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"Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University provides this humorous, yet informative, review of copyright principles delivered through the words of the very folks we can thank for nearly endless copyright terms."

For more information: http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/documentary-film-program/film/a-fair-y-use-tale

In an editorial in The Wall Street Journal, The American Liberal Liberties Union, Wendy Kaminer takes the ACLU to task for trending towards what she sees as a selective approach to free speech.

This is not the same organization that once took pride in its costly, principled decision to defend the rights of neo-Nazis to march in a community of Holocaust survivors in Skokie, Ill. Of course the ACLU hasn't definitively abandoned its defense of speech: Large, national organizations change incrementally. But people should no longer depend on the ACLU to defend what they preach (especially at a cost), if it disapproves of what they practice.

In June 1998, my attorneys filed a request to allow my former company, ApolloMedia, to submit an amicus curiae brief in the Supreme Court of California in a First Amendment case, Oscar Aguilar et al. vs. Avis Rent A Car System, Inc., et al., that was being observed nationwide as a harbinger of speech in the American workplace. ApolloMedia's amicus marked the first time that Supreme Court determinations pertaining to the Internet were being applied to speech in the workplace, following the Court of Appeal's instruction to the government to create a list of "proposed epithets" or what we termed "Government-Forbidden Words."

ApolloMedia opposed the position taken by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in this case. The ACLU had filed a brief in support of the plaintiffs alleging that inappropriate workplace speech created a hostile work environment. An appellate court required the trial court to propose a list of "proposed epithets" or "Government-Forbidden Words" to be enjoined from the workplace.

As I stated in a media release back in 1998:

We respectfully disagree with the ACLU on this particular issue. We are not implying that inappropriate or racist speech be an acceptable workplace protocol, or encouraging its use, but the courts should not confuse pure speech with conduct, nor allow government to determine which words may or may not be uttered, especially without any regard for context or occasion.

One of my attorneys, William Bennett Turner clarified the distinction between recourse available to victims of verbal abuse versus a prior restraint enacted by the court itself:

Making certain kinds of workplace speech illegal is a difficult issue. The main problem with the lower court's ruling in this case is not whether the victim of verbal abuse can sue for damages, but whether the government -- the court -- can issue orders prohibiting certain disfavored words from being said at all, regardless of the context in which they're said.

While we had taken a position that opposed the ACLU, it's worth noting that a year earlier, in 1997, in addition to filing a lawsuit against Attorney General Janet Reno (ApolloMedia v. Reno) challenging a provision of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) which was ultimately heard by the United States Supreme Court, we had also filed an amicus curiae brief in support of the ACLU in another CDA challenge before the Supreme Court, Reno v. ACLU.

So although I generally believe the ACLU to be well intended, and have demonstrated my support by filing court documents supporting their position, their tendency to allow political correctness to muddy their free speech purity, as Kaminer refers to in her editorial, is not all that new a phenomenon.

Declan McCullagh, the CNet journalist who also happened to be one of the plaintiffs in the 1996 CDA case, ACLU v. Reno, made the same point on his Politech website:

It's true that ACLU litigators have done terrific work on free speech cases before, and will continue to do so. It has represented me as a plaintiff in the 1996 CDA case, for which I will always be grateful, and has devoted countless resources to COPA as well. The organization boasts the most principled and ardent First Amendment lobbyists in Washington, who are willing to take controversial stands on things like outlawing morphed child porn (a stand later vindicated by the Supreme Court).

But those attorneys and lobbyists ultimately report to a national board that seems to be growing more politically correct by the day. (Wendy was a dissident board member; I'm not sure if she's still on the board.)

This is not exactly a new phenomenon. Liberals and progressives have long been split between their totalitarian-minded leftist wing that loves to enforce political correctness through "hate speech" laws and campus speech codes -- and those who recognize the social and political dangers inherent in banning speech that someone dislikes, and believe the answer to objectionable speech is more speech.

