When I say I’m “bi-winning” or that I have “tiger blood,” everyone knows what I mean. A month ago, neither of those phrases would have made any sense. Today, though, the immortal lines from Charlie Sheen’s interviews are like an inside joke that you and I share with nearly 30% of the world’s population.

If, however, I asked the average American about his/her opinion on Libya and Egypt, most would probably respond with some variation of “I don’t care.” I know that I’m making generalizations that most likely aren’t true for everyone, but seriously - turn on the news. What do you see? If it’s a world news program, maybe I’m wrong. Otherwise, if your news is anything like mine, all the reporters care about is drama. Revolts are dramatic for awhile, but eventually we realize that we don’t care. “How is this going to affect me?” is the American thought.

The thing is, it does affect us. A rebellion on the other side of the world may not seem to impact Americans directly, but as my history teacher said: these are the moments that we should remember for our whole lives. We’ll recall exactly where we were when Mubarak stepped down and when Qaddafi followed suit. At least, we’re supposed to…we would, if only the news actually covered any of it.

It’s easy to say this now, after only a month, but I feel that I will always remember the end of January and beginning of February, 2011. Between being sick and the icy roads, I was trapped in my house for ten days straight. During that time, the TV was on almost nonstop, often tuned to the news. Of course, being so near Dallas, the big story was the upcoming Super Bowl XLV. They also had to cover the ice storm, so we could see whether or not we could drive, go to school, etc. In my mind, though, they slighted the most important story. There was a freaking revolution going on, and I wanted to see it. The way I described the news that week was SUPER BOWL. ICE STORM. (egypt). Lather, rinse, repeat.

Now, the problem is this: Libya is following in Egypt’s footsteps, and all America cares about is the fact that Charlie Sheen took enough cocaine to kill two and a half men. Literally! They’re going to cancel his show! (Oh and by the way, the government wants to declare a no-fly zone over Libya.) But Charlie Sheen has tiger blood!!!

Tiger blood, guys. Maybe the next round of protesters should claim that they have lion brains or something… Maybe then we’d actually pay attention to them.