Open Mouth, Insert Foot- AFLAC Voice-Over Actor (Comedian Gilbert Gottfried) Fired Over Crude Tweets About Japan

I'm not sure why people don't think before they act or speak, especially those who happen to represent the people (as in government officials) or corporations and companies (as in actors and others). Whether out of ignorance or arrogance, some go about doing supremely stupid things that could eventually get them fired, and those actions often do lead to a sacking or a forced resignation.

Actors representing certain products are associated with those products by virtue of the fact that they are seen by millions of viewers pushing that mop, or burger or insurance company, so it behooves them to make sure they behave themselves. No corporation wants any bad p.r., and whether we like it or not, actors are a dime a dozen. Remember the Geico (not the voice of the Gecko) voice-over actor Lance Baxter who was fired over an insulting phone call to the Tea Party's Freedomworks? Gone. He no longer represents Geico. No-one in this business is indispensable, not even Charlie Sheen, one of the highest paid stars on the small screen.

Now it turns out that the asinine comedian Gilbert Gottfried, who mocked the victims of the tsunami in Japan via some extremely tasteless, offensive comments on Twitter, was the voice of the duck in all those Aflac commercials. None too happy with those Tweets, he too was just fired.

“Gilbert’s recent comments about the crisis in Japan were lacking in humor and certainly do not represent the thoughts and feelings of anyone at Aflac,” Aflac Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Michael Zuna said in a statement Monday, reports TMZ. “There is no place for anything but compassion and concern during these difficult times.”

Apparently he still hasn't apologized for some truly vulgar, so-called jokes. Buzzfeed listed 10 of the worst ones on their website, none of which were funny in any way.

But he's not the only one who joked about Japan, there have been others , and even Joan Rivers defended Gottfried. Then we have people like Glenn Beck who piped in claiming it was a message from God, and a writer for "Family Guy" who insinuated it was payback for Pearl Harbor. Natural disasters are not the time to start moralizing about why it happened, because it could easily happen here, once again.

We need to be supportive not judgmental or critical. We are better than that.