Who provokes sympathy more than a child with cancer? Your heart is moved to do something for this ‘poor little thing’. And what does Don Imus do for them? He puts them to work shoveling manure, and makes them do risky things on horseback. They round up Texas Longhorns, herd and feed sheep, buffalo, chickens, goats and donkeys.Radio personality Don Imus and his wife Deirdre run the 4,000 acre Imus Cattle Ranch for Kids with Cancer in Ribera, New Mexico.
I’ve never been a fan of Imus on the radio, but after reading a New York Times story about his ‘charity’, I’m thinking of sponsoring President Barack Obama for a week at Imus’ ranch. If my fundraiser goes well, I’ll send Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and more than a few Republicans with him.The kids want to know why, if I have cancer, I have so much hair,” Mr. Imus, 69, said in a recent interview in the Imus Ranch kitchen, rustling his shaggy, reddish gray mane.
When asked if he drew strength from his young visitors, he said: “I used to think if I was ever in the kind of shape that some of them are in when they come here, I’d put a bullet in my head. But they don’t do that.Mr. Imus’s cancer diagnosis has done more than alter the dynamic at the ranch, where as many as 10 children at a time most with brain, blood or tissue cancers must be healthy enough to rise before dawn, muck stalls, ride horses and ultimately compete in a rodeo. His condition has also changed the tone of his syndicated radio show, which he resumed in December 2007 on Citadel Broadcasting and its affiliates, after his firing seven months earlier by CBS Radio and MSNBC over remarks roundly considered racist and sexist.
Don’t you know I have cancer? Mr. Imus invariably asks guests on the show these days. He does so more as a self-mocking plea for mercy than sympathy. The other morning he laid his guilt-inducing question on Bob Schieffer, himself a survivor of bladder cancer, who responded in kind.
You and I have actually talked about it at some length Mr. Schieffer, the host of “Face the Nation,” said via phone from Washington, “which shows that you also have dementia.Sometimes the on-air conversation has been more professorial, as when Mr. Imus recently spent 10 minutes quizzing Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, about the side effects of his treatment for prostate cancer while in office in 2000. It gives you cold sweats, which are kind of embarrassing, particularly when you’re the mayor of New York City at the time, Mr. Giuliani said.
One thing Mr. Imus has not done is to use Imus in the Morning heard on about 65 radio stations by more than two million listeners each week, according to estimates by Talkers Magazine to urge male listeners to be tested.I’ve always found it annoying when people who do the weather forecast tell you what to wear,” he explained the other morning, away from his microphone. Like you couldn’t figure that out.He added,None of us wear those lame yellow wristbands.During the four decades he has been on the air Mr. Imus has always used his life as fodder. There was his alcoholism, cocaine addiction and, later, sobriety, as well as his emphysema and the broken ribs and collapsed lung he suffered after falling from a horse in 2000. It’s my act, he said.While talk of illness doesn’t tend to make for great radio, Mr. Imus’s audience appears to be growing.
On WABC in New York, the flagship station for Mr. Imus’s radio show, he attracted an estimated 130,000 male listeners ages 25 to 54 each week in the most recent ratings period, in June. That represents a 3 percent increase from the same period a year ago, according to Arbitron.Most weekday mornings this summer he is broadcasting his show live from a studio at the ranch, beginning at 4 a.m. Mountain Time.The elevation of Mr. Imus’s cancer to a regular on-air topic represents the second major change in his program in two years. After his firing he pledged to make the discussion of race a staple of his new show, and he has, by including two supporting players who are black — the comedians Tony Powell and Karith Foster.
I’ve never been a fan of Imus on the radio, but after reading a New York Times story about his ‘charity’, I’m thinking of sponsoring President Barack Obama for a week at Imus’ ranch. If my fundraiser goes well, I’ll send Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and more than a few Republicans with him.The kids want to know why, if I have cancer, I have so much hair,” Mr. Imus, 69, said in a recent interview in the Imus Ranch kitchen, rustling his shaggy, reddish gray mane.
When asked if he drew strength from his young visitors, he said: “I used to think if I was ever in the kind of shape that some of them are in when they come here, I’d put a bullet in my head. But they don’t do that.Mr. Imus’s cancer diagnosis has done more than alter the dynamic at the ranch, where as many as 10 children at a time most with brain, blood or tissue cancers must be healthy enough to rise before dawn, muck stalls, ride horses and ultimately compete in a rodeo. His condition has also changed the tone of his syndicated radio show, which he resumed in December 2007 on Citadel Broadcasting and its affiliates, after his firing seven months earlier by CBS Radio and MSNBC over remarks roundly considered racist and sexist.
Don’t you know I have cancer? Mr. Imus invariably asks guests on the show these days. He does so more as a self-mocking plea for mercy than sympathy. The other morning he laid his guilt-inducing question on Bob Schieffer, himself a survivor of bladder cancer, who responded in kind.
You and I have actually talked about it at some length Mr. Schieffer, the host of “Face the Nation,” said via phone from Washington, “which shows that you also have dementia.Sometimes the on-air conversation has been more professorial, as when Mr. Imus recently spent 10 minutes quizzing Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, about the side effects of his treatment for prostate cancer while in office in 2000. It gives you cold sweats, which are kind of embarrassing, particularly when you’re the mayor of New York City at the time, Mr. Giuliani said.
One thing Mr. Imus has not done is to use Imus in the Morning heard on about 65 radio stations by more than two million listeners each week, according to estimates by Talkers Magazine to urge male listeners to be tested.I’ve always found it annoying when people who do the weather forecast tell you what to wear,” he explained the other morning, away from his microphone. Like you couldn’t figure that out.He added,None of us wear those lame yellow wristbands.During the four decades he has been on the air Mr. Imus has always used his life as fodder. There was his alcoholism, cocaine addiction and, later, sobriety, as well as his emphysema and the broken ribs and collapsed lung he suffered after falling from a horse in 2000. It’s my act, he said.While talk of illness doesn’t tend to make for great radio, Mr. Imus’s audience appears to be growing.
On WABC in New York, the flagship station for Mr. Imus’s radio show, he attracted an estimated 130,000 male listeners ages 25 to 54 each week in the most recent ratings period, in June. That represents a 3 percent increase from the same period a year ago, according to Arbitron.Most weekday mornings this summer he is broadcasting his show live from a studio at the ranch, beginning at 4 a.m. Mountain Time.The elevation of Mr. Imus’s cancer to a regular on-air topic represents the second major change in his program in two years. After his firing he pledged to make the discussion of race a staple of his new show, and he has, by including two supporting players who are black — the comedians Tony Powell and Karith Foster.
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