Can I Get a Ruling Here?

Is there any irony to the fact that we're enthralled with the Paula Deen debacle while pretty much ignoring Nelson Mandela's final days?

Dear George R. R. Martin

Seven books?

Nope, sorry, I just can't do it.  I've invested way too much time into this but don't care have this dragged on for the remaining three books that are apparently left.

Paula Deen

The train wreck just keeps a coming and there doesn't seem to be an end to it for poor Paula.  A large part of it is due to her candor and our inability to excuse anyone in the limelight for any transgression.

Y'all need to put this in perspective: Paula is from THE SOUTH.  In spite of what our enlightened media would want you to think, there is literally butt loads of prejudice still alive and well here.  Yes, yes, we're all equal under the law now and skin color doesn't matter and blah, blah, blah.  But the ugly, warty reality of these great United States is that we're not as enlightened as we pretend.

Paula is 67.  During her childhood, blacks were not allowed to vote.  They rode in the back of the bus.  Had their own water fountains and bathrooms and entrances to restaurants et cetera.  And attitudes in the south were much more distilled than in other areas.  Hate existed.  The Klan thrived.  Should ANYONE be surprised that Paula used the "n-word" during her life?  I'd be surprised if she hadn't.

What's really surprising is she was honest enough to admit it.

Now, I don't know Paula.  For all I know, she may be abusive and discourteous to anyone darker than the color of white bread.  She might actually deserve all the derision she's getting.  But before you round up the torches and pitchforks, take a moment to see exactly how clean our collective pot is: about the same as Paula's kettle, I'm guessing.

These things don't disappear just because Congress passes a law.  It takes generations for hate, bigotry, racism and the like to die away.  Generation Y is more tolerant than those that came before.  Future generations will shake their heads in wonder that the right for gays to marry was such a big deal in this age.  Just as it's hard to imagine women not having the right to vote now.   Those folks swept up in the changing of the tides cannot be expected to change their viewpoints overnight.  Culture is stubborn that way.

He's Dead, Jim

Occasionally, I surf Blogger.

See up in the left hand corner, where it says "Next Blog"?  Click it and off you go to all sorts of strange, wonderful places.  I've been noticing though that most of them are abandoned sites.  Ghost blogs from the not so distant past.  It occurs to me that the interwebs are probably full of dusty old blogs, websites, comments and reviews.  It's hard not to think of such as actually having mass...

It makes me wonder if someone will someday stumble into one of my digital ghosts.