Say What!- Bruce Springsteen is an insensitive prick?

photo by Mark Selinger/Columbia Records

Tonight at the Grammy Awards, Bruce Springsteen was a yet another victim of the media's continuing attempts to make us all oversensitive.  Just before singing his song to kick off the Grammys, Mr. Springsteen asked the audience "America. are you alive out there?". 

To any normal, reasonable person what Springsteen said would have been understood as asking if the crowd was excited and ready for what was to come.  Of course, some oversensitive Whitney Houston fans took it as a insensitive remark a day after the singer died at age 48.  The media was not far behind in reporting the story and putting it out there with a very definite spin to it. 

First, I am fairly certain Mr. Springsteen meant no offense to Whitney Houston, her family, friends, and fans with his comment.  In fact, he later stated that is how he begins most of his concerts and is something he has been doing for years. 

The trouble I have with this whole incident is what it says about America in 2012.  Have we really become a nation that is just waiting for the opportunity to cry foul over just about anything?  Are we so attention starved that we need to make an issue out of anything a public figure says in order to draw attention to ourselves?  And lastly, is it the media who is the blame for this trend with their need to report and spin these so called "incidents" to increase traffic to their websites?

Playing devil's advocate here for a moment- what if Pearl Jam performed Alive at the Grammys tonight?  Would people be offended by the lyric in the song "I'm still alive"?  Or if they decided to honor the Bee Gees during the show and one of the songs they sung was Staying Alive?

I think you can see where I am going with this.  When does it become absurd? 

Here's the thing- I am sure Mr. Springsteen will issue a statement apologizing for the 'poor choice of words' and the upset fans, along with the media, will let the matter drop.  But my question is should he have to? 

I think we have come to a time when we need to stop making everything an outrage.  I am all for protest and holding people accountable for their words when it is justified.  In this case it is not.  Shame on the fans who were outraged and the media for choosing to report and spin this to the masses.