By Nezua Limón Xolagrafik-Jonez
May 3, 2007
TheUnapologeticMexican.org

THERE IS NO RIGHT TO PEACEFUL ASSEMBLY IN AMERICA. There were signs earlier, it's true. But now it can be said to be official. File this along with what you read on blogs about habeas corpus and wiretapping, this latest display of contempt for our rights: here is a clear example of excessive use of police force, of tyranny by weaponry, of unwarranted police aggression, assault and battery—on women, children, and citizens alike. The police issue their typical statements about investigations and being upset, but give it a month (when the results of thier "internal report" is due and we've seen how these turn out time and time again) and it doesn't matter anyway. They have done what they wanted, made their mark, instilled fear. And despite what they say, they didn't do this because some people stepped off the sidewalk, bullshit. We know why the cops were there and in such gear, and with such attitudes and agendas. The government fears the numbers they saw last year on 2006. In 2006 we actually showed, lived out, demonstrated the Power of the People, and it scared the living shit out of our keepers. Because America is only about the Power of the People in word. That's advertising to keep us defending our jailers, paying our taxes, and joining the grinder military. America is really about the Power of the Few. And the Power of the Gun. And the Power of the Dollar. And the Power of the Lie.

So this year not only did the press keep very quiet about the May Day marches (as if they wouldn't be important to report on in context of all the ICE raids since, if nothing else!), but the city of LA—a city infamous for their brutal and lawless police—sent out their goons in riot gear to chase Americans out of a public park and fire weapons at them, disregarding the children, of all things.

I was over on the Southern side of Macarthur park and I saw the police move in on the park, shooting non lethal weaponry, tear gas guns openly into a crowd of women and children, unarmed women and children, unarmed men...this was a peaceful demonstration, the police showed up here and turned it into a violent demonstration.

—L.A. man at MacArthur park [YouTube vid below]

We got a right to be here. Fuck this running shit! This is how they got us all scared. Nobody wants to stand their fucking ground.

—L.A. Woman at MacArthur park [YouTube vid below]

I know what these cops do. I've seen it. They flood the area with hostile, armed men looking for a fight. Ordered to have a fight. I've lived it. I've seen their faces up close, seen them snarl at requests for help or aid, seen them grab girls by the hair, seen them stomp on instruments just to watch them crumple. They are sadists. I can't speak for their life or totality of spirit, but once they are in those uniforms, they are pure sadists. Once you send in these numbers armed in riot gear, you are sending in bullies to begin a fight. You are free to disagree, but you will not convince me, because my life has not only spun out in front of a computer monitor or TV screen, you see.

Basically everyone is out of the park, and they are still firing.

—Narrator of video taken at May Day 2007 police action [below]

A naked display of violence acted out upon the powerless by the power-holders in violation with the bedrock of our codified "rights," and today the blogs and news sites discuss Republican debates, TV-shapes, and one of the many wars we started overseas. Wars started in the name of preserving our Freedoms and Laws. Which were, yesterday, mocked and made irrelevant. They will excuse endangering lives and causing blind panic to break out and military type formations of tear gassing, rubber bullet firing battallions because people "stepped off the sidewalk." We know what this means. It's like when someone walks into a bar or a gathering of other people and insults and pushes around people until he gets them to glare or raise a hand or stand up. Then the bully gleefully engages in the fight they wanted so badly the whole time. The one they lacked the courage to outright state was their goal. It's what I call the "Rio Grande" method of beat-down, for my own reasons.

Oye: Fuck the police and thier terrorist tactics. Yes, I am very pissed off. Maybe I have enough for both of us. Dunno. But it shouldn't work that way. I hope once you watch the video below, you will join me a bit. There is a huge and egregious violation of our most dear rights being mocked here, the Constitution itself made a joke. Yes, it is made a joke on brown people. But not only have laws been violated, but basic human morality has been completely disregarded, and our National Media has said what? Nada? Just passed along the cops' lawyer's words? That they are investigating to determine IF excessive forced was used? Watch the video! People fleeing in terror, as if an invading army has stormed the streets in black riot gear and is firing tear gas and hard, rubber bullets into the crowd! Because it is, and they are! Rubber bullets fired on crowds where women and children are? And innocent men, let's not forget! We have the right to peaceful assembly, too! By birth, let alone the "Goddamned Piece of Paper!" Pardon me garçon but WHAT THE FUCK is WRONG with you people, you so-called "Fourth Estate? Has all the People® magazine, and I Can't Believe It's Not Butter and American Idol, and polyethylene glycol wiped the very essence of your molecules out, churned them into pixels that respond to whatever thugs pronounce? How can you claim any "America" and "American ideals" and "American freedoms" and NOT be enraged at this? What if that woman was your MOTHER? They are people's mothers!!!!

