The People vs. Whitney

In recent events, there has been quite a bit of facebook chatter about the unfortunate passing of Whitney Houston. While it saddens my heart for anyone to depart this life at an early age, and even more so that she left behind loved ones including a young daughter, I think I will go ahead and address this anyway. And I’ll do my best to be brief. On the day that Whitney died (from “undetermined” causes), there were also soldiers that lost their lives in the line of duty. Now farbeit for me to judge the worth of a life, however I do feel that the loss of their lives was certainly worth mention, and that the passing of Whitney Houston could do with less mention. Now before you get all up in arms, what I mean by ‘less mention’ is that NBC, FOX5, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, various news blogs, magazines in check-out lines, most major radio stations, and any other media outlet known to man (take a breath), did not all need to cover it…every hour…on the hour….everyday this week. I just feel that our focus as an American society is so wrapped up in the maintenance of the faux-royalty we’ve created using television and music personas, that we fail to give any attention to those that we would say are deserving of honor. Politics aside, if asked to compare the impact or merit of laying down one’s life for another, to using your talent to provide entertainment and enjoyment- no matter how much you love Whitney, I would almost bet you would choose the former. So, that being said, calm down! When patriots post pictures to mourn the fallen and call your attention to it, no one is “judging”, no one is saying she is unworthy, and no one is “hating.” When you stomp your foot and point your finger and furrow your brow and tighten your mouth and in your old-person voice bellow “Show some respect!”, YOU show some respect. Show it to the ones who continually pave the road for this way of life we have, that so graciously allows our faux-royalty to make a crushing amount of money (as evidenced by their high-class drug problems- my one verbal shank in this piece) by doing what they love to do. No one is saying Whitney is not to be mourned, just asking that our soldiers can share the spotlight.