Odd Trio: Ruben, Kelsey and Paris

Have you heard that new Ruben Studdard joint, "Make Ya Feel Beautiful" yet? It's about at 9.5 out of 10 as far as hot songs go right now.

But the opening lyric is intriguing. He starts with a a Luther-like intro that last about a minute. Then Studdard harps, "Baby, First off let me start by saying I ain't trying to get in your jeans."

Now, the way he says it, it sounds like he's saying, "I am trying to get in your jeans."

After really listening to the lyrics, this prompted me to think. Big Rube should definitely not be telling any woman anything about trying or not trying to "get in her jeans." That just doesn't sound right at all.
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On to more important issues.

My prayers go out to the family of Kelsey Smith, the girl who was abducted on Saturday at a Target (literally a block away from my house), and murdered in Kansas City. I'm sure I know plenty of people who knew this young lady, and she probably had a promising future. There are some evil people out there, and I certainly wish that she hadn't come into contact with the man who did this to her.

But in the wake of this situation, a co-worker came up to me today and asked me an interesting question: "Do you think that there is any sort of racial aspect to this situation?"

If you don't know, Kelsey was a white female from a family that lives in a fairly affluent suburban area in the Kansas City metro area. My co-worker was referring to whether or not I thought that things would be different if it were a missing black person in a similar situation.

I told her I think the situation would be completely different, but it wouldn't be totally predicated on race, although it does have an indirect effect. It's a class issue. It's an issue of juice as we might call it in the black community.

And it's apparent that Kelsey's parents and friends had the juice to turn this into a national story and get 200 cops searching for her. Is there something wrong about this? No.

If I were a multimillionaire and someone abducted my child, best believe that I would use every penny I had to try to find my child, just as these people did.

The problem is that there are plenty of children, black, white, rich and poor, who are missing right now, and the effort definitely isn't as strong as it's been over the course of the last week in Kelsey's case.

That said, there's little else to say except that I wish that everyone's efforts over the last few days could have brought Kelsey home alive. As I said before, my prayers are with the family, the friends and the Shawnee Mission West High School community who lost someone who appears to have been a great person.

Thankfully, the have the man who allegedly did this in custody and he won't be able to do this again.
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Back to the ignorance for a moment. Will someone please lock Paris Hilton back up? Having money surely shouldn't mean that she should be on house arrest right now. She's supposed to be in a cell, not her bed with Tinkerbell on her cell - phone.