Thank God for Paris Hilton -- poster child for the estate tax.

The only reason I read this blog is for news about Paris Hilton, the hotel in Paris in which all sorts of strangers sleep.

Oops! Wrong blog . . .

Absolutely true, but the girl was driving with a suspended license, and got caught more than once.

Which takes some trying, e.g. making a traffic violation. I recall having a license suspended due to the surfeit of speeding tickets, and for six months I had to suffer without a driver license, which was a bother, as I moved to a new job, where they mailed my passport back to my previous address, so I was without any ID, so telephone company did not want to talk with me etc. etc. And I did not drive.

Paris could hire an unemployed teenager to drive her around.

Celebrity is a pretty horrible thing.

Paris Hilton and other celebrities are pseudo-parents/leaders for primates biologically programmed to seek out and follow the primate with the most status. She's a "queen-bee" for the hive-mind. Whether she's convicted of crimes hardly matters. Her continued fame is guaranteed so long as her face is on TV and treated with adoration, and there are large numbers of nearly unconscious TV viewers.

Studies of small children have shown they'll instinctively follow whomever is perceived to have the most status, even from wholly superficial and manufactured indicators in controlled experiments. If you put small children in a room with someone, so long as a critical number of other people in the room look at that person adoringly, the child will immediately take the cue.

That instinct never evolved to cope with tribes much larger than perhaps hundreds (which is the maximum number of people an individual brain can store detailed and personal information on) and the television age and pseudo-tribes of hundreds of millions, or billions of people, badly abuses the instinct.

The Beatles for example were one of the first Television "super bands" to take advantage of this celebrity instinct. Remember all those screaming fans, many overcome with love and adoration for the Beatles? They had never seen a television spectacle like the Beatles and were nearly defenseless. The Church certainly understands the value of icons and spectacle, but the Beatles were bigger than God in many ways at that moment.

Bush also misuses that instinct to great effect in allowing only adoring audiences for TV, which subconsciously tells viewers he's an adored leader of personality cult, regardless of his record and whatever he may say.

Point being, there is little to nothing rational about Hilton's celebrity, celebrity in general, and much of politics and punditry these days. Her fans, and much of the public, are barely conscious, which is also a general problem with our democracy as de Toquville predicted, and is largely an unfortunate byproduct of scale beyond what we're biologically evolved to cope with efficiently.

Best line I've ever heard (from a lawyer):

"Fill in name of wealthy miscreant" is a walking excuse for a 100 percent estate tax.

Poor Scooter Libby. There goes his "Mommy, mommy" defense...

Umm... last time I checked, jail was supposed to be psychologically difficult. The whole "loss of freedom" thing is designed as punishment.

Three days is about the point at summer camp where you think you're going to die from homesickness. Then you get over it and adapt (cf Camp Granada).

Going to jail is a very stressful experience, even if you're in the "celebrity wing" instead of general population. But it's designed to be that way, so the fact she was feeling bad merits no sympathy from me. Of course, three days is about where the worst of drug withdrawal kicks in (or so I hear...), so it's possible there was more going on.

But people are kept in jail suffering with illness and withdrawal all the time. You can argue that it's not right, but funny how the concern first appears when it's a rich celebrity being discussed.

Luigi Vampa said:

If a normal person cracked up in jail and the jailer decided it was in the best interests of everyone to send them home,[...]

Dahlink, if it were up to the jailer to release prisoners every time they "cracked", we'd have a lot of empty prisons. Which, the last time I looked, wasn't a problem at all, quite the reverse.

It's for the *judge* to decide how and where a person is to serve a term.

I don't know about you, but where I work everyone talked about nothing but Paris, Paris, Paris.

Whatever people say they want to watch, someone is watching this stuff, and talking about it, just like people watch everything having to do with her. That's why she got such a hard sentence in the first place, it's why she got out, and it's why she was thrown back in. That people would get angry about it is a symptom of the problem itself, of fixation with celebrities. Whatever happens, or doesn't happen, to Paris Hilton will have abolutley no real effect on 99.9999% of the population, and yet, people care anyway, waste their time and energy getting upset about Paris Hilton's fate, pretend that what happens to Paris Hilton is somehow a comment on our justice system, when the fact that people notice at all is a judgment on ourselves.

Crooked cops, crooked lawyers, crooked judges, crooked politicians, crooked doctors, crooked scientists, crooked clergymen -- but no crooked journalists. An amazing record for an amazing class of people.

When Paris Hilton was born, she was immediately worth some 500 million dollars. For her to wind up doing some time in jail is very different than for you and I having to go through the same process.

That's all the more reason for Paris to go to jail. She needs this experience more than the rest of us. She needs someone to finally tell her, "no, you can not always get what you want". Or, "no, mommy and daddy can not always fix your mistakes".

Driving drunk is a serious offense. At that point, Paris was a danger to herself and others. She could have literally killed someone. All the money in the world can't bring someone back from the dead.

