In a sad and desperate attempt to take attention away from Vonnegut’s death, CBS has pulled the plug on Don Imus’s radio show.
Emus in the Headlines
– April 12, 2007Posted in: Uncategorized
Books To Jump Up and Down Over
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (Bat Segundo interview with Murphy)
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (Bat Segundo interview with McClear)
I can’t believe liberals, most anyway, are relishing this. It reminds of the attempts to ban Huckleberry Finn and pretty much everything that is offense.
Indeed. Whenever I hear or read Imus’ comments on blacks, women, Arabs, or Jews, I think of their artistry and humanity, and remark, “That’s exactly what Mark Twain would say.” Michael Savage is more of a Voltaire type.
Look, nobody is trying to ban Imus or censor him. Talk radio is full of his sort of crap 24/7/365. I’m sure he can get a job at KSFO, and he is at no risk of being imprisoned or tortured. However, you can’t have senators and congressmen and other inside-the-beltway heavyweights trekking through your studio and then call college atheletes ‘nappy headed hos’ without provoking a response. In this case, the response was an ass-kicking, and I say ‘Tough shit’.