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There are a couple items in the news this week I would like to report on. Now, mind you, these items are not goofy and zany like Janet Jacobs might regurgitate from other news reports around the country. You know what I mean — like some joker trying to hold up a Brinks armored car with a water pistol. These are legitimate news items, but I’ll try my best to regurgitate some of my own stuff upon them.

First, is the startling revelation that the “Queen of Buttah,” Paula Deen was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes about three years ago. Holy Sugar, Batman! Who would have guessed that this sweet, Savannah, Georgia, author, restauranteur, and TV star whose motto is “never use one stick of butter when you can cram in two,” would be so afflicted.

I mean here is a lady who puts mayonnaise on her aspirin tablets. The only way she will eat fruits and vegetables is when they are wrapped in bacon. She and her husband love ice cream so much, all the spoons in their house are bent.

Her cooking is not the only thing sweet about Paula. Her folksy southern drawl is so syrupy you could pour it on pancakes. In one 30-minute episode of her “Paula’s Best Dishes” on the Food Network, you will get more “y’alls” than you can stack up. The only cooking show with more “y’alls” is “Down Home with the Neelys” and that is because there are two of them “y’alling” at once.

In her defense I must say that Paula cooks everything from scratch. None of this pre-fab meal preparation for her. Her idea of defrosting is taking the streaks out of her hair. For Paula, “cooking from scratch means using lots of fats, cheeses, sugars, and butter (lots of butter).

Here are just a few of her diabetic (yeah, right!) recipes I picked off the net that illustrate her cooking style: “Sausage Pancake Egg Sandwiches; Chocolate Gooey Butter Cookies; Not Yo’ Mama’s Banana Pudding; Is It Really Better Than Sex? Cake”

I was actually watching (I love the Food Network) when she made “Bill Nicholson’s Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding with Butter Rum Sauce.” I kid you not, these are the ingredients: two dozen Krispy Kreme donuts; one (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk; two (4.5 ounce) cans fruit cocktail (undrained); two eggs, beaten; one (9 ounce) box raisins; pinch salt; and one/ two teaspoons cinnamon. On top of that glop goes the rum sauce consisting of one stick butter, one pound box confectioner’s sugar, and rum to taste. That’s enough to clot your capillaries don’t you think?

 Poor Paula is getting bombarded by many health groups, calling her a hypocrite for promoting food like this and then recently becoming a spokesperson for a diabetes drug maker.  Paula has said, “I was determined to share my positive approach and not let diabetes stand in the way of enjoying my life.” I say, Go, Paula!

My other item is a tragic one. It concerns the shipwreck of the luxury Italian cruise ship, Costa Concordia. It seems the ship’s captain, Francesco Schettino, managed to drive this 1,000 feet long, 114,000 ton ship, with over 4,000 souls on board, onto some rocks off the coast of Italy where it capsized. As many as 16 deaths have been confirmed and many more folks are still missing.

The ship is lying on its side which impedes the search and rescue operations. Compounding the problem are the 2,400 tons of diesel fuel which must be extracted from the ship’s tanks.

The Captain has been detained on suspicion of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck, and abandoning his ship. There are various accounts but it seems he left the ship around 12:30 a.m. and many passengers didn’t get off until 6 a.m. after many hours of panic in the darkness. One of the conflicting claims by the Captain was that he was catapulted off the ship. Sure, right into one of the first lifeboats to flee the scene.

This ship was on a routine weekly cruise of the Mediterranean so the route certainly was well known by all. The captain claims the rocks were not on any of his charts and his bosses kept demanding he “pass by there and pass by there” so he could show the ship off to the landlubbers. Of course, the cruise line owners and directors deny this so it is a case of “he said, they said,” which will surely be decided in the courts.

Without trying to make light of this tragic event, I feel that a quote from “The Wit and Wisdom of Winston Churchill” by James C. Humes is in order. “Late in his life, Sir Winston took a cruise on an Italian ship. A journalist from a New York newspaper approached the former prime minister to ask him why he chose to travel on an Italian line when the Queen Elizabeth under the British flag was available. Churchill gave the question his consideration and then gravely replied.

‘There are three things I like about Italian ships. First, their cuisine, which is unsurpassed. Second, their service, which is quite superb. And then — in time of emergency — there is none of this nonsense about women and children first.’”

See ya...

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Dick Platt is a Daily Sun columnist. Want to “Soundoff” on this column? Email: soundoff@corsicanadailysun.com