On Pimps and Plug-Uglies

So CBS finally decided to fire Don Imus. It's about time.

Hopefully, all the recent talk about "ho's" will fuel a larger and necessary discussion about the pimps -- yes, pimps -- who enrich themselves by sponsoring and participating in the racist, misogynist, immigrant-bashing rant-fests that dominate the AM dial nationwide. This includes networks, advertisers, shock jocks and their PR flacks, and the all-too-eager 'celebrity' guests who enable the defamers in order to puff their own egos or to sell their books, policies, or whatever to listeners. Here's a prime example. On the morning Coach Stringer and her Rutgers team members made their dignified, moving remarks about how they had been maligned, a spokesman for "Talkers" magazine, quoted on CBS radio news (11 a.m. CST), had the audacity to complain that 'Now everybody is getting into the act. Everybody wants their 15 minutes of fame.' He said this about the Rutgers team, the offended party! What an appalling example of greed and twisted values! The man's paycheck (and that of many, many others) depends on promoting these hateful bullies.

The mean-spirited pronouncements of these supposedly "entertaining" shock jocks degrade the culture and divide us as a people. To conservatives and libertarians who were so happy to see the Fairness Doctrine abolished in the 1980s, claiming it would free the market and usher in broader content on the airwaves: I hope you can swim in the sewer you've created.

Since I don't feel bound by the dignified restraint of the Rutgers women, let me ask (and answer) an Imus-like question that's been on the minds of women this past week: Why are all these shock jocks so physically repulsive? (I warned you it was Imus-like!) If Don Imus, Howard Stern, Michael Savage and Milwaukee's own Mark Belling were women (scary thought), there's NO WAY they'd ever have gotten onto radio or TV! They're like The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde's classic, in which the protagonist's portrait deteriorates and grows more grotesque as he casts aside moral qualms and sinks into depravity. I think Imus and his ilk wear their inner corruption like the picture of Dorian Gray. Given their casual cruelty and the damage they've inflicted on so many, they are likely to end up just as miserable.

Note:
Definition of "pimp" - procurer; panderer; one who exploits the weaknesses of others; one who profits by exploiting others, especially sexually
Definition of "plug-ugly" - thug; tough; one hired to intimidate others; someone who bullies weaker people
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