I was standing in line at a check-out counter at the supermarket a couple of weeks ago when I spied a screaming headline on the cover of a tabloid magazine.
Patrick Swayze dying!"
I recall recoiling in horror.
How cruel and insensitive!
The same thought crossed the talented actor's mind, too.
Although Mr. Swayze was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he has been valiantly fighting the disease. In fact, he is responding to treatment, and winning the battle.
Still stinging from the hurt, Mr. Swayze angrily noted to the legitimate press:
"They're reporting that I'm on my last legs and saying good-bye to my tearful family. It's upsetting that the shoddy and reckless reporting from these publications cast a negative shadow on the positive and good fight I'm fighting."
At a time when "hope is precious", he can only shake his head in disbelief.
I wholeheartedly agree.
Prying into - and reporting on - highly confidential medical records without the knowledge or permission of an individual - is a shocking and disturbing trend in a "no-holds-barred" kind of gossip-mongering which must be condemned - and ultimately - stopped in its tracks.
If the shoe were on the other foot, I hazzard a guess that the insensitive intruders might be angry, too.
George Eliot once said:
Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself; it only requires opportunity."
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