Pointing Fingers

The Second Coming, A Second Time

I’m not one who is apt to repeat myself, but on the first day of 2008, the year America will finally elect a new president and – despite the lack of ideal choices – one that may just show a little more respect for not only the Constitution he or she is worn to uphold, but for American citizens, aliens (fabulous term, no?) both legal and illegal, and to global citizens who have a right to live each day without fear of being bombed, shot or tortured by the United States.

I wrote originally wrote The Second Coming: The Age of Bin Laden on September 15, 2001, four days after September 11th. The World Trade Center was still in flames, and America had yet to start a war against Afghanistan, let alone Iraq. Every awful prediction I made came to pass, far worse in some cases, than I had imagined. Foolishly optimistic, in 2004, I thought America would get rid of George W. Bush come election time. I was horribly mistaken. Perhaps reiterating these words from September 2001 in the forums available to me through San Francisco Chronicle's SFGate, as well as Annoy.com, Pointing Fingers and Daily Kos might wake some people up this election. Somehow I'm less optimistic this time round. To paraphrase, correctively, the misphrasing of our current President: "fool me once, shame on you..."

The morning of Tuesday September 11, 2001, began typically enough. Yawningly irreverent New York radio host Don Imus, (whose show is simulcast on MSNBC), was angrily denouncing MSNBC for allowing nauseatingly saccharine hosts Chris Jansing and Gregg Jarrett to knock him off the air anytime there was breaking news, rather than let him break it. Seemingly unaware of the high premium MSNBC places on youth. Clearly oblivious to the fact that a vast majority of Americans don't want some bitter, wrinkled, dried-up, ex-cokehead, surrounded by spineless yes men, wheezing breaking news between hits on his oxygen mask.

And then terror struck. Big time. In the worst terrorist attack in history, suicidal fanatics attacked the United States by smashing hijacked commercial planes into the World Trade Center towers, Pentagon (and potentially other targets, were they not foiled by passengers). America and indeed most of the world were numbed to the core by the horror and magnitude of such destruction.

Throughout the day -- and ever since -- repeated images of the horror looped and looped on every TV channel in every language interspersed with hundreds of heartstring tugging stories that reduce the most hardened of men to tears.

As the dust settles, literally and figuratively, we may well emerge from this a changed nation. Although not with the overnight hyperbole reflected by trite headlines stating as much before we had even had a chance to absorb what we were hit with.

Some things remain horribly the same.

While most American's were reeling, stunned into a shocked and disbelieving silence, the impenetrable roaches of humanity's refuse at its worst and ugliest came crawling out fast and furious, vomiting their hate and their anger like festering pus on gaping wounds.

Reverends Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson shattered their own decaying credibility by fanatically blaming the attack on abortionists, liberals, online pornographers and civil liberties groups, declaring that Americans got what they deserved. This, of course, while their fellow Americans - and a host of other nationalities -- lay dead, suffering and smoldering under heaps of shattered concrete and melting mangled metal.

Intellectually barren columnist, Ann Coulter, in a tribute to talk show partisan Barbara Olson that was about as sensitively timed and welcome as an untreated yeast infection on Prom night, suggested that America bomb the fuck out of whatever country was responsible. Children and innocent civilians be damned! And convert them all to Christianity. No doubt her perverted brand of Christianity that deems bombing babies nobler than oral sex.

'War is Stupid and People are Stupid,' Boy George once sang frivolously.

The governments waging them may be damn stupid too, but they are not that stupid, and not as stupid as we are, it seems. War allows governments to get away with things that are not possible in peacetime, where cooler heads and reason prevail. Using the word 'war' to describe something that is not a war, diminishes the notion of what a real war is and trivializes and mocks genuine patriotism. It threatens the very tenets of freedom. It allows for States of Emergency with unparalleled government powers from eavesdropping, surveillance and ex-parte motions to detention without trial.

'This is War!" screamed the headlines, TV networks and cable channels, and while we -- vulnerable in our pain, grief, fear and shattered sense of security -- wept over round-the-clock heart-wrenching vignettes of the fallen and their families played to the tune of the national anthem everywhere we turned.

While we mourned and watched and read and listened and cried, an anti-terrorism bill was drafted that rivals South Africa's most draconian at the height of Apartheid. Within just one week of the attacks. Not to mention an almost unanimous vote by both chambers of Congress (save one brave voice of Congresswoman Barbara Lee) to give Bush full authority to use "all necessary and appropriate force" against terrorists linked to the attacks and against those that sponsor them as well as a unanimous $40 billion anti-terrorism package.

America's worst enemies -- hypocrisy and its unrelenting media machinery that cripples our intelligence and goads us into thinking and acting like dazed sheep before a slaughter -- has done and will continue to do more harm to this country than Osama bin Laden or any other terrorists anywhere could ever wish to.

We cannot, as a response, simply bomb other countries with vengeance or blame people with different beliefs or ideologies. Nor should we grit out teeth through our tears and sense of helplessness and resolutely commit to revenge. A dogged pursuit for vengeance, whether framed as self-defense by ancient Defense Secretaries or resulting from a deep-rooted, visceral and all too understandable desire to punish by continuing along the very same path is explosively dangerous. All we can hope to achieve with such an approach is to add new recruits to the cause of terrorism and alienate public opinion domestically and especially internationally.

