In the wake of Whitney Houston’s death, unfortunate references to her past crack use—even though it appears her death was related to prescription drug use—were rampant. Take, for example, John Kobylt, the co-host of Clear Channel’s The John and Ken Show, who delivered this gem, from the theoretical perspective of Houston’s friend: “It’s like, ‘ah Jesus, here comes the crack ho again. What’s she gonna do? Oh, look at that, she’s doing handstands next to the pool. Very good, crack ho. nice.’ After a while, everybody’s exhausted. And then you find out she’s dead.” The remarks landed them a suspension and an agreement that they, as well as channel staff, would attend sensitivity training.

There was no such punishment for Fox commentator Eric Bolling, who decided it was clever to respond to comments by Rep. Maxine Waters by declaring “What is going on in California? How’s this? Congresswoman, you saw what happened to Whitney Houston. Step away from the crack pipe, step away from the Xanax, step away from the Lorazepam because it’s going to get you in trouble. How else do you explain those comments?” He was wise enough to roll back the comments immediately, but not to have refrained from making them in the first place.

It’s amazing that, given how racialized references to crack use are, and how ugly they can be when combined with implications about an accused female user’s sexual behavior, that people with any pretense to respectability, like Bolling, are still bringing it up. Kobylt’s remarks were ugly and insensitive, not only to Houston, but to the people in her life who cared abut her and who were affected by her addiction. Bolling’s are nonsensical—they have literally no point or relevance but to reach for a spurious stereotype about black women. It’s one thing to refer to crack cocaine use if someone is actually consuming crack cocaine. But it would be delightful if we could stop using it as a sloppy, ugly attempt to signal something meaningful.

Rush Limbaugh’s been facing a wave of protest since his ugly attacks on Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke: he called her a “slut” and a “prostitute” after she testified before Congress about the importance of employer coverage of contraception. In response, advertisers have begun to pull out of the show. And in a near-unprecedented move, Limbaugh issued an apology for his choice of words, though not for the sentiments behind them. But Limbaugh’s efforts to save his show seem unlikely to stop advertisers from fleeing the show or to stem the tide of criticism from figures ranging from Sen. John McCain, to New York’s Cardinal Dolan—to one of Limbaugh’s colleagues in the shock jock game, former CBS radio host Don Imus.

“So were it me, and I ran a radio station or whatever, I would make him go down there and apologize to her face-to-face. He owns a Gulfstream 4, get on it, go to Washington, take her lunch, tell her, ‘look, I’m sorry I said this stuff and I’ll never do it again,” Imus said. He recalled that when he made offensive remarks about the Rutgers women’s basketball team, referring to them as “nappy headed hoes,” “Look at what I did. It was a lame attempt to be funny, and it was three words. And I went and met with these people after I’d been fired…If he was on my radio station, he wouldn’t be on it.”

Imus’s criticism also illustrates that Limbaugh is held to different standards than his fellow commentators on radio and television. Here are some of the punishments Limbaugh’s counterparts have faced for ugly sexual remarks about women:

-In 2009, after Imus made his remarks about the Rutgers basketball team, CBS Radio suspended him for two weeks without pay, MSNBC stopped simulcasting the program on television, and CBS eventually fired him even though his program netted $15 million in annual revenue. Imus apologized at the time and publicly acknowledged his comments were “really stupid.”

-Last May, MSNBC suspended host Ed Schultz for a week after he used language similar to Limbaugh’s during his radio show. Talking about Laura Ingrahm, a staple of right-wing radio, he described her as “this right-wing slut, what’s her name? Laura Ingraham? Yeah, she’s a talk slut.” He apologized to Ingraham on television, calling his language “vile and inappropriate,” and saying “It was wrong, uncalled for, and I recognize the severity of what I said. I apologize to you, Laura, and ask for your forgiveness.”

-In February, Clear Channel suspended California radio hosts John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou for two days after a segment about Whitney Houston’s death in which Kobylt imagined what it must have been like to be Houston’s friends, saying: “It’s like, ‘ah Jesus, here comes the crack ho again. What’s she gonna do? Oh, look at that, she’s doing handstands next to the pool. Very good, crack ho. nice.’ After a while, everybody’s exhausted. And then you find out she’s dead.” The hosts agreed to attend sensitivity training and bring on guests to discuss why their remarks were so ugly.

Fluke was asked today whether she thought Limbaugh should be fired. She said that was a choice for Clear Channel and Limbaugh’s advertisers. But we’ll ask for her: what makes Limbaugh immune—thus far—from punishment by his employer for an ugly, extended personal attack on a woman performing her civic responsibilities? Maybe it’s that, given the profits Limbaugh rakes in, Clear Channel’s established the price of a woman’s reputation.

I think Bill O’Reilly is correct that Whitney Houston is perhaps not the best example to deploy if you want to make the case that legalizing narcotics would decrease violence related to the drug trade and make it easier for addicts to get help (I happen to agree with at least a limited version of that case). But the rest of this statement doesn’t exactly count as brave truth-telling. Watch it:

There’s nothing bold, counterintuitive, or perhaps more importantly, compassionate about saying cruel things about addicts like: “Whitney Houston wanted to kill herself. Nobody takes drugs for that long if they want to stay on the planet.” I’ve been fortunate enough not to be touched directly by addiction, but it’s my understanding that the compulsion to use has little to do with a specific suicidal ideation. And of course, you can have an addiction and still love life and depending on the level of use, contribute to society. Whitney Houston’s fans know she’d struggled for years with a disease—not failed morals. Whitney’s daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, who O’Reilly mentioned had been hospitalized in the wake of her mother’s sudden death, is probably more aware of anyone else on the planet of what it’s like to live with her mother’s particular failed fight against addiction.

Nobody Bill O’Reilly to remind them that Houston’s addiction robbed her of many productive years of her career and was painful, embarrassing, and detrimental to her. And there’s nothing brave about blaming addicts for the societal consequences of their addictions.

Stay classy, Sony. According to the Guardian, after Whitney Houston’s death, her label raised the price of at least one of her albums to take advantage of the immediate spike in sales:

The music giant is understood to have lifted the wholesale price of Houston’s greatest hits album, The Ultimate Collection, at about 4am California time on Sunday. This meant that the iTunes retail price of the album automatically increased from £4.99 to £7.99. Houston’s The Ultimate Collection, originally released in 1997, was the second top-selling album on iTunes on Monday morning. Apple returned the album to its original price late on Sunday.

It seems like it ought to have been enough for Sony to privately enjoy the revitalization of an album from its back catalogue: Houston was years away from her peak selling potential at the time of her death, which sent The Ultimate Collection to the top of the iTunes charts. A move like this may be strategic from a business perspective, but it looks impressively greedy. Given how hard the content industry is pushing to sell the public on the idea that they’re only acting in the best interests of creators in pushing for stronger copyright protections, profiting off a dead artist is decidedly off-message.