HUBRIS WEIGHTED DOWN BY ARROGANCE IS SOMETHING OF A STOCK-IN-TRADE among elements weird and/or unwholesome who associate or otherwise identify themselves with racist or white-supremacist causes and movements.

I say this considering where this element is all the more likely to be emotionally unstable or otherwise unlikely to face the bitter reality of an all the more interdependent 21st century world built on tolerance, diversity and multiculturalism, preferring instead to live in a past where Jim Crow and apartheid held high carnival for no useful purpose other than maintaining white arrogance.

And invoking Divine Right and Will (not to mention such reinforcing arguments as "rights by conquest") to excuse such arrogant policies that these elements vulnerable see as a Sanctii Sanctorum entitled them "as of birthright***by virtue of race and racial identity."

And fear and paranoia are what they thrive on. Fear that their "traditional rights, privileges and powers" could be "denied them without due process of law" (to use a pathetically likely patsy of theirs) and paranoia that "loss of our traditional honour and privilege" could be all the more imminent, or otherwise coming without warning.

No doubt explaining many such racists and white supremacists being, perhaps, emotionally disturbed themselves--and yet unlikely to come to terms with same, let alone seek help out of fear that accepting same could be seen as one with "failing to serve [their] race and racial duty" and which, in its turn, could "undermine our racial integrity."

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YOUR CORRESPONDENT BRINGS UP THE ABOVE AS BACKGROUNDER, SO TO SPEAK, for what I am about to discuss @ this time.

The which will be made known presently, and which are no doubt certain to stoke the flames of paranoia and fear among white-supremacist elements @ both ends of the proverbial candle, so to speak.

The more arrogant, philestine element (a/k/a "dittoheads" and "white trailer park trash") who could identify with the Ku Klux Klan and suchlike who see fear and violence as necessary to their hopeless cause, for one.

And, for the other, the "polite" Brooks Brothers crowd (a/k/a "the Four Hundred") who could identify with the Council of Conservative Citizens (successors to the so-called "White Citizens' Councils" of the Civil Rights era) and such whose model is more along the lines of "hail-fellow-well-met" Babbittry rather than the old ultraviolence.

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OK, OK, BACK TO THE TOPIC @ HAND:

For starters, there was the contrition-laden speech of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd before the Parliament "Down Under" apologising for past policies of mistreatment, segregation and contempt towards the Aboriginal peoples of Australia.

For which he was right to say "I am sorry" for now-discredited policies as created what Australian Aboriginals call "the stolen generation" thereof between the mid-1920's and the early 1970's, when social workers forcibly removed Aboriginal children from their families and communities and "resettled" them in mission schools under the prevailing (and, in our modern way of thinking, misguided) belief that such action was necessary to "save [the Aboriginal peoples] from themselves" in much the same manner as our own "morally superior" policies of forcibly relocating Native Americans to reservation lands (including the so-called "Indian Territory" as is now part of Oklahoma).

And, for the other, the recent amazing success of Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama, himself of colour, in the several Presidential primaries and caucuses to date preparatory to Indecision 2008--no doubt further stoking the paranoia among racists and white-supremacists about "loss of [their] traditional rights, privileges and powers" if a man of colour were to be elected President.

Which these weird and unwholesome types would love to prevent "by whatever means necessary," even if it means using outright ultraviolence most sadisto. And invoking The Fourteen Words as a defence, hoping such would provoke race war stateside that so-called "militias" with racist connexions will further stoke, exploiting all the while the diversion of "official" United States troops to the Iraqi and Afghani fronts of the ur-RAHOWA Against Terrorism.

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IT'S NO WONDER RACISTS AND WHITE SUPREMACISTS @ BOTH ENDS OF THE CANDLE, SO TO SPEAK, are all the more afraid of what's been going on of late.

Afraid to the point of having hopelessly incurable cases of insomnia beyond even Rozerem and Lunesta. Or, for that matter, their old reliable of a mug of hot milk @ bedtime.

