Eeny, Meeny, Meiny, Moe . . . . .

Eeny, meeny, meiny, Moe . . .  watch the bird, now where'd he go . . .  flew to where the roses grow . . . grab him quick, then let him go . . .  that's my bit and now you're it.

Ever hear that said.  Of course not.  Except, perhaps, for the first four words.  The original version of that childish doggerel comes from a time best forgotten.  But, of course, there was such a time.

There was also a time when little back Sambo met a tiger and ......    It ends happily, however.  The tiger turns to butter, little black Sambo gets his clothes back, and moma, daddy, and little, black Sambo all get to eat stacks and stacks of pancakes.  Was that a racist story?  Don't know.  Possibly.

Then there was big, heavy, Aunt Jemima smiling broadly as she was pictured on a box of powdered pancake mix holding a plate piled high with pancakes.  Since then, she's been redrawn as a svelte African-American, who, in real life, would probably avoid pancakes.

What I'm saying is that when some big, British TV celebrity was caught mouthing the Eeny, meeny, meiny, Moe bit, as he stood there on the sidewalk seeing which taxi was most likely to pick him up, he came within a hair's width of getting fired by BBC.

Old men aren't necessarily racist; they're just old and can sometimes be caught mumbling weird shit.