There were a couple of stories that may have raised some eyebrows this past week — radiation moving across the nation; Americans putting our young military personnel and our economy in harm’s way in yet another Middle East event; the continual economic melt down, which came complete with some of the first admissions that we are facing serious inflation in this economy.
Amidst all of that, there was the discussion about the disparity in speakers’ fees for American women.
OK, that wasn’t near the top of the list, but it still played out in the press this week.
At the bottom of the list was Ann Coulter, conservative commentator who appeared at the University of Wyoming for $20,000.
She was in the news because a handful of people turned out to protest her being on campus, and that was all that the national media needed to scream at us, Look! This huge crowd of about 30 students is protesting Ann Coulter!.
Like her or not, you gotta wonder is she’s worth $20,000 per talk, however.
But wait.
That’s nothing.
The other story this week at from Rutgers, the New Jersey school that spent $30,000 to bring in Nobel-winning novelist Toni Morrison to deliver Rutgers’ commencement address last May, and then turned around this year and spent $32,000 for  Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi of the reality TV show “Jersey Shore” to offer her impressive advice to the college students.
Oh, the advice? “Study hard, but party harder.”
It’s not fair, of course, to compare the Wyoming pay to New Jersey, however, it’s amazing that Snooki would get better pay than a Nobel winner.
Snooki is part of a cast on un-reality TV that celebrates boozing, brawling and rampant promiscuity. The cast has been in legal trouble more than once for allegedly engineering public fights for the sake of ratings.
According to the Associated Press, “Money for Polizzi’s appearance came from the mandatory student activity fee.”
So, whether you were a “Jersey Shore” fan or not, if you went to Rutgers, you paid.
Ain’t that somthin’?
Oh well, as long as we have our priorities straight.
— Chuck Smith