Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Chill! It's not like they said 'nappy-headed ho.' . . .

Calling African-American basketball players "nappy headed hos": Bad. Very bad. Fire-Don-Imus bad.

Airing vulgar rape fantasy about African-American secretary of state: Not so bad. Just suspending bad.


Or not, if you're CBS Radio.

If the normative American family were run like the normative American broadcast entity, the other nuclear powers of the world would have to obliterate the United States out of sheer self-defense.


Why, you ask?

Because they'd be faced with 300 million sociopaths with zero impulse control. And some of them would have the nuclear launch codes and nothing else to keep them amused. And we have legitimized the concept of preemptive war, you know.

From The New York Times:

XM Radio, the satellite provider, announced yesterday that it had imposed 30-day suspensions on the hosts known as Opie and Anthony after the pair participated in an on-air discussion last Wednesday that imagined sexual assaults on Condoleezza Rice and Laura Bush.

Though the hosts, Gregg Hughes and Anthony Cumia, had read apologies on Friday on their shows on both XM and CBS Radio, XM said in a statement yesterday that subsequent comments they had made “put into question whether they appreciate the seriousness of the matter.”

“The management of XM Radio decided to suspend Opie and Anthony to make clear that our on-air talent must take seriously the responsibility that creative freedom requires of them,” the XM statement said.

CBS Radio broadcasts a different version of “Opie & Anthony” that precedes the XM show, and did not carry the rape discussion. CBS said yesterday that it would broadcast today’s show as scheduled. The hosts’ producer did not respond to a request for comment yesterday afternoon.
AS ONE of my college newspaper editors used to say, "Kill me now!"

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