Ignoring the Distractions

SOMEBODY, SOME GOSSIP magazine or somebody, suggested that celebrity actor Tom Cruise was less than an entirely attentive parent to his young daughter, and top gun fired right back, with a fifty million dollar defamation of character lawsuit. The lawsuit was settled out of court the other day, which is good. Cruise is known for being a rather laid back, peaceful, spiritual type, who doesn't like conflict. Thus, we assume he filed the lawsuit as what he considered to be a last or only resort. Can you imagine what might've happend had it gone to trial? Particularly, if both parties had sharp lawyers. My understanding is that famous people are public domain, in terms of gossip. I thought it was hard to defame the character of someone as famous as Cruise, simply because he is famous, and anything goes. The person who defamed Tom perhaps should have let the case go to trial. He might have won. On the other hand, the out of court settlement might not have been very much; Tom Cruise is already wealthy, and he just wanted to make a point, and get people to realize that you can't just attack people at will in the media, fame or no fame. Or something like that. Whether Tom Cruise is a good parent should be of no concern to anyone out across the fruited plain, and really it isn't, except that we are told that is is by our corporate masters, we are spoon fed a never ending spew of distracting, seductive nonsense, to take our minds off what's really important; namely, the dire straights in which the nation and the world finds itself, partly as a result of being distracted. If only we could learn to ignore the distractions.