Excuse me?????

Well, I was excited about ol' Whoopi coming on board to liven things up at "The View," till she kicked things off by suggesting that we Southerners view dogfighting as just another one of those regional idiosyncracies. Hello??????? How many dogfights have you and your girlfriends hosted lately? My gal pals and I keep meaning to, but...oh, that's right, we decided not to...since that's a form of entertainment we put right up there with throwing babies off skyscrapers and vivisecting grocery store clerks who ignore us!!!!

I swear, I get so tired of people assuming that anyone who lives south of D.C. still shoots squirrel for dinner every night and thinks Larry the Cable Guy is high comedy. Tragically, I know waaaaaaaay too many people who approve of Larry, but I don't know a single person in my entire circle--and it's a big one!--of Southern acquaintances who considers dogfighting anything other than the vile, abysmal, appalling thing that it is. SHAME on you, Whoopi! And shame on yet another pro athlete who missed a chance to set a positive example instead of a disgusting one. Where have all the heroes gone?

And on that same subject, what is going on with these public figures who can't keep their pants on in public places? We're not going to get into names--we all read the news and my heart already aches for the humiliation the families of these dolts have suffered, but for the life of me, I can't figure out what a celebrity or person of renown might possibly be thinking looking for a good time in a public bathroom/stranger's car in the middle of a major city/pick any other equally ridiculous place 'cause it happens over and over again. In my own county, yet another teacher is on trial for having sex with her 7th-grade students--at the school, no less! Time spent building your reputation: years. Time spent destroying it: two seconds. The word "idiot!" comes rapidly to mind. Frankly, I look for a tad more ambiance in my romantic encounters than what most public venues have to offer, don't you? I know we're a nation in decline, but puh-leeze! Have standards really dropped so low? Are we really that desperate for a random infusion of oxytocin?

Somebody save the children while there's still time.