Tomorrow's train wreck today

Man, can we just lay off already?? Stop dehumanizing people who are every bit as human as you. Stop depersonalizing them and their lives, their suffering. First Anna Nicole Smith. Now Britney Spears. Both of them are somebody's daughter, somebody's momma. Each of them is made in the image of God, and we mock, just as Christ's captors did. In your Church, Rod, it's Lent and you're chortling over this woman's behavior, which is the behavior of somebody who has hit rock bottom. Lent is the time of conversion. If you can't practice compassion during Lent, when can you? Can you allow yourself to acknowledge, not laugh at, the pain of a 25-year old who not too long was a kid being sexually exploited to make a buck. Remember the Pepsi commercial featuring Bob Dole and the punchline of an alluring teenage Britney? She was sexually abused. Even if she (and the people around her, including her mom who clearly was not looking out for Britney) made millions off of it, we recognize that girls at the age of 14, 15, aren't capable of consent to the act of sex. Can a girl that age consent to making sexually suggestive videos? I never thought that Britney at the time when she was prancing around in braids and Catholic school girl skirts really understood that she was masturbation fodder. But the rest of us knew. I wonder if she knows now. I wonder if that's what's killing her today. As John Stewart of the Daily Show said to the viewers of the Anna Nicole Smith show, Don't watch her. Don't laugh at her. Help her.

Sorry folks, but overt ridicule is the only means respectable society has for getting the attention of someone who considers themself exempt from shame, decency and public opinion. Her religion, among other things, has failed her. She may come back one day, but until she learns the basic rules of "public embarrasment" there's little hope for revelation.

MM: "Sorry folks, but overt ridicule is the only means respectable society has for getting the attention of someone who considers themself exempt from shame, decency and public opinion. Her religion, among other things, has failed her. She may come back one day, but until she learns the basic rules of "public embarrasment" there's little hope for revelation." The pharisees would be proud of you MM and you too Rod.