Tragically, we’ll always have Paris

June 30, 2007

Guest Post by Morbo

The Carpetbagger has been remarkably restrained when it comes to [tag]Paris Hilton[/tag]. A search of the blog shows her mentioned only in passing.

I salute him for that — and I’m not just saying that because this is his blog and I’m trying to suck up. (OK, maybe a little bit.)

I tried to follow the ‘Bagger’s lead and ignore Hilton as well, but after reading Washington Post TV critic Tom Shales’ review of her appearance on “Larry King Live,” I can’t hold it in any more. I just gotta let it out.

Here’s what got me all worked up: The evil puppet masters who manage Hilton have apparently decided to play the old favorite of ex-cons everywhere – the religion card.

Hilton said she read the Bible every day while in prison. When King asked her to name a favorite passage, she replied, “Hmmmm” and denied she had a favorite. It’s incredibly annoying that whoever manages this airhead actually believes the American people are dumb enough to think Paris Hilton reads anything, let alone the Bible.

Hilton also hit us with this gem: “God makes everything happen for a reason.” So God made Hilton a vacuous, promiscuous nitwit? I wish King has pressed her on that one. For centuries, religious leaders, philosophers and skeptics have grappled with the question of evil in our world. Why does a kind and loving God allow children to starve to death in Sudan? Why is there war, poverty and genocide? I’d love to hear Paris Hilton’s take on this. (My guess is it would sound something like this: “Hmmmm.”)

Then came the final indignation, perhaps the thing that caused me to snap.

According to The Post, Hilton “told King…she wanted to use her fame to help various causes, that she sympathized with the other women she met in jail, that she now wants to be ‘a good role model’ for young women….”

I have a 13-year-old daughter. No parent in his or her right mind will ever allow Paris Hilton to be viewed as a role model — expect in reverse. A few years ago, I began encouraging my daughter to read the newspaper, and she has taken up the habit with gusto. Every morning I point to the stories about Hilton and say, “See this woman? Do the exact opposite of everything she does, and you’ll be fine.”

Some people have been wondering what Hilton will do now that she’s out of the hoosegow. I will tell you what she will do now: She’ll go out and get drunk at a party. Getting drunk at parties is her job. How will she get there, you might ask? I’m not sure, but I have an idea: Maybe Lindsay Lohan can give her a ride.

Oh, wait….

You’re a glutton for punishment, Morbo. A fluff fest like Paris on Larry King is bad enough. A review of it?

  • First there was the show. Then there was the review. Now there’s The Review of the Review.

    The evil puppet masters who manage Hilton have apparently decided to play the old favorite of ex-cons everywhere – the religion card.

    If you think Hilton’s behaviour is inexcusable, why give her an excuse? If Hilton is indeed managed by evil puppet masters that would suggest she isn’t fully responsible for her actions.

    She’s just following the lead of the countless people (many of whom are quite stupid) who’ve gotten in trouble and say I’ve found God as an all purpose excuse/pardon [looks at Bush 43 and Son of Sam]. Hell, maybe one of her prison mates suggested it.

  • Believing that “God makes everything happen for a reason” allows Paris (or anyone else who believes it) to live her life without taking responsibility for anything. Whatever happens, it was all part of God’s plan. Right?

    I have many specific arguments with what passes for Christianity in America, but “God makes everything happen for a reason” is at the top of my list. It’s an evil and destructive doctrine.

    Christians, take some responsibility for a change!

  • Getting mad at Paris because she is a member of the over-privileged, self-indulgent upper class is like hating Sgt. Schulz because he was a member of the third reich.

    She might yet surprise us all. Wasn’t so long ago Angelina was just a hellraiser.

  • Larry King and serious interviews? Ha.

    “It’s incredibly annoying that whoever manages this airhead actually believes the American people are dumb enough to think Paris Hilton reads anything, let alone the Bible.”

    It worked for W in Iraq so why shouldn’t it work for an airhead?

  • Agreed, JoeW. If this were some kind of “hard-hitting” piece I would understand posting it, but Morbo demeans the integrity of this site by allowing the Prom Queen to grab attention. It’s bad enough we all hated these people in high school, now I have to hear about her on every media outlet, including my favorite blogs.

