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| Dr. Maurice Hilleman (1919-2005) |
I had heard of the said gentlemen because my daughter used be a fan of Britney Spears when the latter touted her virginity and love of God as badges of honour or good marketing for the impressionable teens.
Timberlake had a liaison with Spears at one stage and when it was over, with the God-veneration days behind her, she dismissed Timberlake by raising the small finger of her right hand in the air. The once proud virgin had taken to her new role with some seriousness.
Timberlake is in Europe with his "FutureLoveSexSounds" tour. In the Swedish city of Gothenburg, he treated his adoring fans with contempt but it didn't affect his pulling appeal in Dublin and they weren't all star-struck teens.
When in Gothenburg, a little girl asked if she could take a picture of him, he replied with a sarcastic grin, if she wanted him to juggle as well. Needless to say, he refused the little girl.
Then, when he returned to the hotel, there was a group of teenage fans waiting for him. Timberlake refused to be photographed. One Swedish boy rightly called him a "fuckface". The American singer responded: "Go fuck yourself!"
Back in his room, the 26-year-old rushed to the balcony of his hotel room and accompanied by a woman, used the high vantage point to throw everything but the kitchen sink down at them. He dumped strawberries and cherries and emptied plastic bottles filled with water. Then he is reported to have spat down on his fans.
The fans in Gothenburg may have been little more than impressionable children but there is no shortage of idiot adults in modern society who would find their lives pretty empty if they weren't groupies of one celebrity or other.
Many of the targets of the veneration, have nothing of substance to their credit.
In Hollywood, the leading practitioners of the genre, grab as much as the most reviled capitalist but when the star is fading, there is nothing more sought after than to be appointed to be a UNICEF Humanitarian Ambassador.
Celebrity has replaced religion for many people, even while the factors that have always sustained religions will always exist. In times past in Europe, when life was "nasty, brutish and short," people were sustained on the hope of a better life to come. In advanced consumer societies like the US, the death of community is drawing people to mega-churches where they can share an experience with others searching for something other than the inanities of trash television and a celebrity culture that worships people who parrot lines written by others while for example the name of American Maurice Hilleman, a man credited with saving more lives than any other scientist in the past century, means nothing.
Hilleman died in 2005 and during his work life, developed some 40 vaccines, among them for measles, hepatitis A and B, chickenpox, meningitis and pneumonia. He developed the one-shot vaccine that can prevent several diseases, such as MMR (measles, mumps and rubella).
Some of Hilleman's vaccine's are still used today.
It's a bimbo like Paris Hilton rather than people like Maurice Hilleman get the attention and the mainstream media like RTE, the Irish public broadcasting service and the BBC join the media circus in fear of losing an audience.
So due credit to anchor Mika Brzezinski on MSNBC last week when she objected to the news being led by Paris Hilton's release from prison.
Mika Emilie Leonia Brzezinski refused to anchor a Paris Hilton news report. Brezinski, is co-host of MSNBC's morning program Morning Joe. Her fellow anchors played the roles of jerks, on the show. |
