Man, what is it with celebrities these days?

Let's face facts. There was a time when our celebrities were clean cut, honest individuals, or at least went through the effort of pretending to be so we could all rest easier at night. They had morals and their heads in the right places. Can you imagine someone like Frank Sinatra being caught up in anything illegal? Of course not. But now? Now all we get are the broken shadows of former greatness.

Take, for instance, Tommy Chong. The classic Shakespearean actor (To inhale, or not to inhale? That is the question.) was recently sentenced to nine months in prison and charged a $20,000 fine for selling bongs and "drug paraphernalia" over the Internet. Never would I live to see the day that Tommy Chong would be caught up in something drug related. He and Cheech were such upstanding, good family values kinds of guys that it breaks my poor heart to see him reduced to something like this.

This does bring up the question, however, how exactly did people find out that poor Tommy was selling bongs over the Internet? It's not like with that Dell kid, where you could smell the weed wafting off him through the television. The logical answer would, of course, be that there is a special task force set up to do a search for drugs over the net. However, we all know the government is as far from logical as two monkeys in a poop throwing contest, so we need to delve deeper. A working theory of mine is that John Ashcroft was looking for some hashish.

Continuing on with our celebrity roll call, the Howard Stern Show (who really saves me the trouble of coming up with things to mock him with) was recently validated as a News Program. Yes, that's right, the FCC has declared that Stern's program is a "bona fide news interview" program. Apparently, "bona fide" is a technical term, recognized by all government agencies as the code word for "full of horse dung." Now, few will disagree that Stern is a captivating interviewer -- his discussion with the transvestite midget hooker about her favorite sexual position was touching. But is his show REALLY a news program? I don't know. Might be a stretch. Shall we look at his upcoming topics for a show?

1) Pamela Anderson's Balloons: a new charity to bring joy to millions!

2) Speculation on the Kobe Bryant Trial: how many women did he have sex with, and how many of them had sex with Stern as well?

3) The application of Einstein's theory of Relativity and how it relates to monkey farts.

Well, to be fair to Howard, his show DOES have more news than Fox.

And now that I brought it up, we may as well discuss the Kobe situation. It seems like he just dropped off the face of the earth. One day the news is all about "Kobe's Krime," and the next day no one seems to care. Where's the love for basketball, people? Man, if Garciapara was arrested, we'd have riots on our hands! (FREE NOMAHHHHHHHH!) This case has it all; Drama! Sex! Ridiculous amounts of money being thrown around! Heck, just add a White Bronco in there and you would have the makings of O.J. 2 -- The Revenge.

Come to think of it, it seems like sports stars are frequently embroiled in controversy. In most cases, it's one player who gets busted, not a whole team. (Although, oddly enough, the Portland Trailblazers have something of a reputation among local law enforcement.) However, one bad apple can spoil dinner at Carmichael, hence my belief that coaches are too lenient on these players simply because of their celeb status. A simple system of Irish mafia enforced cleanliness would take care of all this. "Sorry, Gary. We caught ye smoking up the other day. We'll be needin' yer balls now, laddie."

So what does it mean when our celebrities are all on the toke, raging alcoholics, rapists, fake reporters or making movies like Gigli? I have only one answer that can explain it all.

Clearly, Ashcroft is spending too much time trying to get his drugs online.