Actually, I confess that I didn't realize words like nappy and ho were edited out? Is that really the case? I certainly am willing to be corrected on this.

(Not having listened to a whole lot of new hip hop, I won't say with 100% certainty.)

But music stations are very sensitive to complaints about obscenity and take steps to mute objectionable words. Rock stations do it, too.

From Wikipedia:

The censorship of some of the less common swear words or obvious innuendo may differ between channels. The word ho in Gwen Stefani's "What You Waiting For?" was censored by some channels (for example MTV) while not by others (such as BBC Radio 1).

[...]

Rapper Kanye West's song "Gold Digger" repeatedly says niggas in the line "But she ain't messin with no broke niggas" and has been censored to say "But she ain't messin wit no broke broke" repeating the word before it.

Hell, Wal-Mart and other Big Box stores sell CDs that are 'kid-safe,' with the naughty bits edited out - even to the point where entire songs are re-written.

Because Wal-Mart reaps about 10 percent of the total domestic music CD sales, most musicians and record companies will agree to create a "sanitized" version specifically for the megastores. Sometimes this entails altering the cover art, as John Cougar Mellencamp did when asked to airbrush out an angel and devil on one of his album covers. Other times, musicians change their lyrics and song titles. Nirvana, for example, changed its song title from "Rape Me" to "Waif Me" for the Wal-Mart version.

the funny thing about the Nirvana song is that inside the CD the lyrics were not changed, and the actual song was not edited whatsoever.

Above and beyond "the money," as so many here have pointed out, it's about who he is. A target. Dave Chapelle is like Imus, an Equal Opportunity Insulter and he's used the "Ho" word--and worse-- a lot more than Imus. And he's done a lot less for black people as a group than Imus has, but he has nowhere near the stature.

Sharpton found a high-profile witch and burned him.

Can you say Tawanna Brawley, boys and girls?"

To be fair to Sharpton, he has spoken out against rap lyrics as well.

And the case against Imus is twofold:

one - deliberately mean to girls who had done nothing to deserve it and were not public figures in any real sense.

two - costing the almighty bottom line, baby.

Number two was the larger issue.

It's the money and the size of the target and the ease of bringing him down.

"Lord! What Fools these Mortals be!"

in that he does not have a daily program that purports to be a 'news' show.

I can almost hear the words 'But Imus is an entertainer' being spoken as I type this. But Imus sure as hell went out of his way to point out how 'serious' people like Lieberman (cough) and Kerry and Russert and the rest of them phoned in for 'serious' interviews.

Imus wanted to be a political kingmaker who reserved the right to make racist comments, and ultimately could not have it both ways.

The most telling quote to ever come out of Imus' mouth: 'My goal is to goad people into saying something that ruins their life."

Mission accomplished, Don.

But, IMHO, the differences between their work doesn't mitigate having two sets of standards.

"Lord! What Fools these Mortals be!"

Sharpton didn't barge into the conversation, the press go to him and others. They ask him for a comment, he gives it, then he's held out as example in support of sombodies ongoning narrative or position. The Imus scandal has absolutely nothing to do with Sharpton except on the margins.

I get so mad I get incoherent.
http://www.savethemales.ca/

I go ballistic when I read sites like that, brings bad memories of David Bryon. Beware the feminazis

Did I mis-interpret something about Makow?
He traces the feminist movement to a socially engineered program.
Years of equal rights for women yet the business world still treats women as objects to sell stuff to.

1) When someone conspicuously tacks "PhD" after their name on popular pieces they write rather than burying it somewhere in the "about the author" section, be real suspicious.

2) Check what their PhD is in - in this case, English Literature. When their discipline and research areas don't line up with the topic of what they're writing about, be really, really suspicious.

