Gossip as News

I'll admit it - I have a weakness.  When I'm standing at the supermarket check-out counter, my eyes wander over People, Us and, egads, sometimes even the National Enquirer.  I too wonder whose cellulite-ridden butt that is on the cover (The Shocking Answer Revealed Inside) or just what the earth-shattering news is about the hook-ups and break-ups in the gilded cage of Hollywood.  Can it really hurt to look?  Just a peek?

The answer is yes and no.  Being too militant and unforgiving about anything is a recipe for unhappiness, so no, a little peek inside to get the truth (or fiction) behind the hyperbole won't kill anyone.  But, in a grander scale, if we create the change we want to see, wouldn't it be nice to create a world where no one gossiped and our most celebrated members of society weren't the people who recite memorized lines, but the ones who write them?

One encouraging trend I see is that of the celebrity that uses the obscene amount of attention they receive to shine a spotlight on real problems in the world like, say, for example, oh... war and famine.  Case in point: George Clooney's work to bring attention to the tragedy in Darfur or Angelina Jolie's work with refugees.  Yes, I too am sick of the Brangelina offspring hype but you've got to hand it to the lady... every time someone points a camera at her lately, she's talking about third world country, kookie though she unquestionably is.

As for me... I'll use this huge spotlight of mine (wink, wink) to point to two causes I love:  Heifer International, a phenomenal charity that gives people in developing nations the gift of a heifer or other animal which they can then use for milk and to breed and Seva.org, which does great work like train midwives in Guatemala.