Column by Zachary Kiser

In the spirit of Finals Week, let’s take a quick informal quiz. Can you name the last three winners of the Academy Award for Best Actor? What is the name of Miley Cyrus’ boyfriend? How many times has Britney Spears been admitted to a hospital for “exhaustion?” Finally, can you name the inventor of the polio vaccine, or who discovered Radium?

If you are like the average American, then you most likely found the first three questions significantly easier than the last two. American culture has a major problem that is growing at an unchecked rate, and has been for sometime.  No, the problem I speak of isn’t abortion, secular values or even homosexuals; this problem lies with America’s obsession with Hollywood celebrities.

In a culture that values entertainment, distraction and fluff above all else, American and international celebrities have assumed a shockingly high pedestal in American culture. One cannot turn on the TV news or read a respected newspaper without seeing a couple pages or a couple 10-minute segments dealing with celebrity relationships or which one of these morons thinks he is qualified to talk to the American people about politics. I could care less who Ben Affleck likes in the 2010 Senate races or the fact that Chuck Norris likes Mike Huckabee – (Contributing Kernel columnists) Joe Gallenstein and Jacob Sims are more qualified to talk politics than those chuckle heads.

Fiscal conservatives and true capitalists talk a lot about letting the American people and private industry fund, support and be the driving force behind technological and scientific research.  I am sorry, but this can never be allowed to happen. Why would we want to discover a cure to AIDS, or create a reliable alternative energy source when we can put all that wasted money to use on building a better Britney Spears tracker?

The majority of the American people could care less about things that really matter most. That’s why we have a representative democracy, the laziest form of democracy there is. Every so often 45 to 55 percent of us go to the polls and vote for some person we don’t even know to go and make our decisions for us. After we vote, that is the last time we will care about what that elected official is doing, at least until Ben Affleck or Chuck Norris make a stink on national television. Then, and only then, will the average American citizen get up in arms; monkey see, monkey do.

How have celebrities improved the world we live in? Sure, one or two of them will donate a couple million dollars to plant some trees, some will volunteer at a soup kitchen for two hours in front of 20,000 cameras, and some, like Madonna and Angelina Jolie, have adopted at least three countries worth of orphans.  Sadly, all these are fleeting, token attempts to ride the “let’s-save-the-Earth” bandwagon. Only our celebrity-obsessed American culture could make these token acts out as something meaningful and “brave.”

While we follow our celebrities 24/7, there are millions of unsung heroes out there making a difference in the world. I am talking about the firemen, policemen, scientists, teachers and researchers.  When was the last time you turned on the TV and saw paparazzi pictures of one of the researchers in the UK Physiology or Neurobiology department? I dare say everyone in either one of those departments have contributed more to this Earth than every celebrity on this Earth. What about the UK police officer who works a medium-wage job so that we all can feel safe and protected; where is his paparazzi spread? Where are his five minutes on “Extra?”

By the way, the answers to the last two questions at the beginning of the column were Jonas Salk and Marie Curie. If you don’t know who they are, then I suggest you look them up. You might owe a lot to those people.