'Whip it' in the bud

Some people say things about gift horses and whether or not you should look at their teeth. Having never received my full Future Farmers of America membership, I can't say I ever was able to make heads or tails of that wisdom. For lack of a deep historical investigation of the phrase, I suppose it translates loosely as: Don't complain about free things.\nIt's something one always wants to keep in mind. Something that most educated, respected individuals would abide by to the point that if they didn't, we'd be swift to keep them out of government office.\nWelcome to Kansas, home Attorney General Phil Kline. And when it comes to gift horses, Phil is sending them all to the glue factories.\nAccording to The Associated Press, last week Kline had over 1,600 free CD's -- donated to the Kansas library system as part of a CD price-fixing settlement -- rejected from state borders. Apparently artists OutKast, Notorious B.I.G., Lou Reed and DEVO -- yes, in Kansas you can marry your cousin, but you can't "Whip it" -- simply didn't jive with "the values of a majority of Kansans," claims Kline's spokesperson Whitney Watson.\nOf course the immediate cries are "Censorship!" and "Death to all tyrants!" -- some more on the mark than others. It goes without saying that the attorney general's policy could in no way be executed in any consistent manner. Who has the time to point out every subversive lyric in every album in the Kansas library system?\nHowever, the sad fact of the matter is that Kline is on to something. We are involved in a moral crisis today from one perspective or another. When R. Kelly can video tape himself urinating on a 14-year-old girl and be free to make millions upon millions of dollars sticking his key in countless other "ignitions," we have to know that somewhere our "values" have crisscrossed. Truthfully, it seems that nowadays, being an asshole does nothing but help one's career. How else could you explain the success of Trump's smug "You're fired" mantra or the existence of Paris Hilton?\nYet the one thing lawmakers can't seem to get out of their heads is that it isn't the fault of the music industry -- at least, their music.\nIt's ours.\nFlipping through the television, one is hard-pressed to miss programs targeting our 18-to-24 demographic that do not feature either: a) a compilation of third tier celebrities mouthing off to lists of the best/worst achievements of mankind; b) seeing teenage starlets whine and complain, disrespect others and in the end, get exactly what they want; or, c) our own nameless peers making complete fools out of themselves for love, money or high-profile jobs. \nIt's not the stars that are contributing to our moral declination; it's our own star-lust, the sudden concept that the penultimate of modern achievements is fame.\nThere was a time when Hollywood was a mirror for our way of life, it was a place where we mimicked our realities and realized our fantasies. Now, we mimic the puppets themselves, and that only creates a whole new level of "empty."\nAnd people like Kline only keep us from calling them out on it by distracting us from the real evil. Forget the "Explicit Content" labels. Celebrities don't need any more martyrdom. They need us to tell them what they are here for -- to entertain us, nothing more.\nWe're the monarchs, and they the court jesters, and I'll be damned if I have to apologize at the end of my days if the best I ever did was get a job and raise a family but never make it on TV.