So what will make these elements weird and unwholesome see the errors of their ways short of Divine Judgement?

"Think about it"   

"SPAM" E-MAIL PROMOTING ADULT WEBSITES WILL SOMETIMES FEATURE "BARELY LEGAL" as a come-on in the Subject line to attract the unwary and unsophisticate into what could really be closer to child-pornography websites.

Especially considering the possibility that such "barely legal" types so featured in sexually-suggestive poses may really be lying about their ages under pressure from parents tricking their children sold off to "modelling" agencies as are probably ruses for child pornography. Sold off, for the most part, because of financial problems (real or imagined, especially such as could trigger charges of Moral Hazard in certain circles) and a desire to avoid what they preceive as the stigma and shame of being reduced to going on State welfare--especially when they invoke platitudes about their having been taught to never ask for charity lest such "weaken their moral strength."

Not to mention the possibility of a number of welfare families tricking especially vulnerable children into "modelling" (child pornography) jobs to spare their family further financial harm--all the more possible in what could be an emerging state of socioeconomic dislocation.

The fact of which our Japanese brethren are seconding, perhaps with the proverbial grain of salt, by way of this recent "WaiWai" column per the Mainichi Daily News of Tokyo:

Large numbers of Japanese men are falling victim to scams perpetrated by young women pretending to be turning tricks, but it doesn't have to be that way, according to Spa! (1/22).

Of course, the best way for men to avoid falling into a trap is to avoid falling in with schoolgirls or other women engaging in the practice of enjo kosai - the term translating literally as "compensated dating" that acts as a euphemism for prostitution.

But the men's weekly says that for guys who simply can't help themselves, there are plenty of steps that can be taken to make sure they stay safe.

"If you just want to have sex--as opposed to deliberately looking for a young girl to give it to you--avoid the underaged. Anybody advertising their services on a major matchmaking site with the claim that they're 18 or 19 is almost certainly under age," a man identified only as Mr. I, a self-professed expert on using young hookers, tells Spa! "And watch out for those who use a lot of picture characters and smileys in their e-mail, because that's almost the lingua franca among teens. Make sure you insist she tells her your age and get her to mail you a message stating that she's over 18. Guard that mail with your life."

Mr. I argues that appearances are also an important area where men can defend themselves.

"Girls dressed flamboyantly in really gaudy outfits should put your mind at ease when it comes to the underaged," he says. "The biggest fear for minors on the game is getting picked up by the cops, so they won't do anything with their appearance that makes them stand out in a crowd."

And Mr. I also emphasizes the importance of thorough preparation.

"To make sure you don't get conned by a girl with a scam, make sure you arrive at any meeting place well ahead of the scheduled time. You can use the extra time to work out whether the girl is underage. If she is still a minor, she'll often turn up nearby with a group of friends who'll hang out close by and wait for her to finish. If she's on the con, there may be a guy in the vicinity, too," Mr. I says. "Before meeting her, find a hiding spot and check out whether she's your type and what she's doing. Also get a feel for the area and work out an escape route, just in case. Con artists often hang out in groups in family restaurants or convenience stores, so check out these places to see if there's anything suspicious. If you go into a hotel, make sure you enter separately and preferably leave by a different exit to her when she's finished (to avoid being waylaid by stand over merchants). If you get there by car, park some distance away so she can't learn the license number and use it against you."

The men's weekly says Mr. I has learned the hard way about how men can protect themselves--his past includes an arrest for using an underage sex worker and several instances where women selling sex have ended up pulling a scam on him. His advice if a girl still tries to blackmail a punter who has gone through all his defensive steps but falters at the last hurdle?

"Go to the cops, tell them you've used an underage prostitute and say she's trying to blackmail you. If you own up immediately, you'll get fined, but there's no reason why they'll ever tell your family or your company about it and nobody needs to know," Mr. I tells Spa! "It's not the same as being investigated by the police, but if you are gonna lie, make sure you tell them you thought she was a high school girl and not someone from junior high."