Before we embark on a war of retribution, like a frantic chicken with its head cut off running around in search of a definable enemy, we need to reflect. Big time.

What message we are sending when we impose sanctions on a country for nuclear testing one day, and then lift them so that the same country can help us attack or bomb an enemy we once befriended, trained and created ourselves the next? And to what extent might this just engender a distrust and hatred of America?

Some, more detached, have pointed out; the targets were symbols of American military might and economic prowess. The Pentagon and World Trade Center respectively represent the very essence of capitalism. Borrowing an American justification for the bombing of innocent civilians, and just as callously, some have referred to the victims as simply collateral damage. Indeed a shockingly insensitive euphemism. Why we should ask ourselves, was it so easy for us to stomach it in Baghdad or in Yugoslavia? Why then not in Oklahoma? Why not in New York?

We must question whether strategic national interests -- that have us bombing other humans to deflect scrutiny and accountability at home -- are either strategic or in our interests.

We must ask ourselves whether the multinational corporatization of culture that makes for stronger First World economies is worth the sweat and blood of children in sweatshops in the Third World.

We must reexamine the appropriateness of remaining silent while females are butchered at birth in China as Rupert Murdoch, Steve Case and their merry band of savages lay down the satellites and pipes for broadband to poison new minds with freshly sanitized, brain-anesthetizing content, and sell the population-controlled, surviving males new laptops.

We need to stop for a second before bedtime channel surfing between NASCAR and Howard Stern while dripping genetically engineered McDonalds burger grease onto our GAP sweaters, only to wake up just early enough and strive just hard enough to earn just enough to replace it with one from Banana Republic instead.

We need to pause before we tap our Budweisers in tune to a lecherous Bob Dole sitting in a darkened room transparently pawning Viagra in Pepsi commercials while watching Britney Spears flaunt her underage crotch in his face. And then mindlessly tune in to a two-hour JonBenet Ramesy special and wonder who killed her. And why.

We need to find balance, where criticism of Rudy Giuliani for his horrific record on arts funding is not ignored or suddenly no longer relevant because of the incredible sense of comfort and security he has been able to inspire in the wake of the attack on New York.

We need to still be able to vigorously condemn the horrific ordeals faced by the likes of Abner Louima or Amadou Diallo at the hands of corrupt New York policemen without negating or trivializing the admirable and incredible heroism displayed by brave men and women from the same Department that continues to give credence to the phrase New York's Finest in the wake of the attack on New York.

We need to parse information being fed to us by an amateur, stammering Press Secretary Ari Fleisher, (who remember, was fainting in anxiety and threatening the media during the tense furor surrounding Jenna Bush's underage drinking escapades), with the appropriate grains of salt and respect for freedom of information.

We need to learn to not confuse extremist conduct with necessary and strong criticism of policy or appreciation of an alternative ideology. Nor refrain from critical self-analysis. We must stop oversimplifying wide ranging complexities by lumping everything into an Us v.Them paradigm that leaves too many people cornered, scapegoated or unfairly branded.

We need to realize that the declarations of war, the political rhetoric on all sides and the sweeping tide of emotion and patriotism right now are potentially the most dangerous and damaging to our civil liberties if left unchecked and unbalanced. And the threat posed by our willingness to blindly trade our freedom for a heightened perception of security cannot be underestimated.

We need to question with apprehension Attorney General John Ashcroft s draconian requests for unprecedented law enforcement powers for investigating 'suspected terrorists' (however vaguely defined) that are being fast tracked through Congress without nearly appropriate enough consideration. And how the curtailment of civil liberties during wartime translates into Rumsfeld's ominous characterization of the 'war' that reads more like his biography. "It is a much more subtle, nuanced, difficult, shadowy set of problems." With neither a beginning nor end.

Now, more than ever, we need to tune in to people around us and tune out the sappy, obsequious corporate-controlled media instilling over-produced, high-tech fear into us by simply regurgitating the government's outdated war strategies as advocated by dying blowhards who peaked in the exact same posts in President Ford's cabinet four administrations ago.

Let's smell the Starbucks and realize that the stock prices of companies like Viacom, Microsoft, AOL Time Warner, News Corporation, General Electric, Disney, Vivendi, Alcoa and Halliburton are really the only thing anyone from the White House to the Treasury to the media touting this war cares about, not humanitarian values or the value of the information or programming that is designed to keep us ignorant and petrified while we cling to our flags in tears.

Such a violent and horrific attack not only showcases our vulnerability militarily, economically, politically and ideologically, but also robs of us of our families, friends and loved ones and very joy of living.

In spite of blunderbuss rhetoric and toxic media fallout, this tragedy has resulted in people coming together and reaching out to one another in ways no one ever could have imagined. A new, more informed dialogue has begun.

The greatest honor we can bestow on the people who died so tragically on September 11, 2001, is to simply wake up and pay attention.

Me, Me, Media

It just keeps getting worse. Just when you think the gutter couldn’t get any deeper, along comes a development that exposes depravity depths you didn’t think possible.

The Paris Hilton media spectacle was an international embarrassment.