Basically, she needs someone to tell her that she is not any better than the rest of humanity and that she needs to stop acting recklessly and start acting responsibly. Part of that is actually paying attention to what judges and lawyers say. When they say you can't drive, you need to pay special attention and not just pass that off on your assistant. YOU need to take it seriously!

Patience. Dershowitz is on the case.

She wanted to go to jail for the fame. She's an exhibitionist.

She has a private cell in a section reserved for special people, so it's not exactly going to be gang violence and such.

Fame she can't buy directly, but she can use her wealth to rig circumstances that keep her in the media. And suckers just eat it up.

If our "news" media was about news it would completely stop covering her. But of course it's really just selling soap, and Hilton sells. Why? Because look at all the strange fascination people have with her. If people want to elevate the media, one of the best things they could do is start taking triviality seriously, and tell the MSM to knock it off. Not to be sanctimonious, but the amount of time devoted to these stories when actual newsworthy stories go neglected, it's beyond a good joke and a few laughs, it's way out of hand.

There is almost no peer pressure to be an informed responsible citizen. Was it ever better? I don't know. But it needs improving.

There are tens of millions of Americans who voted for Bush, thought Saddam did 9/11, and when you ask them if they feel any responsibility to be informed, will say "well, I watch a little CNN and FOX News" and know every detail of some utterly trivial and meaningless issue.

I hate being argumentative with the obvious, but your post is a bit much. The Beatles were the first "television band?" The same hysteria they generated was engendered by Elvis and Sinatra before them, and by earlier stars like Caruso and Jennie Lind.

There's nothing new about the cult of celebrity. I don't know how researchers managed to get a grant to find out the obvious: that children will follow leaders for no rational reason. So will adults, aswe've known for thousands of years.

Paris Hilton isn't a "leader" anyway; she's a beautiful, rich young woman with a taste for exhibitionism. Normal people have always been fascinated by the beautiful, rich, and young. There's nothing new here at all, except the major news outlets' willingness to devote so much of their time and resources to Paris' "ordeal," at the expense of real news.

But even that's not a new behavior. I'm afraid your dime-store sociology doesn't offer much new.

She is an exhibitionist, but you can bet she didn't want to go to jail. And she didn't rig a cell in a "special section;" she was placed in protective custody, which is no picnic. She was locked down 23 hours a day. This is a decision of the jail authorities, who quite rightly felt that her presence in the general population would be disruptive and possibly dangerous. The move was completely appropriate. County jails are very tough places, often tougher than state prisons where peole are doing time and settled in. There are far fewer amenities and outlets for the inmates.

As for the decision to give her an ankle bracelet, it's puzzling. Usually, this would have to come from a judge, unless it was provided for in the sentence. But whatever the case, you can bet the Sheriff's Dept. would not have let her go if she had acted out. Apparently, she had been quite polite and cooperative with them.

The same people who want a pardon for Shcooter Libby are foaming on my TV for vengeance against Paris Hilton, a beautiful, rich, young woman who, while not exactly a paragon of social consciousness, at least doesn't go out of her way to cause harm, and is in fact quite entertaining, gregarious, and clearly energetic and achievement oriented. (I've personally known rich kids far lazier, wasted, less productive, and less prone to take personal risks).

As for her jail time, being in protective custody (the so-called 'celebrity cell block')is no joy ride. She was locked down in a 6 by 8 cell for 23 hours a day, and never let outside. Showers are probably two or three times a week. Nobody wants to be there. The only advantage over being in population is that it's safer, which is why they put her there.

Normally, if someone "cracks up" in jail, they go to either the jail's clinic or get transferred to a locked-down wing of a hospital that's operated by the corrections department--or even the state mental hospital. There's no question that Paris' transfer to a bracelet was unusual, mainly because it was prohibited by her sentence. I don't know why or under what administrative rule the Sheriff's Dept. could have done this without a court order. The Sheriff's Dept. carries out the sentence; they can't modify it, though they are allowed to determine the level of custody.

That said, they would never have let Paris out on the bracelet if she had acted like an asshole in there. By all accounts, she was polite and cooperative throughout the process.

What kind of cheese-eating surrender monkey named that girl "Paris"?! Can't congress pass a resolution? I'll tell you this, if she had been given a good American name, none of this would have happened. Peoria Hilton would have been home baking cookies!

Yes ... anyone with that record would have been remanded to home custody with electronic surveillance.

There simply are not enough jails in Southern California to hold all the people caught driving on their first suspended licenses and sentenced to two to six weeks in jail.

If Paris Hilton was Harris Pilton, Harris would be in home custody today.

The worse thing ever will be if she comes out of jail and reforms her ways. That would be such a waste of a great tawdry life long potential of stories and fodder for the media. Paris is a great product line. Updates the Hilton brand and keeps us all looking. Don't pretend you don't look. We all look, this story has made it legal for all of us to confess that the press has forced us to look. Ahhhhhh, nightmare. CNN made me watch.

