In this world where we tend to skirt around an issue that is right in front of our face, sometimes it's hard to break things down to one word that can explain it. The happenings I'm speaking of can be interpreted as one thing for those who choose to believe it.  That word is evil.  That same evil has been busy lately taking something mundane and boring and turning it in to front page news

There's a phrase in The Bible, Matthew 5:15 that states: "No one lights a lamp and then puts it in a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house".  There's more to that phrase, but you're not reading this for religious words, so I will leave it at that.  However, a few people have read this book and there is wisdom to be found in the words within if you want to look in to it.
 

The phrase about the lamp is very interesting to me.  As a creative person, I want the things that I create to be seen and heard.  That means I'm lighting a lamp for someone to see what I'm doing.  But that same light can illuminate a lot of other things that aren't as simple and pure as wanting people to see what you do.  That same light that can highlight the positive, can just as easily highlight the negative and yes, it can highlight evil.
 

As superficial and irrelevant as this subject is to me, the controversy surrounding Britney Spears has gone past being annoying.  It seems to me that the characters around her are no longer sickly amusing, pathetic or vapid, they have crossed the line in showing characteristics of evil.  Now before you think I'm overreacting, I'm not talking about Hitler kind of evil, but nonetheless, I think there are elements of evil surrounding Britney Spears.  While it may be true that Britney and her publicists are guilty of inviting that kind of evil in to their lives, Britney's version of her "lamp" has exposed with blinding clarity a very dangerous situation.  This version of evil is opening up every door and knocking down every gate to lead Britney Spears to a far too early death.  As a father of children just a few years younger than her, that just makes me sad.

It seems every time something is in place to help Britney get her act together, some slimeball comes along and knocks down the gate.  The trainwreck that is her life has attracted a throng of young losers who are clearly lost and had little to no parental guidance.  Their self-esteem is nothing so there natural inclination is to run to a light, any light that validates them as worthy, despite having nothing to back up that worthiness.
 

These people are called hangers-on, groupies, wannabe's, you choose the title.  All successful artists have to learn to navigate their career and the personal life with these people.  Unfortunately for Britney, she is dealing with those same people. The only difference is these same people are taking hourly doses of gallons of Red Bull, never sleeping.  These same people will never be satisfied with the amount of money they are making.   There is always more money to be made by another's suffering, making them even more cutthroat and never satisfied.  They spirit of photographer competition for a photo has turned in to a hyena like frenzy of baying and barking jackals salivating over a wounded animal, namely Britney.  The difference is, this is not the jungle.  This is not a case where Britney is there to participate in the "circle of life" to feed the jungle. What has driven the media and our fascination with her whole hellish life has entered in to the realm of being evil.

I'm as sick of Britney Spears as you are.  I want her to go away, live on a farm for a couple of years, and get her life together again.  But as much as I'm sick of her, I don't want to see Britney Spears dead.  I think her death is imminent.  I think the evil people  around her, when that death happens, will feign shock and horror and wonder how it could happen.  I'll know how it happened, and so will you.

Britney Spears is a young woman who needs help.  Britney Spears did not hide her "light" under a table.  We all saw it and for a while, it looked like her version of that light had a long beam.   That light now needs to be put under the table for a long time.  That table should have some big chairs put on it and a couple of big blankets draped over it.  Her "light" needs to be dimmed to a flame that only the people who love her, really love her can see and feel.  If that "light" is not dimmed, the keepers and igniters of the flame that feeds her light and exposing Britney lately will burn her alive.

No matter how you feel about the parents of Britney Spears, nobody deserves to see their child persecuted.  Yes, it's up to Britney to get it together, but the glee in which the media flocks to her misfortunes is a pathetic statement on their profession and our own warped fixation on her.