Reverend Benny & Mister Sid's At Your Service #52

The point is that we give our attentions to the wrong things.

By Glen Bledsoe

(Salem) - I just read about an anti-paparazzi device [www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/07/celebrity-shielding-flashgun-handbag-defeats-paparazzi/] which flashes an intense LED light into the offending camera's direction when the device's light meter senses a camera flash.

It doesn't appear to be the least bit practical, but it demonstrates the level of frustration endured by celebrities.

I don't think anyone really cares if Celebrity A has cellulite and shouldn't be at the beach wearing a blue Speedo, yet it's a common photo-topic in the scandal rags even though it's about as appetizing as a picture of a sore toe. (I wonder if those publications are in any danger of tanking like the legitimate press.)

The point is that we give our attentions to the wrong things. We've lost our sense of what is important.

No, I don't care about Brad and Jen and Angelina and a bucket-full of other stars who are so familiar to the public that they can be identified by using only their first names. I don't know why that bothers me so much. Maybe because when they refer to many of these celebs by first name only, I have little or no idea who they are talking about.

I don't watch television (although I just got this cool device the size of a thumb drive which will allow me to view TV on my Mac), and I'm pretty selective about the movies I watch.

But what about politicians? I have heard of most of them. What do I have to say about Sarah Palin, for example, baling out of her gubernatorial obligations because as Maureen Dowd put it [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/05/opinion/05dowd.html?_r=1&em] "Sarah wanted everyone to know that she’s not having fun and people are being mean to her and she doesn’t feel like finishing her first term as governor"? That's presidential material if I ever saw it.

And then, of course, there's Mark Sandford.

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