"The Constitution Is Kind Of An Original Recipe' If You Think About It..."

Chances are the names Juan Williams and Harlan Sanders don't often pop up in the same conversation, let alone the same sentence.

One reminded me of the other, though, as Juan's "Muslims make me nervous" observation lit a fuse that resulted in his NPR gig blowing up in his face.

Maybe it's just my proclivity for warping the dots a little as I connect them, but as I watched the little teapot tempest unfold, I found six letters running around in my head.

NPR.

KFC.

For it wasn't too long ago, in one of those inevitable moments when any sense of nutritional need takes a back seat to the craving for something from the two major food groups, grease and preservatives,that I found myself sitting at a sputtering, crackling drive thru speaker doing my best to articulate to the well intended, but somewhat obtuse, minimum waged poultry specialist on the listening end that my happiness du jour was directly dependent on something extra crispy.

And in one of those other inevitable moments where truth truly is stranger than fiction, the disembodied voice at the batter fried end of the speaker wire did their cordial customer service best to break the bad news gently.

"Uh...we're out of chicken right now....oh...we have plenty of sides, though!"

Putting aside the blatantly obvious difficulty any reasonable person would have getting their head around trying to formulate a satisfying meal limited to "fixins", I found myself unable to respond, my synaptic circuit breakers dramatically tripped by the non sequitur of a Kentucky Fried Chicken location that had everything...except chicken.

KFC. Kentucky Fresh Coleslaw, I thought of retorting?

I let it go, instinctively realizing that any fast food service trained mind that could cheerfully offer up taters and beans in place of thighs and breasts was probably ill equipped to grasp the satirical subtlety of comedy involving shredded cabbage.

That adventure came wandering back onto my radar this week as I read of the Juan-dering that cost Mr. Williams his day job.

KFC. Kentucky Fried Chicken.

NPR. National Public Radio.

I think we all know without having to be reminded that the key word in the former sentence is "chicken".

In the latter, on the other hand, I'd offer the key word is...wait for it..."public".

As in "the general populace, people in general considered as a whole".

Or, more germane to the issue, each and every single taxpaying citizen of the United States of America.

Regardless of race, creed, color, religious or sexual affiliation and...big finish...political ideology.

Because NPR is not a commercial enterprise funded by sponsors who might or might not be offended by any particular comment, observation, point of view et al during its broadcast day.

It is a non profit enterprise funded by grants, donations and, of course, federally mandated monies.

Or, as they are described more generically, your tax dollars at work.

Liberal tax dollars, conservative tax dollars, Catholic tax dollars, Protestant tax dollars, red state tax dollars, blue state tax dollars, all God's tax dollars comin' from all God's childruns.

And, therefore in theory, a broadcast enterprise that provides a comprehensive range of programming with a foundational philosophy of total inclusion, a forum for viewpoints of every slant, rant, rhyme and/or reason to be freely expressed, regardless of the aforementioned race, creed, color, etc, etc, yada, yada.

Apparently not.

Some obviously found Williams' comments offensive.

Some, just as obviously, likely did not.

In this particular instance, though, that's beside the point.

Here's the point.

We, meaning all of "we", fund National Public Radio.

So firing someone for expressing any, let alone a particular, point of view is, at best, inappropriate, at worst, unconstitutional.

At that moment, National Public Radio ceased to be "public".

And whether we think Juan Williams is a patriot or a pinhead, we should all be able to agree on the common denominator.

If NPR is no longer "public" radio anymore, than the "public" shouldn't be expected to foot the bill for it.

It ain't really KFC if they can't serve no chicken.

And it ain't really NPR if they can't serve the public.

All the public.

Not just those who can live with just the "fixins."