The Imus Lynch Party Succeeds

This past week, the sharks have been circling Don Imus for the comments that he had of the Rutgers womens basketball team.
Let me say this again, what Imus said was completely wrong. You can see my earlier post, ” .”

There were two great posts this week in the blogosphere.

One of them was by Charles Karel Bouley on the Huffington Post. In his post, “Politically Correct Lynch Mobs“, he describes how

“…the Black Offensive Police, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson sprang in to action (is there like a Bat Phone for this sort of thing?) and began demanding for Imus to be fired. Yes, these two masters of media manipulation were calling for a fellow broadcaster to be fired for what he said on air. And of course, no one is talking about the real issues because they’re too busy screaming racist! Racist! Fire him! Remove his livelihood, drag him through the mud!”

Sharpton and Jackson are too worried what would happen if they don’t speak up, they will speak up without completely knowing the facts. Do I bring up the Duke lacrosse case here? But, they saw the blood in the water with Imus and went for the juggler and succeeded. But they were going after the person and not trying to tackle the bigger issue.

What Imus said was completely wrong, but it is not something said by people all the time. Specifically rappers and hip-hop artists. But because he was white, he paid the price. Bouley even calls it reverse racism.

How insulting all this is. If he had made homophobic remarks, this wouldn’t be news. If he were Black, say Chris Rock, Mo’Nique, Marsha Warfield, this wouldn’t be happening. In fact, he’s a victim of reverse racism. The very definition of racism is when one race believes it can do something that no other race can, when they feel they have the right to do something no one else can do. Well, saying that a Black person could make these remarks but not a White person is an inequality and is wrong no matter how you slice it. But no one ever looks at it that way. If something is so horrible that it hurts people, then no one should be able to say it, period. Selective censorship is stupid, and racial censorship is even worse.

Sharpton, Jackson, and many others have been after Imus for his comments, but they are not holding others accountable for these same comments. They are hanging out with them, they are friends with them, and they don’t criticize them for the degrading comments that they make towards women, especially black women.

I would bet CBS radio has many radio stations that play rap or hip-hop and those same words and some worse words are played several times a day each. Are they firing those DJ’s? Are they going to stop playing those artists? I don’t think so.

I want to finish up talking about Pat Buchanan’s post yesterday entitled, “The Imus Lynch Party.”

No one should judge Imus for what he said. It is wrong what he said, but he is being held to a different level because he was white and made comments about black women. Here is what Buchannan said,

The issue here is not the word Imus used. The issue is who Imus is — a white man, who used a term about black women only black folks are permitted to use with impunity and immunity.

Whatever Imus’ sins, no one deserves to have Al Sharpton — hero of the Tawana Brawley hoax, resolute defender of the fake rape charge against half a dozen innocent guys, which ruined lives — sit in moral judgment upon them.

Buchanan finished his article with a great quote.

Imus threw himself on the mercy of the court of elite opinion — and that court, pandering to the mob, lynched him. Yet, for all his sins, he was a better man than the lot of them rejoicing at the foot of the cottonwood tree.

I whole heartily agree.  Imus was truly sorry and remorseful for what he said.  He does a lot of good things in this world.  He was fired in the middle of a telethon for children with cancer and he takes sick and inner-city kids to his ranch in New Mexico.  He has done great in the world.

Imus will be back on air soon and he will have as many listeners, if not more, when he comes back.  He is a good person who made a bad mistake.  We should forgive, not forget and have a larger discussion on the whole issue.

CBS Radio also needs to look at itself and also get rid of all the music that is degrading women.  If not, they are two-face and hypocritical.  They have set the bar for behaving like a radio network.  Now they need to be equal in it across the board.

Weather Fools Us All

Well the storm that had a bulls-eye on Denver decided to take a jaunt south and miss Denver entirely.
The National Weather Service and all the news weather people all missed this one. It is tough. People depend on their forecasts and if they are wrong it can cause people alot of headaches. Just look at all the flights that were canceled today at DIA. Even the Colorado Legislature took the day off.

It would be nice if there was a full-proof weather model out there to tell us what exactly will happen. But I guess that shows us how difficult predicting the weather can be and how wrong and inaccurate weather models can be.

Imus Firing Wrong

Let me begin that I no way condone what Don Imus said. It is just plain wrong and insulting.
But, the backlash that has happened since those comments are plain wrong. He made a wrong, was suspended, and that should have been it.

The president of CBS had a meeting with Rev Al Sharpton and then promptly fired Imus. What I am wondering is what did Sharpton threaten him with?

This whole thing is so hypocritical. Black musicians who perform hip-hop and rap constantly say the same thing that Imus said and they are not critized, held responsible, or lose their job. They are raised up as heros doing something with their life. But Imus, a white baby boomer says the same thing and he is crucified.

They can’t have it both ways. If they are going after Imus this strong, they need to go after those musicians just as strong. But I doubt that will happen.