On Friday last week, CNN and MSNBC struggled to cover the not-so-insignificant resignation of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the homophobic, gay-looking-and-acting General Peter Pace in their roles as legitimate news sources, interrupting themselves to monitor every movement as an Aderall-deprived Hilton was escorted back to court, helicopters and paparazzi in hot pursuit, and then, crying for her Mom (to no avail), to a medical facility in Twin Towers prison.

With Lindsay Lohan planning her twenty-first birthday safely confined in rehab, Variety, the Hollywood rag, reports that recently fired Donald Trump (yes, usually when a contract is not renewed, it means the show’s over, his protestations and lame spinning attempts notwithstanding) is teaming with equally highbrow Fox to create a “new” show. Lady or a Tramp, (not to be confused with Lady or a Trump), as Entertainment Weekly pointed out, “sounds like a mean-spirited, unfunny version of VH1's Charm School.” Actually, it sounds more like Kathy Hilton’s thankfully short-lived series, I Want to Be a Hilton, where she got to live out the attention-at-any-cost lifestyle she manically constructed for her wanton daughter.

"We are all sick and tired of the glamorization of these out-of-control young women, so I have taken it upon myself to do something about it," Trump told Variety. Given the gracious second chance he gave Tara Conner, the coke snorting party girl, Miss USA (which in turn led to the over-hyped feud between Trump and Rosie O’Donnell), who could be better suited to bestow class than a nouveau riche, gaudy, attention-seeking media whore who, without his bank account and Viagra prescription, would be about as attractive to the whores he attracts as a self-possessed Rutgers women basketball player would be to Don Imus?

Thing is though, it’s not that so much that young girls or boys party out of control. I’ll be the first to admit that in my late teens to early twenties I did more alcohol and drugs than all of these kids combined, and drove on top of it. Not that it’s okay. I was just young, stupid and irresponsible, and was smart enough to do it behind my parents back, fortunate enough to not have cameras following me, and lucky enough to not have killed myself or anyone else.

What I didn’t have, was a bunch of enablers with names like Elliot Mintz or Leslie Sloane Zelnick making excuses for me and perpetuating my dangerous sense of invincibility. Unlike Dina and Michael Lohan or Kathy and Rick Hilton, my divorced parents and their respective spouses – all four, mind you – would have kicked my ass into place, literally, had they known. (In fact, after my brother and I “borrowed” my mother’s car at age fifteen, without her permission or a license, the police officer that arrested us after we were stopped, released us without any charges based solely on the look on my mother’s face when she arrived at the police station).

There weren’t nauseating, bottom-feeding parasites running companies like TMZ with names like Harvey Levin, ingratiating themselves on cable TV shows, smiling coyly like flirtatious schoolgirls, whilst enriching themselves on the boredom and misery of others. (How sad, shallow and pathetic Levin’s life must be).

Almost every anchor on every network repeatedly feigned shock and surprise at the media attention lavished on someone as unaccomplished as Paris Hilton, as if their own top stories didn’t count somehow.

Between the Trumps and the Hiltons and their obsessive desire to parade their money as a form of entertainment, the tasteless vulgarity of the nouveau riche will continue to provide revenue streams for desperate media companies who will air anything in the name of ratings. Reinforcing that no amount of money can buy breeding or taste, any more than it can produce quality content by catering to the lowest common denominator.

America is looking more and more like a gaudy, Liberace-inspired, palatial trailer where plush and lush and cash and trash are one and the same and where a culture war seems to be tirelessly waged in a cultureless society that cares more about Britney Spears’ hair extensions than it does about the number of people dying in Iraq.

Paris is Burning

Quicker than a Lindsay Lohan relapse, Paris was released from prison after serving a whopping five days, shorter than a typical shopping spree, behind bars in a “special needs” facility in Los Angeles County.

She’s not “free” though, and must be “confined” to her Hollywood Hills estate, which is squeezed onto a 6,380-square foot lot, and be forced to wear a non-designer, electronic monitoring ankle bracelet.

The Los Angeles County Sherriff’s Department citied an “unspecified medical condition” as being the reason for her release, particularly since Court Judge Michael T. Sauer had ruled she would not be allowed any work release, furloughs or use of an alternative jail or electronic monitoring in lieu of jail, after twice violating her probation for a reckless driving under the influence of her mother and alcohol.

So what might her unspecified medical condition be?

A staph infection has been ruled out, despite an outbreak at Lynwood, the prison she made her home for so long, where she was even said to be given a pamphlet about staph infection prevention, although whether her publicist actually read it to her is unlikely.

Already, reports had surfaced, that like Ghandi before her, Paris was not eating. Is it possible that Ghandi too, had an eating disorder, and cleverly disguised it by calling it a hunger strike, much the same way sufferers of Attention Deficit Disorder position it on their resumes, pointing to their Aderall prescriptions as a proven ability to multi-task.

Another report, this from the bottom-feeding AOL property known as TMZ, claimed Paris was cold and having difficulty sleeping with only two of three blankets, having to use the third as a pillow. But in a post Ambien patent day and age, where cheap, generic zolpidem is as easy to get as cocaine in Los Angeles, is insomnia really a legitimate enough medical condition to warrant release?

Maybe Paris was hearing voices. Although if schizophrenia -- defined as a psychiatric diagnosis characterized by impairments in the perception or expression of reality -- was the cause, Paris would have been institutionalized long ago.