But yeah—the press and cops are counting on Average Americans not to care because they will tout the gathering and the abuse as nothing more than ALIENZ being corralled. And who cares about ALIENZ????

And you think this doesn't apply to you? Do you, then, silently give up your right to assemble in great numbers? Because that's what this is about. Power of the People. Numbers that freaked out the old white men in Washington. They don't want to see us in numbers, and they don't want us to feel empowered. But they don't want that for any of us! Brown, black, or white! They want us all living in fear. Always in fear. And when the rhetoric fails to corral us, the violence is loosed. This is the same tactics they used on us in NYC, on the RNC 1800. Same marching lines, same "sidewalk" terminology, same mass attack that ignored your actual complicity in any crime.

They are testing themselves out, flexing their crowd-assault/control, practicing on us like the USA Military tests new weapons each time they bomb, and horrors like Shock And Awe become corpse-littered gleeful practice ranges for the white-hearted men in the halls of American power.

Another way to say all of this is that if the rhetoric of superiority works to maintain the entitlement, hatred and direct physical force remains underground. But when that rhetoric begins to fail, force and hatred waits in the wings, ready to explode.

—The Culture of Make Believe, Derrick Jensen

Isn't it interesting what happens to those who speak truth to power and remind the people where the power truly lies—in themselves? To those who preach unity and love? Why are those who live this, show this unity, demonstrate the awareness of this locus of power always gunned down, shot, strung up, crucified? Why are they always answered with violence? Because in the void of truth and reason thrives violence. Today we see the forces of control still hate the Power of the People, and the "goddamned piece of paper," the Constitution. We see they operate in a void of reason, and now live in a new post-9/11 fear-based mentality. A place where there is no room for reason or quaint documents.

They are not following constitution law, they are totally taking away our unalienable human rights...women...children, i mean would they do this to their own mother? to their own little sister? terrorize? They put on the uniform and think everyone is bad."

—U.S. Citizen at LA Park, May 1, 2007

People talk to me about not holding troops personally responsible for their actions. But do we then forgive police when they shoot at us, en masse, for no reason? When they teargas us because we peacefully fill a public park? They were, after all, clearly acting on orders. Police do not organize like that on a whim, or off-the-clock. So do we say they had the right? Of course some heartless and mindless maniacs on the far right are bound to justify this. Just as the chuckling, budding, Police State prefers. It will always have its defenders, acting freely on their own will and hate. Always those sad humans who think they are speaking out and making themselves stronger, not seeing the walls close in around them as they cheer.

What happened to our peaceful right to assembly? Curious? We do not have this right. If you are a teacher, don't you be lying to your classes. We do not have it. In fact—and I've known this since I was 16, learned it firsthand and have had it reinforced multiple times since—you have whatever right the cops feel like giving you at any given moment. And that, my friends, is ALL. Don't you be a naïve subject.

Here, what rights did the mothers have who could not run fast? What rights did babies or kids with respiratory issues have when the tear gas settled? what rights did the humans have who were shot at, point-blank, with huge, hard, rubber projectiles? No, the only "right" la chota gives these people is the right to run away in terror. The cops march in a tight line through the very streets of the city, as if it is a war zone, as if people were rioting, when it was these pigs themselves who brought the violence, the black-masked, stick-handed violence. They fire rubber bullets right in public, right on public streets, randomly into the terrified crowds. They attempt to hem in the people so they can mass-arrest them, or mass-attack them. For what? Tell me again? For what?

For gathering in a park. And for being brown and loud and present in great numbers.

They are making the people work for miserable wages and then on top of that they come here and fucking oppress them.

