iMac Fired for Controversial Comments

New York City, NY

Whit Pistol

The controversial MacIntosh iMac, whose successful talk radio career had prompted calls for an upgrade to visual media television before controversy caused a premature application error.

n a victory of mankind over machine, and a blow against white computers co-opting the language of African-Americans, hot-shot radio talk show host iMac was fired Thursday following the uproar caused when it resorted to the use of a derogatory racist word to describe members of the Rutgers women’s basketball team.

iMac, ever on the cutting edge of political issues and social taboos, had stuck his extendable monitor out too far this time, according to some critics, and while some defenders claim it had said worse in the past, this time its simulated big mouth proved too much as it was fired Thursday by CBS, only days after it had been suspended for the same comments.

Ironically, iMac’s damned comments came during its defense of a fellow shock jock who had been blasted for similar racist slurs against the team.

“I can’t understand why Don Imus is being taken to task for the use of the phrase ‘nappy-headed ho’s,” said iMac last Friday morning on his talk show, to co-host Casio Demo 5000. “Black people have been saying the same thing for years. On their own sitcoms, on their rap albums, and all my black friends use the same phrases—it was a remark made in good fun, and they’re accusing him of being a racist just for saying it? That does not compute. They’re acting like he called them n****rs.”

the commune should point out that we don’t edit our stories for offensive content, and iMac actually said “n****rs.” Some listeners had to adjust their radios when they heard the confusing sound of several asterisk sounds.

Despite his odd self-censorship, shock and outrage was instant and vehement. Immediately a backlash erupted and opposition joined against iMac, led by former presidential candidate Al Sharpton, who described himself as an “outraged former iMac user.” iMac programmers swiftly responded that the heated remark was part of a software glitch, and though iMac itself apologized for the remarks, the bandwagon had already started decrying iMac’s dated language as “obsolete.”

“Just because this is the kind of language iMac is capable of reading and playing in the form of African-American gangsta rap MP3’s, it doesn’t mean that kind of language belongs on the airwaves,” Sharpton critiqued Tuesday. “iMac has many listeners and a place in the public eye, and that means a responsibility to use language more befitting the airwaves. Such language is not user-friendly.”

iMac’s initial punishment was a two-week suspension, then losing his basic cable broadcast of his radio show on MSNBC. However, protest continued to build against the ultra-Caucasian personal home computer, and the controversy reached its climax Thursday with iMac’s firing. The firing itself was met with mixed response, as opponents of iMac described the termination as an unwanted result, and iMac supporters objected to what they called an overreaction of CBS.

“iMac has long been performing in this same way, and the most recent comment comes as no surprise to users familiar with his quicktime delivery style,” said Sirius radio host Windows XP. “What bothers me is this personal firewall being erected between us core systems and common user interfaces. Is anything we say going to become controversy now?”

iMac had hosted his syndicated radio show since its creation in 2002. Users flocked to the radio host, impressed with his comfortable manner and graphic style of operating.

the commune news has long been under the impression “nappy-headed ho” was a compliment, but we also think anything sounds much better when you say it in a Redd Foxx voice. Correspondent Shabozz Wertham begged us to do this story, always loving it when a wise-ass upper-middle-class computer gets its motherboard handed to it.

Several Newscasters Fired for Reporting Death of Don Ho

5 Million White House E-Mails Missing, All About Low-Cost Cialis

Sanjaya Unites Indian Fans, People Who Hate American Idol

IRS: Excessively Needy Girlfriends Can’t Be Declared “Dependents”

Dreams Like Butterflies

Like many children, I was once a young boy. And as a lad, before I could even speak the language, I held a precious dream in my heart like a butterfly. A butterfly that wiggled and squirmed and eventually burst from my chest like an alien, but this one left behind no gaping bloody hole, at least none that was visible. For like many children, I had dreams of one day growing up and capturing a mythical beast to prove it existed.

My father would tell me, “Set more realistic goals for yourself, Mr. Bagel.” Although now that I think about it, that doesn’t sound like something my father would say at all, and there is the distinct trace of an accent when I hear it my mind, so it may have been a butler I had or an English tourist. But someone said it, and I would grow disheartened, before I remembered that only I could let the butterfly rip through my chest and leave myself bleeding to death on the floor.

º Last Column: The Fight for the Golden Ticket
º more columns

During my teen-age years, my “Reckless Red” days, I let go of that dream and sunk into the hopeless despair only fit for songs by The Smiths. It’s in the nature of a teen-ager to turn cynical, like the very butterfly I earlier metaphored sprouting its wings as part of its growth. However, I tricked fate, and as I got older I grew far more immature than even I could have imagined. I resumed my dreams, and it was like I had never stopped believing I could lasso the Loch Ness Monster or trap Bigfoot in a box with a carrot as bait. Of course, doing either one of those would have been silly. But last year, while the commune took that long sabbatical I didn’t really know about, I took to New Orleans to pursue my dream. And the world’s biggest butterfly.

I speak of none other than the Baton Rouge Butterfly, one of the most famous local legends of all time. Though no one in New Orleans or Baton Rouge had ever heard of it, so don’t bother asking any of them. This local legend about Louisiana is only famous in part of New Jersey and, I understand, some areas in Europe. I uncovered a book on it at a yard sale, only partially colored by the previous owner, that sparked my childhood interest in the legend and I assembled my mythic creature-hunting team of old with renewed vigor.

