Most Fascinating?

Every year, Barbara Walters, arbiter of all that is important and worthy of attention, caps off the year by announcing who we all found Most Fascinating.  It's a good thing, too; without Barbara, I might not have known who I was interested in this year.

Boldly and bravely carrying on her 84th year of these interviews (I believe she began them on a morse-code telegraph show), Barbara has again hit the nail on the head of the coffin by choosing a truly eclectic (meaning: "type of eel") group of real, honest-to-goodness CELEBRITIES this year.  (I can only tell you 9; Barbara saves #10 for a surprise, just in case not enough viewers tune in to see how thick the Vaseline will be smeared on her camera lens this year.)

I am a bit surprised at some of her choices, though.  No-brainers Kate Gosselin and Glenn Beck get no complaints from me; it is my hope that Kate leaves the interview carrying Beck's dodecoduplets (since Kate can get pregnant just by wishing) because those children would be a perfect storm of television mayhem.

She's also interviewing Lady Gaga and Adam Lambert.  I hope an entire legion of babies erupts from this interview: gay, extravagantly dressed, gender-ambiguous babies.

Others on the list include celebrities so fascinating I have already forgotten who they are.

Here's the one that gets my head a-scratchin': included on the list are Michael Jackson's three children: Prince, Paris, and Blanket.  (There are three of them, but they share one slot.  They can, they're little.)  I'm sure Barbara means this sincerely and is not being exploitative at all, but does she not understand anything at all about Michael Jackson?  That fame, perhaps, was not the healthiest life path for him?  And, maybe, these kids don't need to be put into the spotlight anymore than they are already?  That they might have a chance to be, if not normal, healthy and functioning adults?

No, Barbara understands that these kids are doomed to a life before the lens, whether they like it or not.  She's probably doing them a favor.  Why pretend?  We find them "fascinating," don't we?

Okay, snark over.  I find this repugnant.  Barbara Walters should be even more ashamed of herself than she hopefully already is.  (Snark not over, I lied.)  These kids didn't ask for celebrity.  They just lost their dad, who, despite everything we know about him and everything else we suppose about him, was clearly the center of their lives.  These kids don't need to be profiled on prime time network television, they need a counselor.  And a teacher.  And people who love them enough to tell them they can't have another cookie.  I don't find them fascinating.  I find them unspeakably sad.

Oh, I despair.  It's time for another moist towel and a bowl of peeled grapes.  Whatever can I do to escape this endless exploitation of people's lives for fun and profit?

I wonder what's on E!...