ve had to make phone calls like that before, but mostly it has been after natural disasters: phoning relatives in Hawaii while Hurricane Iwa was blowing through, trying to reach friends in Los Angeles after the Northridge earthquake (I couldn’t get through but was able to reach them via email), checking with a friend to make sure his father was OK after Hurricane Frances struck very close to their home.

Then again, I’ve also had to make those phone calls after man-made disasters: to friends in NYC after the World Trade Center bombing, to my best friends after a Seattle gunman killed two people and was on the loose near their neighborhood, and to friends and family in NYC and D.C. on 9/11.

When I went off to school in New York City some people exclaimed “New York City?!?” in a tone that implied I was taking my life into my own hands. The perception back then was that NYC was where people got murdered left and right. In incorrect assumption, to be sure.

Now people will say “Blacksburg” in the same way they say “Columbine.”

“New York City!” isn’t the epithet it used to be.