Jeff commented on my Don Imus post…

I don’t know, man. The Sopranos and South Park
are just as guilty of aural spew as the
flavor-of-the-year rap artists are.
It’s been that way for quite a few years now.

I don’t watch either show. I stopped watching the Sopranos after an episode years back when a character viciously beat a woman to death. It was sickening and I was done. It’s really about selective acceptance. I recall a couple years ago Megan was really into “Em” and “Fiddy,” et al. Between her white and black friends, “nigga” “bi-atch” and “ho” were thrown around liberally. It was completely acceptable to the black kids that the white kids were saying these things because they were in “the club.” My point is, these things are accepted in a pretty significant piece of our culture, but are off limits to old white guys. As long as any of these double standards exist, race relations will be strained. And yes, the hipocracy is in technicolor. When Les Moonves states, “From the outset I believe that all of us have been deeply upset and revulsed by the comments,” I just roll my eyes. There’s probably more racism in the boardroom than out on the street. It all comes down to individuals and mutual respect. Don Imus got canned because he didn’t show any.

Some other stuff that’s wrong…
Another “shock jock,” Howard “not K” Stern is expending efforts to ruin “American Idol” by encouraging listeners to vote for the worst performer, Sanjaya Malakar. The NY Times wrote, “By promoting Mr. Malakar, Mr. Stern says, he hopes to turn the talent competition into a farce and destroy its popularity.”

Why? I don’t watch the show, but millions derive some enjoyment from it.

On tax day here in Massachusetts, it’s worth noting a recent NY Times story describing how the top 300,000 Americans collectively enjoy almost as much income as the bottom 150 million.

Finally, yesterday on Israel’s Holocaust remembrance day, Holocaust survivor and Virginia Tech professor Liviu Librescu died barricading the doorway of his classroom to buy time for some of his students to jump out the window to safety.

What a fucked up world.