Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse is dead at 27, and the fact that no one is surprised maybe ought to be a message to all of us--not just the obvious "drugs are terrible" message, but perhaps something about the way we deal with celebrity.

I think that not everyone, maybe not a majority, maybe not even anywhere close to a majority, but a certain number of music fans, writers, and industry types enabled her to some extent. Did we take her problems seriously enough? The woman was an obvious train wreck, but did we do enough to help her instead of making winking comments about "going to Rehab" or laughing outright at her? Was continuing to pay for her music or especially paying to see her at a live performance sending a tacit message that her lifestyle was "OK"?

Was it anybody's business? Was it her job to make music and our job to listen to it no matter in what condition she was? Are we gonna take Lindsay Lohan's problems more seriously now?

I don't know. I'm just asking questions, and I don't pretend that it's helpful, either. But I can't help but feel that something could have been done differently when a woman everyone knew was on the road to an early death actually wound up fulfilling that horrible destiny when she was in the public eye the entire time.