Lessons We've Learned This Week

This has been a week for valuable lessons:

1. Always wear your seatbelt, even if you're the governor. Gov. John Corzine lies in a New Jersey hospital with critical injuries because of an accident in his state SUV. Had the governor been wearing his seatbelt, he'd probably be back at work today, but instead is facing months of rehab and additional surgeries. Being an important political figure does not make you Superman nor does it give you a waiver on the laws of physics.
2. Don't pander to your black constituents by filing file false charges to get reelected, even if it's against rich white guys. D.A. Mike Nifong faces the loss of his job, his law license, and quite possibly a lot of his money because of his conduct in the Duke rape case. He got reelected, but it won't do him much good.
3. Don't jump on the bandwagon slamming accused persons until they're proven guilty in court. A whole lot of politicians, pundits and academics owe apologies to the Duke lacrosse team for their comments and actions in the early days of this case.
4. Don't hire strippers. The entire year-long drama that was the Duke rape case would never have happened had these idiots not hired strippers for their party. They may have been innocent of rape, but they were certainly guilty of stupid conduct.
5. Don't call somebody a "nappy-headed ho" unless they're actually a nappy-headed ho. Truth is always a defense.
6. If you're going to be a shock jock, have a back-up career path already planned. You may get away with boorish behavior for decades, but someday you'll insult the wrong person and the next thing you know your friends and employers will abandon you and your name will become synonymous with bigoted behavior.
7. If you're on a women's basketball team that lost in the championship game that nobody watched, hope and pray some shock jock insults you so you can get some TV time on Oprah.
8. If you're on the team that won, try to recruit some "nappy-headed hos" of your own so you can get some TV time next year.
9. If you're Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, go ahead and do whatever you want and commit whatever ethical and moral failures you wish because you're going to get a free pass from the media and your political allies who will elevate you to arbiters of all that is good in the media.
10. If you're a Democrat presidential candidate, learn how to put your fingers in your ears and loudly say "LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA-LA..." when you hear the words "Fox News". If you don't, lefty bloggers will stick things in your ears that you don't even want to think about.
11. Assume everyone you deal with is a child since there are so few adults left anymore. Carefully couch whatever you say to avoid even the slightest hurt feelings since children will go running to their mommy (or the media) while adults will suck it up and move on. You can't count on dealing with adults.

Words to live by.