Ichabod's Kin
A place for politics, pop culture, and social issues

You’re really living in a small town when the lead story of its daily paper concerns a maiden from a nearby burg who’s chosen to be Paris Hilton’s “Best Freakin’ Friend”–oh, excuse me–”Best Friend Forever” (BFF).

Things are worse than I thought: we’re victims of an invasion by Paris’ bogus celebrity. Let heaven and nature sing: people in darkness are rescued from humdrum lives, henceforth to follow every last word about said maiden’s career. Hanging with Hilton is to be in the company of a wasted life that smiles enigmatically while walking about, oh, anywhere and doing, oh, anything. By association, we will have everlasting reason to take pride in being residents of this region: “No, I’m only from next town over, but it’s right next to that town, where Paris’ BFF is from. The paper sez so.”

Before this is deemed to be raining on a parade of distinguished accomplishment, did you ever check out Paris’ “BFF” MTV program and wonder why you’re trying to rear your children with lofty values—kids who maybe take time and trouble for trips to Katrina-devastated New Orleans or dedicate early careers to places in South America where there is real poverty—you know, things worth writing about. But as The Little Prince said, newspapers don’t write about matters of importance. So there you go. Things haven’t changed much since that insightful literary warning.

The older generation has screwed up, as it always does, but said news item gives us pause as to whether youth are the hope of the future. But here’s why: adults are complicit in the Fall of Humanity, given what we laud and honor in young people—such as emptiness, as long as it’s clothed in the sparkle of celebrity.

To save those who are slothful and lethargic from a trip to the dictionary, the word “celeritous”this?” Isn’t that what life’s all about?
means swift-moving–hence a good adjective for “celebrity,” as both are fleeting, though much attention is gained before many celebs crash, burn, and enter rehab. After that, they move on to the junk heap of history where future archaeologists will unearth brief mention of their names and say, “Who the hell was

To doubt this report is to sleep soundly: I read also of a young man’s career goal to be a “rock star.” He made no mention of a passion for music and of great life urgency to play it; no, he just wants to be a star. We know what that means: to hell with whether it brings any measure of excellence and beauty into the world, so long as he gets the accouterment of stardom–you know, gross bucks, unsafe sex with air-headed chicks, and nonstop drugs. What’s not to like about that? His parents, too, must be awesomely proud. It brings to mind a deceased man, richly dressed and propped behind the wheel of a Cadillac, all of which is lowered into a grave by a crane while a mourner is heard to say, “Man, that’s livin’.”

Be free to confuse “accouterment” with “accouchement force’” which means forced delivery, as in childbirth, for that is how celebrity today is muscled into being. God bless America: where else in the world could so many owe so little to something so vacuous—and in such copious amounts. As the truism goes: too much of anything is ugly.

In another life I knew a colorless little editor who so wished to be “with it” that he made much of a local girl who appeared in Playboy. It too was a front-and-center story, as if she were a budding Mother Teresa. When next I saw him I suggested a better headline, to wit, “Local Girl Sheds Clothes for Hef and Named Humanitarian of the Year.” He looked at me in perplexed fashion and asked, “Now why would I do that?”

Why, indeed.