    I am a struggling blogger. I know that at any moment I could post ANYTHING on Paris, say a headline like “Paris Hilton Gang-Raped by Pirates With Laser Beams,” and grab an assload of traffic compared to my normal trickle. I refuse to, simply because the line must be held somehwere.

    If the Carpetbagger Report can’t handle being Paris-free I may have to look elsewhere for my fluff-free news!

  • Religion is to ‘Goldilocks’ as Paris Hilton is to the media : neither can resist the other.

    I didn’t see the whole interview but caught some parts of it on Youtube, so you other guys may have encountered more offensive content than me. What I did see, I have to admit, somewhat impressed me.

    First, though I’m totally guilty of it myself, I don’t feel comfortable writing any fellow human being off. Even the very worst of us have a tiny grain of goodness, no matter how small, somewhere deep inside. Buddhists call it tathagatagarbha : buddha-nature, the potential for enlightenment that exists in all sentient beings. Without it there is no possibility of anything good or meaningful ever happening or worthy of effort.

    On this basis, it is commendable when anyone shows even the slightest awakening to the potential for goodness within them. My impression definitely was that something of that nature had broken through into Ms Hilton’s consciousness, and for that I felt glad.

    I sincerely and strongly believe that it is vital to recognize any tender shoot of goodness and better-oriented motivation when it arises, rather than trample it underfoot because we don’t like the weeds it has appeared among.

  • If I was arrested twice for DUI where would I be? Rich, spoiled, and looking down at anyone that’s not is a recipe for even MORE mischief. The “enlightenment” of this “wayward soul” remains to be seen.

    flo

  • Unlike some others, I don’t really have strong animosity to the woman. She may think her job is to go to parties, but what it really is is to entertain us all with her train wreck of a life. She makes it easy to feel good about not being ultra-rich.

    However the corporate MSM that thinks her departure from jail is page-one-above-the-fold news deserves to die horribly. Dynamite the media ownership structure of the U.S. – it’s our only hope of keeping a working secular democracy going.

  • Dynamite the media ownership structure of the U.S. – it’s our only hope of keeping a working secular democracy going.

    I also couldn’t agree more.

  • Well put, Goldilocks, though my personal take is when you are a role model, especially for young girls (take a look around any mall and you’ll see what I mean) there is more at stake than allowing a tiny shoot of goodness to grow.

    This woman has convinced millions that jumping out of cars crazy-drunk with your shaved bits showing, ramming into parked cars driving (also drunk) and probably worst of all, emaciating yourself to a radius a few microns bigger than your actual skeleton is something good. The media continues to fawn all over her, following her every waking moment, so we cannot rely on their “good” judgment to properly put her in the correct journalistic frame. We must fight to keep sanity in our public discourse, even if it is bitching on a comments thread.

  • Paris sells a lot of newspapers.

    If this were some kind of “hard-hitting” piece I would understand posting it, but Morbo demeans the integrity of this site by allowing the Prom Queen to grab attention.
    Comment by Indigent A-hole

    Demeaning? You call that demeaning? Demeaning is:

    Paris Hiilton: “I’d hit that so hard that the guy who pulled me out would be made King of England.”

    Now that’s demeaning.

    It’s Saturday and Morbo is sort of the “comic relief”. Keep up the good work, Morbo

    To paraphrase Tom Robbins and Kurt Vonnegut. Commenters please, a little less moral outrage and a little more outrageousness.

  • I’m getting tired of the endless discussion about TV characters (particularly from shows I don’t watch.) First it was Tony Soprano, now it’s this ‘Paris Hilton’. I mean, don’t we have better things to do than obsess about fictional characters?

    Wait, you mean there’s actually a person named after a hotel in France? Really?

    That’s just sad.

  • Ya blew it kid. There was no Hilton here. I have not bothered to read or pay any attention whatsoever to Paris. don’t even know how I know she recently went to jail but I pay it no mind. I can find no reason to care in the least about this nothing person. I imagine that if everyone had the attitude I have about her she would stop being significant because she does nothing significant. Must be horrible to have it slapped in your face by others or other means than intentionally.
    She just doesn’t matter…at all.

  • Seriously, she has someone read the frickin’ menu to her when she dines out.

