[email protected]

>Tom and Nicole's marriage is none of our business just because they are in
the lime light of Hollywood, just as it isn't our business whether the
President
is doing an intern or not."

YES!
I don't feel as if anything these people do in their personal lives is any of
my business. They are harassed daily by the media and the things done to them
would be ILLEGAL if they were done to us.
How is it that a persons career choice, which puts them in the public view,
somehow waives their right to a private life?

Ren


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Heidi Wordhouse-Dykema

>I don't feel as if anything these people do in their personal lives is any of
>my business.

I don't think anyone really thinks it's anyone's business but the people
involved, as in, something we have or could have influence over. What I do
think is that we, as human beings, react negatively to things happening to
other folks that we would not want to happen to ourselves (ie, be abandoned
in a most-public manner by our spouses, have a daughter kidnapped, etc) so
in a feeling of solidarity with the injured party, we admonish the doer of
the negative actions and the negative action itself in story-form.

I think part of us yearns somewhat for the story-teller mode of information
in transmitting social mores, responsibilities and 'warnings' to each
other. Actors and other media darlings are well-known, and so the stories
that surround them are more easily accessible (and retained?) than would be
a story about my cousin Steve, who nobody's met or is interested in.

In another way, what some media darlings do in their personal lives where
it transects professional lives, *does* affect 'my business'. (ie, putting
personal 'buddies' into positions of authority where they can do great
harm.) When that happens, you can be sure that I make it my business and
actually try to have influence over what is going on (or make some noise
about it at least!)

>They are harassed daily by the media and the things done to them
>would be ILLEGAL if they were done to us.

Like what?
I can't think of any legal harassment that could happen to them that would
not also be legal if it happened to little-old-me.
HeidiWD

"Self-reliance is the antidote to institutional stupidity." JTGatto,
Monarch Notes guide to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.