Posted on 02/15/2012 4:02:32 AM PST by Kaslin
The media have no bleepin' clue how to cover the death of Whitney Houston. That's because she was slowly dying for years and many in the press simply averted their eyes.
It was ultra-disturbing that a beautiful woman blessed with an extraordinary singing voice chose a self-destructive path in full view of the world. I mean, here is a person who signed a $100 million recording contract, actually sold 170 million albums and commanded high six figures to deliver a 90-minute concert. Houston was a genuine international star, and yet she often was seen in public disheveled and confused, her substance addiction apparent. The media simply did not know what to say.
We live in a time in which addiction is categorized as a disease, and to do what Nancy Reagan once did and urge people to reject narcotics is considered uncool. How many young performers do we see doing public service announcements warning children to avoid intoxication? Right now, I can't think of one.
The national media pride themselves on being non-judgmental unless you are against abortion. Then you are dismissed as "anti-woman" or as a religious zealot. But in the arena of personal behavior, there's an excuse for just about every nonviolent activity and bad decision.
There is no question that some of us have a history of addiction in our families. There are folks who can use drugs casually and avoid dependence, but they are the exception. Once a person decides to dabble in cocaine, or opiates such as heroin and OxyContin, they are putting themselves at grave risk. And they know it. There are legions of famous people who wound up dead just like Houston. From Elvis Presley to Michael Jackson, the signposts are impossible to miss. No matter how rich and powerful you are, drugs can and will destroy you.
The current medical marijuana ruse is a great example of a society walking away from a responsible position. Ask any drug rehab counselor, and he or she will tell you that pot often leads a person to harder drug use and is mentally addictive itself. Yes, most people can function while stoned. But the more you alter your mind the more your perspective on life changes. Believe me, I know people who get stoned or drunk every day. They become incredibly desensitized to those around them.
On the kid front, the situation is dire. Once a child enters the world of intoxication, their childhood is gone. Presto, they are jaded. That's how dangerous drugs and alcohol are to immature minds. Society has an obligation to protect its children, not to tacitly accept or embrace mind-altering agents such as marijuana.
Houston, however, was an adult who made a decision to embrace the drug life. Reports say she tried to rehabilitate herself a few times, but you know how that goes. Once a person enters the hell of addiction, there is no easy way out.
And that's how the Whitney Houston story should be covered. As a cautionary tale. Another life vanquished by substance abuse.
One could make a case for it being partially attributed to Bobby Brown. He got her hooked on drugs so it was a slow motion death. She never was the same after she married Brown. He can take some of the blame. He’s not on the guest list for her funeral.
Superbowl 1991...
Best rendering of the National Anthem at a Super Bowl, ever. Monitor just went blurry, must need an adjustment.
I read the other day that she lip-synced the Super Bowl....studio recorded a month or so before the event.
great observation. You really should you tube Annie and Renaissance. Takes me back to my college days. Certainly one of the great voices ever. There’s a video of them in concert from 2010 - she hasn’t lost a thing and she’s 63! One of their best songs is Mother Russia, a song about Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. I always had a soft spot in my heart for them and her. She was quite attractive in her day.
Her performance, there, epitomizes and legitimized the foul practice of making OUR National Anthem all about the performer, and not about OUR Country.
Her job, there, which she refused to do, was to LEAD the crowd in singing it. With her unpredictable phrasing, she made crowd participation almost impossible. Her imitators complete the job.
Roseanne Barr merely butchered OUR National Anthem.
Whitney, and her imitators, do far worse: they try to take it away from us.
Bottom Line:
OUR National Anthem is bigger than you, Whitney. You CAN'T "own" it. Don't try. It just makes you looks small.
she was a pretty big star, but an older one....frankly, I try not to get into pop culture so I don’t admire most of the Howood crowd...most of them don’t deserve it....
Hitting the bottom.....heard that before. And from my own experience, I believe it. In the fog of my pot-infused life, I tried to stay stoned always. Even though I was in the military. Then I got caught. Went before the CO on 15 December 1984. That was my bottom. It was a hard climb up, scratching and clawing all the way, but I completed 20 years service and retired in 1998.
