An interesting theory on famed cooked Paula Deen and her admitted use of the "n-word," brought to you by New York Times columnist Frank Bruni:

There’s almost always a larger context ... when someone falls as spectacularly as Deen has fallen, and there’s almost always a prelude: a first strike.

Hers was in early 2012. That’s when she lost the benefit of the doubt, not racially but in terms of her character, by revealing that she had been diagnosed three years earlier with Type 2 diabetes, which is abetted by the calorie bombs on which her empire thrived.

This disclosure was timed not to benefit her fans, who were continuing to follow her fatty counsel, but to benefit her: one of her sons had a new healthy-cooking show that needed promoting, and she herself was stepping out as a spokeswoman — a paid spokeswoman — for a diabetes drug.

@eScarry