If Al Sharpton feels vindication, he should look himself in the mirro and step down from his position as a radio talkshow host. He tried and convicted the three Duke players who he felt were guilty. The problem is that there is no proof that this happened. In fact, it probably didn’t happened at all.

To me, Sharpton wants it both ways. As soon as someone attacks him and call him on his statements, he turns it into a race issue. It is not a race issue. It is an integrity issue.

There was a good discussion on Lou Dobbs show today on CNN. You can read more here.

Imus has done a lot of great things. CBS had the gall to fire him in the middle of a telethon for kids with cancer where he had raised almost half-a-million dollars. He also takes inner-city kids to his ranch. This is not a bad person. It is a person who made a mistake. Tell me one person here who hasn’t said the wrong thing?

Imus will work again. But CBS made a big mistake.

What is with MLB.TV

Why do I get commercials when I have subscribed to MLB.TV Premium?
This is crazy.  I subscribe to a service and they are throwing commercials at me.  Not just when I login to watch the games, but whenever I switch between games, I get the commercial.

I am sure tired of watching some guy and deer fight.

This is stupid.  When I get pay-per-view, On Demand, or other premium service I never get ads.

Major League Baseball needs to get out of the NFL attitude of bilking the people who pay their bills and they only reason these games exist, their fans.

Get a clue and when I pay for something, I should not and must not be subjected to ads.

New Tips and Security Clips for Bose TriPort In-Ear Headphone

For those of you who have the Bose TriPort In-Ear Headphone, you may know of the problem that the new gel pieces don’t really stay in your ear. They kinda fall-out and off of the headphone.
I even had some of the plastic pieces fall off and was unable to find it in my hotel room.

Well, Bose has listened and they have updated the gel pieces and are providing them to free to people who have previously purchased them. And in June, they will also ship free to you a clip to put on your cable and a lanyard if you want to use that.

This is good of Bose and I am looking forward to the new gel pieces and clip.

To sign-up for this, visit http://www.bose.com/enhance.

You can read more in the New York Times.

Apple TV is Incredible!

Apple TVWell I went out over the first weekend and bought Apple TV. I had been looking at this for something to help get my content from my computer to my TV.
I do not like the idea of media center and the other products in the category were just too complicated. Since I use iTunes and have an iPod I found that it would be best to go with Apple TV.

Well it was simple. I opened the box and found the Apple TV and a power cord. Also enclosed was some documentation.

Set up couldn’t have been easier. I hooked up the component and audio cables to my HDTV and hooked up a Ethernet cable to my home network.

I turned on the TV and tuned it to the input for the Apple TV and there it was. I choose English as the language, set the resolution to 720p and up popped a 5 digit number.

It was then off to iTunes on my computer to sync with the Apple TV. Already iTunes had picked it up and I just authenticated it to the device and it automatically began syncing all my TV shows, Movies, podcasts, and music.

Once I got everthing to the device and started playing content, it was amazing. I updated all my video podcasts from the iPod version to the H.264 version and the resolution was a great improvement. The quality is like watching a DVD on my 1080i TV. Remember, the video quality out is as good as what goes in. So if you have a lower resolution input, there will be a lower resolution output.

The only thing that I have a complaint about is a couple of my things won’t copy over to the the Apple TV and it gives me a warning each time that it syncs that it can’t copy that over. It would be nice that it would allow me to turn that off, but I can’t find anything right now.

Other than that, I am truly impressed with Apple TV. When Apple does something, it does it right. It looks nice, it is a simple set-up, and I am now watching video on my TV from my computer.

It does not get any better than this.

Other Reviews:

Backdrifter

Zuneguy

FCA Official Blog

Viacom Is Barking Up the Wrong Tree

I think that Viacom is barking up the wrong tree. YouTube and Google have done nothing wrong in how the operate.
They operate under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act where they remove infringing material when requested by the copyright holder. In fact, Viacom screwed up and screwed some posters when they requested a bunch of infringing material be removed and they requested that YouTube remove material that had nothing to do with Viacom.

The issue is that people are posting shows from various Viacom properties. In the suit, has Viacom been damaged from this posting by people who love these shows? I doubt it. In fact, I bet that Viacom is seeing an increase in their viewership because more people are watching their shows because they saw them on YouTube.

I hope this ends quickly in a settlement like YouTube has entered into agreements with other media companies, but I don’t think that is going to happen. YouTube/Google is ready to go to battle and in this copyright case they have a good chance of winning.

Read More:

What is up with Comcast

I am wondering why everyone is having problems with the change to an earlier daylight savings time. This change was solidified a couple of years ago with the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
Well Comcast seems to be having problems. I have a HD DVR through Comcast and all of the scheduled recordings are recording an hour earlier. So instead of CBS Sunday Morning, I got some kids cartoon.

Give me a break Comcast. You have had two years to get this fixed and you still couldn’t do it. You may have sent out patches, but if they don’t make it to everyones DVR or they don’t work, then you have a problem and you failed.

As of now I have had no other problems and everything is working fine, including my computers. It is amazing in 2007 that we are still having these problems.