sad news

It's been harder even than usual to concentrate this morning: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7161590.stm.

how come it takes a rock star to say what everybody knows? #4,792

On the same day as the news that the entirely talentless celebrity Paris Hilton -- well, entirely talentless in polite company, anyway -- is going to lose at least 97% of the money she might have thought she was going to inherit from her grandfather, so she'll still get something over $3 million from him but may have to give up on plans to buy the Virgin Megastore chain, we find this among the non-Bhutto-related items from the Beeb:

Albarn condemns celebrity culture

Blur and Gorillaz frontman Damon Albarn has called for celebrity culture to be "dismantled" - starting by getting rid of talent shows like The X Factor.

The current celebrity culture "sends out all the wrong messages", he said.

"It's creating a mindset that suggests you can get something for nothing and that it's easy to acquire status and fame," he told BBC Radio 4.

"It should be one of the hardest things to do," said Albarn, who was speaking as guest editor of the Today programme.

In full at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/entertainment/7161966.stm

(Today is the flagship news and current affairs program of the Beeb's flagship radio channel, Radio 4.)

There is something very wrong at the heart of a society where far too much is laid at the feet of a very small number of people who are far too often modestly talented at best. Indeed, there's something fundamentally wrong with a society -- and I'm talking here about world society, not any particular national one -- where a tiny minority are rewarded with such an enormously disproportionate amount of the wealth, whether they're talentless, like Ms Hilton, or enormously talented, like any number of scientists, artists, physicians, writers, musicians and others who come to mind.

I'd've been impressed if Albarn had gone on to say that perhaps it's too easy for rock stars to attain celebrity status when, say, physicists have a far harder time of it, but I'm grateful for what he did say.

Now, are we going to have some newscasters on US television who're actually competent journalists or are we still going to be stuck with the celebrity ones?