And here I was all set to write about another polemic from the Daily Mail on the raunchiness of Rihanna’s latest hit, “S&M (Come On),” and the message it sends to the young. The only thing I find offensive about Rihanna, aside from her willingness to sing the victim’s part in Eminem’s domestic violence soliloquy, “Love The Way You Lie,” is her constantly having four and five songs on the top 40 as though she’s this up-to-now-unheralded genius. There’s a bit of a sense of humor in the S&M song, and while some might complain that this subject matter is not something to be discussed on commercial recordings, it’s more entertaining than your average I’ll-love-you-forever song. 

                  But I’ve already discussed The Mail‘s many complaints about pop music numerous times. This time around, it’s some bigger issue they touched on. In Tuesday’s paper, Richard Littlejohn’s twice-weekly column discussed the moments of silence for the people of Japan that preceded all of last week’s Premier League Football matches. Littlejohn hinted that the Premier League mostly paid tribute because of Japanese TV rights coming up for renegotiation soon, and if they really cared about humanity in general, why did they never acknowledge the massacred people of Rwanda or Zimbabwe? Or if there was any tribute to the quake victims of Christchurch, New Zealand, it was pretty well concealed. A strong, amusing anti-PC remark to make, and even though his columns often scare me and are full of cheap shots, he did make one valid point that there are some still alive who witnessed the torture of prisoners-of-war 65 years ago, and still have no sympathy or caring for the Japanese people no matter what crisis they go through.

                  Littlejohn is a pompous right-wing insensitive asshole, but at least an educated and intelligent one. In contrast, there is not a thesaurus big enough to find all the words to describe Glenn Beck. Educated and intelligent sure as HELL don’t fit in there. Witness his remarks Monday: “I’m not saying God is, you know, causing earthquakes — Well, I’m not NOT saying it either. But I’ll tell you this… There’s a message being sent, and that is, ‘Hey, you know that stuff we’re doing? Not really working out well. Maybe we should stop doing it.'” Basically saying “There’s hell to pay, and God has decided to start Armageddon with Japan.” How he was not suspended or at least admonished for such a ludicrous statement is beyond me, except that the bottom line is,