Paris, back in the Hilton...

What a world we live in.

It looks like more than half of the news today on the stateside channels is going to be about Paris Hilton's premature release from jail. This, while what SHOULD be the far more important news of the Immigration Bill's languishing death in the Senate ALSO takes place. Kind of makes me feel sorry for the poor Immigration Bill--to be upstaged by something and someone so trivial. Yet, that's the world we live in.

I wonder how the troops feel in the war zones as they watch on CNN and FNC, and see for themselves what most Americans truly find important back "in the world?" Skewed priorities? No wonder so many people in the military feel so much contempt for their civilian citizen counterparts. I wonder if civilians know how many troops feel this disdain? Believe me, they do! Even now, 5 years after my discharge, I don't like to think of myself as a civilian. I watch how flittingly weakwilled our average citizens are and it makes me wonder how in the hell we are ever going to keep our enemies at bay when the average citizen's attention span is no better than a puppy's in a field, flitting from one fanciful subject to another?

Looking at the latest Paris Hilton development, it does remind me of at least one good thing about the US--our semi-egalitarianism. I love how we go after our rich, powerful and famous. I love how how we put them up on pedestals and then wait anxiously and expectantly for them to fall off, so that we can then slap 'em in irons and throw 'em in jail. It certainly doesn't happen that way in oligarchies such as the Philippines and Mexico, where money and power means never having to say you're sorry.

You'd never see a senator war hero like Duke Cunningham go to prison for what amounts to the rest of his life in most of the world, unless a coups took place first to make it happen. You'd never see a high ranking aide of a sitting president, like Scooter Libby, go to prison for what amounts to fibbing to a judge. You would never even see a national sports hero, like an O.J. Simpson, go through even the semblance of a trial for murder, although he DID get away with it! Nope, in most places in the world, a movie star like Mel Gibson would have been quietly escorted home instead of being arrested for driving drunk.

The way I see it, so what if Hilton only served less than 3 days of 45, then of 23 for what she did. If she had been a Filipina or even a European celebrity she NEVER would have gotten in trouble in the first place. The very fact that we are so much in arms over it at least shows that we are TRYING to make sure no one is above the law. I like that...

Now, Gretta Van Sestran, Geraldo, Anderson Cooper, et. al., can we now get on with the REALLY and TRULY important news? Please!