My theory on celebrities that pull this kind of career-ending stunt is that they are looking for a way to flame out rather than just fade away.

I think Mel Gibson was ready to retire, but just couldn't justify not fulfilling his contracts to make a few more movies to the studios. So he pulls a bigger, badder version of the Tom Cruise couch-jumping, psychiatry-bashing type behavior to get the studios to drop him like a hot potato, too.

And here comes Michael Richards, suffering career-death syndrome from his Seinfeld curse and he sees how well it's working out for Mel as far as getting out of the business with a bang and instant obscurity...so...

If the insult presents itself, then he decided to hurl it. 

"You can't fix stupid..." ~ Ron White"

Google tops $500.00 per share.

Looks like buying YouTube has been rewarded.

Google Inc.'s stock price surpassed $500 for the first time Tuesday, marking another milestone in a rapid rise that has catapulted the Internet search leader into the corporate elite.
Continuing a recent surge driven by Wall Street's high expectations for the company, Google's shares rose $9.67, or nearly 2 percent, to $504.72 in morning trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

That left Google with a market value of about $154 billion just eight years after former Stanford University graduate students Larry Page and Sergey Brin started the business in a Silicon Valley garage.

The Mountain View-based company is now Silicon Valley's most valuable business, eclipsing the likes of Intel Corp., the world's largest computer chip maker, and Hewlett-Packard Co., a high-tech pioneer that also famously started in a garage 67 years ago.

Google's remarkable success has minted Page and Brin, both 33, as multibillionaires along with their hand-picked chief executive, Eric Schmidt.

Hundreds of other Google employees are millionaires because so many investors want to own a piece of a company that has become the Internet's most powerful financial force while building a brand so ingrained in society that it has become part of the English language.

It took slightly more than a year for Google's shares to travel from $400 to $500.

I am devistated by this and a shared Me tu lejacy in terms of religious heritage with Michael Richards takes things back to Egyptian oppression to strike even deeper in frustrating the issues for me. I can only beg to hope he will turn this to some path of better outcome from where things stand.

I've recognized and appreciated the unique 'untethered to reality' 'own world' of non-sequitur spontaneity that Richards has worked with his act going back to the show "Fridays" in the early 80's.

So what degree of racist is he now among the incredible variety of thinking and passive patterns of injustice to be found across the range in our society... on individual levels, through every neighborhood, institution and business in our culture?? Careful how tall any of us should stand before signing in with our own demographic credentials.

No "excuse" will ever suffice to make up for this sour "episode," but I await to discover whether this was something to be understood as typically part of his deepest thoughts or feelings... or whether the answer could be found in more shallow intellectual waters of this individual/performer's mind. I speculate the offerings of his angry tirade were tossed off or "delivered" under a more routine instinctual sense of how he usually responds "on stage." Only this time, he reached for some cruel references in his head in frustration. Odd that he seemed to want the audience to actually support his references to these hecklers at one point... it suggests he was reaching for something I've seen black comedians get away with, at least for using the n'word to apply outside of racial exclusivity. (... and did he hear race references towards him first?? I only wonder here.)Comedy clubs are usually pretty wide open, so are some individual's minds, but it always comes down to intent.

Stopping cold right here, finding these references in your head and using them in anger... maybe that's just too close to the essence of what racism is all about.

But is he more a racist or is he more just inexplicably ignorant? Certainly there was a total disregard and insensitivity for the reality of his "50 years ago" statement, but a more current reference would be more telling if something was stirring with him on a day to day basis. And in his using the n'word repeatedly, I don't hear the same level of hatred the more he says it. The issue of who can say this "word" anymore has been cast into more doubt in recent years, but aside from the obvious insult (with hate) he intended, did he really see it in the same swipe that more hard core racists apply the term? Is his hate the same?

Watching on Letterman last night... you can see how lost he is with this. Katrina? He just doesn't see where he is yet. (did ya hear Mel took a swipe over the weekend??)

Lenny Bruce was a slice of wry intellect and understood hate from taboo pretty well to challenge both in his time. He was a good christian who might rescue Richards to whatever degree, if he found reason to.

Faint hope, but some hope... I'm also related to Loni Love. (She's a racially edgy comic.) I'll be working on her to join Richards and start comedy act where the foil of his stupidity should have some source material to explore.

Meanwhile, Kramer is going to be Michael Richards for awhile... and I'll be turning away until he sufficiently makes amends. By his religion, I know he'll try.

Now back to your regular programming.

"Liberals can understand everything but the people who don't understand them." -Lenny Bruce