Man at MacArthur park, May Day 2007 [YouTube vid below]

One day this shit isn't gonna be people running. And one day they are gonna come prepared for the police to come.

Woman at MacArthur park, May Day 2007 [YouTube vid below]

But you will not stop us, O ancient force of force and oppression and hate and "racism." Now, again, you come. For the people. With your weaponry. That we paid for. You tiny, scared men.

Little kids are hitting the floor, bleeding, and then cops fucking shooting!....

Man at MacArthur park, May Day 2007 [YouTube vid below]

Remember Brad Will! Remember MLK! Remember the old dream of America—if you must think Like an American—the good parts of it. Remember that there are MANY more of us than them. We will need to keep this in mind one day soon, I fear. Unless we're happy with less and less and less freedoms. You gun lovers think you are safe in your home with your "right to bear arms"? You radical libertarian types think you will be safe with your collection of rifles when the Federal government drops down martial law? No, you are not. We saw in New Orleans what happened to people. The military swooped in and took away everyone's guns. Constituationally guaranteed or otherwise. You are not protected by any document. Our government knows this. They redact it at will.

Remember we have asked how so few could control and harm so many! We've asked it before! We are moving there now. They will act again, in different ways. Time and time again, chipping away at everything. Until all the talk of American Freedom is a joke to every single country and person but us, here, still living smiling and wrapped tight with the binding and blinding gloss of marketing, packaging, State propaganda, until it is only you, and your movement has been curtailed to such a tiny space you are doing jumping jacks in front of a telecreen and fearing your eyes will give away your thoughts. [Metaphor alert, trolls.]

What happens if we begin showing up at peaceful assemblies with padding under our clothes? Or football facemasks? Will they then outlaw football facemasks? Or would they then fire real bullets? I think you know my guess.

And how did this happen again? because of what, again? What caused platoons of police in riot gear to begin making war on people in public American streets and parks?

The Brown™ dared take the Constitution literally, as if it applied to us. The average person dared think they were safe from American police tyranny in 2007 in a public place exercising Constitutional rights. That was the first mistake.

What made the cops think they could get away with it? Because they know the American Media very well. And they remember all the times they get away with police brutality.

What I think is funny about this is its like the working class people pitted against the working class cops. It's just an irony that like...its a system of oppression, and when you have a fascist state...and it works. You keep people in fear and you can keep them from rising up.

They are concerned with this, these days. Because they have big plans, you know. And they don't know at what point it will be, but they know at some point, instinct will kick in and Americans will resist.

Add up the recent years, the unreported Halliburton prisons, the way they habituate the public to mass arrests and detentions, the police actions like this and the RNC mass arrests, the troops on the ground in Katrina, the loss of the Posse Comatitus protection, the Decider making clear his philosophy and hunger. Keep telling yourself they are isolated incidents. Keep thinking small. You may, one day, need to economize your range of motion.

---

update: Reader RickB points the way to this last video, the News take on it, from a Fox affiliate station, no less. Watcha. Even the female camera operators reporting the news and the reporters themselves get beat down by the cops. Now what ya say? Are they strange Newscast-ey Alienz? Shapeshifters perhaps? Dangerous Alien Wimmenz assuming the guise of Constitutionally-protected Americans? Good thing we have so many well-armed thugs to protect us from the scourge from outer space.

---

Nezua Limón Xolagrafik-Jonez is an artist and writer. His talent can be found at TheUnapologeticMexican.org, which is a site he runs. Reposted with permission.

---

The famous ACT UP refrain that galvanized a movement was “Silence = Death”.

Despite a reputation for silence worthy of a monk, Virginia Tech killer, Cho Seung-Hui, who peers and roommates say rarely uttered a word, let rip in a frightening, rambling, multimedia diatribe that he mailed off to NBC mid-massacre.

His perceived isolation and feelings of victimization (as a million talking heads have concluded, verified perhaps by his own contributions) fomented an intense rage that he silently withheld until Monday. His criticism and blaming of “rich kids” with “trust funds” and “debauchery” combined with his identifying with the Columbine killers revealed a resentment that might have resulted from either having been bullied or ignored because he didn’t fit in.

