Harry and the Spliff - Well, actually, Dan and the 'so called' Spliff

[bboyminn]

For those who don't follow celebrity news, one of the UK tabloids
allegedly has a photo of Dan Radcliffe, smoking a joint at a
party.

One of many news stories -

http://www.mirror.co.uk/celebs/news/2009/11/14/harry-potter-star-daniel-radcliffe-denies-smoking-cannabis-claiming-he-was-photographed-with-a-roll-up-115875-21820577/

First, the picture of Dan with his face all painted up, I thought,
was funny. Something kids might do when they are bored at a party. 

As to what he was smoking, I think, for the most part, this is
none of our business. We aren't him, we aren't his parents, we
aren't the police. Dan, through his lawyers, flatly denied
the claim and said it was a 'roll up', meaning a hand rolled
cigarette.

Frankly, it bothers me a lot more that he is smoking a cigarette,
that it does that he might have an occasional joint. I would
never go so far as to claim smoking Pot was harmless, but let's
face in, million are killed every year by tobacco. The fact that
it is legal doesn't make those people any less dead. 

There is an old expression 'live and learn', well, we can't
expect people to learn about life, unless we are equaling
willing to let them go out and learn from their mistakes. 

I think it is ridiculous for society to hold 'celebrities' up
to some ridiculously high standard. A standard ,that in a vasts
majority of cases, the people that are making the accusations
are themselves not living up to. 

I also thing is far more unethical, immoral, and improper for
the person who released the photograph to have done so. While
I acknowledge that celebrities do have a much greater public
persona that most people, and a higher level of interest by
the public in general. I also feel that there has to be a limit
on that. That these people deserver to have a reasonable degree
of private life. They have a right to be able to go places and
do things in private, and have some reasonable belief those
things will stay private. 

I'm thinking back to a few incidences when Prince Harry was
make out to be an 'outlaw' for coming out of a pub slightly
tipsy. How is this news? How is it, in any way, a scandal? 
I don't suppose it matters that there were 200 or 300 other
people his age in the same club, and possible thousand of 
similar kids out in clubs and pub in London at large on the
same night?

Back to Dan; perhaps we should find out who took this picture, 
and find out if they smoked pot, or drank underage, or were
breaking some other law in being there and taking that
picture.  Again, while I can't prove anything, there seems
to be a boiling level of hypocrisy in stories like this. 

A vast majority of celebrity headlines can be summed up as
'Normal Person Does Normal Thing'. None of this is anyone's
business, and none of it is certainly news of any sort.

But then, that's just my opinion.

Steve/bluewizard