Just curious why the Imus thread was considered "way off topic" and locked? Personally, I haven't posted on it, but it involves media coverage of sports and language issues/limitations in talking publically about sports which is pretty relevant to a sports message board.

The Imus issue that seems to be rather overlooked is that language is inherently codified. Language subgroups exist everywhere. People develop ways of talking with people who they share understandings with. Whether it's Spanglish, your team's message board, people living on the coast of New England or in New Orleans. Imus was trying speak in the code of a language subgroup he did not belong to, respect or understand which led to the whole thing. It's not about censorship it's more subtle than that.

Also, funny how most of the people posting are more focused on dogging Jackson and Sharpton than anything else. True, Jackson and Sharpton are media pundits who have made a career on working the airways. However, neither is getting paid to basically denigrate people or spread ignorance. Jackson played a key role in integrating NFL upper management and coaching ranks. Without his efforts we wouldn't have had the Bears and Indy in the Super Bowl last year (probably wouldn't have Romeo Crennel running the Browns either, which might be a good thing for Browns fans, but that's another story). Sharpton has the clown thing kinda going on, but for anyone who paid close attention to the 2004 Democratic nominating process, they remember that he was one of the more astute, direct and interesting voices in that whole process. Now, maybe that says something about the state of the Democrats, but Fat Al was concise, engaging and willing to speak truths that other folks were too wimpy to address and he got some deserved respect for that.

Anyways, I won't post more on the Imus thing, but find it kinda funny that we can have dozens of posts on a fairly irrelevent athlete getting busted for a barfight or burglery, but a few posts on something that originates in how the media discusses sports gets locked up right away.