    Come now Tom Cleaver, be fair. I’m sure she can order drinks without consulting the menu.

  • Well, I guess Paris Hilton is just endlessly fascinating to all sorts of people (even you, apparently) for many different reasons.

    Seriously, though, you wasted your time writing about her, and I wasted my my time reading it.

  • Tail-ending, but a little point I just want to stick in here. Prison is an interesting place, barbaric though it tends to be. What it offers is an opportunity to take a long, hard look inside yourself. Monasteries do the same. In the endless rough and tumble of frenetic activity that consumes most people’s lives, there’s very little opportunity or encouragement for taking stock. That’s a great loss. Much illness, mental and physical, results from this lack of balance. This is the reason why meditation is so useful. A few hours, or even minutes, in the day can make a big difference to one’s clarity and stability. Some people who have come to appreciate the value of giving themselves time to come to rest on a daily basis, like switching off the engine of the car when you put it in the garage, go further and give themselves what are called ‘retreats’. If you haven’t done it it’s hard to imagine what it can be like; but if you have done it you realize how beneficial it is.

    What struck me when I saw Ms Paris after her rather short sojourn in a prison cell was that she had experienced the first hint of the benefit of stopping once in a while and taking a look at yourself and your life and what it could be and what it isn’t yet. I think that is salutary. That’s the reason I can’t dismiss her message entirely, because I think it can show people something useful.

    I know I’m out on a limb on this, and I wouldn’t hold her up as a prime role model — there are much greater role models for this than her — but, since she’s so much in the public eye, it’s the one little plus people might take away from her saga. That’s all.

  • You’ve GOT to be kidding me, Goldilocks- surely you don’t think the multimillionaire heiress had some sort of spiritual awakening in jail for drunk driving!!

    Just because she said some nice things on Larry King doesn’t mean Buddha appeared to her and told her to cover her exposed vagina in public.

    This is the last I intend to talk, write, or even think about this foolish person. I once again chide the Carpetbagger report for falling in with big-media chuckleheads.

  • It is not useful or even entertaining journalism to interview Paris Hilton, or solicit her opinion on anything, or to repeat anything she has to say, or to endlessly report on her activity. . .

    However, to write analytically about her impact on our popular culture, the way she is covered by the media, her self-promotion etc is completely legit. She is an amazing example of self-absorbed, materialist, consumerist, celebrity-obsessed America circa 2007.

    Even though I was in the hospital bored out of my mind I couldn’t bring myself to watch the interview. Larry King (world’s worst interviewer) + Paris Hilton (world’s least interesting celeb). . .how could you possibly get an hour out of that even if smarter folks writers are providing a lot of the questions and answers to the principals?

    I did hear/see a couple of clips though. . .Paris seemed confused, insincere and completely devoid of insight.

  • So I get the last word, Mr A?

    First, Buddha is not an external like God or Jesus who ‘appears’. The word ‘Buddha’ itself means ‘fully awakened’. So ‘Buddha’ is not a person or a thing, it is a state of mind. It’s not just an ordinary state of mind, it’s a fully awakened state of mind. It is the potential we all have, even P.H. It’s awakening is inevitable, even if it takes a very long time. My point was simply that I detected a hint of a microscopic progress in the direction of wakening up a very very slight little bit in the unmentionable lady. And that I consider to be good, however small and insignificant and to whomever it happens. There’s so much opportunity and temptation to go the other way, a little step in a positive direction, however minuscule, is to be welcomed (IMO). Whether it happens in you or me or Bob down the road it doesn’t matter. That it happens at all is a miracle — surely you know what I mean? It just so happens that I think there’s evidence that that tiny step of progress occurred in some rather trivial wealthy chick that just happens to be plastered all over the media. So we talk about it.

    Second, I’m absolutely 100% sure that Buddha would not tell her to cover her exposed vagina in public. That would be far too limiting — I kid you not.

    ___________
    P.S. Buddha, with a capital ‘B’ commonly refers to Sakyamuni Buddha, the fourth of the approximately 1000 Buddhas in this mahakalpa. The capital B Buddhas appear periodically to teach and demonstrate the way to Enlightenment appropriate to the beings at that time and location. Buddha with a small ‘b’ refers to the potential for Enlightenment within all of us.

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