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For Your Benefit...

• Today is the last day to have your picture taken for the new photo directory. Be warned: If you don’t have your picture taken, Chuck might find a picture from a nearby Post Office and substitute it for yours!
• The supplemental hymnals are nearly complete. The first installment (66 songs) is being printed this week, and will be ready for distribution in the next week or two. Expect great things!

Calendar

• April 26-29 — College View (E’town)
• April 29 - May 4 — Mt Washington

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You would have to have been in the deepest part of Mammoth Cave, without cell phone, PC, or any other means of contact with the outside world, not to have heard the name Don Imus in the last few weeks. Imus was a shock jock, who was fired from his radio and TV job for an inappropriate remark made about the Rutger’s women’s basketball team. The remark, too profane and insensitive, to be repeated here was typical of Imus’ show which has been marked by controversy for years.

A little background on Imus is revealing. He is a 67 year-old California native who has had a radio show since 1979 and has been syndicated since 1993. He was on station WMBC (AM) and a simulcast on MSNBC. He has in the past battled alcohol and cocaine addiction according to information on the Internet. Some have suggested that many of his tirades were fueled by these drugs. I am giving you this information because his radio show is not carried in the Louisville area. The show was often crude, vulgar, irreverent, inflammatory, politically oriented, and with unrestrained attacks on others.

But after so many years this particular show was said to be “over the line” and so it brought about his dismissal from the airways. Most of the black leaders, who claim to represent the black community, along with many influential white leaders were incensed, as any decent person should have been, by Imus’ remarks and demanded that he be fired. Imus apologized profusely to everyone including a personal apology to the Rutgers basketball team, alas, all to no avail. About two weeks after the broadcast, the stations feeling the heat from across the country, finally fired Imus. It is well to note that at first they just intended to suspend him for a short time. In other words, a slap on the wrist, rather than dismiss him permanently. The story of this whole disgusting episode was replaced in the news by the horrifying massacre that happened at Virginia Tech University on Monday. So finally Mr. Imus may pass from our consciousness. Thank goodness!

So much coverage has been given to Imus and almost every conceivable opinion expressed as to the reason(s) he should have been fired for his indiscretion, that I hesitate to say anything else. But there are just a couple of observations, things that have already been expressed, but which need emphasizing from a Christian perspective.

Why did it take his employers so long to announce that they were dropping him when it was evident from the start he should be kicked off the airways? The answer is simple, money. He is a big money maker for the station and, after all, the bottom line is the justification for almost everything. Judgment is made on the basis of how much revenue is being generated. The stations did not act until they saw their sponsors bail out and knew the cash cow was not going to give the milk she (he) once did. Even as Christians we can always stand a little compromise of our principles if our material wealth is threatened can’t we?

What made this particular rant worthy of firing when it was typical of what had been going on for years on Imus’ show? The answer again is easy — it was politically incorrect. It was racist in the extreme, and should have been objectionable to any self-respecting person of color, and any white person who has any sense of decency. Every thing today is judged by the “politically correct” formula. The station had to react in some way to blunt the criticism that was heaped on them. These days, profanity and irreverence are OK —  they are not yardsticks by which talk and actions are measured. You can get away with almost any word on television and especially on radio today. If you don’t think so just listen to some of the trash you hear on local radio. It was pleasing to hear many of the black leaders say that rap music spews vulgarity of the worst sort, denigration of women, both black and white, purposes destruction of authority and is broadcast every day without protest from anyone, so why the big deal about Imus? Some of the leaders advocated getting rid of Imus and those of his ilk, and getting rid of the garbage in music in the process, and clean up the airways generally. To that I would give a rousing “Amen.” We all need to get behind such an effort. To think that just a few years ago you could not say the word “sex” on radio and television much less describe it in detail, and now it can be not only heard on radio, but also seen on television. It used to be that on public broadcasts that the expletives were deleted, but no more. In fact, the more graphic the language the better the public seems to like it. So it is no wonder that the Imus’ and the Howard Sterns of this world are embraced and made prosperous by their crudity and vulgarity.

Imus had never met these young women basketball players before he made the derogatory remark about them. One of the young women said, “We are 18 year old kids and we are someone’s child.” How hurtful it is when someone says something about your child which is completely unfounded, and you really have no way of defending them. Maybe Imus’ quest for forgiveness should have been in a dark alley with the fathers of the girls present. I’m not advocating violence, but there needs to be some righteous indignation displayed sometime.

May God help us to become more sensitive to decency, decorum, and good manners, and restore some of the dignity that used to characterize our society? What I hope will be our last words will be, “God forgive us for our reluctance to stand up for what’s right and letting ourselves be drug down to the lowest level of unbelievers in our country.”

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