They have made them a molten calf, and have worshipped it, and have sacrificed thereunto…
Exodus 32:8


Rational, thinking people, that collective and oft ignored American god, have grown increasingly befuddled with the tasteless slapstick that now defines our Constitutionally-vital public discourse as “guided” by the various large-headed, on-air Pontifices Maximi within the corporate media priesthood.
Like an elitist politician unfamiliar with the price of milk or bread, million dollar media stars ponder, scry and sublet their amplified thoughts at a far remove from our mortal, even web-enabled, realm.
But an icy remove and a fat purse have proven to be no guarantee of honesty, accuracy or, even, common sense in a manipulated environment of lurid and often dehumanizing stunts, photo ops and shilled “opinions” that comprise today’s deregulated information and entertainment environment.
The post Easter Passion of traumatized shock jock Don Imus following his verbal Holy Week crucifixition of the innocent Rutgers Scarlet Knights is, obviously, the most egregious current example of corporate media’s cruel post Fairness end times.
Is it merely coincidence or bizarre bushiness that allows Mr. Imus’ highly publicized suspension to end as the May sweeps begin?
Is a “punishment” that intentionally delivers increased ratings a punishment?
And, could someone explain to me how the phrase “nappy-headed hos” crosses a racial and sexual line not crossed hundreds if not thousands of times previously by Mr. Imus, his corporate media guests and his anal-fixated, misogynistic producer?
Is an ad lib remark by a shock jock more offensive than the tactics used by the Republican Party to defeat Harold Ford in Tennessee’s hotly contested Senate race last year?
Has the golden calf of deregulated media, as exemplified by the casual racist sexism of an elite insider, again proven itself a hollow sculpture of gilded base metal?
Yup.

UPDATE
Shortly after 6:30 PM Eastern, this evening, NBC News ended the Imus radio simulcast on MSNBC.
According to the New York Times:

NBC said...it made its decision to drop Mr. Imus’s program after a review and “many conversations with our own employees”.

Funny how even the most liberal TV voice never seems to connect today's poisoned media environment with the technical blurring of what exactly constituted a "news program" and the elimination of the Fairness Doctrine and the blurred recollection of the Equal Time Provisions of the Federal Communications Code by the Reagan administration in the mid 1980s.
Technically, I'll wager, Imus was logged as a "news program" under the same broad intrepretation that has allowed corporations to classify, on their federally mandated broadcast log reports and used to justify liscense-holding, Donahue, Sally Jessy Raphael and Howard Stern as "news programs" and, classified as such, thus allowed the widest range of broadcastable expression exempted from the Equal Time Provisions, still technically in effect.

Modified Image: Scatt.Bilegrip.com, ThinkProgress.com
- posted by Sean @ 2:29 PM