We humans have a lot of nasty habits. We may have free will but we trample on others of our species just for the fun of it. Or, we cannot help ourselves and it might be part of our genetic makeup. We are just simply nosey and gossipy.
I noticed in the papers this morning that the NEWS consisted in many instances of gossip about the private lives and doings of "celebrities". This does not include the mild condemnation of Pope Benedict because he did not genuflect genuinely at the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem. That was part of the politics of political leaders who must expect scrutiny of every tiny detail of their activities in and out of the public eye. One must also note that every single act or thought of Barack Obama is justly in the public eye all the time 24/7 and for at least three and a half more years. He, at least, is ready for it and has had the good luck to be popular and responsive to all the gibes and gossip about him and his family and made them into admirable stories of pluck and luck.
The real gossip pages are about the entertainment celebrities who have at least one whole page to themselves. Why there is so much interest in details of the kind reported there, I cannot say - except, it is a very human habit and the excesses of our entertainers make for juicy gossip. I suppose that there is a great deal of envy in the reportage of every small thing that the reporter's imagination can grasp hold of and hold up for public scrutiny. Such stories pay largely for both the writer and the entertainer. The latter can use the attention to focus on career enhancement.
What is not so nice or proper is the reporting about the illnesses of people of note - say the cancer victims, Farrah Fawcett and Elizabeth Edwards. Their agony and suffering seem to light up rather than darken pages of stuff about the course of their disease. They are followed about much like the Paparazzi who made the last moments of Princess Diana a mad chase into oblivion. Enquiring minds do not want to know the embarrassing details of the lives of people in the news. The news is not about these details but about their importance as people who have made selfless contributions and who have given of themselves in order to make public the things we all should be educated to know and care about.
The universal pastime of gossiping is a human thing but one which makes us less human than we ought to be. This is especially true when we do it to profit from demeaning others who happen to appear on the stage of life with dirty underwear showing. Yet, again, perhaps not enough has been said about that most despicable of Vice-Presidents whose position as puppeteer to the second Bush was quite visible.