Applicable to all situations in which the guy seems a fry or two short of a full Happy Meal, whether or not they're slinging the ol' "Pile it Higher and Deeper" around, check the guy out. From a review of the guy's book:

By Henry Makow.
...
Former University of Winnipeg English professor Henry Makow found himself approaching fifty and having been single after his marriage had collapsed a number of years earlier. He wasn't meeting any likely prospects for marriage. He wanted something simple: a wife who would love him and obey him and be subservient to him. In return he would protect her and support her and love her. It is a deal that countless millions of couples have struck over the years, a non-"equal" but mutually beneficial arrangement. It is a deal that is set forth in simple, forthright, courageous terms in Makow's epilogue entitled, "In Defense of Heterosexuality." The only contingency: finding the right woman. Evidently, this is easier said than done, even by someone with the wherewithal to travel to third world countries to meet potential brides.

Makow presents lightly edited excerpts from his journal, over a time period spanning his entire experience from finding advertisements on the Internet, to contacting a number of potential women, to visiting the Philippines, and continuing through to his eventual decision to propose despite his serious reservations about his wife to be, Cecilia.

Unfortunately for Makow, his concerns about Cecilia turn out to be justified in spades. She is an only child, allowed by her parents to have whatever she desired, and basically brings her unexamined spoiled brat background intact to her marriage to Makow. While autobiographical sources are notoriously unreliable for obvious reasons, Makow does seem genuine in his desire to accomodate and please Cecilia. She, on the other hand, quite inexplicably, is constantly trolling for other suitors before, during, and after she is married to Makow.

Makow seems a likable enough fellow who just doesn't get enough respect in any quarter. Most of his friends and colleagues criticize his desire to marry someone three decades younger than himself. His forthrightness about his traditionalist gender views, while intriguing to many of his students at the University of Winnipeg, predictably irritated a vocal minority who succeeded in getting him unceremoniously ejected from his professorship.

Any argument about this sort of stuff is going to rely very heavily on nuance and judgment of subjective, highly charged emotive matters. The above's enough that I don't trust the guy's perspective on pretty much anything in the field of gender relations.

"Political Islam is a dream or a nightmare, but not a sociological reality." - Olivier Roy, Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah

you found the reason why I can't use this man for his anti-Illuminati work!

"the field of gender relations"

I'm not sure I'd trust him(her, it, them...) either.

http://mauberly.blogspot.com/

this guy can kiss my ass, of course he wouldn't think of acquiescing to mere woman.

Feminism Can be Cured (If Diagnosed Early)

By Henry Makow Ph.D.
November 18, 2006

By Henry Makow Ph.D.

I've had many emails from young Feminists cussing me out for things I never said. So I was surprised to hear from "Meagan" who actually read my web site and understood it. She realized Feminist indoctrination had made her dysfunctional and she wanted help.

"I am a woman, 20 years old, who is grossly independent, and grew up with a "no boy can be better than me" complex. I was very capable in school, which my environment encouraged, pushing me to always be smarter, better, faster; having heard all this from such a young age, nothing seemed out of place. An eating disorder, troubled marriage, broken relationship with my mother and other problems later (which the few female friends I have managed to keep also share), it's obvious I need to rethink certain elements of my life: your work has found words for the silent, internal chaos which plagues especially my generation.

It is ironic to think that people, after having reached full physical maturity, could still need to READ to learn to become something as basic as the gender they were born with--but if we've been raised to be broken, we have to start somewhere.

I've noticed that ... you say [Feminists] are lost causes. For all of the lost causes out there, you may want to consider publishing an essay or some material which points to the road of redemption: God knows there are a lot of us, and I'd hate to have the opportunity to heal, written off as "too late," and nothing more."

Meaghan, congratulations for being so wise and articulate for your years. Here are some ideas:

1. Find a feminine woman, a wife and mother, who is willing to act as your role model. This is a woman who has built her life around her husband and children and is glad she did. You might find such a woman in traditional settings, church or ethnic community center. This may be an opportunity to learn about Islam or Hinduism or Christianity. Get the pastor-person to help you find a role model. Obviously you will decide whom you like.

2. My mother-in-law advised my wife: "Find a man to look after you, but be able to look after yourself." In other words, make husband and family your first priority while pursuing your career interests. If you go to university/college, focus on acquiring marketable skills. Humanities are an indoctrination in Fe-manist Masonic dysfunction. Ideally you will marry and start a family before going to university, if you go at all.

