'Notorious' celebrities revel in self-importance Years ago, I received a press release that told of the “notorious” so-and-so’s upcoming visit to a college campus. Now, the writer of that release didn’t mean to disparage good old so-and-so and of course meant “a person of notoriety” rather than someone with a nefarious background. But, as has been said, there’s a fine line between cops and criminals, much like being famous or infamous. A circa 1930 movie illustrated that perfectly in a story about brothers Pat O’Brien and Jimmy Cagney, who became a priest and a crook, respectively. So today we ordinary mortals have to suffer through the culture of celebrity, where people who deserve a lifetime of shame instead get far more than their 15 minutes of fame. That’s bad enough, but the most difficult thing to handle with these mindless young celebs is that they truly believe that what say and do really matters. When we have young men and women the same ages of some of these pseudo-celebrities fighting and sometimes dying in Iraq or Afghanistan, well...it just makes you want to shake some sense into the “it’s all about me” crowd and say, “Don’t you get it?” Mind you, I’m hardly jealous of what or who passes for celebrity or celebrities in this age of instant notice and instant gratification. As one gets older, one realizes that you hardly have to be famous to lead a productive, fulfilling life. It seems to me, however, that our priorities are more than a bit skewed when we attach importance to the Lindsay Lohans or Britney Spears or others—from convicted congressmen to crooked NBA referees to spaced-out rich girls to drug cheats in sports—appearing with a fawning Larry King or whomever. Then, of course, most of these people who can’t utter a declarative sentence without a script “write” a book on how they’ve supposedly turned their lives around. And many of us, caught up in that cult of celebrity, then buy the darn things. Saps that we are, we lap it all up, for some reason believe that these creatures of TV and movies are somehow better than we are. It’s become quite fashionable today to be a “bad boy” or “bad girl” rather than someone who tries to do well. They and those of their ilk may have notoriety, but for all the wrong reasons. That young people, like the “educated idiots” who appear on Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking” feature, can really be as dumb as posts, strains credulity. But, alas, those “Jaywalkers,” as a result of their stupidity, have become celebrities themselves. They also know their own kind, readily identifying Lindsay or Britney or Tom Cruise or Madonna but failing to recognize pictures of Bill Gates or Al Gore or Benjamin Franklin or Ronald Reagan. It’s time for us to forget about these people. It’s time to tune them out and stop listening to their mindless prattle. And it’s way past the time that we should pay attention those who are the real celebrities in our midst. We should honor our teachers, outside of the clergy perhaps the most noble calling we have in society...teaching our children and molding them—even more than some parents, unfortunately—into the men and women who will lead this nation in succeeding generations. And as much as we owe high school teachers for their diligence in educating young adults, we owe even greater thanks to those who work in public and private pre-schools, kindergartens and elementary schools, teaching readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmetic—and so many other things, like social skills and peer interaction—to youngsters getting their first taste of schooling. It’s time we honor firefighters and police officers who risk their lives every day. It’s time we recognize doctors and nurses and those who labor anonymously but oh so necessarily in health care. It’s time we remember all workers who pay their taxes and live ordinary lives that are the essence of what this nation has always been all about. They—all of us who work at jobs or as stay-at-home moms or dads—are doing good for society by doing our jobs well. We are the celebrities who should celebrate ourselves. So, let’s all take a well-deserved bow. That’s all we get—our own satisfaction at doing things right. And that’s not interesting enough for the likes of Larry King, or Britney or Lindsay. Contact editor Don Kopriva at dkopriva@thebusinessledger.com or at 630-428-8788.

Posted on Monday, July 14, 2008 (Archive on Monday, July 21, 2008) Posted by jstoltz  Contributed by jstoltz

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