Charlie Sheen...

In today's attempt at being topical, I am blogging about the ridiculous, harmful, and mentally ill character that is Charlie Sheen at this moment.

 I will note that he is apparently genuinely ill, that children all over America and the free world are familiar with his antics (including the Goddesses, his children being removed, and his sweaty, pale, crazy rants), and that we have sunk so low in this country as to idealize and pedastal-ize a sad, ill man who has not worked in years on anything decent.  Two and a Half Men is a...well, it's a show, or something, and you can count on seeing the now-teenage "half-a-man" actor (who is the highest-paid teen actor on tv) in Sheen's shoes in a few years.  Charlie Sheen was a handsome, really pretty decent actor some years back, so anything can happen, and maybe he'll return some day from the Planet Pluto.

I am further commenting on the fact that now Sean Penn, another American-made would-be journalist/playah/actor, is gong to unleash Sheen on Haiti, in an effort to capiltalize on Sheen's sudden fame and the sheer amount of Twitter followers he has (note to Penn: the kind of folks that follow Sheen's tweets are probably not the kind that hand over money from their pockets for charity.)  Has't poor Haiti suffered enough? Do wehave to unleash the rotten parts of our culture on it, too?

What else can I offer you on this Sunday?  Well, I guess only the idea that this, too, shall pass, and that our culture is increasingly one to turn away from, and that that's all right.  (Turning away from cultural influences is not, after all, turning away from the country itself.) I am no paragon of virtue, by the way - I am looking forward to The Apprentice tonight, and love American Idol.  But I am trying to recognize what is really hurtful in our culture, and keep it from my youngest son, who is just 11 (almost 12!)  Soon I won't be able to, though, so we have to talk about it.

So, carry on, America.  Maybe like alcoholics and drug-abusers, we truly have to hit rock-bottom before we see the light.