3. Don't sleep with anyone unless you are in a loving long-term relationship hopefully leading to marriage. Consecrate yourself to your future husband and children. Date men five-or-more years older who want to get married. For intimacy you must have exclusivity and permanence. Sex is an act of possession. You cannot be possessed by many men and ever belong to one. The ability to love/trust dies. Your womb is not some stranger's sperm-urinal. [More on sex later.]

4. Stop being "smarter, better, faster" than the men you meet. To some extent, a woman self effaces and lives through her husband and children. Find a man you naturally look up to, respect and trust. Don't waste time with boys. Men want power; women want love. Heterosexual union involves the exchange of the two: female power (in the worldly sense) for male love (his power expressed as love.)

A woman loves a man by acquiescing and trusting, not challenging and competing. She gives him the power to grant her wishes (i.e. love her). Of course he will consult her. Find a man with a powerful positive vision of life with a central place for you. There is an implied message here for men. Men have to know what they want, provide leadership and earn trust.

more if you can stand it, I hate even giving a frickin link to idiot

Now I have to clean off my monitor and make another cup of coffee.

Does he give investment advice, too?

(no pun intended - well, maybe a little) in the notion that the knee-jerk revulsion some of these "dominating" traditionalists display towards homosexuality comes less from the Bible or sexual revulsion than from their latent niggling fear of permitting themselves to get involved with someone with similar mass and height to themselves, who can't be physically dominated as easily and just might beat the shit out of them in a test of wills.

Not that "men's rights" BS. Are you linking to it ironically?

to iradicate all indecency.

This rude, lewd, crude, musoginistic and just plan mean

"Lord! What Fools these Mortals be!"

Until all indecency is cleaned up, all indecency must be allowed.

That's what I said to a Maine State Trooper when he pulled me over for speeding, even though many other cars were going just as fast or faster as me.

He didn't buy it.

Two cars bookin' up the interstate at the same speed, both well over the limit. One car is a beat-up, nondescript Subaru, the other is a flashy, tricked out "Vette." The cops will snag the "Vette" every time.

Just as cops profile the vehicles and drivers, so Imus was profiled. I've taken great pains, here and on other threads, to make it clear that I think what he said was stupid, malicious, and 'way out of line. My argument is (1) Sharpton's motives and methods are VERY suspect; I think Sharpton singled him out as a high profile target. (2)The punishment does not fit the crime. I further realize that is a completely subjective opinion.

"Lord! What Fools these Mortals be!"

And Al Roker and Keith Olbermann's motives? They stepped up to MSNBC management and said that Imus needed to go.

Imus cost his company money. That's all that matters to them. That's why he was fired. You lose money for your boss and getting fired is to be expected.

than that. Given Imus' stature and the racially charged nature of his comments, he stepped over an invisible line. It wasn't even funny, just gratuitously mean-spirited.

Is there a double standard? No, that grossly understates the complexity of the state of affairs. Racial humor in America is a minefield. There are multiple standards having to do with the context, the medium, the race and sex of the speaker, the race and sex of the butt of the joke, how high profile the 'humorist' is, what they hold themselves out to be, whether what they are saying is intended to be funny, whether it was actually funny, etc., etc. On top of that the line moves over time. What was acceptable five or ten years ago may not be acceptable today. It's a dangerous high stakes game, this racial humor thing. As a major player, Imus should have known better.

”I despise ideologues masquerading as objective journalists.” - Bill O’Reilly, March 30, 2007

It was pretty shitty and uncalled for. But I guess you're not big personal responsibility for your own actions. If you insult someone or spit on them, it's their job to toughen up and buck up, right ?

p.s. how is Al Sharpton responsible for what Don Imus says on his MSNBC program ? still trying to figure that one out. microchip in the forehead ?

It is a window into American racism and is of the utmost importance because of that fact. A high-profile person like Imus who isn't considered fringe and has been saying racist, sexist, homophobic & anti-semitic things for years finally got caught up in the changing times. Those that rushed to his defense by either saying "It was just a joke!", "We need Imus! (see Lieberman)", or "RAP MUSIC!" are showing much more about themselves than anything else.

