Things are slow on the board right now as we await the draft, so I hope the following rant won't be unacceptable. It is tangentially sports related.
I've listened to Imus on and off for some years now and personally, I'm pleased that he's FINALLY been called for his shameless public bullying of people not been in a position to defend themselves.
Imus, and especially Bernard McGuirk(sp?), can be quite funny at times and some of the satirical stuff they've done over the years has been quite creative. I have no problem with them going after self-important politicians and celebrities. To an extent, people who chose to enter the public arena are fair game, although even here, the Imus show has often crossed the line. But all to often, their humor is grossly mean spirited and at the expense of "little people" who have done nothing more than say "No" to some trifling request made by "His Highness". His arrogant sense of entitlement is seemingly without limits, as is his inclination to take on-air revenge on people who frustrate his petty whims. Anyone who has listened to the show for any lenght of time knows of what I speak.
Imus has devolved over time, and his humor has grown less inventive and ingreasingly sordid and vulgar. Accordingly, I've listened to him less and less, and hadn't heard the show in some months when the Rutgers incident took place. It came as no surprise, as I've heard both he and Bernard say worse.
For me, it's not even the issue of race as much as it is his generally callous disregard for people's feelings. Imus now defends himself by saying, "I'm a good person who did a bad thing." I'm not buying his appology. In this instance, he may actually regret what he said, but I think back to the countless times his cohorts have told him he'd gone too far, only for him to take the attitude, "Who cares if he/she/they don't like it. What can they do to me."
For those who defend his behavior on the grounds of "free speech", have at it. Questions of civility and common decency aside, we are all free to say pretty much what we like. But we must also be prepared to take resposibility for what we say. Behavior has consequences, and when behavior occurs before an audience of millions, the consequences can increase dramatically.
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I've listened to Imus on and off for some years now and personally, I'm pleased that he's FINALLY been called for his shameless public bullying of people not been in a position to defend themselves.
Imus, and especially Bernard McGuirk(sp?), can be quite funny at times and some of the satirical stuff they've done over the years has been quite creative. I have no problem with them going after self-important politicians and celebrities. To an extent, people who chose to enter the public arena are fair game, although even here, the Imus show has often crossed the line. But all to often, their humor is grossly mean spirited and at the expense of "little people" who have done nothing more than say "No" to some trifling request made by "His Highness". His arrogant sense of entitlement is seemingly without limits, as is his inclination to take on-air revenge on people who frustrate his petty whims. Anyone who has listened to the show for any lenght of time knows of what I speak.
Imus has devolved over time, and his humor has grown less inventive and ingreasingly sordid and vulgar. Accordingly, I've listened to him less and less, and hadn't heard the show in some months when the Rutgers incident took place. It came as no surprise, as I've heard both he and Bernard say worse.
For me, it's not even the issue of race as much as it is his generally callous disregard for people's feelings. Imus now defends himself by saying, "I'm a good person who did a bad thing." I'm not buying his appology. In this instance, he may actually regret what he said, but I think back to the countless times his cohorts have told him he'd gone too far, only for him to take the attitude, "Who cares if he/she/they don't like it. What can they do to me."
For those who defend his behavior on the grounds of "free speech", have at it. Questions of civility and common decency aside, we are all free to say pretty much what we like. But we must also be prepared to take resposibility for what we say. Behavior has consequences, and when behavior occurs before an audience of millions, the consequences can increase dramatically.
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