iMac Fired for Controversial Comments

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.

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I think we gave up on Chernobyl too easily. I say that knowing full-well that too much radiation can make your sack blow up like a beach ball and your fruit starts talking to you and shit, which could be plenty scary depending on what the fruit is saying. I know some people who would be terrified no matter what their pear was belching out at them over the breakfast table, but I for one believe you can't live on that uptight of a level. At least I wouldn't consider it living. If I'm greeted to a chorus of "Mornin', Omar" from my fruit bowl in the morning, who's the victim? As long as they don't scream when I eat them, I don't really consider talking fruit to have a downside.

I'm not a doctor, at least when I'm not hard-up for cash, but I've got to imagine the health effects of living in a raging nuclear fallout zone have been overstated. You know how doctors are, one month immense dosages of radiation will turn you into a puddle of goop, the next month they'll give you super powers and you'll live to be 150. It's like the whole red wine thing. I'm willing to take my chances, because even in the worst-case scenario, being a puddle of super-powered goop doesn't sound all bad. No way you've got to pay normal tax rates when you're filing as "goop."

And Chernobyl itself could really be an ideal place to live, when you think about it. It's like an empty readymade city, just without all the giant Barbie dolls and the plastic Thunderbird with nothing under the hood. It'd be like Oklahoma City without the hick smell. They could hold a wild land grab like back in the old west days! Give me a cattle prod and let me loose in that place, trust me; I'll come out of the deal with Bricks Towers under my arm. It may have been Bank of Ruskie before the shit went Three Mile, but now that vault's Foghat's room, Ivan. What can I say; the dog likes to feel secure when he sleeps. Plus I think he might be catching on to the fact that the "Panic Room" in the Bricks Manor is just a walk-in closet with a bunch of pennies jammed in the door frame.

Still not sold on the whole Chernobyl thing? How would you like to wipe your ass with the electricity bill? You'd be living that large in Chernobyl, since who needs electricity when the whole town glows in the dark? And if that shit can power a submarine, it should have no problem juicing up my Mr. Coffee. It would be like solar power, without the suck.

I got to thinking about fallout this week because of The Man's reaction to my oceanizing of the Bricksmobile III: Red Bagel Edition last month when I was down in Panama. Turns out the big Bagel had a real emotional attachment to that car, and a real dead space alien on dry ice in the trunk. That's what he says anyway, the story smelled suspiciously of hooker mishap to me. But if that's the case, he can consider that problem solved, because the only law that's getting into that trunk now is the Fish Police. And it was my understanding that they were cancelled years ago. Bagel always has been the paranoid sort, however, and I don't think he watches TV. Something about mind-control dolphin sounds in the audio mix, I didn't read the whole pamphlet.

So now I'm on the commune shit list, of Bricks List as it's being called at the moment. Quite a change from the Dunkin Detail as it had been known for years. Thanks to my loyal readership of gun nuts, truckers and the vicarious, my ratings the office chicken has been tabulating are keeping me from napping under the axe, but I'm still keeping my options open for a career move to the Far East in case shit goes bad again like last year when I ate all of Bagel's astronaut ice cream. One more mix-up like that and Omar Bricks will be the top name on the commune's Comrade Exchange Program, because I don't think those sly fuckers want Boris Utzov back. Wish me luck.

Bricks Out.

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It's a question that has boggled the bungs of humanity for well over sixty years, and that routinely keeps schoolchildren up on sleepless nights, dooming them to academic lousiness. You may have even blown a couple grand on a research grant yourself, who can remember? It's a question that's stealthy like a porcupine yet insidious as a Mylar toupee: Just what on God's green earth is nougat, anyway?

Sure, it makes candy bars delicious, but where does it come from? Alien DNA? Idaho? Jimmy Hoffa? Who milked it from the space mother's ample tit?

Few will be surprised to discover that nougat is a French word. However, anyone who isn't currently in the process of throwing up will likely be shocked to learn that it's French for "cat's nuts." Can this be correct? Choke back your half-digested Milky Way bar my friends, it's true.

I called the main Hershey's plant in Hershey, PA to confront the chocolatiers with this awful truth, but the representative I spoke too steadfastly denied my allegations, shouting "You are sick, sir! The Hershey's Corporation would never condone such disgusting behavior!" Or at least that's what I think he said, it was hard to make out over the cacophony of cat noises in the background.

Looks like the French have had us again. First it was Speedos for men, and now this nougat. Actually, the nougat joke goes back much further, but to our credit we figured out that they weren't serious about Speedos fairly quickly. Except for our Olympic athletes, but we've always known they were a little fruity themselves.

As with most mysteries, once the main question is answered, it only leaves one with a cluster, or at least a clod, of related questions that spring up from knowing the truth and having the truth be really icky. For those of you who are still reading this after discovering the answer to "WHAT is nougat?" it's time to delve into the sticky conundrum of "HOW is nougat?" For the record, we're not going to get into "WHICH is nougat?" because that phrase has been optioned as a gameshow title by CBS and I don't want to get into any legal trouble here.

Candy bar manufacture is a delicate and fascinating process that dates back to the early 1990's. Some may argue that candy bars were manufactured before then but I assure you that's your memory playing tricks on you. We all like to fondly remember the candy bars of our youth, and few want to confront the fact that our parents just gave us dates and figs and told us they were candy. It's okay, we were naĂŻve then but it's time to move on. Most of our parents have had strokes by now and I'm sure they've learned their lessons. Let's stay strong and discuss candy bar manufacture like adults.

The first step in making any candy bar (and I'm not talking about Almond Joys here, I said "candy bar") is preparing the chocolate. In the early days of candy bar manufacture this was accomplished by having armies of third-graders chew up chocolate Easter bunnies and spit them back out onto a conveyer belt. Things have come a long way since those days and now the process is much more automated, now that we have machines to take the Easter bunnies out of their wrappers and insert them into the third-graders' mouths. Once the third-graders have made the chocolate soft and malleable, it is conveyed to a storage tank to await the preparation of the other candy bar ingredients.

On the other side of the factory you have two rooms: the peanut room and the nougat room. Inside the peanut room, scores of workers in white hairnets toil endlessly, picking peanuts out of chunky peanut butter and tossing them down the peanut chute. Across the isle in the nougat room men with goggles and wooden mallets go in one end, bushels of live cats go in the other, and the only thing that comes out is nougat. Perhaps one day Oliver Stone will make a film about the mayhem that takes place inside, but until then I say we leave it alone.

The nougat center is first formed into very large slabs, which are cut to size after being strafed by the peanut gun. After the centers are formed they are coated with thick, rich milk chocolate, through a process called "enrobing." The actual enrobing process begins when the centers pass through an explosive shitstorm of liquid chocolate, which coats the top and sides of the bar. At the same time, a rotating chocolate-covered collie beneath the mesh belt coats the base of the bar. To ensure an attractive, glossy, smooth coating, the bars are continuously licked by Swedish children throughout the entire process. The fully enrobed bar is then cooled and prepared for the wind tunnel.

So the next time you're strolling past a vending machine, stop for a minute and think of all of the hard work that's gone into the candy bars you see displayed before you. Not that you'd actually eat the nasty things, but you could at least observe a moment of silence for the cats, and the Swedish children destined to die of "Black Tongue" just so we can have our Snickers.

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