Platonic Symposium: Don Imus, Dierdre Imus, Larry King

Or, Can Virtue be Taught?

Leathery old racist Don Imus and his dingbat wife, Dierdre, on CNN with spring chicken Larry King. When three intellectuals of world-historical importance gather together, well, you can imagine the conversation -- Hannah Arendt, Plato, Ralph Ellison, Marie Curie and Confucius, surprisingly, did not come up in conversation:

"DEIRDRE IMUS: It started as being an athlete and playing sports. I've never been on a diet. So this isn't about diets or what diets work or don't work. It's just about, for me, at least, eating a healthy. And the most important thing goes beyond whether you eat meat or not. It's eating organic food and eating whole food.

"KING: But this is ranch food, you bill it as cowboy food, meaning. Because cowboys are associated with beef. This one's for dinner.

"DEIRDRE IMUS: That hasn't changed except for at our ranch. These cowboys that work on the ranch, they don't have to stay for lunch and dinner. They want to be there. They eat lunch and dinner with all the kids. They love it. They love the food. They still eat their steaks and hamburgers and everything else.

"DON IMUS: She's not against people. All of our friends are cattle ranchers. We're not opposed to people eating meat.

"DEIRDRE IMUS: I don't have any vegetarian friend and I hate most vegetarians."

More of this Platonic symposium here.

This is not a pipe. It is, instead, a complex piece of performance art demonstrating the failure of our educational system.

And, next week: Imus, Imus and King on the subject of Poetry.