The Times in Which We Live

I thank my readership from the bottom of my heart for their kind comments. Know that you are all loved dearly. *blows you a kiss*

Rest assured that in another few days, I will get back to commenting on your blogs. Comrade Kevin is feeling the guilt of not giving back more to his friends. I just have to slog through another few days of this withdrawal hell. Life has taught me a lot of lessons, and patience is perhaps the most important one.

Transition:

I hardly ever comment upon, much less acknowledge such things, but the recent Heather Mills banter has grabbed my attention. Paul McCartney's soon-to-be ex-wife speaks the truth, though I wonder if it's not a self-serving tactic. She has articulated perfectly the sort of indignation at our celebrity-obsessed culture that many of us bloggers have been saying for years. Count this as another instance where truth dribbles out even when it's presented as a means of pandering for sympathy. My fear is that such theatrical banter cheapens the truth. Her defiant, pushy attitude, while understandable in this context, has massively backfired. I don't know if she even bothers to contemplate the way she comes across to the rest of us. Self-awareness is a gift that that some people lack. Self-awareness requires a person to put himself or herself in an introspective, and yes, vulnerable position.

That being said, if Heather Mills acted like a contrite, humble, woman-done-wrong-by-man, then the public would sympathize more. Her behavior, dear readership, might be evidence of a double standard against women, particularly those which come across as strong and forceful, but let me remind you there's a difference between narcissism and courageousness. I daresay any man who exhibited similar behavior would be lambasted for different reasons, particularly this wide-eyed, why-is-the-world-so-unfair kind of banter.

Mills says the media is too obsessed with celebrities and pays too little attention to important issues.

“Why are we so obsessed with celebrity culture?” she asked. “We have front-page news about divorces instead of front-page news about global warming, about women being abused, about children being abused. We’re going on a downward spiral.”

Marx said religion was the opiate of the masses. Nowadays, it seems like celebrity gossip and the cult of celebrity serves that role. My first cousin, my mother's sister's daughter, quit being a television anchor on the local news because of the dramatic shift in the news media in which it was decided to focus more on soft news garbage at the expense of hard news.

We are all a bunch of voyeurs, delighting in the freak show but living in fear that someday the cameras might be turned upon us.