[Artwork by MIKE HAMMEMEISTER]
THINK PROGRESS: ThinkProgress has obtained an internal memo from Premiere Radio Networks listing 96 national companies that have “specifically asked” their advertisments not be played during the Rush Limbaugh Show. Premiere is the distributor of Limbaugh’s program. The advertisers have also requested to be excluded from other right-wing hosts including Michael Savage, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. According to the memo, the listed companies’ advertisements should be excluded from these programs because they have been “deemed to be offensive.” Previously, ThinkProgress has reported that 50 companies requested their advertising be pulled from the Rush Limbaugh show following his sexist attacks on Sandra Fluke. The publication of the memo adds an additional 90 companies to the list of companies that have dropped Limbaugh. MORE
THE WRAP: His syndicator, Premiere Networks, withdrew its national advertising spots from his and other talk shows for two weeks on Monday, the same day that Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem called for the Federal Communications Commission to yank the right-wing radio host’s license.”We are suspending the requirement to run barter spots for two weeks, March 12th and March 19th, for our News/Talk affiliates only,” read an internal memo from Premiere Networks, obtained by radio-info.com, a site that covers the radio business. Premiere, Limbaugh’s syndicator, has the right to sell some national ads as “barter spots,” ad inventory provided as part of their network-wide syndication deal. Radio insiders explained that giving up those paid spots was highly unusual. But Limbaugh’s spokesman denied to TheWrap that Premiere’s decision was connected to the controversy over Limbaugh’s remarks about Fluke. MORE
NEW YORK TIMES: When attacking a woman by questioning her sexual mores, there’s a smorgasbord of slurs, and you can take your rancid pick. Help me out here: where are the comparable nouns for men? What’s a male slut? A role model, in some cases. In others, a presidential candidate.“Gigolo” doesn’t have the acid or currency of “whore,” and the man with bedpost notches gets compliments. He’s a Casanova, a conquistador. The lady is a tramp. While both men and women are called idiots and puppets and frauds, only women are attacked in terms of suspected (or flat-out hallucinated) licentiousness. And only for women is there such a brimming, insidious thesaurus of accordant pejoratives. Decades after the dawn of feminism, despite the best efforts of everyone from Erica Jong to Kim Cattrall, women are still seen through an erotically censorious prism, and promiscuity is still the ultimate putdown. It’s antediluvian, and it’s astonishing. You’d think our imaginations would have evolved, even if our humanity hasn’t. MORE