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 By Tom Pain Mar. 15, 2006 Our sick, corrupt, celebrity-worshipping culture was on display again this week. Look around you, everywhere we can see hard-working Americans contributing value to our society every day. Most of our police officers, firefighters, doctors, nurses, and teachers are wonderful role models. In fact, most Americans are wonderful role models. They work hard, pay their taxes and bills, take care of their children, and they respect themselves and their neighbors. Why aren’t people like us, like you and me, celebrated by our media and entertainment industry? Good people doing good things. Why, instead, are we inundated by perverse, corrupt, undisciplined, immoral, egotistical, self-centered jerks paraded around by the partnership of the media and entertainment venues? Many of the character flaws of these false idols are "airbrushed" by their masters so that they are not as obvious. Drug abuse, alcoholism, infidelity, perversity, and worse are masked over by the agents, studios, and entertainment industry honchos, while the press conveniently ignores these symptoms and buys into the charade by only exposing the façade. Others take the opposite approach and ballyhoo the sickness. I can easily think of ten such celebrities, who actually trade on their flaws and have no discernible talent other than being flawed, but Paris Hilton is the most recent example that comes to mind. This week saw the death of two celebrities make national headlines. Their wonderful accomplishments were in the headlines, while their true personalities were not so admirable. One really did have what I consider talent – supreme athletic ability. The other was considered a very talented actor, I just think of that as more of a personality disorder than a talent. And, in fact, as you understand that actor’s motivations, it becomes apparent that it was a disorder. Kirby Puckett led the Minnesota Twins to two World Championships. He is in the Baseball Hall of Fame and is revered throughout the state of Minnesota. Kirby Puckett also beat his wife and threatened her life. He cheated on his wife and children as well. In our worlds, yours and mine, beating and threatening the death of our spouse and the mother/father of our children would render us a pariah to society – no matter how well we could hit a baseball. Do you think the company softball team would welcome me and carry me around on their shoulders if I had bailed out of jail that morning for spousal abuse? How about if I brought my girlfriend to the game, instead of my wife? No, wouldn’t happen. Chances are, unless you work at a huge company subject to Federal Employment law, such an act would get you fired from your job. But wait, doesn’t the church have a softball team? Believe me, they don’t need spouse abusers’ and cheaters either. Not Kirby Puckett. He’s National Hero, just because he can hit a baseball. The actor that died was Maureen Stapleton. Oscar, Tony, and Emmy award winner. Star of stage and screen for plus forty years and loudly praised in the news this week. Ms. Stapleton was also a pathetic alcoholic, had been for decades. She had been in rehab but never kicked the habit. Turns out that her father was an alcoholic as well, so her fans will jump on the liberal bandwagon and deny that she’s responsible for her ugly behavior. One story quoted Ms. Stapleton as saying that she’d wanted to be an actor since childhood because she didn’t like being herself – that, my friends, is what you call mental illness. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t despise Ms. Stapleton because she was mentally ill, I just do not respect her when she "treated" her illness by drinking and indulging in fantastical escapism – if I’m not mistaken, leading psychiatrists recommend a different approach. But, do you think that excuse would work for us? Could I blame my father every time I vomited, as Ms. Stapleton did before every performance, before a meeting with my boss? What would the boss say to me keeping a bottle of vodka in the old cubicle, just as she had in her dressing room? Again, it wouldn’t fly. I would be fired on the spot; our company has a "no tolerance" policy against alcohol, among other things. Did we lose two wonderfully talented Americans this week, or did we lose two pathetic humans? You decide and then explain your decision to your children. Oh, and my picture, that's me on the left. ------------ About the author Tom Pain: Just an American boy with so much common sense, it hurts. Email: thomas.pain@direcway.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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