This Don Imus thing is a joke

And I'm not talking about what he did either. I'm talking about the reaction to it and how this seems to have become this country's biggest priority, if you're going by either the "mainstream" press or the "alternative" media including the blogosphere.

It wasn't until late yesterday afternoon that I heard what Imus said exactly. Have I been that out of touch with reality for this past week? More like: there were other things... and more important things... for me to worry about. There should be a lot more important things for all of us to concern ourselves with instead of what words a talk radio host chooses to use. If Imus had said "let's round up all the (your choice of minority here)s and (your choice of harsh fate here)" then that might be something to take note of. But on the scale measuring calamities awaiting modern civilization, Don Imus doesn't rate anywhere.

I've started to wonder in the past few years, and this thing proves it: are we as Americans no longer capable of facing boldly the things that do truly matter? I have to wonder about that, because the only things that we seem to be zealous about anymore are "non-news" stories like what Imus said, or Anna-Nicole Smith or whenever Mel Gibson and Michael Richards go on a mad rant about Jews or black Americans. Years before that it was O.J. and some of the tabloid pablum about the JonBenet Ramsey case. Those things are banal at best, inappropriate at worst... but in no way worth so much waste of resources to harp on incessantly.

We are losing our rights, are over-taxed, are losing our manufacturing infrastructure, have a thousand more things that we should be focused on... and instead we willingly buy into the farce that Don Imus saying "nappy-headed hos" on live radio is a threat to all that we know and love. That's what Al Sharpton would have you believe anyway... and who the hell actually takes that guy seriously? Shouldn't the Tawana Brawley thing have wrecked his reputation for good?

If this is what we now fixate ourselves on instead of the things that will determine whether we have a country worth passing down to our children, well... it makes me wonder if America really is as good as we want to believe it is anymore. If it's still worth defending, even. Why should somebody enlist in the armed forces to uphold and defend a Constitution that is no longer adhered to by a people more interested in what Don Imus has to say on the radio? Would you be willing to die for such a people?

I sure wouldn't.

Categories: controversy, don imus, radio