Andrew Gumbel is The Independent's man in Los Angeles and a Huffington Post blogger. He's been watching the response to Michael Richards' outburst and finds "there's something about the sheer banality of the mass media pile-on that leaves me distinctly queasy. What does it say about a society, especially one with as bad a racial conscience as the United States, that it feels compelled to say over and over that Richards' repeated use of the n-word was offensive? Could it be that there isn't quite as much unanimity on the matter as everyone would like to pretend?" He adds: "As Kramer once said, 'Mother Nature is a mad scientist, Jerry!' Yup, and Michael Richards is far from the only freak around here." More over there, of course.

Meanwhile: In today's LAT, Erin Aubry Kaplan is troubled by the difference in reactions to O.J. Simpson and Richards. And at Native Intelligence, Bob Baker writes out Richards' next public statement for him.