This whole flap about Don Imus this week seems like more of the same to me. Now, I am a total defender of the First Amendment. But I exercise my right not to listen to crap. I have never liked these morning shock-jocks who get their ratings from being as offensive and insulting as they can get away with. I don't listen to them, so therefore, in a sense, I don't know what I'm talking about. But really they spread mean-spirited, juvenile humor to insult a huge range of human beings. And they do it in the name of selling advertising, not for some righteous cause. I don't like any of them. I'm glad that Imus is getting some crap right back at him for his recent comments. Maybe it would be even better if people changed the station and boycotted the sponsors. How can I put this in the kindest way? I think he is a douche bag.
On the other side of the spectrum, author Kurt Vonnegut died overnight. In his lifetime he witnessed some brutal things -- his mother committed suicide, he was a prisoner of war in World War II, and he worked for an advertising agency. Admittedly, his humor was dark. But it was humor that drew the reader in rather than pushing people away. Perhaps this is because he was a man who talked about the importance of kindness. Indeed this exerpt is from the New York Times obituary, (one of the most moving obits I've read in a while) and pulls a quote from one of Vonnegut's books:
To Mr. Vonnegut, the only possible redemption for the madness and apparent meaninglessness of existence was human kindness. The title character in his 1965 novel, “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, or Pearls Before Swine,” summed up his philosophy:
“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ”
Comments