But then again, "mistake as to age" is not an acceptable legal defence in the circumstances....

FIRST OFF, YOUR CORRESPONDENT WISHES TO APOLOGISE @ THIS TIME FOR THE TARDINESS OF THESE COMMENTS on the news appearing in this blog.

He was held up a little bit @ the motel here in Winona this morning while Mein Innkeeper Friend had to run on an errand to get an anti-stomachic for his daughter, requiring me to keep the que vive in the office for awhile. Followed by a shopping trip to the Watkins Museum Store here in Winona to buy some new-stylee furniture polish and toilet bowl cleaner for his flat.

(I acknowledge a fondness for Watkins Products @ this time out of hometown loyalties, never mind the price. As along as I'm @ it here, I should also point out that Watkins' new Lemon Liquid Laundry Detergent Concentrate, blended with Calgon--blame it on the hardness of the local water supply--has produced some rather pleasant results in the laundry since I began using it.

(One slight problem, though: With the laundry detergent, there's a serious want of clear measurement advice on the cap. Fortunately, though, Watkins has pledged to look into the matter, and plans to bring in caps that contain measuring marks.)

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GETTING BACK TO MOTELS FOR A MOMENT, Your Correspondent would like to start a modest little campaign through this blog.

As in urging ye who travel, be it for business or pleasure, to start spending more time in the smaller, indepenendent motels and resorts as manage to hold their own in the face of stiff competition from the sterile and antiseptic "cookie-cutter" predictability of the major chains.

Which, come to think of it, can get to wear on you after awhile.

Any of you care to agree?

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THE RACISTS AND WHITE SUPREMACISTS AMONG US ARE STARTING TO WHINE AND POUT AND CATERWAUL in their own senseless and helpless way about the news that whites could be a National Minority in the United States by the 2050 Census.

Guaranteed, no doubt, to call for appeals to "racial honour and integrity" to excuse deliberately unprotected displays of fornication whereby The Fourteen Words ("We must secure the Existance of our Race and a Future for White Children") will be used as both defence and excuse--especially among "right-thinking Aryan Youth" not expected to realise that they're committing an illegal act under normal circumstances.

Remember apartheid South Africa's "Make Babies for Botha" campaigns in the mid-1980's?

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ONE LIKELY CULPRIT IN THE ONGOING OBESITY WAR happens to be artificial sweetnners based on saccharin (usually in pink packets), which Sweet & Low popularised after the FDA banned cyclamates for sweetening purposes in 1969 as having carcinogenic properties.

As it turned out, the same FDA would raise questions about saccharin nearly ten years later, prompting them to require the following caveat on products containing saccharin:

USE OF THIS PRODUCT MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH. THIS PRODUCT CONTAINS SACCHARIN, WHICH HAS BEEN DETERMINED TO CAUSE CANCER IN LABORATORY ANIMALS.

The which, it turns out, could actually have been based on flawed or otherwise faulty research procedures. (Similar claims have been suggested for such which led to the cyclamates ban.)

Now, you have aspertame (light blue packet) and sucralose (Splenda; yellow packet) competing with saccharin, which some have suggested may be equally to blame for the obesity problem.

And Another Thing:

Since the mid-1970's, soft-drink manufacturers have been using high-fructose corn sweetners instead of sugar--"to cut costs," or so the official line hath it.

Which, too, have been held to blame for obesity problems.

Now that corn is likely to become more expensive because of its diversion in large measure to ethanol production (@ least until switchgrass-based ethanol becomes socioeconomically feasable enough to produce in cost-efficent stylee), can we expect soft drink companies to return to using sugar within measurable distance?

