That hair on eBay

This news story is still developing and since I wrote this blog there has been additional information at the bottom under Developing News Story.

Unpalatable use of eBay

Sometimes the quest for filthy lucre is contemptible and appalling, nowhere is this helped more than on eBay where one's chattels and sometimes ill-gotten wares can be peddled for a nickel or two, even some would deign to offer stuff at outrageous prices.

So, reading that Britney Spears' shorn hair is now available on eBay plumbs the depths of absolute depravity in human beings, there is a possibility that what is offered is not certified as belonging to Britney Spears, however, does one then acquire DNA from the principal to prove this fact.

If then someone does really acquire these esteemed locks of troubled celebrity having being shorn off in what might have been the parlous mental state of the principal, would chemical analysis be conducted on the hair to ascertain additional lucre spinning tales to be relayed on unconscionable tabloids?

Beyond that, those who worship at the temple of celebrity might even be able to visit a shrine to view the reliquary of Britney's locks, the whole thing beggars the progress of the evolution of the human species to things less acceptable than the original forebears of the homo sapiens sapiens.

With bids now over the $1 million mark, who craves this trash-able stuff so much and how come they still walk our streets? From a moralist perspective, eBay should remove this thing from bidding - (Which seems to have to been done), however, for the sake of free enterprise, if there are people who so desire this stuff, well, so be it.

Vocations of trust

If indeed, these locks were really from Britney Spears, then it would appear either the hairdresser who might not have been satisfied with the temporal fame of appearing on television with the free advertising of her shop has upped the ante in things unspeakable.

It is also possible that some serf in the shop gathered the hair which was shorn in a corner of the shop and bagged it ready for marketing - unfortunately, sacking such an one would not necessarily be of use if the person stands to make a million dollars that would be frittered away on frivolous stuff long before the money has arrived.

Thankfully, this is not in place where shamans and their expertise in black arts hold sway over people such that I have heard that walking barefoot is dangerous enough as detractors might collect the imprints in the sand offering those as connections to foment catastrophe on the principal or gain superstitious advantage in some other sphere of life.

However, hair contains history and long hair contains even longer history, where you want that revealed to anyone is debatable except in aspects of forensic analysis.

One should be able to trust that visiting the hairdressers makes history of any shorn hair by having the whole lot anonymously mixed with other hairs and dumped in a secure bin where it gets destroyed, if not, then we are in deep trouble.

Developing News Story

This is a developing news story, it would appear it is the hair salon that put up the hair for sale first on eBay probably to prospect the possibilities of a price range for the hair and now on a separate site called BuyBritney’sHair.com.

To Esther Tognozzi - whose enterprising skills are commendable but her ethical mien is lower than a snake’s belly - would go the spoils as she laments the fact that fake offers of the same hair are even appearing on sites in the UK and further a-field.

It would be hard to say that she is bringing the profession of hair-dressing into disrepute, since when have we really considered hair-dressers people of worthy respect or of dependable reputations?

No hair to do

Have they got news for you?

Jostling for prominence this weekend is celebrity news which allows a nonentity whose mechanical crooning, play ground dance steps and wanton lifestyle has had grown-up music executives squander shareholder value in a marketing ploy that leaves many breathless.

There is no point exclaiming, Oops! I did it again, because celebrity and means do not necessarily equate to character, self-control or mental stability in handling issues that pertain to life.

In complete denial

So, Britney Spears checks in and out of Eric Clapton's Crossroads Centre midweek, probably after having the express denial treatment - the shock of being where you are not ready to be sorted out - the centre is known to help treat alcohol, drug or some other addictive disorder. Go figure.

Then goes to her hairdresser where she asks for a crew-cut and between the remonstrations of the hairdresser and hairdresser chatting to Britney's bodyguard, Britney gets the clippers and she is self-shorn (Basically, these celebrities must not be left to their devices, especially when making demands that leave one suspect of their mental state of mind.) - The glory of a woman is her hair and for a moment and longer, this girl is without glory.

A typical news story on Britney Spears, all shorn of hair in a tattoo parlour

Real life nightmare

We get to see this GI-Jane look when she ends up at a tattoo parlour having lips printed on her wrist.

When Demi Moore and Sigourney Weaver sported the shorn look, it is about making films, when that becomes real-life, then one is worried that this girl who was once over-protected by even possibly her erstwhile seemingly inadequate husband and responsibility of motherhood is in need of some sort of protective custody - to save her from herself.

She is for now, not sporting a hair-do, rather, there is no hair to do. It leaves her fans displeased, to which one can say, get a better class of role model and person to fawn your fanaticism over.

