Singin' In the Rain

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After the Imus chill down, it looks like shock jocks are still playing fast, trying to keep some wild fun in entertainment, as though free speech were more than the right to listen to our leaders:

Almost two weeks after CBS Radio fired Don Imus for his racially and sexually demeaning remarks about the Rutgers women’s basketball team, Nick Di Paolo opened his talk show on another CBS station in New York by mocking a manual that, he said, one of his bosses had given him that morning.

The booklet was entitled “Words Hurt and Harm” and, as described by Mr. Di Paolo, it urged him and his brethren to avoid the sort of stereotypes that had not only upended Mr. Imus but had also just gotten two colleagues on WFNY (92.3 FM) suspended for broadcasting a six-minute prank call littered with slurs to a Chinese restaurant.

“Right away, we’re starting with a false premise,” Mr. Di Paolo told his listeners on April 25, just after noon. “Because words don’t hurt.”

... After being told of Mr. Di Paolo’s comments, for example, officials of the New York State Lottery said they had decided to discontinue all advertising on his show. They also said they would no longer sponsor “Opie and Anthony,” a morning show on the same station, after being apprised of a line uttered by a comedian who is a regular guest. “Would it be possible, could you whistle ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ while I rape a girl?” the comedian had asked another guest, a professional whistler, in an old interview replayed on April 25.

It looks like they're playing without a net though, as this tribute to "Clockwork Orange" lost the show a sponsor. The battle for love and freedom rages on.


(Source: Jacques Steinberg for The New York Times)

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Singin' In the Rain

♠
After the Imus chill down, it looks like shock jocks are still playing fast, trying to keep some wild fun in entertainment, as though free speech were more than the right to listen to our leaders:

Almost two weeks after CBS Radio fired Don Imus for his racially and sexually demeaning remarks about the Rutgers women’s basketball team, Nick Di Paolo opened his talk show on another CBS station in New York by mocking a manual that, he said, one of his bosses had given him that morning.

The booklet was entitled “Words Hurt and Harm” and, as described by Mr. Di Paolo, it urged him and his brethren to avoid the sort of stereotypes that had not only upended Mr. Imus but had also just gotten two colleagues on WFNY (92.3 FM) suspended for broadcasting a six-minute prank call littered with slurs to a Chinese restaurant.

“Right away, we’re starting with a false premise,” Mr. Di Paolo told his listeners on April 25, just after noon. “Because words don’t hurt.”

... After being told of Mr. Di Paolo’s comments, for example, officials of the New York State Lottery said they had decided to discontinue all advertising on his show. They also said they would no longer sponsor “Opie and Anthony,” a morning show on the same station, after being apprised of a line uttered by a comedian who is a regular guest. “Would it be possible, could you whistle ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ while I rape a girl?” the comedian had asked another guest, a professional whistler, in an old interview replayed on April 25.

It looks like they're playing without a net though, as this tribute to "Clockwork Orange" lost the show a sponsor. The battle for love and freedom rages on.


(Source: Jacques Steinberg for The New York Times)

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Segolene Royal

“What I want, it’s for everybody to unleash this energy they feel within themselves,” she said, “but this energy that is sometimes curbed, curbed by so many blockages, curbed by so many negative speeches, curbed by so many shadows. ... It is not the dark side that I want to awake. It is the side of light, it is the side of hope, it is the part of joy, it is the part of smile, it is the part of France that loves itself as it is.”

-- Maureen Dowd for The New York Times

I gather things aren't going so well for Mrs. Segolene Royal's bid to be France's first elected woman president. Which I find interesting, since I would have expected this soft New Agey thing to go over well in France, especially when her opponent, Nicolas Sarkozy, is seen as being rather Bushy. And, no, I'm not sure about what is going on in the picture above, but I suppose it's a bit on the mocking side, though not too profane I hope.

