One (toxic bullshit spewing) Info-tainer Down, About a Dozen to go . . .
Imus has left the building . . . or to be more accurate, has been LOCKED OUT!
It is a great day for America. And like Lear and Kaplan say, it could not have come at a better time, save SOONER.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norman-lear/imus-and-the-unending-coa_b_45689.html
Here is a chunk from Kaplan's post:
A merely curmudgeonly cowboy would not pull big numbers, and neither the political class nor the punditocracy would return his bookers' calls. What makes the powerful kiss his ring, and what makes people tune in, is how badboy - how rude, disrespectful, licking-the-razor - Imus is. Clearly, large audiences like to gasp at what he gets away with, and CBS and NBC have been champs at spinning those OMG's into ka-ching.
The same could be said of the envelope-pushing by Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and the dozens of other circus acts in the infotainment freak show. Their effect may be to debase discourse, inflame prejudice, sow ignorance, exculpate criminality, incite rancor, ruin reputations, and stoke the right-wing base - but their effect is not their job. Their job is to make money for the corporations that employ them. We may revile them for being Rove's toadies, but we're chumps if we ignore how relentlessly the companies that employ them monetize their noxious shtick.
Hmmm. Now if it is true, as it seems, that the US of A is curing itself of its pathological desire to consume the most vile shit that it can consume, time to time, can we only hope it sooner than merely eventually will give up its addiction to all forms of that toxic bullshit, known as "Infotainment?"
Oh, and I have not plugged the MOST IMPORTANT BOOK OF THE PAST 100 YEARS lately, so I will.
If you have not read Prof. Harry Frankfurt's "On Bullshit," yet, you really need to read it.
And THAT is NOT BULLSHIT!
It is a great day for America. And like Lear and Kaplan say, it could not have come at a better time, save SOONER.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norman-lear/imus-and-the-unending-coa_b_45689.html
Here is a chunk from Kaplan's post:
A merely curmudgeonly cowboy would not pull big numbers, and neither the political class nor the punditocracy would return his bookers' calls. What makes the powerful kiss his ring, and what makes people tune in, is how badboy - how rude, disrespectful, licking-the-razor - Imus is. Clearly, large audiences like to gasp at what he gets away with, and CBS and NBC have been champs at spinning those OMG's into ka-ching.
The same could be said of the envelope-pushing by Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and the dozens of other circus acts in the infotainment freak show. Their effect may be to debase discourse, inflame prejudice, sow ignorance, exculpate criminality, incite rancor, ruin reputations, and stoke the right-wing base - but their effect is not their job. Their job is to make money for the corporations that employ them. We may revile them for being Rove's toadies, but we're chumps if we ignore how relentlessly the companies that employ them monetize their noxious shtick.
Hmmm. Now if it is true, as it seems, that the US of A is curing itself of its pathological desire to consume the most vile shit that it can consume, time to time, can we only hope it sooner than merely eventually will give up its addiction to all forms of that toxic bullshit, known as "Infotainment?"
Oh, and I have not plugged the MOST IMPORTANT BOOK OF THE PAST 100 YEARS lately, so I will.
If you have not read Prof. Harry Frankfurt's "On Bullshit," yet, you really need to read it.
And THAT is NOT BULLSHIT!
posted by Abstentus at 6:15 PM
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