You should probably sit down for this. I have a lot to say, and some of it might be hard to hear. But I'm going to be honest with you, because I love you and I want to help.

So. Lately, I've been noticing that you're really focused on things you didn't used to care about much. Like...well, like this obsession with celebrities. I mean, Paris and Nicole and Angelina and Brad and Britney and all these other people who you talk about like you know them. You don't know them. They're total strangers to you, and just because you've seen them in a movie or on TV, doesn't mean you know who they are or what they're like - and frankly, you're not entitled to know any of that either. Let Dannielynn grow up with whatever peace and dignity she can salvage from the train wreck that was her mother's death....stop insisting that she do it on camera, as if she was a distant niece you bounced on your knee at the holidays.

America, you have friends. You have family. You have actual people that you see every day, people you care about, who care about you. Why are you giving one second's thought to those total strangers? Why not give your time and energy to the real people in your life? Why not put down the magazines, turn off "The Insider" and "Access Hollywood," and make sure you know as much about your parents' lives as you do about Justin Timberlake's. JT probably won't support you in a crisis, but your folks just might.

And while you're at it, stop judging yourself by the alleged standards of the people you see on TV and in magazines and movies. For one thing, the standards aren't real - those pictures are airbrushed and photo-shopped, that's pancake makeup, and those people you see spend just as much time on their jobs as you do - the difference is that they're spending their eight hours exercising with personal trainers and eating whatever their personal chef feeds them (and possibly taking various "recreational" drugs to help things along). And those fabulous wardrobes they sport? Probably free gifts, whereas you'll pay through the nose trying to dress like that.

You're beautiful, America. You don't need a new wardrobe every season, the latest cell phone bling, and a bag like the It-Girl-du-Jour carries around her yappy dog in...to prove you're beautiful. You don't need a perfect set of abs or hipbones that could put out an eye. Or big breasts. The breasts you have are just fine. Real people who are worthy of your time and energy will not give a crap what size your breasts are, America.

Another thing - and this is an important one - you are not a teenager, and that's okay. Teenagers are plagued with acne and new body hair and bodily fluids showing up at unexpected and generally embarrassing times. Teenagers do stupid things and usually wind up suffering because of it. Teenagers spend all their money trying to be cool and usually failing. No matter how much magazines and TV and movies tell you you should look and act and spend your money like a teenager, you're not one and you don't have to. You're all grown up, America, and it's time to put away childish things. You have a real job, and you have bills to pay, and it's time to give up snapping bubblegum and flaunting your midriff and giggling with your girlfriends because you made out with Jimmy behind the bleachers. Your life doesn't center on the latest CD or your cell phone. Act like it!

And speaking of childish things to be put away, America, you've got to stop whining about how bad you have it. You DON'T have it bad. For the most part, you enjoy unprecedented peace and prosperity. You have food to eat, you have a home and a bed to sleep in, you have luxuries most of the world has never even seen, let alone enjoyed on a daily basis. You have education, information, transportation, and the right to voice your opinion. When it comes to making your life what you want it to be, your choices are practically limitless. You don't dodge bullets or bombs on your way from a hovel with no plumbing to a sweatshop where you're forced to work almost non-stop under threat of bodily harm. Count your blessings, really.

And while you're counting them, ask yourself if you don't have an obligation to your fellow man - if maybe some of your prosperity shouldn't go to others around the world. Between man's inhumanity to man and Mother Nature's global warming backlash, people on six continents suffer to scrape by every day. Maybe you could send them some of last season's clothes - or, better yet, food and medicine and technology and resources that might help them get a little closer to living as comfortably as you do, or at least maybe a little bit safer and longer.

Honestly, America, the main point I'm trying to make is that - once upon a time (I guess when you were younger and idealistic?) - you were less concerned with looking like a million bucks (or making a million bucks, or really bucks in general), and more concerned with the good of the People. Remember that poem from the Statue of Liberty? That's the kind of stuff you used to go nuts for. You used to be all about freedom and justice for all. You used to protect little countries by actually protecting them, instead of protecting them by invading them. You used to play nice with all the other countries, and make sure that everybody here had a fair trial. You never used to think that an heiress' brief stint in prison (for a crime she committed and was subsequently tried and convicted of) was more worthy of your attention than hundreds of prisoners being held with no justification, no due process, and little access to representation, not to mention no ability to communicate with their loved ones.

What happened to you, America? You're not the land I love these days. You seem so caught up in frivolity and trends...but I know that's not what you stand for. I know that under the glitz and glamour and surgically perfected skin, that generous country created under the auspices of freedom and equality still lives. I know that heart is still beating with compassion and faith in mankind's ability to make the world a better (and not just a warmer) place. I know, America, that you're there - longing to do some math and reclaim your precious checks and balances, longing to put down the appletini and knock some legal heads together over habeas corpus, longing to be more than a cover girl or a poster child or a scapegoat or a stereotype.