Ron Olesko asked:

Show of hands - how many people thought Don Imus got the punishment he deserved for calling the Rutgers womens basketball team "nappy headed hos"?
Yes.

If you you think his firing was justified, do you feel that the charges against the student who left the sandwich was also justified?

No.

If you did not answer "yes" to both questions or "no" to both questions, how do see a difference?

Ron, three big differences:

1. Imus, a media millionaire, has been engaging in this sort of thing for a L-O-O-N-G time. He's had warnings and slaps on the wrist (in the form of short suspensions) multiple times, but was always allowed back for commercial reasons. So he's had his bite.
2. He's (allegedly) an adult, but engages in this juvenile sort of willful offensive action because it makes him and the network money.
3. He engaged in this unprovoked hostility in that "bully pulpit", network television, reaching thousands, perhaps millions.

On the other hand,

1. What I've read about the kid offender doesn't suggest that he had any particular offensive background, any more than any other kid.
2. He is, after all a kid, and seems to me to have involved himself in a kiddish prank. Blameworthy, yes, but worthy of more than school discipline? No.
3. His isolated act (prior to the media and official notice taken) was in the "observation" of at most a couple hundred other students and faculty, if indeed that many would have been aware of it without the vast overreaction.

Two entirely different matters, Ron.

Dave Oesterreich