Maybe Sarah Silverman was right to worry, when hosting the MTV Movie Awards where Paris sat in the audience on the same evening she turned herself in, and she did indeed break her teeth on the prison bars, which Silverman claimed guards had painted pink to resemble penises.

Never one to miss out on an opportunity to race-bait, the Reverend Al Sharpton, immediately denounced Hilton’s release, stating it had "all of the appearances of economic and racial favoritism."

So what could it be? Is Bulimia the new get-out-of jail-free card? What about a good old fashioned tantrum?

Privacy laws in California preclude reporters from finding out the specifics of her medical condition, but it seems it seems like Google Ads had the answer all along.

When I checked Dictionary.com to confirm a specific definition of the word “tantrum,” (which includes among others, “a sudden burst of ill-temper” of the sort Paris’ mother, Kathy Hilton, displayed in the court upon the sentencing) I was offered the following three options:

Temper Pedic: Save 70%
Queen bed $599 - King bed $686. Ext. Memorial Day Sale in Progress.
www.eBed.com/

Insomnia And Depression
"Snoring, Sleep Apnea & Insomnia" Info-Learn about Causes & Treatment
www.EverydayHealth.com

Are You Stupid?
Can't Find Answers? Take the Quiz. Find out if You're Stupid!
TheStupidQuiz.com/stupid

Flashback: Mission Accomplished

Mission accomplished, job done
Photo ops beneath the sun
Combat over, stop the press
Private rescue, window dress

Hide their widows, flatter their moms
Suffering soldiers flattened by bombs
Humor their fathers, clueless old chaps
Trade in their children for flags in their laps

Strip them of benefits, temper their greed
Danger pay? Is that what they really need?
They do it for you and they do it for me
So the American land of Iraq can be free

Body bags plenty, just a few for each day
Invoice the living for their hospital stay
Freedom’s untidy, Mr. Rumsfeld has spoken
But these aren’t his children lying dying and broken

Bring ‘em on, bravely Mr. Bush eggs them on
As our sons and our daughters die one by one
None of his family is close to harm’s way
No tragic calls at the end of the day

So count all your blessings and not just the coffins
Denial is great, and it soothes and it softens
It’s they who are desperate; it’s we who have won
It’s freedom aplenty beneath Iraqi sun

Ignore all the curfews, your papers please,
Halliburton is hiring, just remain on your knees
Remaining here now, will help to end terror
Just as prewar intelligence was free of error

Just try to remember, as our leaders are spinning
War’s over, we won, it’s the peace that is killing.

Clinton Fein, Mission Accomplished, Annoy.com, November 3, 2003

Rich Coming From Rich

In a recent editorial, Senior Editor of Editor & Publisher, Joe Strupp, wrote about the media’s response to New York Times columnist, Frank Rich’s latest column, in which Rich revealed that The New York Times would no longer participate in the White House Correspondents’ Association annual dinner.

Aside from the brilliant dressing down given by Stephen Colbert last year, the dinner is a nauseating display of sycophantic reporters and politicians, fawning over one another and perpetuating each other’s relevance while tripping over one another in efforts to meet the likes of American Idol loser, Sanjay Malakar.

Embarrassing a spectacle as it is, the New York Times made a smart decision, and Rich had every right to support it. However, his self-righteousness indignation in response to Editor & Publisher’s questions seemed, if nothing else, a little disingenuous.

I've always been a fan of Frank Rich's smart and insightful writing, and, as a staunch First Amendment advocate, fully respect his constitutional right to free expression and association.

I just wonder how in this instance though, he feels "strongly that the Times has to stay clear of things that are potential conflicts of interest," yet didn't seem too concerned that frequent appearances by him or Maureen Dowd on the Don Imus show might well inflict damage to the brand that is The New York Times. It's not as if the remark that resulted in his firing was the first, well-publicized instant of Don Imus' racism (or misogyny, xenophobia or homophobia).

Rich told E&P that he doesn't "feel that reporters should be used in presidential publicity stunts." They shouldn't be used to lend credibility to the broadcasts of shock jocks masquerading under the guise of news programming either.

Additional References

WHCA Officials Defend Dinner In Wake Of 'NY Times' Pullout -- Paper Will Shun Gridiron Gala, Too
By Joe Strupp Editor & Publisher
April 30, 2007

Editor & Publisher: Abbreviated Response
By Clinton Fein
May 1, 2007

Oh Say, Can You Handle It
By Clinton Fein
The First Amendment Project
May 2, 2006

NBC: Bringing Decency Back

The famous ACT UP refrain that galvanized a movement was “Silence = Death”.

Despite a reputation for silence worthy of a monk, Virginia Tech killer, Cho Seung-Hui, who peers and roommates say rarely uttered a word, let rip in a frightening, rambling, multimedia diatribe that he mailed off to NBC mid-massacre.

His perceived isolation and feelings of victimization (as a million talking heads have concluded, verified perhaps by his own contributions) fomented an intense rage that he silently withheld until Monday.

His criticism and blaming of “rich kids” with “trust funds” and “debauchery” combined with his identifying with the Columbine killers revealed a resentment that might have resulted from either having been bullied or ignored because he didn’t fit in.

