Imus

Canadians complain rightly that the United States takes its good neighbor to the north for granted when we're not ignoring it. And here's somewhat shocking evidence of that: According to the Toronto Star, when The Washington Post closes its Toronto bureau this summer, there will no longer be any American newspaper correspondents based in Canada. In recent years, The New York Times, which once had three, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and The Boston Globe have all shut down their Canadian bureaus.

Julian Bond ought to have a word with Don Imus: "Thanks." Mr. Bond, the national board chairman of the Baltimore-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said as much when he alluded to the embattled radio showman during opening ceremonies of the 98-year-old organization's annual convention last week. "While we are happy to have sent a certain radio cowboy back to his ranch, we ought to hold ourselves to the same standard," Mr. Bond said to enthusiastic applause.

He was such an unlikely impresario, that hunched Nixonian figure with the charisma of an undertaker and no discernible showbiz talent of his own. How odd that Ed Sullivan stood at the very center of American pop culture for 23 years. How odder still that so many of us still miss him more than two decades after he went off the air, still wish we could tune in to CBS Sundays at 8 and hear his awkward promise of a "rilly big shew."The thing was, Ed Sullivan often delivered just that, as John Leonard reminds us in an excerpt from his new book in American Heritage magazine.

Before their wild-card win over Denver, the Ravens complained about some of the techniques employed by the Broncos' offensive linemen. That sentiment did not change Sunday, as one first-half play led the Ravens to send the NFL the network feed and film on their own in which they contend that right guard Dan Neal went too far against Ray Lewis. Ranging to cover a play to his right, Lewis went to the ground with a cut-block and was prone on his stomach when Neal jumped on him, grabbed both of his legs and attempted to roll over.

Imus now believes he caused Clintons inappropriate painFinally, somebody feels President Clinton's pain. Of course, he caused it in the first place.At last year's Radio-Television Correspondents' Association Dinner in Washington, radio personality Don Imus joked about the president's alleged extramarital affairs and Hillary Clinton's alleged financial peccadilloes. The Clintons were sitting just a few feet away.Now, Imus says in the June issue of George magazine: "It wasn't whether it was funny or not; it was whether it was appropriate.

Don Imus, whose daily broadcasts reach about 70 radio stations and are simulcast on MSNBC television, has one of the most lucrative franchises in the business. His show attracts not only hefty advertising dollars, but also a stream of high-profile guests peddling books, opinions and political gamesmanship. The racially insulting remarks he made last week could threaten all that, some experts say, if the controversy persists and guests and advertisers flee. If that happens, Imus - who referred to the Rutgers University women's basketball players as "nappy-headed hos" - could see the two-week suspension he received Monday turn into a more permanent departure.

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.

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.

Even as Don Imus and CBS Radio were settling their legal differences yesterday, the 67-year-old shock-jock was facing a new lawsuit, this one brought by a member of the Rutgers women's basketball team. It was his on-air racist comments about team members that got him fired in April. In her lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court in the Bronx, N.Y.,Scarlet Knights center Kia Vaughn says Imus and his former co-host Bernard McGuirk, CBS Corp. and CBS Radio are legally responsible for damage done to her character and reputation.

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.