by Scott Gilmore - May 21, 2010. Scott Gilmore is the Executive Director of Peace Dividend Trust.

I was sitting at the great Irish pub across from the office watching the Yankees game, when a clip of Sean Penn came on.  Turns out he’s in Haiti now.  (I thought he was in jail, but I don’t keep up like I should.)  Sean has set up a clinic or a school, or something, and Haiti is  doing much better now, thank you very much.  Somehow this didn’t surprise me.  I thought that’s exactly the sort of thing you expect Sean Penn to do when he isn’t shooting “hard-hitting” documentaries in Iraq.

This led me to ponder about the unwritten rules of Celebrity Aid.  For example, if Tina Fey showed up in Haiti cursing about the slow UN deployment, it just wouldn’t be right.  Or if Kim Kardashian put on librarian glasses, went to Davos, and asked probing questions to Hernando de Soto, our heads would pop.

We expect certain types of celebrities to do certain things as they go about spreading the love. Tina does telethons, Kim sends her used shoes.  This is what they do. I am sure that in Tinsel-Town the old hands instinctively know how to save “the poor people” if you are an actor, a singer, on probation, or washed up.  But what about the up and coming stars?  What about wee Justin Beiber, or poor Megan Fox?  No one ever thinks about them or their needs.  They want to save the world.  They know it is their duty as stars.  But what if they pick the wrong way? The horror.

That’s why one of PDT’s most pressing projects (inspired of course by the important Stuff We Don’t Want or SWEDOW initiative)  is to distribute this useful Celebrity Aid Flowchart across Hollywood.  I hope all you young celebutantes and ingénues who read my blog will take the time to print it out and give to your agent.  The career you save may be your own.