Yet, aside from obliterating Don Imus from the news cycle, (suggesting that had he committed this violent massacre two weeks ago, Don Imus would still be filling the airwaves with his own brand of hate and invective), he might still provide some insight as to why certain hate speech (not of the politically correct variety, but genuine threatening and fighting words that provoke violence) can have an impact that is far more dangerous than offending Al Sharpton.

As if to illustrate what the killer might have been feeling, The Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed reported that the killer was a 24-year-old Chinese student who arrived in San Francisco on United Airlines on Aug. 7 on a visa issued in Shanghai. (Atlantic Unbound’s James Fallows has documented the subsequent “Orwellian” cleansing of The Chicago Sun-Times’ web site to remedy the gaffe that sent shockwaves through China.) Chinese, Asian, Oriental, Korean. What’s the difference? The same thinking that Don Imus and his gang would spout about all Muslims being “stinking ragheads.”

Tart columnist Maureen Dowd is seldom at a loss for words, but her silence over the firing of Don Imus was in stark contrast to the embarrassing attempts to justify his tacit endorsement by another New York Times Imus enabler, Frank Rich – a frequent guest on the show.

Yes, Rich admitted to being a hypocrite, but defended Imus on the basis that Imus was an equal-opportunity offender, railing against Jews (like Frank). Comparing him to Comedy Central’s Southpark and Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat, Rich failed to see the difference. Southpark is able to get away with insulting everyone because the creators hold up a mirror that educates and entertains at the same time. Same with Borat. Imus and his gang spew hate for no reason other than to see what they can get away with. Their authentic ugliness is transparent. Yes, still protected, but Rich’s claim that he hadn’t heard or didn’t appreciate the extent of Imus’ invective (or his team including Charles McCord, Sid Rosenberg, Bo Dietl and the other losers who consider themselves comedians with the same self-delusion that Sanjaya Malakar deems himself a singer) suggests that Rich is either disingenuous or an idiot. And the latter, he isn’t.

The Silence of the Dowd, however was also deafening. Perhaps she didn’t have the stomach for having to justify why she would chat with Imus as Bernard McGuirk, his Executive Producer, wondered if Representative Cynthia McKinney had ever had “white man’s jizz on her face,” or specifically referring to Dowd herself, suggested that he would apologize to her for criticizing her with “the tip of my Timberland shoe” after she posited that the Church sex abuse scandal was a pedophilia, rather than a homosexual, problem.

But Maureen Dowd has a right to remain silent, despite how bloody her hands are. Far less excusable was NBC’s Tim Russert on Meet the Press Sunday, where he squirmed so uncomfortably that even I felt sorry for him. Washington Post’s Gwen Ifill, who Imus once gallantly referred to as a “cleaning lady” thankfully did not allow Russert or David Brooks (yet another New York Times Imus enabler) to get away with their lame attempts to try and compare Don Imus to Snoop Dogg or feign indignation over McGuirk’s portrayal of Cardinal Egan (perhaps the most authentic McGuirk ever was).

This isn’t about words, it’s about context. Hell, even Ann Coulter knows that.

So in the name of decency (also known as lost advertising revenue), Don Imus was fired by NBC, who claimed that they wanted to work toward a campaign of common decency that expanded beyond the walls of their news organization with its strained credibility.

That was before they received the “multimedia manifesto” from Cho Seung-Hui.

Now watch how decency looks, grieving families be damned, when advertisers aren’t bolting.

Free Speech, Not Consequences

And so it came to pass that MSNBC, caving to intense pressure, dropped Don Imus from their morning line up. A day later, followed by a meeting with Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson with CBS Corp. chief executive Leslie Moonves, his radio show was killed, essentially ending the career of a man that for years had ruled the airwaves with an unimpeded barrage of bigotry and hate.

Two years ago, I warned MSNBC that Imus was tainting their brand. More than that, I questioned how they could continue to allow Imus to denigrate their journalists, as the media and political elite sustained his platform with appearances on his show.

I am a firm supporter of free speech. I have fought my own First Amendment battles all the way to the United States Supreme Court. I currently serve as President of the Board of First Amendment Project (FAP).

The Don Imus firing is not a First Amendment issue, and this is not a censorship story. Only governments censor.

Imus in the Morning was a ratings and revenue bonanza and despite a despicable slew of misogynist homophobic, racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-Islamic garbage, the executives at both NBC and Universal did nothing for ages.

When this story broke, MSNBC, attempting to shirk responsibility, once more, had the audacity to claim that it was not responsible for the content on the show – that it was merely a simulcast. This, despite the full blown resources of NBC journalists and technology at his disposal.

Amidst intense pressure, both MSNBC and CBS pretended that the internal cacophony of protest is what ultimately led to their decision.

Again, in 2006, in another attempt to draw attention to the damage caused by Imus, I wrote the following in an editorial titled Fox, Henhouses and Chickens:

“Despite his reputation as a provocative, albeit aging, 'shock jock,' MSNBC does a simulcast of Don Imus’ WFAN radio show, 'Imus in the Morning,' which is positioned by MSNBC as a news program, replete with the reporting muscle of NBC News at its disposal.