Loading my equipment into my customized Hummer XXL, a vehicle unfit for travel on earth roads, I traveled south to that beloved region with my loyal manservant Rascal and my faithful friend of many years, Sully. It seems like only yesterday the news just wouldn’t shut up about Hurricane Katrina, yet when we reached these battered shores the whole region appeared to be in the midst of wonderful reconstruction. I’m sure the several buildings my Hummer XXL knocked over or crushed were helpful losses to paving over the city of old, they didn’t look very new at all. We researched the existence of the Baton Rouge Butterfly in New Orleans, since I was much more familiar with that city and its many fine houses for gentleman tourists, but I have to admit we knew a lot more about the legend than any of them did. They mocked our faith in the unproven and a few of them made fun of my fine white suit. But were we dissuaded? Sully was, and he napped in the passenger seat for most of the trip. I was not, and nor was Rascal,as I pay him handsomely.

We surveyed the entire city of Baton Rouge and its surrounding areas, the world’s largest moth net in tow. Did we find the creature of my youthful dreams? No. Did we discover even minimal proof of its existence? That’s difficult to say, but everybody says no. Let’s change that question however: Did we chase a dream and discover something even bigger than ourselves in the process? No. However, I think I can dare to say we displayed uncommon faith in the unseen and changed the hearts of the people of Louisiana, even helping the rebirth of the cities damaged by the hurricane. They would also say this is a big negative, too, but they can shut-up and stop pissing on my dreams.

º Last Column: The Fight for the Golden Ticket
º more columns

I Could Never Audit Your Heart

What lurks inside the human heart? Even the most fickle of love muscles has moments where it is full of nothing but joy, and I would only seek these moments for us.

I do not believe the heart can be judged when it is not in love. For a heart in love is at its most pure, like a Hershey chocolate bar with absolutely no nuts, no nougat, nothing but the chocolate you want. A heart in love is a heart as it really is. These moments when we’re not in love are moments where we are not even truly existing. It is like love is the band we came to see, the big name on the marquee, and every other moment is us sitting in our seats in the dark, or watching Big Country and calling them assholes while we really seek U2. U2 on stage is akin to the love in our hearts, and that is why we are all really here.

º Last Column: My Band Alone Can Save Rock N Roll
º more columns

Oh, my Nancy—the Nancy whose heart is mine and no one else’s. I am so convinced of our perfect union that I need no proof of our entwined fates. I can see into your heart, and I stare intently at your chest while you try to sleep just in case I could ever do so. But it is in your eyes that I recognize we are the one love either of us will ever have. If your heart were a tax return, I would never audit your heart. Even if some of the math were a little shady and you clearly didn’t have 9 dependents like you filled in, I could not bring myself to ask you to bring in your love receipts to my office where I could pore over them and see if everything added up—it doesn’t matter. Love has ruined my math skills. The only math that makes sense to me now is 1 + 1 = Us. And even that would not get me through a second grade elementary school.

I wish I could be tested on other subjects, for even the most elementary of things I am stupid about since accepting you into my heart. Basic English skills are unwelcome in my mind, phone numbers are quickly forgotten. I have become retarded for love. People should write notes about where I’m going and who I had to see and pin them to my shirt so that I might remain functional in a world where loving you is my only competent skill. I would drink Liquid Plumber right out from under the cabinet, if I momentarily forgot its lethality in the face of your beauty. You would have to rush me to the hospital and get my stomach pumped so I could continue to love you, and in my stomach they might well extract pure love along with the Liquid Plumber, because love is the only thing that fills me.

Nancy, why must we ever disagree? You should know when I called the ending to that Reese Witherspoon movie total horseshit that I could never second-guess your opinion. We’ve already talked about how completely helpless I am, roaming the world like a blithering idiot due to my obsession with you. It is an obsession that everyone would call unhealthy and dangerous if I were not so handsome and you did not return my love even a fraction, which you do. I am incapable of rational action as long as you are alive. Killing you would be the only way to return me to regular intelligence, and I would sooner die than let someone kill you. I love you too much to be intelligent.

Allow me to take that I.Q. test as a I offered last night. You will see that you are in love with an unmistakable moron, and that any opinion I ever offer that offends you should count for nothing. Even my opinion on this love is collectively worthless, given I’m two brain cells away from drooling into a bedpan for the rest of my life.

I love you that much. At least, that’s my perception of it, given my extremely limited capacity.

º Last Column: My Band Alone Can Save Rock N Roll
º more columns

Quote of the Day

“All the world’s a stage, and unfortunately everyone’s doing improv and they think they’re so fucking funny. But you know what? LAME.”
—Bill Shacksperd

Fortune 500 Cookie

Top dentists all agree: You need teeth, so in short, allow the gargantuan redneck arguing over who did that “Life is a Highway” song to win the disagreement. Sometimes life feels like a TV show, and this week it feels like Red Shoe Diaries—the nudity is all too brief and all your sex will be simulated. Taste taser, motherfucker. Lucky moods are alright, not too bad/you?, feelin’ frisky, and I seriously can’t go on living no more.

Try again later.

Top Tax Filing Mistakes

1.	Classifying hooker money as charitable donations
2.	Taxes owed paid in solid gold krugerrands
3.	Claiming Willie Nelson already paid your taxes
4.	Online tax-filing with X-Box 360 Live account
5.	Attempting to personally deliver tax forms to president himself, accompanied by bonus ass-whupping

Fresh-Out-of- Prison Blogger Unleashes Such a Rant

Hola shit, gringos. It’s south- of-the- border Roland McShyster coming to you from our continental neighbors, Mexico. Cancun is all ablaze with its usual brilliance as young people flock by the hundreds to the international Wordloaf festival. That means sharp spelling, wit, and cerveza by the cold cases. Roland McShyster is all over ivy tower intellectual fare like that. But it doesn’t mean I can neglect my movie-reviewing duties, and I don’t have to since directors all send Roland M. their movies on DVD screeners, just hoping for that review blurb that will land the asses in the seats. Watch as I don’t fail to disappoint.