Tuesday - April 10, 2007
TUCSON! Tucson is one of my favorite cities in America. I've spent no less than one week there every year for about the last 15 years ... and now I'm proud to have my show debuting on Tucson's new FM talker, 104.1 The Truth, KZPT. During the hours I'm on the air we'll just cal it The Painful Truth. Now I'm going to be able to spend even more time in Tucson! They have a studio I can use .... so we'll see you out there in June! |
THE DON IMUS AFFAIR
First of all ... I don't listen to the show. I've tried. I just don't get it. Apparently Imus called the Rutgers woman's basketball team a bunch of "nappy headed hos." Not good. Stupid even. But correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Stevie Wonder have some song in which he referred to himself as a "nappy headed little boy"? And is it not true that you can hear black women referred to as "hos" on virtually any urban hip hop station on any given day? Stevie Wonder is black, as are the rappers who denigrate black women with abandon. They're allowed. The real issue here is that the words were spoken by someone-not-black.
Was it a stupid thing to say? Absolutely. Do virtually all talk show host say something stupid once in a while? You bet. We don't have the advantages that a columnist might have. We don't have an editor to ask "are you sure you really want to say that?" We can't put our extemporaneous comments down on paper and then kick back with a gin martini to read them to see how they'll play out on the air. If we want to have a modicum of entertainment value to our shows we're going to have to tiptoe through a rhetorical pasture every day. Every once in a while we stray off the path and step in something. I've done it. Every host I know has done it. This whole Imus thing, though, quickly got out of hand. Two of the nation's preeminent race warlords have become involved. Time to stir the pot of black victimization a bit. Imus has apologized. He asked forgiveness. These two so-called "preachers" aren't really down with that forgiveness thing. The idea that Imus should be brought before those two race warlords, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson is disgusting. These two professional race baiters do nothing but scan the news day after day looking for some comment or action taken by someone-not-black that they can feign outrage over and get a little face time on the news. The idea that Al Sharpton is even considered to be a serious spokesman on issues such as this is an absurdity of a previously unimaginable magnitude. Michael Harrison, the Editor of Talker's Magazine, made what I think was a brilliant observation, that being that Imus would survive this so long as he cut back on the apologies. The real mistake for Imus was making an appearance on Sharpton's show. [video] He should have just gone on the show, apologized, said that he crossed the line, and be done with it. Let Jesse and Al snort and paw the ground all they want ... an apology would have been sufficient. I suspect, though, that his pilgrimage to the Shrine of Sharpton this wasn't Imus' idea. My guess is that either the MSNBC crowd or CBS that told Imus that he must go kneel before the Sharpton altar. Al Sharpton is a liar and a bigot. He falsely accused Steven Pagones of rape and mutilation in the Tawana Brawley matter. He's never apologized. He incited murder at Freddie's Fashion Mart in Harlem while loudly denouncing white interlopers. No apology. Do you remember the Crown Heights Riot in New York? That's where Al Sharpton whipped a crowd into a four-day riot on rumors that a Jewish ambulance had failed to treat a young black at the scene of a disturbance after a car accident. There was Sharpton referring to "diamond merchants" shedding the "blood of innocent babies." Diamond merchants? Code word for Jews. Apology? None. And this is the man that that fool John Kerry calls the moral compass of the Democrat Party? And now what? Imus goes to Sharpton to apologize? And excuse me, but didn't I hear the words "Hymie Town" from Jesse Jackson? Sharpton is really enjoying this. He has the limelight back from Barack Obama for a time. You'll soon see him posing for the cameras with the Rutgers team. He'll also be demanding meetings with CBS and MSNBC. Ride the wave. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is getting into the act also. Why let Sharpton and Jackson get all of the attention here? The SCLC wants a hearing before the FCC. Now the word is out that Imus will be suspended for two weeks. Still the media pushes the story. This morning I heard news anchors asking "Is two weeks enough?" There's blood in the water. The sharks are circling. A great white is wounded, and its time to move in for the kill. Sharpton has a chance to pull down a radio icon. It's a chance he doesn't want to miss. Soledad O'Brien called his remarks "racist." Racism is the belief in the inherent genetic superiority of one race over another. There was nothing racist -- not by definition -- in Imus' remarks. Par for the course, though. I doubt O'Brien has ever bothered to look into the history of the word "racist." The end result of all this? Sharpton and Jackson get their face time. Others, like the SCLC, will try to glom on. Imus relaxes for two weeks, and then probably comes back to a larger radio audience. He'll be bowed, though, by this episode. The edge will be gone. Time will tell. IMUS EMAIL
Message: As an African American man I stand by the spiritual principle of removing the beam from one's own eye before complaining about the splinter in another's. When we as African Americans treat with equal disdain, the multi-billion dollar hip hop garbage we allow our children to create, purchase, and listen to, perhaps we will have real credibility on issues such as Don Imus. I find it incredulous that we are planning boycotts and marches and such wailing and gnashing of teeth over a solitary old fart who is hardly emulating echoes of the past but that which you can hear on any given day thumping from any young person's car even while watching TV in the furthest room from the road. Imus is a white man who satirizes darkness of every shade. He is a mirror of our own shortcomings. Reflect on that before you go after his head. Because outside of the outrageous and oft stupid things he says on his show, the man does put his money in some of the same places he satirizes. This is the racial opportunism that has diluted true civil rights issues for the past several decades. It's all about the money. If it wasn't, those same preachers could have used the same energy to shut down the poisonous music evolution that started this cross cultural laissez-faire blackness that has now come home to roost. | Message: I am not condoning what Imus said, but where is the outrage regarding hip hop music and how black women are defamed? Ninety percent of gangster rap make Imus' comments seem like an NAACP address. Sharpton and Jackson need to look at the "big picture" when black women are denigrated everyday on FM hip hop stations throughout America. |
REPUBLICAN SOUNDING LIKE A DEMOCRAT
White House hopeful Mitt Romney, Republican and former governor of Massachusetts, has weighed in on reforming the tax system. In particular, he was asked about the flat tax...the income tax plan with a single rate across the board for everybody...and he called it "unfair." This could be why he's running behind in the Republican Party polls. And I thought Romney was the conservative in the Reagan mold? I guess not.