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START STOCKING UP ON THOSE "FOREVER" RATE STAMPS @ YOUR POST OFFICE, boys and girls: From 12 May, letterpost rates will increase by a penny (i.e., 42¢ for letters, 27¢ for postcards), per edict of the Postal Rate Commission just announced.

By buying the "Forever" rate stamps now, you can be ready for the forthcoming letterpost rate increases, as same are designed to cover any ensuing increase in letterpost rates subsequent to their purchase.

Meanwhile, read what the Federal Trade Commission found (shock! horror!!) about how certain laws and policies as apply to the Postal Service (notably the Government-Protected Monopoly on universal letterpost service) may be @ variance with established consumer law and policy as applies to competing delivery services like UPS, FedEx and DHL.

*************

FROM THE "IT'S A SMALL WORLD, AFTER ALL" DOSSIER, with particular regards to Parental Responsibility for the Acts, Deeds and Exploits of their children--via news.com.au's AdelaideNow portal:

PARENTS of children who repeatedly break the law could be fined, have their televisions seized or be made to attend counselling under a radical plan to crack down on juvenile crime in the Northern Territory.

Youth camps and compulsory guidance workshops are also part of the three-pronged attack on anti-social behaviour announced today by NT Chief Minister Paul Henderson.

"As part of the plan, juvenile diversion will no longer be a revolving door. Parents will be made more accountable and youth camps will help get kids back on track,'' Mr Henderson said.

"Our community is paying the price for a small group of kids who don't respect the law, their parents or the public - and enough is enough.''

As part of the package, legislation will be introduced to parliament that holds parents accountable for their children's criminal activity.

"The contractual agreements will require parents to better monitor their children and may require parents to attend counselling or guidance programs,'' Mr Henderson said.

He said parents who refused to enter an agreement, or those who breached their agreement, faced a court-imposed Family Responsibility Order.

They could also be forced to pay fines of up to A$2,200 (US$1,985/C$1,988/£1,012/€1,362/¥213,147) or face the seizure of non-essential household items such as plasma televisions and stereos.

The bill also prevents juvenile offenders being referred to diversion programs more than twice.

"Repeat offenders will have to go to court to face the consequence of their actions, including detention,'' Mr Henderson said, adding that a youth camp would be established in the Top End.

"We want to get those kids who are at risk of criminal offending back on the right path, as well as give guidance and support to others who need to build self-esteem, develop life and work skills, get back in to school and reconnect with family,'' Mr Henderson said.

Opposition Leader Terry Mills welcomed the move.

"Putting troublesome teenagers through the physical and emotional rigours of a boot camp can help drag them away from other unhealthy influences,'' he said, adding that time would tell if the overall package worked.

"It is easy for governments to announce tough new measures. Territory Labor has made a habit of it,'' he said.

"The difficult part is turning vague policy commitments into effective programs.''

Which the Fox Noise crowd would certainly love to recommend for the "morally superior" United States, targeting in particular the likes of such deemed "chronic and habitual welfare cases***lacking any healthy respect for industry, self-reliance, personal responsibility, thrift and a Wholesome and Simple Home Life" based, methinks, on Rabbie Burns' "The Cotter's Saturday Night."

Especially if the corrective measures are "faith-based."

AS IF THE DECLINE OF GREYHOUND WASN'T ALREADY DESPERATE ENOUGH for the intercity motorcoach industry in the United States, never mind where the K Street crowd sees same as a better use of resources than continuing to subsidise Amtrak (forever seen by that ilk as "wasteful," "unnecessary" and "pandering to nostalgic feelings unrelated to Reality"), there seems to be a woeful lack of healthy competition there as would appease K Street enough.

Which K Street will quickly blame on "undue and unnecessary regulatory burden," to use a rather lame platitude as ignores the presence of Megabus (a Stagecoach Group joint offering cut-price bus services on "hub-and-spoke" networks out of Chicago and now Los Angeles, with fares as low as $1 single) and Chinese motorcoach operators (whose Chinese name translates as the rather colourful "wild chicken trucks") along the Northeast Corridor (the ignorance of the latter, perhaps, suggesting some class of racist jealousy up there with many of the same arguments used in the late 19th century to justify blanket bans on Chinese immigration into the United States).