Yet, aside from obliterating Don Imus from the news cycle, (suggesting that had he committed this violent massacre two weeks ago, Don Imus would still be filling the airwaves with his own brand of hate and invective), he might still provide some insight as to why certain hate speech (not of the politically correct variety, but genuine threatening and fighting words that provoke violence) can have an impact that is far more dangerous than offending Al Sharpton.

As if to illustrate what the killer might have been feeling, The Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed reported that the killer was a 24-year-old Chinese student who arrived in San Francisco on United Airlines on Aug. 7 on a visa issued in Shanghai. (Atlantic Unbound’s James Fallows has documented the subsequent “Orwellian” cleansing of The Chicago Sun-Times’ web site to remedy the gaffe that sent shockwaves through China.) Chinese, Asian, Oriental, Korean. What’s the difference? The same thinking that Don Imus and his gang would spout about all Muslims being “stinking ragheads.”

Tart columnist Maureen Dowd is seldom at a loss for words, but her silence over the firing of Don Imus was in stark contrast to the embarrassing attempts to justify his tacit endorsement by another New York Times Imus enabler, Frank Rich – a frequent guest on the show. Yes, Rich admitted to being a hypocrite, but defended Imus on the basis that Imus was an equal-opportunity offender, railing against Jews (like Frank). Comparing him to Comedy Central’s Southpark and Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat, Rich failed to see the difference. Southpark is able to get away with insulting everyone because the creators hold up a mirror that educates and entertains at the same time. Same with Borat. Imus and his gang spew hate for no reason other than to see what they can get away with. Their authentic ugliness is transparent. Yes, still protected, but Rich’s claim that he hadn’t heard or didn’t appreciate the extent of Imus’ invective (or his team including Charles McCord, Sid Rosenberg, Bo Dietl and the other losers who consider themselves comedians with the same self-delusion that Sanjaya Malakar deems himself a singer) suggests that Rich is either disingenuous or an idiot. And the latter, he isn’t.

The Silence of the Dowd, however was also deafening. Perhaps she didn’t have the stomach for having to justify why she would chat with Imus as Bernard McGuirk, his Executive Producer, wondered if Representative Cynthia McKinney had ever had “white man’s jizz on her face,” or specifically referring to Dowd herself, suggested that he would apologize to her for criticizing her with “the tip of my Timberland shoe” after she posited that the Church sex abuse scandal was a pedophilia, rather than a homosexual, problem.

But Maureen Dowd has a right to remain silent, despite how bloody her hands are. Far less excusable was NBC’s Tim Russert on Meet the Press Sunday, where he squirmed so uncomfortably that even I felt sorry for him. Washington Post’s Gwen Ifill, who Imus once gallantly referred to as a “cleaning lady” thankfully did not allow Russert or David Brooks (yet another New York Times Imus enabler) to get away with their lame attempts to try and compare Don Imus to Snoop Dogg or feign indignation over McGuirk’s portrayal of Cardinal Egan (perhaps the most authentic McGuirk ever was).

This isn’t about words, it’s about context. Hell, even Ann Coulter knows that.

So in the name of decency (also known as lost advertising revenue), Don Imus was fired by NBC, who claimed that they wanted to work toward a campaign of common decency that expanded beyond the walls of their news organization with its strained credibility.

That was before they received the “multimedia manifesto” from Cho Seung-Hui.

Now watch how decency looks, grieving families be damned, when advertisers aren’t bolting.

By JAYNE LYN STAHL
April 16, 2007

Remember all the hooplah, and righteous indignation, on the part of Congress, when the National Security Agency electronic surveillance program story first broke, several months ago, and word got out that Bush & Co. have been illegally monitoring e-mails, and conducting warrantless eavesdropping in defiance of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act law of 1978?

