Just when I’m ready to throw Don Imus a bone for at least admitting his comments about the Rutgers women’s basketball team were offensive, he keeps coming out with the kind of tone-deaf comments that only make the situation worse. Basically, his message seems to boil down to this: “I know my comments were inappropriate – but they shouldn’t be considered inappropriate. I should be free to say exactly what I want about whomever I want, as is my sovereign right as a white, heterosexual man, and the objects of my so-called ‘humor’ should just suck it up.”
Grrr. And, sigh. Because there was a time I enjoyed Don Imus and his shtick. His Sun/Pluto conjunction is just about in line with my natal Mercury, and I liked his way with words; I rarely agreed with anything he said, but something about his delivery cracked me up – I’m a sucker for cranky old men. And I thought his philanthropic efforts on behalf of kids with cancer were laudable. But being kind to kids with cancer does not give you a blank check to be a jerk to everyone else. The problem is, Imus seems to believe that it should.
Those of us with planets in Gemini – Don has Venus there, currently being pounded by transiting Pluto; the guy is going to take a huge hit, financially, from all this – have to be careful about using language indiscriminantly. With the Moon in Gemini and square Pluto in Virgo, I have to be constantly vigilant against my own tendency to go for the cheap joke, to toss out a cruel bon mot just because the language is so irresistably clever. So without excusing the content of his language in the least – my opinion is, “Don’t let the studio door hit your ass on the way out, Don” – I kind of know where Imus was coming from. Don’s michief-loving Venus in Gemini has spent too many years slumming around in bad neighborhoods with people who didn’t call him on his jerkitude, and it’s gotten as out of control as a monkey on crack. It’s become an addled little Gemini gremlin that really enjoyed that nasty “nappy-headed hos” remark; I think something about the meter of it, the crisp symmetry of the consonants, just delighted him. It’s too bad that in Imus’ case, Gemini’s natural love of language is too often employed in the service of casual racism and misogyny.
The downfall of Don Imus is a cautionary Gemini tale, one that comes just at the end of Pluto’s sojourn through Gemini’s opposite sign, Sagittarius. It’s a tale worth contemplating with transiting Venus having just entered Gemini yesterday. This particular transit of Venus won’t have an easy time of it. Before leaving Gemini, Venus will square off with Mars and Uranus in Pisces and oppose Jupiter and Pluto in Sagittarius. Casual language and cheap jokes won’t find an indulgent audience – particularly not language that denigrates minorities or that is shocking for the sake of being shocking.
Interestingly, just this morning a radio program on my local NPR station was discussing a proposed “Blogger’s Code of Conduct” to address craven, obscene, and threatening comments posted to blogs. Personally, I don’t think there’s a need for anything quite as formal as that; it’s not that hard to moderate the comments on a blog and to maintain the kind of online environment you want for your readers. But Imus’ problems, and the outcry about threats against blogger Kathy Sierra, are a promising sign to those of us who decry the ugliness and violence that too often pass for public discourse.
