I was working at the Body Shop in the mall on Monday when my co-worker got an urgent call from her mom on the store’s phone line: Britney Spears lost custody of her two sons. My coworker was astounded and couldn’t stop talking about it all day.

America has been in an uproar about Britney Spears ever since we heard that she “did it again.” The newfound attention Spears is getting this time isn’t for her music. It’s for her crazy antics in public.

She married her ex-boyfriend’s backup dancer and had two kids with him. When they divorced, everything went downhill for Spears. She was first seen without her panties on numerous occasions on her way to various parties where she drank excessively. The sans underwear pictures were all over the Internet for even the most amateur web surfer to find easily.

After Spears made many headlines and news stories for her exhibitionist behavior, she made headlines again for shaving her head and getting tattooed. Videos popped up all over www.youtube.com showing clips from TV news shows covering the story and showing her in the act of shaving her hair.

Shortly after Spears shaved her head, she beat up a car with an umbrella. She was wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled over her baldhead, but after that incident she began wearing wigs.

Finally, after all of the public shows of unseemingly unstable behavior, she has lost the custody of her sons because she wasn’t able to produce a driver’s license and failed to show up for alcohol and drug tests.

Spears has been showing unstable behavior for a while and just because she was in a custody battle for her kids, she lost them. If Federline hadn’t been fighting for custody of his kids, would she still have custody of her kids?

A more important question to ask might be, why does America care more about Spears’ sons than they do about President Bush vetoing the bill for child health care or continuing the war in Iraq?

The Spears-Federline custody battle has been one of the top 10 news stories for many websites and TV news programs. I don’t think this should be our main concern as Americans. The stunts Spears has been pulling shouldn’t be on the top 10 of America’s main concerns. I know more about Britney Spears than I ever wanted to know, and I never even sought out this information. It was just provided to me via websites, news shows, newspapers and friends.

What we need to focus on is whether children have health care when they need it or when the troops are finally coming home. Presidential elections are rapidly approaching, yet the Spears-Federline story is making more headlines than the presidential candidates.

Ask anyone walking on the street or on campus who is running for president and what they stand for. Ask that same person who got custody of Sean Preston and Jayden James. I asked 20 random people those two questions. One out of 20 knew the answer to the first question, but all of them had the right answer for the second question.

It’s our duty as Americans to vote and there are many commercials running on MTV about the importance of voting. What we don’t hear is how important it is to know what the candidates stand for. What we hear is why or why not Britney deserves the custody of her children. Our focus should be on the future of our country, not the future of two little boys.

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