Brangelina and Madonna just adopted African orphans. Anna Nicole has retired to that Playboy mansion in the sky. Oh, and Britney shaved her head.

But this isn’t news to you. You already know, of course.

In fact, you probably are so in tune with these celebrities that you know how Brad dumped Jennifer to be with Angelina. You likely remember Anna Nicole’s reality show, her TrimSpa makeover, and her son’s death. And surely you recall the scandalously revealing paparazzi photos of Britney’s undercarriage from a few months back that confirm, now that she has a new haircut, that the carpet matches the drapes.

Yet this is not the only kind of news in the world. Even as these celebrity headlines spread fervently across the nation by the Internet and word-of-mouth, wars are being fought, people are starving to death, and real life heroes are saving lives.

But in America, the events that shape the world take a back seat to the people we ascribe to be “important.” On The New York Times Web site, as of Monday, Feb. 19, the number one search conducted is for Anna Nicole Smith. Britney Spears comes in at 15, and she will likely move to the top in the next few days as her bald head makes waves. Iraq is listed as No. 5, global warming as No. 13, and the war on terror as No. 29.

Although the celebrity spotlight is evident on the Times site, it is not specific to so-called “liberal” publications. Indeed, FoxNews.com-on the conservative side of the news spectrum-also lists celebrity stories as some of the most-read articles on the site. The story titled “Brazen Attack on U.S. Base in Iraq Leaves 2 GIs Dead, 17 Wounded” is followed immediately by “Britney Shears: Pop Princess Shaves Her Head and Gets New Tattoos.”

So if these stories dominate every news source, here’s the obvious question: how-in the name of all that is holy!-is this news?

The real sad part is that the Spears story received more hits than the Iraq article.

And Americans wonder why the rest of the world sees us as unconcerned with anything occurring outside of our borders. Wait, check that, Americans are too self-centered to wonder what the majority of the world thinks of us.

Here’s the real problem: America has turned into a theme park. Everyone who’s here doesn’t care what’s going on outside of Disneyland; we’re too busy going on the rides and too wrapped up in the attractions to care.

Celebrities, then, are the freak show of the theme park, and everyone crowds around to see what atrocious behavior they display.

What people fail to realize is that these celebrities are the personification of our own problems, of our own issues. And to that end, by paying attention to and scrutinizing those in the spotlight, we feel more important. Perhaps, by ridiculing these “freaks” and identifying them as different, we feel better about our own identity because we feel like we don’t possess such abhorent qualities.

But regardless of the reasons that entice us to famous people’s lives, the point is that we are increasingly drawn in.

Everyone pays admission to the theme park, and that ticket comes at a high price. By succumbing to the alluring attractions therein, we lose perspective, as we are unable to garner our attention to the issues that really matter, that really shape our world.

We must ask ourselves: how is paying attention to Britney Spears’ hairdo or the sad life and death of Anna Nicole Smith going to make this world any better?

In a world where we now have the ability to choose what news we see, we must make an important decision. When it comes to news, we must realize that there are stories that we want to see and there are stories that we have to see.

Sure, check out all the headlines about Britney, Anna Nicole, and whoever else is in the spotlight. But please, be sure to check out the stories that you might otherwise skip over, the stories that really matter.