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AGAINST THIS BACKROP, PERHAPS IT MIGHT BE INTERESTING to imagine the possibilities of some company operating overnight motorcoach services with specially reclining seats similar to what VIA Rail Canada used to call "Dayniter" (as in reclining to a sleeping position @ night) along many of the same corridors which, for example, Megabus operates in the Midwest out of Chicago, with provision for a rest stop about halfway into the journey to allow the passengers to stretch their legs and have a light snack.

One such I have imagined this being possible would be between Chicago and the Twin Cities, with the rest break @ Tomah, Wisconsin--which could also be the rest stop on a hypothetical overnight bus between Chicago and the Twin Ports (Duluth/Superior).

As if that weren't enough: In the interest of the environment, consideration ought be given to having the buses run on biodiesel (in particular the sort derived from a variety of bitter hazelnuts whose planting is being encouraged as a way to stabilise hillsides @ risk of soil erosion) or, failing that, cheap, stinking chip oil such as is otherwise left to waste from fast-food restaurants of the worst sort.

After all, even those cut-price motels with their "cookie-cutter" sterility and predictability can easily get to travellers after awhile. So how about considering some class of overnight bus as a viable alternative to such insanity-producing sterility @ cut prices?

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MEMO TO K STREET: Satisfied with what I suggested?

MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA, IN ITS ROLE AND POSITION AS WATCHDOG AND MONITOR FOR CONSERVATIVE BIAS, "SPIN" AND PERVERSION of journalistic standards that a certain Britt Reid would find so loathsome and vile that he'd be quick to send in his Green Hornet personna against the purveyors thereof, has been taking especially close que vive @ MSNBC of late in response to a pattern of sexist, chauvinistic and misogynistic comments from the lips of Chris "Hardball" Matthews.

If the following by Jamison Foser is any indication, One MSNBC Plaza still has a lot to do in cleaning up its depraved act:

Three weeks ago, in the wake of Chris Matthews' quasi-apology for one of his countless objectionable comments about women in general and Hillary Clinton specifically, I argued that Matthews' apology was not enough. Neither Matthews nor MSNBC had acknowledged that the problem ran far deeper than one comment by Matthews--and their failure to make such an acknowledgement was an ominous sign that the apology would not be accompanied by a change in behavior, no matter how forcefully Matthews insisted: "I get it."

So what has happened in those three weeks?

MSNBC has turned Matthews' purported apology into a promotional campaign, using clips of his statement to advertise MSNBC programming. Not the parts of the statement in which he acknowledged having been "callous," "nasty," and "dismissive" toward Hillary Clinton, of course--the parts in which he spoke of his love for politics.

Turning a forced apology into a promotional campaign seems like a pretty good sign that MSNBC and Matthews don't "get it" at all.

But it isn't the best sign. Consider what else has happened during MSNBC broadcasts since Matthews' apology.

First, Matthews' MSNBC colleagues leapt to his defense. Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough and reporter David Shuster lashed out; Scarborough declaring it "offensive" and "outrageous" that Matthews had to apologize, and Shuster adding "this is absolutely infuriating, to see the way these groups used him for pure political gain is absolutely infuriating." As I noted at the time, Scarborough and Shuster have their own history of questionable comments about women:

At the end of his rant, Scarborough insisted, "This ain't about Hillary Clinton's campaign."

Scarborough got that part right. This isn't about Hillary Clinton's campaign. This is about a consistent pattern of misogynistic comments by Chris Matthews. Comments about and directed toward a variety of women. A consistent pattern of Matthews objectifying women. And a consistent pattern of MSNBC looking the other way.

