Fired!

Just a couple of months ago, Senator Christopher Dodd (Democrat from Connecticut) saw it fit to announce his run for the Presidency on the "Imus in the Morning" radio program. Today, CBS fired Don Imus, the host of that program. Imus had said something very nasty - derogatory to women in particular - about the Rutgers women's basketball team on his program, and eventually corporate sponsors started pulling advertising from the show, not wanting to be tarred with Imus's remarks.

The Rutgers team was in the news for the only reason a sports team should be in the news - the team came from nowhere and reached the NCAA finals - the pinnacle of college sports. (They did not win.) This was an inexperienced team consisting of many freshmen. And in what is uncommon in college sports, these young ladies were also, from all accounts, academically sound.

So, why the nasty remarks? It was just Imus being his normal self. The man has a long history of inflammatory statements.

So what is my reaction? Indifference, mostly. The culture hasn't changed. The same corporate honchos who helped elevated Imus are now burying him. The audience that made Imus so influential is still out there. In a decent world, an Imus would at best have a niche market, and everyone could safely ignore his rantings. Dogs bark at street corners, who pays attention? The problem is with the culture that turned Imus into a celebrity in the first place - and that culture is not going away.