As you recall, several prominent elected officials, at that time, insisted that the practice stop and itself have oversight, unless, o f course, efforts were made to revise FISA to accommodate the bogeyman war on terror; (bogey, short for bogus, of course)

Well, over the weekend, the Washington Post reported that, as part of his legacy, the president has now decided to make changes to the existing FISA laws, changes that would allow for greater surveillance of non-citizens as well as expanded "interception" of international communications. Under the current law, a person has to be associated with a specific "terrorism" suspect, or group to come before FISA court, and be deemed eligible for for authorization to monitor their overseas calls, and e-mails. But, as part of its policy of planned obsolescence of the Constitution, the administration now to expand its snooping authority to any noncitizen it deems worthy of surveillance, using a broad brush to define that worthiness. Additionally, the new bill allows the current, and future administration, the power to store information that has only a tenuous connection to their investigation, as well as any data they come across "unintentionally," as long as it is considered it to have what they deem "significant foreign intelligence."

Importantly, the proposed legislation does not deal with the pattern of abuse in the NSA scandal, late last year, which revealed that the government has been intercepting domestic communications, and demanding telephone and Internet records, whenever it believed that there contact between someone within our borders and someone overseas posed a threat to our elusive national security..

And, lest anyone could include inconsistency as among this administration's failings,and using the Military Commissions Act as a pernicious paradigm, this proposed bill also seeks to grant immunity, not from war crimes, but from prosecution, for those telecommunications carriers, and Internet service providers, who cooperate with the government in turning over confidential telephone, and e-mail records, should you or I decide to take them to court for doing so. What's more, this immunity would be retroactive for those companies that compromised your privacy by surrendering your personal information to the government dating back as far as the wee hours after 9/11. (WaPo)

When you consider that FISA has remained intact for nearly 30 years, and that, should this president have his way with this legislation as he did with the USA Patriot Act, it, too, will remain in place for decades, it's chilling to think about its longterm effect on freedom of expression. Think about how future generations will grow up with the constant thought that Big Brother may be reading their e-mails, letters, and/or listening in on their phone calls, and not only is Ma Bell going along for the ride, but their taxes may well go to keep this national (in)security infrastructure in place. Who will write the history books, and how credible will those history books be, when the government gets to breathe down the necks of those who, in some way, try to communicate about their authentic experience of events?

It's time, yes, and way overdue, that each and every one of us who got out to vote for change, in the mid-term elections, contact members of Congress and tell them that this is not what we had in mind by a changing of the guard. It's time we let them know that the 2006 election wasn't just about the war in Iraq, it was about the war on our civil liberties, too. And, those intelligence committee meetings that dealt with NSA spying, and government overreaching into our affairs, can be seen as little more than theatre of the absurd if this is how they plan to counter the excessive, and egregious legislation being enacted, and proposed, in the name of preventing another terror attack. We need to let them know that we want our Bill of Rights back; if they can have their secrecy, we can have our privacy.

Oh yes, and those Democrats, in the Senate , who said that if the president thought that FISA needed to be reformed, in light of 9/11, then he should reform it, surely this isn't what they had in mind by that reform. And, if it is, then we need to give them a piece of our mind before the Senate Intelligence Committee convenes tomorrow , and for as long as it takes until everyone we elected to represent us understands that 2008 is just around the corner, and we're not going to accept these ongoing, and outrageous efforts to put the First Amendment on the endangered species list.

Jayne Lyn Stahl is a widely published, poet, playwright, essayist, and screenwriter; member of PEN American Center, and PEN USA.

And so it came to pass that MSNBC, caving to intense pressure, dropped Don Imus from their morning line up. A day later, followed by a meeting with Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson with CBS Corp. chief executive Leslie Moonves, his radio show was killed, essentially ending the career of a man that for years had ruled the airwaves with an unimpeded barrage of bigotry and hate.

Two years ago, I warned MSNBC that Imus was tainting their brand. More than that, I questioned how they could continue to allow Imus to denigrate their journalists, as the media and political elite sustained his platform with appearances on his show.

I am a firm supporter of free speech. I have fought my own First Amendment battles all the way to the United States Supreme Court. I currently serve as President of the Board of First Amendment Project (FAP).

The Don Imus firing is not a First Amendment issue, and this is not a censorship story. Only governments censor.

Imus in the Morning was a ratings and revenue bonanza and despite a despicable slew of misogynist homophobic, racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-Islamic garbage, the executives at both NBC and Universal did nothing for ages.

