It's been a shock, these past weeks, to find the news channels resorting to news coverage. Real news. Overwhelmingly bad news. It's subsiding now, but this whipsawing back and forth between disaster and celebrity fluff gives me the bends.

I wish it didn't take a massive natural disaster to foment journalism. It's not that I wish the earthquake in Haiti weren't being covered. I wish it hadn't happened, and we could go back to our usual diet of details about Balloon Boy and World's Best Dad.

Remember Tiger Week? That got better ratings than Shark Week. I kind of miss when it was fun to be shocked.

So, just in case you were missing it too, and if you find yourself stunned to paralysis by real suffering and devastation, I send you relief in the form of the trivial adventures of pretty people that usually pass for news. In the midst of all this tragedy, it's somehow reassuring to know Kate Gosselin's new hair weave brought her to tears.

Celebrities are slowly recovering from their bout of altruism and carving out modest moments of normality. Lindsay Lohan didn't get another DUI, but her driver hit a paparazzo, so at least she's trying.

Gary Coleman has also helped out by getting locked up in Utah and giving us another mug shot for our schadenfreude collection. Still out of work? So's this guy!

Epic battles have been fought and won: We know who's going to the Super Bowl and that it's Jay Leno's monologue you'll be turning off on your way to bed.

Most of the news out of the Middle East has been unpleasant, as usual, but here's a surprise: Were you wondering whatever happened to Chemical Ali? He was executed this week! And here I thought he was already dead. Any publicist will tell you that even if your career isn't going anywhere, you need to keep your name and face in the news - make a sex video, dangle a baby out a window, get jailed in Utah.

I believe there is similar advice in St. Paul's letters to the Kardashians.

Pat Robertson returned like herpes with a typically helpful and compassionate explanation for Haiti's suffering: a pact with the devil. The Haitians clearly overpaid to get rid of the French, something Mexico and New Orleans achieved with a lesser burden of corruption and natural disaster. It just doesn't pay to deal with Beelzebub anymore. Mr. Robertson didn't even get the presidency.

Where is Paris Hilton when we need her? Come on, stars of reality TV - do something stupid! Didn't anyone wear something hideous to the SAG awards, or did everyone come down with an attack of decorum?

Suddenly gulping down a huge and bitter helping of real tragedy isn't easy when you're accustomed to hearing that word used to describe everything from a hairstyle to the breakup of a two-month romance, but there are rays of hope. Millions of dollars for relief have been raised by texting, which is like housing the homeless by ironing your hair. OMG.

George Clooney's star-studded Hope for Haiti telethon to raise money for earthquake relief brought in $58 million outright and will continue to pull in revenue from sales of performance recordings. It is unknown how much of that money came from freelance screenwriters trying to get Steven Spielberg on the phone for a movie pitch.

Before long, things will go back to normal. We'll be able to put the images of injured orphans and shattered buildings out of our minds and refocus on who's gotten fat and whether paparazzi deserve a sock in the jaw.

Haiti is going to be a mess for a long, long time. It's going to need more food, more money, more jobs, more attention. Can we focus that long? After all, it's less than two months to the Oscars.

If we do as good a job there as we've done in New Orleans, Haiti will never be rebuilt, but it could get a team in the Super Bowl.

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