Despite the childish, sexist, homophobic and racist diatribes that define Imus and his crew, and have caused anchors like Contessa Brewer to cringe in embarrassment before bitter and public feuds separated them on-air forever more (or at least until MSNBC does a reality show about supposed journalists), it’s highly unlikely that a genuine NBC journalist reporting on developments in the Middle East will inspire any sympathy from groups like the 'Holy Jihad Brigades' if they happen to catch Imus referring to Arabs as stinking ragheads with dirty laundry on their heads, as he has done before. (As he sits, ironically, with a gay cowboy hat in New Jersey). Or in the case of the now-fired Imus sportscaster, Sid Rosenberg, who stated on-air that Serena and Venus Williams were best suited posing for National Geographic rather than Playboy and that Palestinians mourning the death of Yasser Arafat were 'stinking animals' upon whom the Israelis 'ought to drop the bomb right there, kill 'em all right now...' Perhaps it was the crack cocaine talking, but it was neither his drug habits nor that comment that got Rosenberg fired."

I also suggested that as long as hard-working, courageous, idealistic and responsible journalists and reporters remain willfully ignorant of the corporatization of news, and allow and accept equal billing with loud-mouthed shills, spitting deliberate provocations in an increasingly divisive substitution of content for discontent, the remaining shreds of nobility in the profession of journalism will be irreparably damaged and news will forever be defined by shallow attempts to generate ratings and revenue, and to push agendas rather than explain them.

Imus should not have been fired for what he said per se, and certainly not because the new speech nannies, replacing Tipper Gore, Lynne Cheney and Joe Lieberman, namely Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, demanded it. Let’s get real.

In his own defense, Imus attempted to explain that his comment could not be considered without a broader context. And tried to pass his remark off as a joke. The only problem was that even taken in context, the “joke,” as New York Times’ Bob Herbert summed up on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, was missing a punchline.

Context is important, and so the banning of certain words, regardless of the frame of reference, is an ill-informed solution. And aptly demonstrated by how many times the phrase “nappy headed hos” has been repeated in the telling of this story.

If this was really about journalists and employees at MSNBC and CBS threatening mutiny if the response wasn’t swift and fatal, this would have happened a long time ago. The only reason Imus is off the air, and it’s not a censorship issue, or even relevant whether Imus is really a racist or just playing one for laughs that only he and his cohorts find amusing, is because of the marketplace.

Had American Express Co., Sprint Nextel Corp., Staples Inc., Procter & Gamble Co., and General Motors Corp. not decided to pull advertising to distance their brands from the show, would MSNBC and CBS really have listened to and acted on the concerns of their journalists and employees? Such concerns didn’t seem to warrant any action before.

Imus made a point of thanking Bigelow Tea for sticking with him. A fabulous tea, mind you. Especially served in the morning with crackers.

Bill Maher, the comedian who was fired by ABC for his controversial remarks about September 11th, said it was sad to see the “swaggering mustang” broken following the implosion of his career.

For me, it wasn’t. Seeing a bullying, arrogant, blowhard brought to his knobby knees by his own making could not happened to a more deserving guy.

Imus still has the right to free speech, and the right to call whoever he wants whatever he wants. With or without appropriate context. But never forget, that speech may well be free, but never free of consequences, and is not guaranteed under the banner of a news organization striving for integrity and journalistic excellence, no matter how far short they have measured.

Who’s Ho?

Oh My God! Who would have guessed?

Thatch-headed shock jock, Don Imus, was suspended by MSNBC and CBS for a whole whopping two weeks following a conversation with resident twerp and Executive Producer, Bernie McGuirk (and on the phone with none other than fired Sid Rosenberg), in which Imus referred women of Rutgers University basketball team as “nappy-headed hos”.

Where to begin with the absurdity? For Imus to be mocking anyone’s hair is as ludicrous as if it was Donald Trump doing it.

But more fascinating, is the sudden controversy, since Imus has been spewing hateful garbage for years and years.

My editorial, Imus and the Flies, detailed the bizarre relationship between Imus and the news properties that wholeheartedly endorse his brand of minority-bashing content, as well as the string of washed-out, yet high profile guests, ranging from John McCain to Tim Russert, who seem to think that turning a blind eye doesn’t taint them with the same filthy brush.

The supposed contrition, aside from reducing Imus to the same stature as Seinfeld comedian Michael Richards, who also apologized with a laughable sincerity and requisite faux pas, underscored the very sentiments he aimed to defuse, which is the real, tragic joke.

News coverage have focused on Imus’ tax-sheltered Imus Ranch, for “Kids with Cancer” or the money he raises for SIDS as a demonstration of how charitable he is, as if that even relates to Imus’ own claim that he’s not a racist. “What I did was make a stupid, idiotic mistake in a comedy context,” he claimed. Hilarious, isn’t it?

Characterizing Imus’ comments as “racist and sexist remarks that are deplorable, despicable and unconscionable.” Rutgers women’s basketball coach, C. Vivian Stringer’s response demonstrated the dignity and grace Don Imus will never come close to.

Perhaps as disturbing as Imus' remarks was watching MSNBC’s General Manager, Dan Abrams, attempt to spin that the punishment fits the crime, only after berating the equally minority-offending Fox News, for being hypocritical and playing politics over their reaction to Imus. The fact that genocide existed long before the Third Reich doesn’t make it any more palatable. The comparisons are a baseless deflection that viewers should treat with the same skepticism as they do Imus’ remorse.

