Celebrity Obsession: Enough Already!!

Psst . . . Have you heard the latest? Paris Hilton has found religion. Lindsey Lohan checked into rehab. TomKat are working on a sibling for baby Suri. Nicole Richie is facing DUI charges. Angelina is miffed because Brad's mom talked to Jenifer. And Britney Spears spent $3000 on underwear after the cameras caught her going commando! OHMYGODDD!!

I have just one question for you . . . Who the hell cares??!!??!!

John Lennon's famous comment that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus implied that we are more faithful to our favorite celebrities than we are to our religion. Not being a religious person, this doesn't particularly offend me. But the extreme American obsession with celebrity has reached the point of being ridiculous and become more than a little annoying.

Does anyone else find it alarming that so many people fail to realize that these stories are just gossip and instead think these are NEWS STORIES. To make matters worse, we seem to be most interested in celebrities who are best known for being stupid, trashy, anorexic and addicted.

Why aren't women like Winona LaDuke, Zainab Salbi, and Tammy Duckworth making the front pages instead? Why aren't Americans talking about intelligent women who are working their tails off (instead of showing their tails off) to make the world a better place?

LaDuke is a Harvard educated writer and activist. In 1996 and 2000, she ran for the U.S. Vice Presidency on the Green Party ticket headed by Ralph Nader. In 1997, she was named Woman of the Year by Ms. Magazine, and in 1998 she won the Reebok Human Rights Award. She is founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project and the Indigenous Women's Network. But mention her name at a cocktail party and the response is, "Winona Who? Never heard of her."

Zainab Salbi is a beautiful Iraqi-American who is devoting her life to helping women in war torn countries. Salbi is the founder of Women for Women International, a growing humanitarian organization that brings education, financial assistance, counseling, and perhaps most importantly, hope, to women who have survived the horrors of war - torture, sexual slavery, witnessing the murders of their husbands and rapes of their daughters. In interviews with journalists, Salbi tells the stories of women in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia who are held in prison camps where they are raped day and night.

Where women are given a number, and when their number is called, they are passed from soldier to soldier. Why aren't these interviews featured by the main stream media? Is it because the truth of what's going on in the world is too ugly for pampered, spoiled Americans? Or is it because these stories make us feel guilty about our superficial, shallow and self-centered lives?

How many Americans have heard of Ladda "Tammy" Duckworth? Thirty-nine year old Duckworth, a Major in the Illinois National Guard, lost both legs in 2004 when the Black Hawk helipcopter she was co-piloting was hit by a rocket propelled grenade fired by Iraqi insurgents. After recovering at Walter Reed Medical Center, Duckworth was fitted with prosthetic legs and has been on the move ever since.

Duckworth helped establish the Intrepid Foundation and is actively involved in its fundraising efforts to build a rehabilitation center for injured soldiers. In 2006, she made a run for a U.S. House of Representatives seat in Illinois and was narrowly defeated by Republican Peter Roskam. Duckworth has been critical of the Bush Administration's handling of the situation in Iraq.

Ironically, the Republican Party has called Duckworth "unpatriotic", to which she responded: "I am sick and tired of the Republicans saying "Either you agree with us on national security or you are not patriotic." It is total baloney - in fact I have a better army word, but I can't use it. We must never forget that it is patriotic and it is American to question people in power." Duckworth is currently serving as Director of the Illinois Veteran Affairs Department.

Despite the many significant contributions that LaDuke, Salbi and Duckworth have made to the world, they are "unknowns" compared to Britney Spears or Paris Hilton.

In a National Public Radio interview earlier this year, journalist Jancee Dunn tried to explain the celebrity obsession phenomenon by comparing our society to high school: "Well, at this point I feel like, with celebrity journalism, that we really are one giant high school and they're the cool kids, and everyone on the Internet can comment on them, can envy them, despise them, emulate them."

Great analogy . . . But guess what - less than 10% of the American population is high school age.

Come on, America, it's time to grow up and get real lives - lives of purpose, meaning, integrity and character - instead of living vicariously through empty-headed celebrities who don't know or care that you even exist. Pay heed to the words of poet and painter Washington Allston: "Make no man your idol; for the best man must have faults, and his faults will usually become yours in addition to your own."

Try to imagine what a better place the world would be if we Americans spent our time and money supporting women of substance like LaDuke, Salbi and Duckworth instead of wasting our resources idolizing and emulating celebrities.