The Death of Whitney Houston

With the tragic news of the death of Whitney Houston we are faced again with the too early loss of an amazingly talented individual. The sad story is made even sadder that while it is always a shock when someone like this dies prematurely in many cases, and this is one of them, we cannot say we are truly shocked. When Stevie Ray Vaughn or members of Lynyrd Skynyrd died in a plane crash that is a surprise and shocking. The amount of famous entertainers that have died in plane crashes seems exponentially large, they do travel more than us, often on small planes, often on schedules that do not allow for weather delays.

Still a loss like Whitney Houston, Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain and of course the legendary trio of Morrison, Hendrix and Joplin can never truly to those who know them be a surprise. Sadly we wonder why these incredible performers, with all of this incredible talent fall into this drugs and alcohol whirlwind. What is it about success that makes one need to retreat into a chemical shell.

Of course they are not alone. The amount of alcohol consumed in America is an amount that is insane. When I was in college we would drink every weekend, no one ever stopped to wonder why. The fact is like most things in this country that are bad for us but are quasi supported by the government alcohol is a hugely profitable business.

I am not in favor of banning it. I am in fact in support of legalization of marijuana. I do think however that we as a culture support alcohol and glamorize it. I am not an expert but of course having ex athlete endorse a product, having ads showing groups of friends celebrating Super Bowl events....this all leads to a logical conclusion that alcohol is part of any celebration. I am not against alcohol, I am against our hypocritical arguments against drinking and our cultural endorsement of it. Alcohol advertisements should be treated just like cigarettes. This is only sensible.

Inevitably it will come out that Houston died of some sort of drug issue. Artistic people burn brighter and faster and often burn out earlier. Demons drive people to great things but often drive them over a cliff. We have all heard the quite about people living lives of quiet desperation. Often those in the public eye are living lives of very public desperation.

Life is hard no matter who you are. We all need help and we all need friends. What we must wonder is sometimes the more famous we get do we lose touch with people who will tell us what we need to hear, not what we want.