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Segolene Royal

“What I want, it’s for everybody to unleash this energy they feel within themselves,” she said, “but this energy that is sometimes curbed, curbed by so many blockages, curbed by so many negative speeches, curbed by so many shadows. ... It is not the dark side that I want to awake. It is the side of light, it is the side of hope, it is the part of joy, it is the part of smile, it is the part of France that loves itself as it is.”

-- Maureen Dowd for The New York Times

I gather things aren't going so well for Mrs. Segolene Royal's bid to be France's first elected woman president. Which I find interesting, since I would have expected this soft New Agey thing to go over well in France, especially when her opponent, Nicolas Sarkozy, is seen as being rather Bushy. And, no, I'm not sure about what is going on in the picture above, but I suppose it's a bit on the mocking side, though not too profane I hope.

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Evolving Republicans

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The Times touches on the evolution debate again, relating that it has opend some fissures within conservative circles:

Evolution has long generated bitter fights between the left and the right about whether God or science better explains the origins of life. But now a dispute has cropped up within conservative circles, not over science, but over political ideology: Does Darwinian theory undermine conservative notions of religion and morality or does it actually support conservative philosophy?

... For some conservatives, accepting Darwin undercuts religious faith and produces an amoral, materialistic worldview that easily embraces abortion, embryonic stem cell research and other practices they abhor. As an alternative to Darwin, many advocate intelligent design, which holds that life is so intricately organized that only an intelligent power could have created it.

Yet it is that very embrace of intelligent design — not to mention creationism, which takes a literal view of the Bible’s Book of Genesis — that has led conservative opponents to speak out for fear their ideology will be branded as out of touch and anti-science.

Some of these thinkers have gone one step further, arguing that Darwin’s scientific theories about the evolution of species can be applied to today’s patterns of human behavior, and that natural selection can provide support for many bedrock conservative ideas, like traditional social roles for men and women, free-market capitalism and governmental checks and balances.

One is reminded that conservatives at the turn of the twentieth century had really taken to evolution, but turned it into Social Darwinism, distorting evolution theory into a scientific validation of the worst forms of racism and power politics, and that it is from this checkered history that conservatives have come to shy away from Darwin. Still, it knocks me back in the chair to hear that three Republican candidates for the presidency said they did not believe in evolution in a televised debate. But maybe that shouldn't be shocking, since we already have a president who does not believe in it.


(Source: Patrical Cohen for The New York Times)

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Evolving Republicans

♠
The Times touches on the evolution debate again, relating that it has opend some fissures within conservative circles:

Evolution has long generated bitter fights between the left and the right about whether God or science better explains the origins of life. But now a dispute has cropped up within conservative circles, not over science, but over political ideology: Does Darwinian theory undermine conservative notions of religion and morality or does it actually support conservative philosophy?

... For some conservatives, accepting Darwin undercuts religious faith and produces an amoral, materialistic worldview that easily embraces abortion, embryonic stem cell research and other practices they abhor. As an alternative to Darwin, many advocate intelligent design, which holds that life is so intricately organized that only an intelligent power could have created it.

Yet it is that very embrace of intelligent design — not to mention creationism, which takes a literal view of the Bible’s Book of Genesis — that has led conservative opponents to speak out for fear their ideology will be branded as out of touch and anti-science.

Some of these thinkers have gone one step further, arguing that Darwin’s scientific theories about the evolution of species can be applied to today’s patterns of human behavior, and that natural selection can provide support for many bedrock conservative ideas, like traditional social roles for men and women, free-market capitalism and governmental checks and balances.

One is reminded that conservatives at the turn of the twentieth century had really taken to evolution, but turned it into Social Darwinism, distorting evolution theory into a scientific validation of the worst forms of racism and power politics, and that it is from this checkered history that conservatives have come to shy away from Darwin. Still, it knocks me back in the chair to hear that three Republican candidates for the presidency said they did not believe in evolution in a televised debate. But maybe that shouldn't be shocking, since we already have a president who does not believe in it.


(Source: Patrical Cohen for The New York Times)

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