Don Imus

WASHINGTON -- As she faced the world's television cameras to respond to a gross insult by radio and television showman Don Imus, a member of the Rutgers University women's basketball team spoke volumes with one sentence: "I'm not a ho," she said Tuesday at the team's first news conference after the "nappy-headed hos" incident. "I'm a woman and ... I'm somebody's child." Indeed, she is. So are the rest of Rutgers' Scarlet Knights. And anybody who would make them out to be anything else should be ashamed.

1 Running the weave: If you don't watch Maryland's men's basketball game on television (4 p.m., Comcast SportsNet), maybe you'll find it online. So you would be seeing the Terps play Charlotte on the Web. 2 Big in Big East: It's another of those Big East showdowns: No. 3 Pittsburgh at No. 11 Georgetown - and it's at lunchtime (noon, ESPN). 3 Volunteer to watch: Traditional women's basketball powers meet as No. 8 Tennessee travels to No. 15 Rutgers (2 p.m., chs. 13, 9). Don Imus is unlikely to attend.

Obviously, someone has put crack in the nation's drinking water. What else can one think after the spasms of bigotry to which Mel Gibson, Isaiah Washington, Tim Hardaway and Michael Richards have treated us over the last nine months? That's a lot of stupid in a short period of time. And then there's radio shock-jock Don Imus, who, as even polar bears must know by now, recently leveled racist and sexist insults against the Rutgers University women's basketball team, most of whom are black.

ANNAPOLIS - The state capital attracted the usual suspects - lawmakers and lobbyists - this fall to tackle Maryland's deficit woes. But the real arm-twisting there occurred in the run-up to the special Mideast peace conference at the Naval Academy, when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice persuaded various Arab heads of state to attend the Mideast summit and support renewed talks between Israel and the Palestinians. BUPE - It's not a magic potion or a sure-fire cure for addiction to heroin or prescription painkillers, but buprenorphine is still a promising antidote.

BECAUSE I DO political humor myself for a living -- and because I am concerned about rudeness in our civic life I made a point of taping the "shock jock" Don Imus in his recent talk to the TV and radio correspondents in D.C. And though I was certainly struck by his coarseness and rudeness, as a humorist I found myself struck by something else too.I was struck by how remarkably unfunny Mr. Imus had been -- by how strikingly witless a performance I had watched...

?There?s a difference between premeditated murder and the gun going off, but the end result is the same. Somebody?s still dead.? ? Don Imus Imus raised a storm of protest last week after he demeaned African-American members of the Rutgers women's basketball team on the air. MSNBC canceled the TV version of his morning talk show and CBS radio, which had suspended him for two weeks, later dumped him too.

WASHINGTON -- The big talk in Washington is the raunchy performance given by a radio talk show host named Don Imus to the Radio & Television Correspondents Dinner.Mr. Imus insulted the President and First Lady, sitting just a few feet away from him, as well as the network anchormen, in what the 3,000 attendees considered to be bad taste.While most media dinners are in questionable taste, this one embarrassed the TV people because it appeared more than once on C-SPAN. The White House had asked C-SPAN not to replay it, but C-SPAN refused the request, thus guaranteeing it the largest audience it ever had.Those of us in the print media were not surprised that the radio-TV correspondents would screw up as badly as they did by inviting the bawdy Mr. Imus in the first place.

1 Running the weave: If you don't watch Maryland's men's basketball game on television (4 p.m., Comcast SportsNet), maybe you'll find it online. So you would be seeing the Terps play Charlotte on the Web. 2 Big in Big East: It's another of those Big East showdowns: No. 3 Pittsburgh at No. 11 Georgetown - and it's at lunchtime (noon, ESPN). 3 Volunteer to watch: Traditional women's basketball powers meet as No. 8 Tennessee travels to No. 15 Rutgers (2 p.m., chs. 13, 9). Don Imus is unlikely to attend.

Today's schedule includes three noteworthy films, one pretty awful; one OK, but with legendary star power; and one creepy in the extreme. Watch on"The Opposite Sex and How to Live With Them" (2 p.m.-4 p.m., WNUV, Channel 54) -- This lame flick was Roger Ebert's pick as the worst film of 1993. Richly deserving of such honor, the film has only two things going for it: 1) It stars Courteney Cox, who doesn't exactly rise above the material, but is at least pretty to look at; and 2) I have a friend whose back appears in one of the Fenway Park crowd scenes.

Media often fail to display diversity Maybe we should hold those rap artists whose success stems from misogyny as accountable for their language as Don Imus ("Remark renews old hip-hop debate," April 13). But I'm disheartened by the way the discussion over Mr. Imus' remarks has so quickly diverted attention from the accountability of media organizations for such language. Mr. Imus' radio and television employers connected their decision to fire him to some commitment to diversity. Without some broader changes in their programming, however, it's much easier to believe they did it only in response to pressure from advertisers.