It's about an MSNBC host saying things like this: "I've been trying to call Alessandra Stanley with The New York Times for some time just to have lunch with her, and she thinks it's because I'm trying to influence her--that's not the case at all, it's because, I was surprised, I saw a picture of her and I thought she was kinda hot!"

That one wasn't Chris Matthews, though. That one was ... Joe Scarborough.

It's about things like a male MSNBC host describing a woman running for president as "shrill" (and "very shrill") and asking, "[W]hat about her housekeeping skills?" Those were Joe Scarborough, too.

MSNBC's David Shuster also chimed in with a defense of Matthews: "[T]o see him have to go through this is absolutely infuriating, to see the way these groups used him for pure political gain is absolutely infuriating."

But this isn't about political gain. This isn't about one comment about Hillary Clinton, or even 30 comments about Hillary Clinton: This is about Chris Matthews' pattern of inappropriate treatment of women, and about MSNBC's continued acceptance of it. It's about things like a male journalist doing a mocking "impersonation" of the women who host The View - an impersonation that featured a high-pitched, whiny voice.

That one wasn't Chris Matthews, either. That one was ... David Shuster.

Then, after defending their colleague, it was back to business as usual for NBC/MSNBC reporters.

Tim Russert suggested that there is irony in a "self-avowed feminist" having shown "some emotion," as though feminists are the dour, humorless beings Rush Limbaugh and Tucker Carlson think they are. At least Russert stopped short of using the term "feminazis."

A few days later, Tucker Carlson mocked the idea that Hillary Clinton could have been a "victim of gender discrimination," noting that she had gone to Yale Law School. Clinton's comments about "gender equality," to which Carlson was purportedly responding, were in fact general, and not about her specifically. And his invocation of Clinton's graduation from Yale Law as evidence of a lack of gender inequity in her life was just bizarre: As Clinton noted in her autobiography, "When I entered Yale Law School in the fall of 1969, I was one of twenty-seven women out of 235 students to matriculate. This seems like a paltry number now, but it was a breakthrough at the time and meant that women would no longer be token students at Yale."

Incidentally, Carlson doesn't seem to have defended Matthews. Maybe he didn't want to draw attention to his own on-air behavior:

And then there's MSNBC host Tucker Carlson, who has described Hillary Clinton as "whining" and suggested the reason there are so few women in Congress is that "most women are so sensible, they don't want to get involved in something as stupid as politics" and said of Clinton, "[W]hen she comes on television, I involuntarily cross my legs," and described her as "castrating, overbearing, and scary." (MSNBC can't say they didn't know what they were getting when they hired Carlson; before joining the cable channel, he said women "want to be spanked vigorously every once in a while" and told Elle magazine that Clinton is his "guilty fantasy," explaining: "Every time I see her I think I could, you know, help. ... She seems tense.")

On January 23, an (all-male) Morning Joe panel laughed along as Mike Barnicle compared Hillary Clinton to "everyone's first wife standing outside a probate court."

Then on January 30, Joe Scarborough told co-host Mika Brzezinski, "Mika, don't make me backhand you."

On February 4, Matthews led a panel discussion of what the Associated Press described as Clinton's "emotional reunion Monday with a colleague from the early days of her legal career as a child advocate." The discussion featured a suggestion that Clinton had cried on purpose in order to win votes the next day, a statement by Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson that "with some people it's sad movies ... with Hillary Clinton ... it's an impending primary. It just breaks her down." Even Chris Matthews seemed to understand that something might not be quite right about the obsessive focus on Clinton showing emotion; near the end of the discussion, he said, "I wonder what [sic] we're focusing more on this than we would if it were a male candidate."

