NEWTON'S LAW: FRANKLY, WE'D RATHER NOT GET INVOLVED IN SOUTHERN SEQUELS

Heaven help me that I would one day quote a line from "Designing Women."

Here, however, I have done it.

Linda Bloodworth-Thomason, the Poplar Bluff woman who created the show and has written most of its episodes, got off a good line that was both amusing and telling.

One of her characters pointed out that people in the South don't closet away their eccentrics, they bring them out for all to see. The only question asked on the subject is not whether a family has such a person, but what side of the family they're on.

The War Between The States ended 126 years ago, and the growth of mass communications has served to homogenize the whole nation, yet the South still holds a special, quirky place for most of us.

You still get grits, whether you ask for them or not, at most Georgia waffle houses. There are more porch swings on one street in Alabama than there are in some large cities in Ohio. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, it might be noted that the South spawns more stereotypes (pot-bellied sheriffs, seersuckered lawyers, protracted accents) than any region anywhere.

When the South is mentioned, certain trenchant images come to most minds. Garrison Keillor can chatter until he works for that big radio station in the sky and we will still not conjure as clear a portrait of Lake Wobegon life as we do now of life in a southern town.

Which is why we can forgive at least on a cognitive level the passionate arguments of those who believe Margaret Mitchell's epic novel "Gone With The Wind" needs a sequel. Some just can't stand the thought of Scarlett O'Hara resolute and Rhett Butler not giving a damn into eternity.

Whether the nation needs such a sequel or not, it now has one. "Scarlett" is to hit bookstore shelves today. That is only a manner of speaking, since copies may not actually make it to the shelves; early reaction indicates they will be bought right out of the shipping container. This thing is hot.

Since its publication in 1936, 28 million copies of "Gone With The Wind" have been sold. More than a half-century after its publication, 250,000 copies are sold each year. The book spawned a movie that is regarded as one of the greatest and most beloved of all time.

Thus, we are left to our musings. Was Alexandra Ripley commissioned by the Mitchell family to write the sequel and appease the original's legion of fans, is the family finally cashing in on a considerable legacy, or has this madness for sequels gotten the better of everyone?

Probably, all these things entered into the decision, though let's hope the latter rationale didn't weigh too heavily. The history of literature is laden with homages, borrowings, ripoffs, send-ups and other acts of theft and plagiarism.

A more modern style ordains that sequels arise not from attempts to build on the past but through the admission of inspirational bankruptcy. It is a sleazy if lucrative way to operate.

And at risk, if "Gone With The Wind" has now been profitably remade, are a great many books and movies that were once thought "complete" and untouchable.

Is Harper Lee's masterpiece in danger? Will there be a "Death of a Mockingbird: Boo's Story"?

Will Rick find a life outside Morocco? The answer may lie in "Casablanca II: Sam and Me."

If Margaret Mitchell symbolized, and apologized for, the Atlanta of an earlier day, the icon of that modern city might hold the ultimate insult in sequels. Ted Turner perhaps will take the cinematic "Gone With The Wind" and "decolorize" it, a black-and-white classic for the next generation of audiences.

Let's hope "Scarlett" contains some artistic merit and at least enough answers to satisfy loyal fans of the original book. And let's hope a significant number of principals expire so a second sequel won't be inspired.

That's the good thing about southern eccentrics: they know when they've worn out their welcome.