Imus Vaporized: Observations from Wonderland

Uhhh…ohhh…jeez…myyy gosh!...huuhhhh…ha ha ha!

No, friend, the sounds above did not accompany yet another successful nooner. Rather, I'm only reacting to still another gravely moralistic, "end-of-civilization" commentary on the Don Imus controversy. Trudging through the teeming swamps of talent-challenged morons in the main stream media and their armies of lay-yes-men as well as the blogosphere can be a discouraging pursuit.

For those who are unaware, you can read the story here. In short, on his morning simulcast show, Imus (pretty cool last name, no?) referred to the women's Rutgers college basketball team as "some nappy headed hos."

Naturally, it's self evident why some are predicting the Four Horsemen to come next week.

Every morning I wake up and go to first antiwar.com (not only is this the best source on the web, or anywhere for that matter, to get all your war news, but I just like to get an imperial report and make sure the federal government hasn't nuked the anybody before I start my day) followed by Lewrockwell.com where altogether I spend roughly two hours reading article after article along with two cups of coffee in either one of my two favorite mugs—their names are "Shinsengumi Story" and "Flattely will get you nowhere"—and a piece of toasted, buttered rye bread. I'm a news-junkie, I confess.

But before I do any of this I start my day by testing my blood sugar. Sometimes while pricking myself I'll flip on the tube just for the sake of it. Typically, my remote control trigger finger starts at channel 31, where I watch FOX News for comic relief; then I go to channel 29 and CNN; finally, I'll go up to MSNBC on channel 33 where commentator Don Imus has his show. Imus always struck me as a little quirky for nothing other than the cowboy hat he wears. The hat was unique, though, and thus, however slightly, expressed an outside-the-box type mentality. Without much background knowledge on Imus this gave me a mild appreciation for the man, for a rumor, let alone an actual manifestation, of genuine originality--however awkward--is as rare as a free American.

Knowing what it would entail, I winced when I read of Imus' faux pas early last weekend, but I assumed it would have died a quiet death with a few hundred apologies, some self-flagellation sessions, a Crisco party with Imus on all fours hosting every offendee, a copious enough amount of brownnosing that he'd need only two cartilage transplants afterward, and a promise of five years of intense psychoanalysis open to all interested parties.

In any case, as mentioned above, the witch hunters are out in full force, followed by a growing number of devoted amen-ers.

Particularly comedic are the legions of white folk all tripping over themselves trying to out-condemn the heretic Imus. Permit me to throw out a sample or two taken from over 1000 different articles of identical DNA, starting with hottie Mechelle Voepel's diatribe:

"When someone says something so astonishingly cruel, so pathetic and wrongheaded and thoughtless as what Don Imus; his executive producer, Bernard McGuirk; and his sports announcer, Sid Rosenberg, said about the Rutgers women's basketball team, I'll admit my first reaction is a little violent. OK, more than a little."

Ahh…nothing better to wake one up than the curdled prose of an uptight, mannish, doggish, Yankee dame armed with an opinion and ready to drill her lessers. Do you, like I, also get the feeling that Voepel would love to suplex the scrawny Imus?

Not to be outdone, Tim Keown, also of espn.com, gives us his piece:

"Congratulations, Don Imus. The lowest common denominator, or LCD, is yours. Enjoy it while you still can. There's something you must know, though: There are many more blithering idiots racing to take your crown."

"Blithering idiots"—irony, anybody?

Go on does Tim:

"Somehow, we've reached the point in our society where Imus' comments about the Rutgers women require debate. Should he be punished? Was he wrong? It's scary to think that people actually believe those question marks apply."

Indeed Tim, chilling. I've already bought the duct tape and canned food.

Sadly for Timmy Junior, 'Chelle, or little Jemele, mommy and daddy never sat them down and told them there's no need to pitch a fit if other people don't always agree with them; that "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me"; and that they'll be roundly considered dickwads if they didn't follow the above two pieces of advice.

And this, reader, is what flies for top-notch writing these days—lots of thickly larded diction and boring and utterly predictable commentary all instructed in first person, monosyllabic, baby gurglings. Each column is literally a carbon copy of every other mainstream opinion, told with the same self righteous rhetoric, as every other mainstream article. One merely alters some blunt adjectives or heaps on a few more, changes author name and—voila!—vox populi has decreed! Insta-idiot!

For one who's read truly great writing it brings pains to wade through slop like the above. "Great writing," I say? Where? 'Tis true? Could it be? Yes, well allow me to trot out a few musings from one of my top three favorite writers: Baltimore's own Mr. H.L. Mencken.

Mencken is the only writer who consistently evokes from me spontaneous bursts of uncontrolled laughter; even the mere mention of his name can start things off. Reading vintage Mencken for the first time is an experience akin to Dorothy leaving a black and white Kansas and opening the door to a world of color and little people. One's perspective is never the same. So what would H.L. say to the opinions above? Let us consult his "A Second Mencken Chrestomathy" to shed some further light.

As per his "Commonwealth of Morons" essay, H.L would disclose to Mechelle something like the following: "The taboo is the trademark, not of the civilized man but of the savage, and wherever it exists it is a relentless and effective enemy of the enlightenment. The savage is the most meticulously moral of men; there is scarcely an act of his daily life that is not conditioned by unyielding prohibitions and obligations, most of them logically unintelligible. The mob-man, a savage set amid civilization, cherishes a code of the same draconian kind. He firmly believes that right and wrong are immovable things—that they have an actual and unchangeable existence, and that any challenge of them, by word or act, is a crime against society. And with the concept of wrongness, of course, he always confuses the concept of mere differentness—to him, and provided with either white wings or forked tails. All discussion of them, to interest him, must take the form of a pursuit and scotching of demons. He cannot think of a heresy without thinking of a heretic to be caught, condemned and burned. In all such phenomena I take unfeigned delight. They fill me with contentment, and hence make me a happier and better American."

According to his "The Pursuit of Ideas" essay, Mencken would probably tell tender-eared Timmy that "In the United States there is a right way to think and a wrong way to think in everything—not only in theology, or politics, or economics, but in the most trivial matters of everyday life…For an American to question any of the articles of fundamental faith cherished by the majority is for him to run grave risks of social disaster. All such toyings with illicit ideas are construed as attentats against democracy, which, in a sense, perhaps they are. For democracy is grounded upon so childish a complex of taboos, else even half-wits would argue it to pieces. Its first concern must thus be to penalize the free play of ideas. In the United States this is not only its first concern, but also its last concern."

If Imus had read his Mencken, he might have spared himself this whole brouhaha of blubbering bozos.

If Imus should be castigated for something, if he should be raked over the coals, gutted, and served up at the nearest Hoss's, it should be for his lack of accuracy, his lack of mot juste. To be sure, this gang of burly babes certainly has no "hos." I mean, what dignified gent—or gal—would ever want to get with one of them?

Imus was thus way off the mark and should be suspended, if not fired, as he rightfully has been, for what he said. What he should have said is something like "sweaty behemoths" or something along those lines. We could all then nod in tacit agreement and move on to the next factitious, asinine "controversy."