THE PERFECT STORM -

America is not a lie, it is a disappointment - Samuel Huntington (explaining that America's ideals are real but we often fall short in living up to them)

IMUS - "nappy headed ho" controversy
DUKE LACROSSE - Kid's are innocent. After Nancy Grace, The New York Times, 88 Duke Professors and The Media in General tried and convicted them - ruining their lives.
JACKIE ROBINSON - Sunday the 15th is the 60th anniversary of Jackie being the first black man to play in a Major League Baseball game.
----not to long ago---
MICHAEL RICHARDS (blacks)
ISIAH WASHINGTON (actor - the gays -of "faggot" fame)
MEL GIBSON (Jews)
THE PROMISE KEEPERS (women should "serve" their men)
RICHARD DAWKINS (atheist - author "the God Delusion)
PAT ROBERTSON (9/11 was the fault of liberals, secularists, gays etc)
ANN COULTER (Muslims "we should invade them, kill them and convert them to Christianity)

Sadly racial, sexual, and religious intolerance and polarization is still the single most corrosive, divisive and incendiary issue in America today. It seems our country which was initially built on genocide of Indians and slavery of blacks has, after all this time, found that issues of race are still the festering boils on our collective backs.
This has been one of the strangest weeks in American politics, media and race relations I have ever seen. The Imus scandal has taken on a life of its own.

As you know by now IMUS was fired from MSNBC and CBS Radio over his racist/sexist comments about the Rutger's women's basketball team. Some updates:

New Jersey Governor John Corzine got into a horrific car accident that left him with 12 broken ribs, a broken femur and a broken sternum. Where was he going? He was on his way to the Governor's mansion where he was to mediate the Rutger's Women's basketball team meeting with Imus. Imus did have the meeting and the women forgave him.
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What have we been left with now?

Another example (duly committed by blacks and whites alike) of hurtful racist and sexist language in the commonplace vernacular.

A 24/7 orgy of pundits on TV on radio and in print chiming in

Two large corporations only firing their man when the ad dollars were pulled

Black, white, left and right politicians cashing in and taking advantage

A group of talented and dignified women unfairly targeted and hurt who showed the world the meaning of class with their response and poise.

The hypocritical shakedown artists "Rev" Jesse Jackson ( a man I once admired so much I painted his portrait) and "Rev" Al Sharpton turning this into an even more divisive zoo-like atmosphere of intolerance. Why haven't these "Christian" reverends shown some Christian forgiveness.

Snoop Dog saying "when we say hos, we mean real hos" (meaning that black women who are not in college are sex toy hos)

A 40 Year radio career in ruins.

Some whites and blacks backing themselves into corners and circling the wagons in reactionary hate-filled cocoons (instead of having the seizing the opportunity to make a positive out for all this.

I wonder what Jackie Robinson would think?