Salon's O.J. Simpson Revolt

Ok...its not SALON's revolt.

Its the letter writers' revolt in response to this article.

You might want to allow yourself an hour or so, because there are over 150 comments, and the number is growing. I know you think you won't read them all, but it draws you in. (And of course, I'm in there with my two cents....twice....so you have to look for me.)

Salon is by far my favorite "magazine" on the net. I've come close to subscribing several times lately, and then a story (or three) would concern me to the point that the mission and direction of the publisher is unclear.

Lately there have been more and more stories about Madonna and Britney and Angelina and "Tomkat". I don't know what they were about, because I haven't read them, anymore than I've ever purchased a National Enquirer from my grocery store.

Then there's the story above.

Now, I'm a liberal, see. And I don't know that I've ever defined that in this blog. I mean MY definition...not Bill O'Reilly's or Al Franken's. I'll do that sometime, but for now, let me just say that it involves social justice and forgiveness, and more than anything else, respect for each and every individual.

Stories like these (and many, many of the comments from readers across the internet) are void of any individual respect at all. So here's where my own politics get tricky. Why? Because there are obviously a whole lot of liberals out there who generalize about other groups, and who fail to see each individual and to understand that we can't generalize, because we simply don't know the whole story.

What's funny about the whole thing is this:

The author, Debra Dickerson, writes to defend Judith Regan by explaining her particular story of abuse. Yet in the same article, she makes the generalization of ALL TIME, and the now infamous quote:

But you're alive, because you're a wuss -- a "remnant," as a girlfriend of mine scornfully calls the limping, deficient crop of men available to us as single mothers of a certain age.

Ah yes....let's classify every single man born in the 60's while we sanctimoniously defend a rich publisher and her particular claims of spousal abuse.

Was Regan abused? We don't know, and that is far from the point. The point is, EVERYONE has life experiences...context, as Malcolm Gladwell calls it. This context molds our actions and our relationships.

How is it that Dickerson can recognize that in Regan, and yet, when it comes to men, they are simply deficient? Or when it comes to one particular black man, she feels comfortable enough about her place in this world to ask him to end his own life?