I am all my hair - January 2007

Post Comment Addendum

After Nilla's comment wondering about the well-being of Britney Spears, I realise that I might have left out another perspective of this episode; the fact that when a lady takes a radical hair-style change, something serious is happening in her life. To have all hair shorn off indicates that Britney might be undergoing some serious circumstances, which I as a man, might not even begin to understand much less begin to sympathise. It is however a point to note, not that the tabloids would let up to give human interest an airing of sensationalism.

A crusading psychopath is in a war near you

A society at variance with its values

There is probably no greater disservice to the young people who sit in the war zones instigated by America than lowering the bar to entry into the army.

It now transpires that the young soldier who has been charged for the rape of an Iraqi lady and the murder of her and her family did have problems long before he was recruited into the army.

As Americans are wont to do, family background reads much into what is expected of anyone, it is a shame that knowing that sometimes broken homes with respect to the American demographic do lead to problem children and a life of failures that get up-ended by the law.

For a country that prides itself in near Puritanical piety and condemns anyone who ever falls foul of the law for life regardless of having served their just sentences, one would expect a lot more would be done in social engineering, moral education and counselling to prevent people from falling by the wayside, in the first place.

The new penitentiary – service in Iraq

A criminal record in America is a millstone around anyone’s neck, however, with the pressing need for cannon fodder to expend in wars, especially in Iraq, the blatant laxity in recruitment parameters allows for enlisting to become a shortcut to rehabilitation.

Cynically, it gets those criminals out of America to a dangerous and deteriorating war atmosphere where the instinct to live and the desire to kill become competing moral dilemmas for people who before they enlisted had no moral fibre.

Even more cynically, if that ‘so-called’ recruit becomes one of the number who end up dying in Iraq, his duty to the nation in that faraway land would count for more in all respects than his misdeeds on earth.

A boy troubled

Dear Steven Green is only 21, in some places especially in the West, it is probably only within the range of legal responsibility but hardly any other responsibility accrues than to still be studying or working to start a career.

I cannot say how many siblings Steven had, but in 2000 his mother served a jail term for drunk driving, he would have been 15 then and I do wonder if there were mitigating circumstances in law to help the family before sending his mother to the can for 6 months.

Then he got done for having possession of drug paraphernalia – don’t laugh – sometimes American charges almost make Europe the centre of moral decadence. He has also been charged with under-aged possession of tobacco and alcohol – three misdemeanours in all and he served jail time for the third – 4 days.

Where is that strict uncle?

If I may generalise generously, in strict disciplinary environments like Nigeria where I grew up, the most in punishment any one child might suffer for these “crimes” would be porting the child off to some strict uncle who would with example, mentoring, tutelage and probably corporal punishment, work on the young man to bring him to rights.

That concerted effort almost always works out right because everyone who matters gets involved in condemning wrong, praising right and easing the subconscious, if possible, to a better way of doing things.

The young man eventually becomes a ready uncle to help other wayward wards towards the right with example and experience.

In America, that uncle became the Army, after a boot camp which is supposed to demean and instil, the tool of trade is no pen for the erudite or instrument of some apprenticeship into a nominal profession, it is a gun, a gun to shoot down Iraqi insurgents, innocents and by happenstance to clean up after the pleasure of assuaging possible sexual repression.

A crusade without a name

Before, he left for Iraq, Steven Green was baptised literally, as he took religion, and many others have before going on duty – this really now smacks of a crusade and begins to makes sense when Vladimir Putin did say yesterday that Russia would not get involved in Crusades.

So, after Mr Steven Green’s last demeanour, the army dumped him in a discharge that claimed psychiatric grounds – one would think he would be put on some programme of therapy, treatment or counselling to help him become a better man.

Now, he has been completely disowned with the statement – “staining the image, the honourable image of the United States military. [1]” Honourable image? Recruiting crooks? I think someone has both perception and perspective wrong here.

Manufacturing psychopaths

But no, they took a minor criminal in America, created a rapist and murderer of him in Iraq and dumped him back in America ready to become a showcase of a bad person rather than it being a window of scrutiny on a failed and wanting criminal justice system, a rotten army recruitment policy and an unconscionable discharge and rehabilitation process.

So now he would face the full force of the law for a situation that could have been avoided had the company in which he was based been more disciplined that they would not have revelled in drink, changed clothes and committed the crimes before cleaning up with murder.

More so, if the society had, when things were going wrong arrested the decline rather that count the crimes expecting the next one to bang him up for life or cart him off to war.

Indeed, justice must be done and seen to be done with regards to the rape and murder, but the greater indictment must lay with the society that sends unstable men to war to create pathological psychopaths of them.

References

A troubled man's saga in a troubled land

Kin hope military will support soldier