People know more about Paris Hilton than about President Bush. Celebrities are always in the news for a variety of different reasons. They may be getting drunk and making a fool of themselves (Mel Gibson), or getting divorced (Carmen Electra and Dave Navarro), or nearly dropping their baby on the street (Britney Spears). Whatever they’re up to, we’re all tuned in to watch and listen to celebrity gossip.

Most of the time, the only celebrity gossip on TV is about something bad that has happened or some mistake that a celebrity has made. Audiences like to see the figures in the spotlight fall flat on their face, because it brings them back down to earth with the rest of us. We also seem to like giving celebrities airtime to complain about the way the government is being run. We can host a great forum for celebrities to talk about how bad the war in Iraq is, but we can’t take five minutes to tell the soldiers who are fighting there how much we appreciate them for what they’re doing. I’d like to help change the mind about celebrities and write about some celebrity gossip of a different flavor.

Towards the beginning of the war in Iraq, Densel Washington made a trip to a hospital at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, to see some of the wounded soldiers. While he was there, he saw that the hospital was overcrowded and the doctors needed more supplies. Densel told soldiers at the hospital that help would be on the way. About six months later, he made a sizeable donation to the Fisher House Foundation Inc., which helps families of hospitalized military personnel. I never heard gossip about this on celebrity news channels. The only time I heard about this great act of generosity was in an email from someone else who was trying to spread the good word. I think we’d all feel a little better about celebrities if celebrity gossip shows tried to report more uplifting stories like this one.