I guess my bottom was kind of high. Sadly others never hit their bottom, like Whitney, Michael, Elvis, Jimi, Janis, Keith Moon, John Bonham, etc.
I celebrate that I don’t know some of these so called “stars”.....I take great pride in it.....
was finally able to see her live last summer when they toured. they did “Ocean Gypsy”, etc.. fantastic.
In today’s PC world we’re not supposed to say anything negative, so, these are the types of results when no one will call her out on her extremely risky behavior; she dies.
This argument never made sense to me. Because before people start with marijuana they smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol from home. Would the responsible thing for society be to outlaw tobacco and alcohol?
This is a freedom issue and constitutional question. I don't see drugs mentioned in the Constitution. Where does the government get the authority to say boo about drugs. Also, if you don't leave responsibility to the people for their drug use, what can the people be left responsible for? Guns? Speech? Contracts? Education? Religion? What is left?
This argument never made sense to me. Because before people start with marijuana they smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol from home. Would the responsible thing for society be to outlaw tobacco and alcohol?
And before people use marijuana, cigarettes, or alcohol, they drink milk. The "gateway theory" rests on a logical fallacy so old it has a Latin name: post hoc ergo propter hoc ("after this therefore because of this"). Moldy fallacies are all the Drug Warriors have to offer.
Among all who ever used heroin, 77% never became dependent; the figure is 83% for cocaine and 85% for alcohol (according to research cited by the National Adcademy of Science's Institute of Medicine).
Ask any drug rehab counselor, and he or she will tell you that pot often leads a person to harder drug use
A likelier explanation for the correlation is that people who are predisposed to alter their mental state find pot before they find other drugs. It's also true that hard drug users almost always started with alcohol.
and is mentally addictive itself.
Among all who ever used marjjuana, 91% never became dependent.
Believe me, I know people who get stoned or drunk every day. They become incredibly desensitized to those around them.
So what should we do about those drunkards? Ban alcohol? If not, why is banning the right answer for other drugs?
On the kid front, the situation is dire. Once a child enters the world of intoxication, their childhood is gone. Presto, they are jaded. That's how dangerous drugs and alcohol are to immature minds. Society has an obligation to protect its children, not to tacitly accept or embrace mind-altering agents such as marijuana.
Since kids report that they can get marijuana more easily than cigarettes or beer, it seems that the best way to protect children from drugs is to legalize them for adults only - which gives sellers an economic incentive to sell to adults only (namely, the potential loss of their legal market).
I don’t think there has ever been a greater gospel/pop singer.
Yes, she was THAT BIG. She has been in decay for a very long time, but in her day she was The Shite. I don’t think there has ever been anyone with The Voice, the musicality, the beauty, the charm that Whitney had. Her style and success launched stars like Mariah Carey who was ALMOST but NOT QUITE the singer that Whitney was. I adored her songs then (and I’m not generally into that kind of music), and she seemed so strong, and clean cut - I didn’t think this would happen to her. It does make me sad, but in the way of someone that you know has been dying for a long time.
I blame Bobby Brown. And it’s not just the drugs, it’s THE MONEY! Most people can’t afford enough drugs to get into the trouble she got into.
Well said.
She’s the same generation as me, and, looking back at it, she was a world removed from the current generation of “stars”. She did not go out of her way to wear slutty outfits, embrace lefty politics, or make a spectacle of herself.
Okay, we could have done without the later Whitney and Bobby roadshow but aside from that...
Don’t forget “One Moment in Time”, her 1988 Olympic song.
Whitney had her later problems, but, like James Brown she was always an unabashed patriot.
I don’t think it was that. I can’t even say that it was the showbiz culture that did her in. She seemed fine until the early 2000’s.
I still think it was Bobby Brown who got her hooked. Either that, or she had had the problem for years and had done a good job of covering it up till then.
But alas, there was no chance of a comeback, the crack smoke had destroyed her pipes.
Either you’re over 70 or under 30.
Whitney ruled the charts from the mid-eighties to the early nineties.
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