When this story broke, MSNBC, attempting to shirk responsibility, once more, had the audacity to claim that it was not responsible for the content on the show – that it was merely a simulcast. This, despite the full blown resources of NBC journalists and technology at his disposal.

Amidst intense pressure, both MSNBC and CBS pretended that the internal cacophony of protest is what ultimately led to their decision.

Again, in 2006, in another attempt to draw attention to the damage caused by Imus, I wrote the following in an editorial titled Fox, Henhouses and Chickens:

“Despite his reputation as a provocative, albeit aging, 'shock jock,' MSNBC does a simulcast of Don Imus’ WFAN radio show, 'Imus in the Morning,' which is positioned by MSNBC as a news program, replete with the reporting muscle of NBC News at its disposal.

Despite the childish, sexist, homophobic and racist diatribes that define Imus and his crew, and have caused anchors like Contessa Brewer to cringe in embarrassment before bitter and public feuds separated them on-air forever more (or at least until MSNBC does a reality show about supposed journalists), it’s highly unlikely that a genuine NBC journalist reporting on developments in the Middle East will inspire any sympathy from groups like the 'Holy Jihad Brigades' if they happen to catch Imus referring to Arabs as stinking ragheads with dirty laundry on their heads, as he has done before. (As he sits, ironically, with a gay cowboy hat in New Jersey). Or in the case of the now-fired Imus sportscaster, Sid Rosenberg, who stated on-air that Serena and Venus Williams were best suited posing for National Geographic rather than Playboy and that Palestinians mourning the death of Yasser Arafat were 'stinking animals' upon whom the Israelis 'ought to drop the bomb right there, kill 'em all right now...' Perhaps it was the crack cocaine talking, but it was neither his drug habits nor that comment that got Rosenberg fired."

I also suggested that as long as hard-working, courageous, idealistic and responsible journalists and reporters remain willfully ignorant of the corporatization of news, and allow and accept equal billing with loud-mouthed shills, spitting deliberate provocations in an increasingly divisive substitution of content for discontent, the remaining shreds of nobility in the profession of journalism will be irreparably damaged and news will forever be defined by shallow attempts to generate ratings and revenue, and to push agendas rather than explain them.

Imus should not have been fired for what he said per se, and certainly not because the new speech nannies, replacing Tipper Gore, Lynne Cheney and Joe Lieberman, namely Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, demanded it. Let’s get real.

In his own defense, Imus attempted to explain that his comment could not be considered without a broader context. And tried to pass his remark off as a joke. The only problem was that even taken in context, the “joke,” as New York Times’ Bob Herbert summed up on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, was missing a punchline.

Context is important, and so the banning of certain words, regardless of the frame of reference, is an ill-informed solution. And aptly demonstrated by how many times the phrase “nappy headed hos” has been repeated in the telling of this story.

If this was really about journalists and employees at MSNBC and CBS threatening mutiny if the response wasn’t swift and fatal, this would have happened a long time ago. The only reason Imus is off the air, and it’s not a censorship issue, or even relevant whether Imus is really a racist or just playing one for laughs that only he and his cohorts find amusing, is because of the marketplace.

Had American Express Co., Sprint Nextel Corp., Staples Inc., Procter & Gamble Co., and General Motors Corp. not decided to pull advertising to distance their brands from the show, would MSNBC and CBS really have listened to and acted on the concerns of their journalists and employees? Such concerns didn’t seem to warrant any action before.

Imus made a point of thanking Bigelow Tea for sticking with him. A fabulous tea, mind you. Especially served in the morning with crackers.

Bill Maher, the comedian who was fired by ABC for his controversial remarks about September 11th, said it was sad to see the “swaggering mustang” broken following the implosion of his career.

For me, it wasn’t. Seeing a bullying, arrogant, blowhard brought to his knobby knees by his own making could not happened to a more deserving guy.

Imus still has the right to free speech, and the right to call whoever he wants whatever he wants. With or without appropriate context. But never forget, that speech may well be free, but never free of consequences, and is not guaranteed under the banner of a news organization striving for integrity and journalistic excellence, no matter how far short they have measured.