I'm not always in agreement with some of Eric Olsen's sentiments, but I am undeniably in agreement with something he says here: "God, please spare me the tone of self-congratulatory concern". This comes in relation to Nicole Kidman wondering whether or not she should attend the Oscars ceremony when there was a war on.

I linked to this CNN article at my blog the other day. In it is this scene of Daniel Day-Lewis wondering what to do:

It was unclear whether Hollywood stars—many of whom have campaigned fervently against any war—still planned to attend Sunday's ceremony if military action was underway.
Daniel Day-Lewis—considered a front-runner for the best actor Oscar for his role in "Gangs of New York"—told reporters last week it would "seem obscene if we're seen bouncing up the red carpet grinning when people are dying. It's going to be very difficult to find a way to do this."

Oddly enough, Daniel, people were dying in Spain and China in the 1930s, they were dying in Europe and Southeast Asia in the 1940s, they were dying in Korea in the 1950s, they were dying in Vietnam in the 1960s, they were dying in Cambodia in the 1970s, they were dying in the Middle East in the 1980s, they were dying in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and I'm pretty sure they were dying in Afghanistan as recently as last year. I wonder people displayed quite so much angst (especially in public) back then about whether the movie industry's night of nights should go on when those things were happening.

So yes, I'm pretty much with Eric here when it comes to being tired of the "self-congratulatory concern"; indeed, I'm pretty much over all the talk about whether or not it's appropriate for the Oscars to be going ahead in these troubled times. Especially since troubled times have never stopped it in the past. They may have called off the Olympics in WW2, but they never called off the Academy Awards...