“Oh Lord Britney Spears is pregnant again!” This utterance set off a chain reaction of “No she didn’t” and “that girl is crazy" here in the Creative Loafing office today. Everyone and their momma logged onto their terminals to find confirmation that the spiraling star was indeed preggers.

After about 10 minutes of search, only one Web site had a mention of a third pregnancy for the troubled star. (www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/03/07/1204780006750.html) So the rumor was scraped. But it got me to thinking: Is anyone able to avoid being interested in the made-for-TV movie drama that is Britney Spears?

We here at Creative Loafing consider ourselves to be smart, educated, a little edgy, and outside the norm. But the mere mention of a wackadoo with a baby sets the whole office in a bit of a tizzy, me included.

We know that there is a war going on, that the economy is horrible, and people really need healthcare. We know that these issues get far too little attention and that Ms. Spears gets WAY too much. Yet we are still sucked in.

Perhaps it is human nature to stop and stare at a car wreck. We can’t look away as this once decent performer of mediocre talent flits in and out of rehab, gets gas and Starbucks with alarming regularity, and forgets to make sure she covered her coochie before she leaves the house.

We should probably be decent humans and realize that the girl is disturbed and really shouldn’t be in the public eye right now. We should be disgusted by the fact that many people are getting rich off of another person’s downfall. But we aren’t.

Maybe it is just human nature to watch the rich and famous make really bad decisions. I mean, if even we here at Charlotte’s smartest paper can’t resist a juicy Britney story, who can?

— Charity Frederick