As the story of Isiah Thomas' sexual harassment lawsuit unfolded, I could not help but wonder what his mother would think. The first time I really paid attention to the retired NBA star and current New York Knicks coach was back in 1989, when his mother's life story was dramatized in an NBC-TV movie, A Mother's Courage: The Mary Thomas Story. Alfre Woodard depicted the feisty mom who raised her children alone on Chicago's West Side after separating from her husband. When the Vice Lords street gang came to recruit her sons, she memorably greeted the gang-bangers with a shotgun and a threat to blow their sorry selves across the nearby expressway.

Media often fail to display diversity Maybe we should hold those rap artists whose success stems from misogyny as accountable for their language as Don Imus ("Remark renews old hip-hop debate," April 13). But I'm disheartened by the way the discussion over Mr. Imus' remarks has so quickly diverted attention from the accountability of media organizations for such language. Mr. Imus' radio and television employers connected their decision to fire him to some commitment to diversity. Without some broader changes in their programming, however, it's much easier to believe they did it only in response to pressure from advertisers.

?There?s a difference between premeditated murder and the gun going off, but the end result is the same. Somebody?s still dead.? ? Don Imus Imus raised a storm of protest last week after he demeaned African-American members of the Rutgers women's basketball team on the air. MSNBC canceled the TV version of his morning talk show and CBS radio, which had suspended him for two weeks, later dumped him too.

"Can U Control Yo Hoe" - so asks the high priest of gangster rap, Snoop Dogg, on his CD R&G: (Rhythm and Gangsta): The Masterpiece. In "Housewife" on his CD 2001, Dr. Dre says, "Naw, `hoe' is short for honey." Rapper Beanie Sigel says "Watch Your Bitches" on his 2001 album The Reason. Just a light sampling of how gangster rappers, some black filmmakers and comedians routinely reduce young black women to "stuff," "bitches" and "hoes." Their contempt reinforces the slut image of black women and sends the message that violence, mistreatment and verbal abuse of black women are socially acceptable.

Obviously, someone has put crack in the nation's drinking water. What else can one think after the spasms of bigotry to which Mel Gibson, Isaiah Washington, Tim Hardaway and Michael Richards have treated us over the last nine months? That's a lot of stupid in a short period of time. And then there's radio shock-jock Don Imus, who, as even polar bears must know by now, recently leveled racist and sexist insults against the Rutgers University women's basketball team, most of whom are black.

The morning Don Imus uttered the phrase that appears to have ended his career, Ryan Chiachiere was watching. The veteran shock jock's comment was so incendiary that the 26-year-old researcher for Media Matters in America, a liberal media watchdog group, took the rare step of removing his headphones and repeating the slur to his co-workers in the room, who were also glued to various forms of programming. But the rest of what happened April 4 at the group's Washington office was fairly routine.

It's Easter weekend and Passover week, so why not get in the proper mood by checking out how a radio host in the world's largest market used his show, which is simulcast on a national cable news network, to acknowledge Rutgers reaching the women's national championship game. You may already have heard or seen this. On Wednesday morning, Don Imus, host of Imus in the Morning on New York's WFAN-AM and on MSNBC, called the Rutgers players "nappy-headed hos." His producer referred to them as "hardcore hos" and described the national title game between Rutgers and Tennessee as "the jigaboos vs. the wannabes."

WASHINGTON -- I'm an Imus fan and often tune in for headlines, a shot of guyness and a pinch of politics. He's sometimes funny, sometimes smart, and every now and then dumber'n a box o' rocks. As recently, when he referred to the Rutgers University women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos." It was ridiculously unacceptable, mean and insensitive. But was it unforgivable? Piling on is awfully fashionable at the moment, and while tempting, it's also awfully easy. Let's try something hard.

WASHINGTON -- I'm an Imus fan and often tune in for headlines, a shot of guyness and a pinch of politics. He's sometimes funny, sometimes smart, and every now and then dumber'n a box o' rocks. As recently, when he referred to the Rutgers University women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos." It was ridiculously unacceptable, mean and insensitive. But was it unforgivable? Piling on is awfully fashionable at the moment, and while tempting, it's also awfully easy. Let's try something hard.

WASHINGTON -- As she faced the world's television cameras to respond to a gross insult by radio and television showman Don Imus, a member of the Rutgers University women's basketball team spoke volumes with one sentence: "I'm not a ho," she said Tuesday at the team's first news conference after the "nappy-headed hos" incident. "I'm a woman and ... I'm somebody's child." Indeed, she is. So are the rest of Rutgers' Scarlet Knights. And anybody who would make them out to be anything else should be ashamed.