>It's funny you should mention Imus. I'm mad as hell over that firing. Maybe I'm

>prejudiced by nostalgia because I started listening to him in the 7th grade. But the

>whole way it was handled disgusted me: network executives making a virtue out of

>necessity/ panic while they were backpedaling furiously; ANYONE listening to

>Sharpton seriously for 2 nanoseconds; no pundit able to mention the team without

>prefacing it by saying "HOW AMAZING" these women are. First of all, if anyone

>needs evidence there was media hysteria involved, there were suggestions these

>adult women would be scarred for life by this. You would think they had been

>assaulted (but of course, actual assaults and rapes of women never spark this kind

>of furore). Second -- to me, Imus is the antithesis of all this fakery, a respite for

>all the Holden Caulfield’s out there. He messed up and should have been

>suspended immediately, not two days later when Sharpton could claim credit for it.

>But the crescendo of hysteria was ridiculous, and most of the people who were

>complaining had never even heard of Imus, much less listened to him regularly to

>know what he was all about. Humbug I tell you... humbug. 

> 

>If it really could make a difference in the way people treat each other, maybe. But I

>am not ready to be so optimistic.