Unless people apologize to OJ and the thousands of other minorities accused, tried & convicted for crimes they did not commit there seems to be no reason to apologize to the Duke players.

When one enforces standards on one person, and not on another, it's generally considered unfair. Misogynistic lyrics are on the exact same airwaves but no one's losing their job over them, are they? Actually, if it were common practice to call women "hos" at a workplace, and one person got fired for it, and another didn't, I'd wonder how that could be fair.

This ain't like your cop and your speeding ticket - the cop couldn't ticket them all being only one guy. This stuff could be stopped simply enough, but it isn't. They go after Janet Jackson's nipple and Imus's vulgar racism and sexism, but leave equally offensive stuff alone. Imus's real sin was that his profile got raised high enough because of an incident that advertisers started withdrawing advertising. It wasn't until advertisers started fleeing that he got fired. The networks could get rid of all these guys in a few weeks in a big firing purge. But they won't. The FCC could go after these guys hard, but they won't.

And as for your cop, his compatriots ticket blacks at a higher rate than whites. Is that fair? No rule; no law; is fair or just if it is unevenly applied.

And Imus had been doing this sort of stuff for years. This isn't new for him (there have been many examples). If he's been doing it for years, if politicians went on his shows, if the brass all like it (and his profits), etc... well, y'know, I think he might argue that while this was over the line (and he did apologize) was it so much worse than anything else he's said that everyone rewarded him for saying, that it's suddenly a firing offense?

We reward these assholes for being offensive jerks, our society denigrates women and blacks all over the place, then suddenly the networks want to pretend that he's done something horribly over the line?

It's like a reverse lottery. We let piles of people get away with it and every once in a while someone gets taken out.

We doth protest too much.

I'm glad you posted this because it is important -- and it is not about Don Imus. It's about all of us. Here's a few thoughts:

1. "we reward these assholes for being jerks" -- well Imus just learned that sometimes there is a penalty for being an asshole and a jerk.

2. "Imus has been doing this stuff for years" -- that's why he got fired. This wasn't a one-time slip-up. Imus told 60 minutes off camera that McGuirk is on the show to "do the nigger jokes." This Rutgers stuff was not an aberration from the plan -- it is the plan.

3. "When one enforces standards on one person, and not on another, it's generally considered unfair."

This is not true. If I work at company X and call my co-worker a slut, I cannot use as a defense that some guy at our competitor says that all the time and they don't care. Ian, this is employment law we are talking about here. In employment law, it doesn't matter if someone in another company sexually harasses women or steals company property and gets away with it. You know that.

4. "This stuff could be stopped simply enough." What stuff. Sexism ? Racism ? If you have the one-step formula, please inform.

5. The Janet Jackson nipple exposure has no relevance to this. Please. Janet Jackson's exposed nipple was not abusing and denigrating and rubbing in the dirt the achievement of 12 Rutgers women basketballs players for the crime of being women basketball players and being black, except for the white players, who were also slagged.

6. Who enforces standards? Best question. We all have to. Like I said in my diary post here, if I call my wife a slut or a whore, then she enforces her standards. And they ain't pretty ... Ayuh ...

Cheers.

I haven't read your diary post yet, but I'm pretty much in 100% agreement with what you're posting here.

the words are insulting and demeaning no matter who says them or what individuals they are aiming at. There is nothing artisic about being a racist and/or bigot, no matter how it is wrapped up.

"There is nothing artisic about being a racist and/or bigot"

I am not sure that from a purely artistic perspective that is true. A lot of Christian representational art represent racist or bogoted ideas. Are we going to deface it? And in any case the criteria can be very problematic. What you or I consider sexist or racist a lot of people (male and female, black, white and Asian) dance to and enjoy in the context of highly eroticized etertainment (i.e. dance floor). Are we going to impose our criteria formed under the best traditions of enlightenment-thinking on the consumers of this music? And where do we stop once we start? Are we going to perform a Lieberman Crusade against obscenity? I a not ready to go there. Tons of literature would then have to be banned for containing insulting elements, a lot of good cinema and so on.

