Laughing is good for the Soul, as they say. It can help boost your immune system, lower your blood pressure, and provide other salubrious effects. In daily life, we each have a 'default' behavior we go to in awkward situations...mine has always been humor, and to really appreciate good humor you have to be vulnerable to make fun of your own self. As I like to say, that's the easy part since I have no pride!
But humor gained by making fun of someone else at their expense is not humor in the slightest. OK, maybe a comedian can get by with it in a comedy club because you basically pay to expect that type of banter...but the latest from the world of radio shock jocks shows there remain many with no class whatsoever.
CBS has suspended and may well fire "The Doghouse with JV and Elvis" crew (Vandergrift and Dan Lay) for allegedly making prank phone calls on-air to Chineese restaurants in New York City, using various lewd comments and stereotypical language to provide 'entertainment' for the listening audience. Don't need to go into detail about the 6-minute phone prank that was rebroadcast last week across the U.S. You can find too many solid journalistic accounts of it on the web yourself.
Ironically (and I dare say not coincidentally?), this all took place just one day after Imus's famed comments per the Rutgers women's basketball team, with the two suspendees having mounted a support drive to keep Imus on the air after the fact. Birds of a feather...
I fail to see entertainment value in that type of boorish behavior. Making fun of someone else at their expense and publicly displaying that feeble attempt is nothing less than shameful. We all should take responsibility to be better than that...a lot better. And it's not a matter of "hey, if you don't like it change the station"...back-handed bigotry and racism should not be tolerated on public airwaves. Period. Nor should it be tolerated at all, but in the private domain you have make your own choices in how to respond when you are in such a situation with others.
"Speak your mind,
even if your
voice shakes."
- Maggie Kuhn
Great quote from a great crusader. As the country music lyrics go, "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything." CBS head Leslie Moonves was quoted as saying he was "trying to root out a culture of permissiveness that allowed people to be demeaned." And well he should.
And well we all should.
OK, I don't want to end on a somber introspective note...so here are a couple of cartoons forwarded to me yesterday that I, as a dog lover, got a good chuckle over...
But humor gained by making fun of someone else at their expense is not humor in the slightest. OK, maybe a comedian can get by with it in a comedy club because you basically pay to expect that type of banter...but the latest from the world of radio shock jocks shows there remain many with no class whatsoever.
CBS has suspended and may well fire "The Doghouse with JV and Elvis" crew (Vandergrift and Dan Lay) for allegedly making prank phone calls on-air to Chineese restaurants in New York City, using various lewd comments and stereotypical language to provide 'entertainment' for the listening audience. Don't need to go into detail about the 6-minute phone prank that was rebroadcast last week across the U.S. You can find too many solid journalistic accounts of it on the web yourself.
Ironically (and I dare say not coincidentally?), this all took place just one day after Imus's famed comments per the Rutgers women's basketball team, with the two suspendees having mounted a support drive to keep Imus on the air after the fact. Birds of a feather...
I fail to see entertainment value in that type of boorish behavior. Making fun of someone else at their expense and publicly displaying that feeble attempt is nothing less than shameful. We all should take responsibility to be better than that...a lot better. And it's not a matter of "hey, if you don't like it change the station"...back-handed bigotry and racism should not be tolerated on public airwaves. Period. Nor should it be tolerated at all, but in the private domain you have make your own choices in how to respond when you are in such a situation with others.
"Speak your mind,
even if your
voice shakes."
- Maggie Kuhn
Great quote from a great crusader. As the country music lyrics go, "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything." CBS head Leslie Moonves was quoted as saying he was "trying to root out a culture of permissiveness that allowed people to be demeaned." And well he should.
And well we all should.
OK, I don't want to end on a somber introspective note...so here are a couple of cartoons forwarded to me yesterday that I, as a dog lover, got a good chuckle over...
4 comments:
Amen.
..... and LOVE the cartoons! :)
Suzy :)
And I'll Amen your Amen. I had several more of those dog cartoons I may sprinkle in over the next couple of weeks...they're a hoot!
i don't like humor at the expense of others either. I hope more stations and networks take these talk shows off that demean people.
I'm looking forward to more of the cartoons. If you find and cat cartoons, please include them.
I'll keep my eyes peeled for the cat cartoons, knowing you are a cat lover! Yeah, I've had enough of the shallow shock-jock thing myself. Pathetic attempts at humor, indeed...
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