Indignation

Let's play a game. I'll list some names, and you tell me how you feel about them.

Bashar al-Assad

Jane Fonda

Michael Jackson

Roman Polanski

Joseph Stalin

Donald Sterling

Michael Vick

Joffrey Baratheon (All right. I know he's not real, but I'm glad the old bat did him in.)

It's so strange to me where society does and does not decide to jump into the frenzy. One may be splayed and skewered while another is practically ignored.

Donald Sterling's private comments show him to be pathetic and small-minded. As far as I'm concerned, however, that's as far is it should go. Ordinarily I wouldn't put any more thought into the situation because I certainly don't follow the entertainment genre of professional sports. Unfortunately, it's nearly impossible to avoid the barrage of "news" about it.

I'm bothered by the capriciousness of public indignation.

Some of the names on my list may mean nothing to you, and others might make you feel sick right down to your core. Entertainers usually get a free pass because, after all, they're artists. Or, if we really like their movies, it doesn't matter what they've done. And then there are the opinions that they've never been found guilty in a court of law or that they've paid their time.

Again, I go back to Donald Sterling. I don't see a secretly recorded private conversation going very far in a courtroom.

My original intention in writing about the baffling habit of punishing some bad behaviors while ignoring others was to draw a conclusion about which groups of people are most likely to be found guilty in the court of public opinion. As I ponder this question, I'm still utterly baffled.