Now the flat tax is nowhere near as good as the Fair Tax, which as its name implies, is the only truly fair tax. Everybody pays the same rate and there are no forms to fill out. Everybody gets a refund for the basic necessities of life. No IRS...no April 15th (or April 17th, as is the case this year....that's right...you better hurry.) Anyway, back to this idea that charging everybody the same tax rate is unfair.
Let's compare two somebodys....take somebody who earns $30,000 a year vs. somebody who earns $1 million. Let's say there is a flat tax rate of 20%. The guy making thirty grand would owe $6,000 and the person hauling in a million bucks would pay $200,000. How is that unfair? Who is paying more tax? But oh...I get it...that's not "progressive." We're supposed to charge the guy on the low end next to nothing and confiscate 50% of what the rich guy makes.
Sounds like a little too much of Ted Kennedy rubbed off on Mitt Romney during his time in Taxachusetts.
RUNNING SCARED FROM FOX NEWS
Barack Obama and now Hillary Clinton are backing out of the Congressional Black Caucus/Fox News presidential debate this fall. Apparently they're afraid of the evil Fox News. What's the matter? If you want to be president of the United States, you've got to be able to roll with the big boys. So why won't they do it? The answer is really simple: they won't get the easy questions from a Fox News-moderated debate that they'll get from a CNN-moderated one.
Forget about the BS that they only want to participate in DNC-sponsored political debates. This is all about running scared from Fox News. Obama, Edwards and Clinton are afraid of hard questions. They're afraid they might be called out on something. Hillary Clinton is afraid she'll be asked, for instance, why she voted for the war in Iraq but is now against it. She'll be asked why it's such a big deal that George W. Bush fired 8 U.S. Attorneys when her husband fired all 93. You know, things like that.
And note the double standard here. Had Republican candidates ducked a debate that involved the Congressional Black Caucus, you can bet they would all be branded racists and outrage would ensue, no matter who was sponsoring the debate. But Democratic candidates get a pass. Isn't that the way it always works? Farkers have much fun with a scary Hillary Clinton picture. Enjoy. Some might not be safe for work.
READING ASSIGNMENTS
Neal has a $10,000 FairTax Refund for a lucky Atlanta listener! Forty daily prizes of $1,000 to be "refunded" from Mr. FairTax himself | The United States is announcing that they're concerned by Iran's announcement that they have begun production of nuclear fuel. We're telling Iran that they should live up to their obligations to the United Nations? Why should they? It's not like anyone is going to do anything if we don't.
Speaking of the Axis Of Evil, the White House has told The Gargoyle that time is running out on a nuclear disarmament deal. Just like the Clinton Administration, the Bush Administration is going to pay off The Norks in order to shut down their nuclear reactors. Yeah..that works.
A picture of Barack Obama is causing a stir...turns out he was meeting with his campaign adviser in his Senate office. Ethics rules don't allow using your office for campaigning. The Hildabeast may try and get some political mileage out of this one.
A new poll shows that public approval of Congress is increasing...the Democrat-controlled legislative branch is now up to a whopping 40 percent. Big deal...that still means 60 percent don't think much about Pelosi and company, which is just too bad.
The L.A. Times says Hillary Clinton is no longer the frontrunner for the 2008 Democratic Party nomination. In fact in Iowa, Clinton is now behind John Edwards. This is not how it was supposed to go down...but The Hildabeast has run into some unexpected competition.
Ed Koch, the other former New York mayor that is on the political scene these days, says there is no greater danger facing the world today than Islamic terrorism. He is, however, a voice in the wilderness...one of the lone Democrats who thinks terrorism rises beyond a law enforcement problem.
Former UN Ambassador John Bolton calls it like he sees it when it comes to the taking of 15 British sailors hostage. He says the Iranians probed the West and found weakness. He says the Islamic terrorist state ended up in a win-win situation.
Professor Mike Adams is suing his employer, the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, over his First Amendment rights and religious freedoms. Today in his column he runs down his reasons and outlines his case.
Thomas Sowell says that when it comes to Republican candidates for president, they can't seem to properly articulate their positions and showcase their achievements. Aided by the media, the Democrats have no problem doing this. |