By now you’ve probably heard about the racist comments James Watson recently made. His cringe-worthy remarks more closely resemble the kind of enebriated smacktalk you’d hear in a pick-up bar than the erudite speculations of a Nobel Prize winning geneticist.

In addition to stating that blacks are mentally inferior to other races, Watson also claims that the darker a person’s skin is the stronger their libido is. How’d he come up with this one? Sniff, sniff – do you smell it, too? I think someone (who’s name rhymes with Datsun) is wrestling with naughty desires, or as Spike Lee might say, ‘That boy’s got jungle fever.’

It doesn’t take a phone psychic to surmise that Mr. Watson probably has sites like ‘Brown Sugar Babes’ in his bookmarks - filed under ‘Research’ of course. He only goes to those sites to gather data. Don’t get the wrong idea now, people.

It’s always shocking, though, when someone who excels in such admirable ways has such glaring flaws. It didn’t exactly make me feel good – heh! – like I knew that I would, when I first learned that James Brown had been arrested for domestic assault.

Nor was I thrilled to read that Mr. ‘Give me liberty or give me death’ Patrick Henry owned 65 slaves and kept his mentally ill wife imprisoned in the cellar.

And I felt like I was being sucked into a blackhole when I was told that brainiac, Stephen Hawking, has a habit of running off with his care nurses. (Although I’m dying to hear his pick-up lines, maybe something like: ‘Forget about the chicken and the egg, Baby, in my universe you come first.’)

I wonder if James Watson has any theories as to why humans have such a deep-seated need to put someone up on a pedestal. ‘The Innocence Mission’ express this well in their song, ‘Paperdolls.’

I am lining up my heros
Like big paper dolls
And I find
They need no a wall behind them
To lean on
No, they won’t stand up by themselves
at all
oh, I guess it’s time to grow up
Now

I must confess, however, that there’s still one hero left in my universe: Mr. T is going to be hosting his own advice show. I’d love to hear his reaction to James Watson’s remarks. I bet he pities the fool.