Imus also revealed his sincerity, claiming “I may be a white man, but I know that these young women and young black women all through that society are demeaned and degraded by their own black men and that they are called that name.” The apology with the caveat.

Censorship is not the answer. It’s simply a matter of discernment. MSNBC’s initial response – that Imus in the Morning is simply a simulcast is about as disingenuous as it gets. Do they donate the money they generate from the show? Or are they just, well, hos?

In conversations with, ironically, Al Sharpton, and amidst demonstrations led, ironically, by Jesse Jackson, the two run-to male figures on the redemption circuit that appear to represent a whole diverse community of black people, Imus has suggested he might add a black person to his team. Females or better yet, lesbians shouldn’t hold their breath though.

In a race card society, the real whores, (namely the brass at MSNBC and CBS) are far more concerned with ratings and money than who is trampled on in the process. So women and gays can still expect as much deference as the attention the Jews lavished on Mel Gibson’s use of the word “sugartits” in his infamous anti-Semitic, drunk tirade. Ask singer Kylie Minogue just how exactly MSNBC and CBS responded when, following her breast cancer diagnosis, Sid Rosenberg joked: “She won't look so pretty when she's bald with one titty."

Rest assured, misogyny and homophobia are alive and well on Imus in the Morning.

Popping Suze's Cherry

The most frightening coming out announcement ever made happened Friday, after the revered financial guru, Suze Orman, outed herself to Deborah Solomon in an interview for Sunday’s New York Times Magazine.

Far more troubling than Britney’s haircut, was the Britneyesque comment Orman made which, itself, translated into global headlines. Not long ago, Ms. Spears told a legion of fans of a certain generation that she was a virgin, and thousands of young, gullible girls believed her.

This week, Orman made a similar claim: “I’m a 55 year old virgin.”

My initial reaction was genuine shock at the thought of such an under-used vagina. But does that make her a lesbian, I wondered.

After reading the article in question, I was left more bewildered than before. In the article, Orman does indeed come out as gay, acknowledging a seven year relationship with K.T. aka Kathy Travis. But in the same article, Orman still claims to be a virgin.

We all know that many, perhaps most, long-term relationships (and yes, seven years is pretty long-term in my books) sometimes do become sexless, leading to unhappiness, affairs or the sad realization that masturbation is as good as its ever going to get, but what about the beginning of a relationship?

In other words, are Suze and Kathy in a platonic relationship or does Orman not consider anything other than the penetration of an actual penis into a vagina sex? Not even Bill Clinton was that evasive.

At first, Orman told the New York Times that she was “in a relationship with life,” in a sort of Clay Aiken-like denial, usually reserved for the likes of Ryan Seacrest or Ricky Martin. When Solomon pressed on, only then did Orman actually come out, announcing her apparently sexless, seven-year relationship with Kathy Travis.

“She must be the most hated woman in the lesbian community,” said my friend Trace. “Can you imagine how furious her girlfriend must have been?”

Orman’s bizarre revelation made me think about how we define virginity. Is Suze Orman really a virgin, or is she a product of a self-hating group that continues to ensure that gay sexuality remain in the closet – even when the person owning it comes out. A strange variation of the distinction between conduct and content. The only places where this distinction really means anything is in the military and the priesthood. Indeed, there exist many a celibate priest that identifies as gay, and the God-fearing are encouraged to “love the sinner, hate the sin.” And the United States military will still discharge a perfectly competent servicemember, recruitment deficits notwithstanding, for simply stating he or she is gay, even if they’ve never so much as touched a member of the same sex.

But is Suze Orman really governed by such absurdity? Does she truly believe her sexual propensities could jeopardize the financial products she dispenses – her books, television shows, infomercials etc.? Or is she joining the ranks of apologists, like Richard Simmons, who flaunt their homosexuality through self-ridicule or exaggerated stereotypes, straining their personas of any sexuality, so chubby housewives can dance to oldies to their heart’s content without being turned on by him or him threatening their out-of-shape husbands.

In my own cloud of disinterest, I had always bought into the notion that the breaking of the hymen was the classic definition of virginity broken, and essentially was relevant to females. In my world, it wasn’t necessarily a penis that broke the hymen, but a finger or toy just as easily. I wasn’t sure about a tongue – whether the hymen was close enough to the surface of the vagina opening for that, or whether a tongue was hard enough.

Trace scoffed at my hymen-centric focus anyway. As if oral sex -- enough to cause an orgasm but not penetrate the hymen -- could be considered anything other than sex.

I suppose a man or woman taking it up the butt for the first time could also be said to be “breaking their virginity,” but I never really took any of this seriously or gave it more thought than that.

After all, who really cares about virginity other than people wanting to desexualize the mother of Jesus with a biological impossibility? Men who want to marry virgins and the women who want to please them, or save their virginity for their husbands? Parents too petrified to imagine their children having sex?

And how does anyone know for sure? Can a hymen not be broken by any number of things aside from, possibly, a hard tongue? An over-zealous probe by a gynecologist, perhaps? A deftly-fingered girl probing the contours of her body in the blossoming of her youth? Would a man intent on marrying a virgin, but not particularly experienced or well-endowed even know the difference? And what if, despite his best efforts, the hymen remained intact? How about virginity being reinvented with each new partner?

