Ladies of the Evening With Unclean Hair Follicles

I told myself last week when the story first broke that I was going to ignore this whole Don Imus controversy. Some radio host who looks like he just stepped out of an ad for Stetson cologne and his off-the-wall comments one morning, regardless of how offensive they may be to me or anyone else, doesn't seem to me to be the most newsworthy event that has ever happened. But apparently I need to wake up and start paying attention to what’s really important. And pay attention I can, because luckily we live in this world of the 24-hour news cycle - and all that it entrails (oops, did I say entrails instead of entails? Must have been a Freudian slip) - to properly inform us what is of monumental significance. Still, what's even more wonderful is that we are blessed to have not just one, but no less than four 24-hour news channels.

But it doesn’t stop there. Check this out: since this Imus issue is apparently so earth-shatteringly important (his comments were directed toward the Rutgers women’s basketball team), it has also spilled over into the world of sports, adding the ever-growing empire of ESPN into the mix. ESPN now has two channels on basic cable and up to three more if you have expanded cable. Put the five ESPN networks together with the four news channels and you can watch the same thing unfold on nine different channels! It’s spectacular!

It doesn't stop there because, yes, there’s more to get excited about: if you’re lucky enough to tune-in during the six or seven o’clock hours, you can add the ABC, CBS and NBC newscasts to the growing number of talking heads and the number increases to twelve. Twelve channels! Even if you have over a hundred stations from which to choose, you have a good chance of getting updates on what might have changed since you last checked five seconds ago. Is this fabulous or what? And thanks to the ticker running along the bottom of your screen, you can always keep tabs on the other, apparently less-important happenings like the Iraq War, the escalating situation with Iran and the AIDS pandemic in Africa.

Don Imus couldn’t have asked for more exposure unless he had gotten a boob job, changed his name to Anna Nicole Smith and overdosed on drugs. But then he would be dead, so this is a much better option.

Instead, all he had to do was insult a gender and an entire race with one flippant comment and he’s suddenly all over the news. It’s a great PR move if you ask me. Sure, Proctor and Gamble has pulled its sponsorship and MSNBC has now taken his simulcast off the air. But he has caught the attention of the two faces that are virtual metaphors for everything that is wrong with race relations in America today: Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. That alone brings with it publicity that money cannot buy. So Imus has spent the past few days sheepishly kissing-up to the black community and the female gender by apologizing for uttering a phrase that can be found on almost every rap album ever released. All the while, putting himself in more and more hot water – and getting more exposure than a Super Bowl halftime wardrobe malfunction.

Don’t misunderstand me, I am not excusing his remarks – nor am I saying that he should not be fired. But I am also not going to excuse insensitive remarks made by anybody else, including hip-hop artists who insult females with reckless abandon. Many of the talking heads on the numerous cable networks seem to be trying to prove that somehow rappers or comedians are exempt from the same kind of standards that Imus must uphold. Snoop Dogg or Eminem can insult anyone they want in the sacred name of artistic freedom, but Sharpton, Jackson and their imps pounce on anything anywhere else that might even resemble a racially insensitive remark or action. Come on, people: if it’s wrong, then it’s wrong. Period.

Just like it was wrong for the Sharpton and Jackson ship of idiots to zoom down to Durham, North Carolina last year and condemn the Duke lacrosse players for doing something that it turns out they never did. What I would really like to see is the two “Reverends” take a page out of Imus’ book and apologize to those lacrosse players and their families. I don't really care how sincere they may or may not be.

But will we see it? Probably not.

And the reason why we won’t see it is because right now, the 24-hour circus of a news media we have is completely engrossed in the Don Imus controversy. The fact that the Duke players have been exonerated is, at best, page six material. It will be covered, but it’s old news and so it won’t get the coverage it should. These lacrosse players have already been condemned in the court of public opinion, so to declare their innocence now would undermine the monopoly on truth the media thinks it has. Now I’m not going to go on some Limbaugh or O’Reilly-esque tirade about the so-called liberal media bias (this rant of mine has nothing to do with politics) but, to me at least, the cable news networks and ESPN are doing more to promote the idea of “killing your television” than any hippie grass-roots bumper-sticker movement could ever accomplish.

So we’re back to where we began: the redundant existence of the 24-hour news cycle in all its glory. What’s most recent or outrageous is what’s most important, despite its relevancy or truth. So when some out-of-touch disc jockey mistakes racial and sexist slurs for comedy, it gets plastered all over everywhere and everything until we start to resemble the vomit-spewing demon-possessed Exorcist girl. It’s disgusting but appropriate imagery as the whole thing is quite nauseating.

Don Imus’ comments, the media’s reaction, Sharpton and Jackson’s involvement and the public’s fascination with it all – it’s enough to make you want to turn the channel to American Idol and vote for that Sanjaya guy.