The Year of the White Southern Woman refuses to die.
What began in March with the meth-fueled religious revival of Ashley Smith and her captor, Brian Nichols, continued one month later, when the Runaway Bride, Jennifer Wilbanks, captured our hearts and minds with her mix of doe-eyed craziness and race-bating excuse making.
On the heels of the Wilbanks-inspired media frenzy, the following month - May - brought America its latest and greatest case of White Southern Woman hysteria: The Natalee Holloway abduction. What began as one family's tragedy has refused to go away. As 2005 comes to a close, the Story that Wouldn't Die has reached ridiculous proportions: Holloway's home state is proposing a nationwide travel boycott of Aruba.
Seriously?
Looking to shore up his status among crazies and other fringe elements - a vast group in which I'm lumping out-of-their-gourd Caucasians - Alabama Gov. Bob Riley proposed the
boycott in a clear attempt to look good in his 2006 race against disgraced former judge Roy Moore, of Ten Commandments fame. Joined by media-hungry Holloway mother Beth Holloway-Twitty, Riley told reporters, "There are no other alternatives to get Aruban authorities to take this as seriously as they should."
Funny, but I didn't catch "Idiot Alabamians" on the list of Aruba's Top Ten Travel Constituencies. Nor did I spot "Roll Tide!" on the list of reasons visitors say they love the tropical gem. So somehow, I'd rank "Aruban boycott" slightly south of "Freedom fries" on the list of meaningless nationalistic ploys that have had or will have absolutely no effect. So much for Aruba's quixotic plan to become Alabama's 68th county.
Here's something you should boycott, Alabama: Why don't you boycott sending your young men and women anywhere without the common sense to recognize that underage drinking and partying can lead to disastrous results? Why don't you boycott turning a sad situation into a media circus that's making the Terri Schiavo hangers-on jealous? Why don't you boycott the next rich, Caucasian, disaster-stricken family instead of ignoring tragedy after tragedy when the victims don't look like you?
Color me unsympathetic, but doesn't Riley have bigger priorities for Alabama than keeping its booze- and sex-crazed teenagers away from an island last made famous by that unlistenable Beach Boys song? Oh that's right, I forgot that Alabama is a utopian paradise where poverty has ceased to exist, racism is a thing of the past and men and women live together in a society where reason - not religion - guides everyone's decision making. That's what Alabama's like, isn't it?
And don't we as a nation have bigger fish to fry than boycotting a spring break destination? You'd be right in thinking more Americans seem to care about one missing white girl than 2,000 dead soldiers in Iraq. And hey, who gives a hoot about a lying, treasonous White House when it's simply not safe anymore to party on a foreign island? And bird flu? What's a global pandemic when Aruban authorities can't catch Holloway's killer, let alone a killer virus?
I'm just looking forward to the undefeated Alabama Crimson Tide college football team losing its first game this season. That way, the never-ending Holloway saga will disappear and Alabamians will have something else to bitch about. Maybe they'll call for a boycott of the LSU Tigers. Maybe not.