Suddenly I realized I’m not sure what a virgin is at all, other than that Madonna was once like one.

Considering those a little more comfortable with their sexuality and their choices, though, Orman’s bizarre claim seems all the more ridiculous when just last night, upon winning an Academy Award, Melissa Etheridge first kissed and then thanked her wife without the world coming to an end. I doubt any of the millions or billions watching assumed Etheridge was a virgin.

America still has a way to go. While there are plenty gay characters on network TV nowadays, the occasional kiss is about as far as they’ll go, and shows like “Queer Eye” perpetuate the myth that gay guys are more likely to be shopping with girlfriends, coaching straight guys on how to decorate and how to become metrosexuals than they are to be kicking their asses in sports, as many of my friends learnt the hard way.

Whether Suze has actually popped Kathy’s cherry, or whether the financial guru is dispensing abstinence in addition to financial guidance, or whether she is keeping her "box in a box" for her actual wedding night, we’ll have to just keep guessing, but as far as role models are concerned, perhaps Suze should pop back into the closet, and stay there.

Until she opens her box anyway.

Get the Flak Outa Here

“My name’s Isaiah Washington and I am a bigot. My epithet of choice. Faggot.”

It was perfectly timed. The same day Serena Williams stunned the world Friday, pulverizing the top-seeded Maria Sharapova to win the Grand Slam title in Melbourne, Australia, the decrepit, wheezing, dried-up cocaine addict and radio shock-jock, Don Imus, was wincing irritably over a bad telephone connection to Sid Rosenberg, the gambling crack-addict that was fired as Imus' sports commentator after making the following comment in response to singer Kylie Minogue's breast cancer diagnosis: "She won't look so pretty when she's bald with one titty."

You may recall, Rosenberg – in a comment that did not get him fired -- called Serena and sister Venus Williams, animals, better suited to pose for National Geographic than Playboy.

Neither rehab, nor firing helped Rosenberg, who months later was fired again, this time by WFAN radio, following a crack and gambling binge in Atlantic City that caused him to blow off a Giants pregame show. Now, racism, homophobia and misogyny be damned, Imus appears to be worming him back into the fold.

Unlucky for Isaiah Washington, Grey’s Anatomy is an ABC show, forcing him to feign contrition, and conveniently enter rehab to compensate for calling T.R. Knight a faggot. Apparently, these days being an asshole is a very quickly curable disease, and if you’re really lucky, you can get inpatient credits with outpatient privileges.

Or, if you’re Lindsay Lohan, you can enter rehab and actually treat it like a hotel. The poor real addicts genuinely struggling with their addictions at the appropriately named, typically-Los Angeles, rehab facility, Wonderland, must wonder how Lohan was cured so quickly.

Just nine days after checking in following yet another passing out episode, this time in a hotel hallway at 6.00am following a Golden Globes afterparty, she’s back to feeding the paparazzi, running around West Hollywood, shopping – her usual humanitarian work. Kindly offering them up some fresh dysfunction to give Britney Spears a bit of breathing room.

In their self-centered worlds, being snapped, legs open, unconscious, and pantyless with an empty bottle of Jack Daniels in hand, vagina gaping for the world to see, is better than no photo during a half-hearted, publicity-seeking rehab stint.

The enablers, who should stock up on glycerin in case there’s a funeral any time soon, are either to busy wallowing in their own substance-altered, denial-fueled reality to help, or are nothing more than callous, self-serving, money-grabbing maggots who would sooner lull a vulnerable woman into a self sense of security by lying about and to her, than help her by forcing her to face the truth, and do the work necessary to get on track.

Anyone who’s ever been an addict can tell you – addiction isn’t cured in nine days, not even physiologically. And nor are the underlying reason that drove her there in the first place.

"She is doing fine right now," confirmed her publicist Leslie Sloane Zelnick. "She is allowed to work, and then she returns to treatment at night." Last week her mother, Dina Lohan, told a TV reporter how amazingly well Lindsay was and what “a great space” she was in right now.

Never mind that the Golden Globes incident was less than two weeks ago. Next they’ll be telling us the excessive, out-of-control partying hasn’t escalated; it’s more of an augmentation. For these despicable sycophants, rehab is nothing more than a pubic relations tool, served with a wink and an eight ball.

It’s not exactly a new phenomenon, but when Alan Nierob, Mel Gibson’s “Jewish, son of Holocaust survivors” publicist announced that his client would be entering rehab to simultaneously address his alcoholism and his anti-Semitism (apparently for Nierob, like the brass at NBC, addressing a woman as “sugartits” isn’t offensive enough to warrant either an apology or an intervention), the notion of using rehab as a fix-all to compensate for genuine remorse and elicit sympathy for the offender rather than the victim has become all too apparent.

While Gibson’s father may have a hard time acknowledging the very existence of his son's publicist (if the Holocaust did not occur, how could Nierob’s parents have survived it?), rehabilitation is actually a useful and life-saving tool for people whose lives have been ruined by the powerful forces of addiction, and are intent on doing whatever hard work is necessary to change course.

It’s a pity that a few reckless celebrities, their flaks and their enablers, are tainting rehab itself with the very status their clients/children/cash cows are trying to escape: a weak, pathetic joke.