...from revelations that the DoJ has been busy, busy, busy rebuilding those barriers, then it serves their purpose.

As you gaze at the bright, bright, shiny object, looking deeper and deeper, you begin to feel all warm and safe; thankful that Commander Codpiece and his loyal Culture Warriors are keeping you safe from terrorists, pornographers, heathens, feminists, swarthy people and evil rodents with big teeth and flat tails...

this from the NYT's

2 Ejected From Bush Speech Posed a Threat, Lawyers Say

By DAN FROSCH
Published: April 15, 2007

DENVER, April 13 — Lawyers for two men charged with illegally ejecting two people from a speech by President Bush in 2005 are arguing that the president’s staff can lawfully remove anyone who expresses points of view different from his.

is one damn scary story.

"Lord! What Fools these Mortals be!"

Women's sports aren't as popular as men's and isn't just sexism that stops these sports from being accepted. There are broader issues that affect equality in areas such education, workplace, representation in government, minority groups ... the list of grievances is very long.

But good for you that you recognize aspects of it in sports. It won't be solved in my lifetime, but I did my best to correct some of the injustices wherever I could. That's all anyone can do. Some people and events are more effective in the positive changes they make--some are small, others are huge, but they all make a difference.

...but I was very depressed when WUSA went down. How many leagues would Beckham's salary support? I much preferred women's soccer, as men's soccer seems more about ego than team. And I only realized what a great sport hockey is by watching the women's Olympic games. Yet even in these last Olympics, weren't some of the women's teams self-funded, because the national organizations wouldn't support them?

(Yeah, I watch NFL too, but it's a spectacle, not a sport.)

[given that such policies exist - want to bet?] at its core it's a stupid little employment dispute over repeated breach of company policies that's got blown up into an enormous distraction.

before commenting - I see that other Agonists are making precisely the same point.

...in being "permitted to repeatedly abrogate those terms". He's alone in getting canned. Which, as I've said before, is fine by me. But Limbaugh's comment that Donovan McNabb is only called a "good QB" because he's black was actually more racist. And nearly anything that Glenn Beck has ever said about Hillary was more sexist. (Apparently "bitch" is more socially acceptable than "ho".)

Maybe this is just an example of both sides beating up on the middle and thinking they've won something (yes, the Righties think this is a victory for their side, and they're setting their sites on Krugman).

So, I'd feel sorry for Imus, except he's a dick (although the couple times I watched him, he did use some decent Austin-style blues as fade music).

And he only gets that nod because he's an extremist prick to both wings.

Anyway - having now established precisely why this isn't an issue of freedom of speech at all, I'll happily join you in asking this:

Why we were so cowed by the prevailing zeitgeist that we failed to effectively exercise our own responsibility as listeners - to insist that these hard-fought-for, hard-won non-discrimination policies (policies these corporations slowly and reluctantly instituted, policies in the pursuit of which people actually gave their lives) be adhered to in those cases too?

[edited to add - "alone"? Are you saying that no employees of CBS or ABC have ever been fired for violations of their policies regarding racism or discrimination? No file clerks or warehouse workers or...? - ES]

Getting enemies of the Constitution out of office is more important than getting offensive pricks off the air.

Imus (even Beck, Coulter - who is losing audience BTW, Hannity, Savage et al) are just symptoms. So is the misgyny of rap music. Going after symptoms sometimes helps, and sometimes hurts (particularly if it makes you think "everything is fine, now").

I'm fascinated that this story has so much resonance, here and in the media. In the media, it is (to a certain extent at least) a bright, shiny object (more milkable than Anna Nicole, so a better distraction). Here, it seems like a lot of people are trying to separate themselves from their cultural melieu, with mixed success. Except us old farts, who dont' listen to rap because we're either still in awe of Led Zepplin or perhaps the jam between John McLaughlin and Keith Jarrett on Live Evil when Keith's Ab key broke. And you Canadians, who are probably just filling time between hits of poutine. And the Texans, but they're their own separate country and you really don't want to know more about them.