Paula Roasted
link Fans support, defend Paula Deen.
So the knives are out for Paula Deen. After almost a lifetime of promoting a diet that would give an elephant diabetes, she is felled by her use of a common racial epithet…some years ago. For those who don’t know who Paula Deen is, she is the doyenne of down south American cuisine, where the staple ingredients are buckets of butter and slabs of bacon. And that’s for the kid’s meals. She is to butter and bacon what Emeril Lagasse is to pork fat. Much of her cooking caters to the theme of “if it ain’t fried, it ain’t cooked”. Ironically, it’s something that came out of her mouth, not what she put into it that gets her in trouble.
It’s actually amazing that up to now, no diet group has come around to denounce her cooking repertoire since she is essentially pushing crack cocaine to fat people. It’s no argument that, notwithstanding any culinary benefit, she probably did more damage to people with her recipes than with any racial slur cast over the years. This is a twist on the old refrain of “you can call me anything you want, but don’t call me late for dinner”. So she gets taken down not by the health police, but by the speech police.
It’s quizzical to witness just how quickly the media have circled like vultures to peck on the still warm body of Ms. Deen, served up with a whole mess o’ righteous hypocrisy. It’s as if her admitted transgression is the most egregious issue facing people today, a crime worse than terrorist bombers, child kidnappers, global warming and IRS bullying. The Food Network even cancelled her show’s renewal. While there’s little evidence of malicious intent on her past utterances, nevertheless, she is now held to the standards of the day by virtue of her fame.
If poor Paula has fallen victim to the modern world of PC speech and sensibilities, then it’s a fair bet that everyone with a public persona should be worried. We can literally hear the din of phones ringing at lawyers’ offices nationwide as opportunistic people from the pasts of present day celebrities rush to file grievances for some perceived slight 30 odd years ago.
Wop, Dago, Chink, Jew, Mick, Spic, garlic eater, Limey, Gook, Chief, Kraut, Polack and Frog are a partial list of verboten words that if ever were revealed to have been uttered by anyone famous, should also be career enders. But it’s potentially worse that that however. With the inexorable march of politically correct sensitivity, a big chunk of the language will likely achieve scarlet letter status, so that even the most lame pejorative epithets will arouse horror among civilized people. No more calling people: four eyes, dufus, stupido, fatso, gimpy, wimpy, shorty, stretch, goof, or even slowpoke.
Unless of course, you happen to be a member of the mentioned groups. So for instance, it’s perfectly ok for a homosexual to call another a fag. Or two dumb people to call each other out, as in “I’m not stupid, you’re stupid!”
There may be a bright side to this made for TV controversy. It may bring on the age of creative and oblique epithets. Instead of the most commonly hurled basic insult you hear these days, perhaps referring to someone as a butt sphincter may be more creative. Instead of idiot, you can refer to someone as “thick as manure and half as useful”.
Doing a very quick search of the web turns up some pretty artful ones:
bawdy, bat-fowling baggage
beslubbering, beef-witted barnacle
bootless, beetle-headed bladder
churlish, boil-brained boar-pig
cockered, clapper-clawed bugbear
clouted, clay-brained bum-bailey
craven, common-kissing canker-blossom
currish, crook-pated clack-dish
dankish, dismal-dreaming clotpole
dissembling, dizzy-eyed coxcomb
droning, doghearted codpiece
errant, dread-bolted death-token
fawning, earth-vexing dewberry
fobbing, elf-skinned flap-dragon
froward, fat-kidneyed flax-wench
frothy, fen-sucked flirt-gill
gleeking, flap-mouthed foot-licker
goatish, fly-bitten fustilarian
gorbellied, folly-fallen giglet
impertinent, fool-born gudgeon
infectious, full-gorged haggard
jarring, guts-griping harpy
loggerheaded, half-faced hedge-pig
lumpish, hasty-witted horn-beast
mammering , hedge-born hugger-mugger
mangled, hell-hated joithead
mewling, idle-headed lewdster
paunchy, ill-breeding lout
pribbling, ill-nurtured maggot-pie
Of course for those of you unable to bring wit to the discussion, you can always fall back on “am not!”