During MSNBC's February 5 primary coverage, correspondent Lester Holt seemed surprised that "[t]he first woman candidate with a serious shot at winning the presidency beat out her male rival" in exit polls on the question of "[w]ho would make the best commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces?" Holt even reminded viewers, "Keep in mind, this at a time the nation is fighting on two fronts." This wasn't the first time an NBC personality seemed to question whether a woman could be an effective commander in chief of the armed forces:

• On June 24, 2007, Chris Matthews asked if Clinton's "being surrounded by women" makes "a case for commander in chief -- or does it make a case against it?" Matthews went on to say, "But isn't that a challenge, because when it comes down to that final decision to vote for president, a woman president, a woman commander in chief, will be an historic decision for people. Not just men, but women as well."

• On May 30, 2005, Matthews asked retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey if "the troops out there" would "take the orders" from "Hillary Clinton, commander in chief." When McCaffrey responded, "Why wouldn't they listen to a [female] commander in chief? Sure," Matthews responded: "You're chuckling a little bit, aren't you?" When McCaffrey responded, "No," Matthews said: "No problem? No problem? No problem?" McCaffrey answered, "Absolutely not. None."

Most recently, David Shuster said on the February 7 edition of Tucker that "there's just something a little bit unseemly" about Chelsea Clinton contacting super delegates on behalf of her mother, adding, "[D]oesn't it seem like Chelsea's sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?"

This morning, Shuster offered a Matthews-esque quasi-apology for analogizing Chelsea Clinton to a prostitute.

But, like Matthews, Shuster didn't seem to "get it."

Shuster first claimed to have praised Chelsea Clinton on Tucker: "I said a lot of wonderful things about Chelsea. I praised her; I said Americans should be proud of her. ... as I said last night, everybody, all of us, love Chelsea Clinton." In fact, Shuster had not said Americans should be proud of her, or that "everybody, all of us, love Chelsea Clinton." Not even close.

Then Shuster reiterated that Chelsea Clinton's efforts on Hillary Clinton's behalf are "unseemly"--though, again, he did not explain why they are unseemly, or whether it was unseemly for Mitt Romney's sons to campaign on his behalf.

Finally, Shuster got to the real issue: "[L]ast night, I used a phrase--some slang about her efforts. I didn't think that people would take it literally, but some people have."

That's just ridiculous. Nobody took Shuster's statement that Chelsea Clinton is "being pimped out" literally. Nobody. People were bothered that he analogized her to a prostitute, not that they thought he was actually saying she has sex in exchange for money. Shuster's "I didn't think that people would take it literally" excuse is like calling someone a b*tch, then saying, "Hey, I didn't think people would think I was saying she is literally a dog." It completely misses the point.

This afternoon, NBC News President Steve Capus issued a statement calling Shuster's comments "irresponsible and inappropriate" and announcing that Shuster "has been suspended from appearing on all NBC News broadcasts" other than to make another apology, which aired tonight. Shuster then offered a more complete apology at the beginning of the February 8 edition of Tucker.

Capus' statement is the best sign yet that NBC News is beginning to take seriously the lengthy pattern of inappropriate comments about women made by NBC and MSNBC reporters. (NBC News did not issue a statement about Matthews, allowing Matthews' overly narrow, on-air quasi-apology to stand as the closest thing to an official statement.)

But apologies and statements and even suspensions don't mean anything unless they are followed by an actual change in behavior. Things didn't change at NBC/MSNBC after the Matthews controversy; hopefully they will this time.

According to Capus, "NBC News takes these matters seriously." If NBC News wants viewers to believe that, it would help if it told us how it is taking these matters seriously. What steps has NBC News taken to ensure that things like this don't happen again? Have executives given their reporters and pundits guidance about what kinds of things are not appropriate to say? Have they talked to Matthews and Scarborough and Carlson and Shuster and the rest about their lengthy history of objectionable comments to and about women?

Three weeks ago, I wrote: "A week ago, MSNBC had a Chris Matthews problem. If things don't change, the cable channel may have a much bigger problem."

Maybe this time they'll listen.

If you need further proof of what Media Matters means, see for yourself in this dedicated section. And see if such doesn't make you sick to your gulliwuts.