At the risk of setting bad a precedent for this blog's "subject matter jurisdiction," I have to make a comment on pop culture. Raleigh, North Carolina is still outraged about Clay Aiken's "American Idol" loss to Ruben Studdard. People here have called for re-counts and investigations with a tenacity that rivals Jesse Jackson's post-2000 Presidental election stunts. Although, I confess, I have never watched American Idol, I have followed the frontpage - no joke - Raleigh News & Observer stories covering this "issue." In all of the news stories and op-ed pieces published, however, I never once learned this interesting fact about Aiken reported by the Associated Press in this CNN article about Aiken's recent interview with Rolling Stone magazine :

Aiken told the magazine that he doesn't believe in premarital sex and never curses. He also discusses his father, from whom he is estranged. "If I have anything good to say about him, it's that I think I learned to be who I am by being everything he wasn't," he said. "Part of the reason I don't smoke is that he did. He drank, and I don't. He's a racist, and I'm not. I don't want anything to do with any of that."

While it has been easy for me to just laugh at this guy that I always assumed was just another entertainment industry pansy, I do have a new-found respect for him.
- posted by Anonymous @ 11:24 AM