Average Joe: Captivated by celebs

I've thought for some time that we care way too much about what celebrities are doing.

How many magazines are dedicated to celebrity gossip? It seems like new ones are popping up all the time, and for the most part are just a bunch of photos with comments about how horribly dressed the celebrity du jour is.

It was confirmed yesterday, however, that I am right in thinking that we care too much when one of the top stories floating around the Internet was that Tom Cruise plans to eat the placenta after Katie Holmes gives birth to his child.

That is something I did not need to know.

What he does with his own life is his business. It's not something I need to read about. I'm sure you don't want to read about it either, so sorry if you were the last person on earth to not hear about this and read it here in my little column.

Princess Diana was killed while being chased by paparazzi and Lindsay Lohan has crashed her car twice while being chased down. Those are extreme examples of the infatuation with celebrities.

Usually it is just mean. I don't know about you, but I don't really care who has cellulite. The problem is that someone does, because these magazines are surviving. The only ones I have read of as having financial problems are the original tabloids, the National Enquirer and the Sun. Other than that, the other hundred celeb magazines are doing ok.

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In other news, the first presidential candidate for 2008 visited Mt. Pleasant yesterday. He is what you would call a long shot for the Republican nomination. I would call him someone who has too much time on his hands.

John Cox is a Chicago native who believes it is time for a true outsider to become president. He is a lawyer and has been heavily involved in Illinois politics throughout the years. He has been a school board president.

From what I read on Cox's Web site, he is slightly more conservative than was Ronald Reagan. It would be hard for him to get the nomination if anyone knew who he was, let alone now, when no one knows him. I have to say he has some dedication, however, visiting all 99 counties of the state. Who knows, maybe the real grassroots effort will catch on.

I'll have to say he is a more plausible candidate than the kid (he was not old enough to be president) running around the state in 2003-04, wearing a powdered wig and saying he was arriving in "Air Ford One."