True there was hysteria in the past, except there wasn't a plethora of 24/7 media outlets that needed to be fed. Paris loves the attention and media outlets and stringers are always guaranteed a show which is money in the bank.

Compared to the past, PR/marketing specialists now have a vast number of outlets to promote their clients. Marketing specialists are professionals at making scripted events look spontaneous, they are very smooth.

Infotainment is the new media format - very light on news and very heavy on entertainment. And the news doesn't have to be original, just subscribe to AP or Reuters.

I've heard an Amicus Brief is in the pipeline!  They're questioning the constitutional authority of the presiding judge.

Jan

The point that I have heard upstream is that the pretty, young, rich individual has no right to endanger the rest of us by driving drunk

Perhaps you would care to state where you found the posts that addressed the matter of inhibiting drunk driving with incarceration rather than the joy of seeing a young woman in prison because she's rich, pretty and young. Did anyone else mention the purported medical condition except with a sneer?

"Luckily, there is justice in this crazy world, my friends. Paris is heading back to jail." - Andrew Golis

"Celebrity is a pretty horrible thing...there is little to nothing rational about Hilton's celebrity, celebrity in general, and much of politics and punditry these days. Her fans, and much of the public, are barely conscious, which is also a general problem with our democracy as de Toquville predicted, and is largely an unfortunate byproduct of scale beyond what we're biologically evolved to cope with efficiently." - kozmik

Paris Hilton isn't a "leader" anyway; she's a beautiful, rich young woman with a taste for exhibitionism...I'm afraid your dime-store sociology doesn't offer much new." - LongTom

And on and on. The quotes were simply taken in order from the top but nothing changed as far as I know beyond the ugly feeding frenzy celebrating the takedown of Paris Hilton.

Best, Terry

We are talking about her. She's won. We are not even safe here.

It's ironic that to someone that's had a chance to develop a reasonable level of mental discipline, solitary confinement is quite manageable. To those who depend on external stimuli for their very being, it is indeed tough.

Have you considered the possibility that the addiction is physical rather than mental?

I have mentioned a fellow arrested and jailed for drunk driving who died from side effects of withdrawal symptoms from alcohol according to the coroner.

I guess it's possible that a psychiatrist or psychologist was inveigled into pronouncing the young woman simply unable to withstand the dreadful ordeal of confinement but it seems to me hard to believe even in the bizarro world of America's rich and famous.

Best, Terry

Assume the addiction is physical. In such a case, putting her into house arrest, rather than a hospital or rehab facility, is even more irresponsible.

While there are deaths from acute alcohol intoxication, such as chugging a bottle in a hazing ritual and falling dead, it's rather unlikely that she would have had no visible symptoms when being taken to the jail. Perhaps the worst addiction, quite rare these days, is to barbiturates -- one should never withdraw outside a fully equipped hospital. From a purely physical, not psychological, standpoint, nicotine withdrawal is usually worse than opioid withdrawal.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

That's just what I was thinking.  And here I thought that TPM Cafe was one of the few Paris Hilton-free zones... 

Know your enemy well, for in the end that is who you become. ~~Old Chinese Proverb

As he got increasingly stewed, he would straighten up from a habitual slouch, his slur would clear up, his his eyes would widen and he would begin to walk straight. Effects of intoxication differ but I never saw anything remotely like that.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

I'm not sure I'm parsing the above correctly, but it is fairly common that chronic alcoholics will actually appear less drunk when they have a mild amount on board. There have been some reaction time studies that showed that a chronic alcoholic who had consumed a small about was safer than one who had had none, or a lot.

All I can tell you is that the effect of alcohol on that one fellow was very dramatic, unlike anything others who were not exactly unfamiliar with the effect of alcohol had witnessed.

When he seemed sober as a judge, so to speak, was the one time he wasn't.

Best, Terry

It's ironic that to someone that's had a chance to develop a reasonable level of mental discipline, solitary confinement is quite manageable. To those who depend on external stimuli for their very being, it is indeed tough.

It's probably true that mental discipline provides a great measure of resistance, when you consider that most intellectual training is, in some ways, very solitary.  (When I was younger and had more mental discipline, I had a list of projects that I would like to accomplish...if I was ever incarcerated.)

But 23 or 45 or however many days is one thing; make it solitary for a few years, and I suspect that even the most resilient would start to decompose.  And supermaximum facility prisons - which are essentially long-term solitary confinement jails - are becoming ever more common.

The one time in my atheistic life that a religious interlocutor ever caused me fear was not a finger-pointing, fire and brimstone type, but a nice, reasonable Catholic who intended no harm when he remarked that 'hell is but the absence of god.'  I suddenly imagined being a disembodied Cartesian mind, unconnected to the world or anything else.  Hell is, in other words, a really long sentence.

Colour me skeptical. I've dealt with cases involving people who died of alcohol poisoning, and I've seen first hand examples of drug and alcohol addiction.

Withdrawal, particularly cold turkey withdrawal, is often a harsh and unpleasant experience. But normally it does not pose a medical threat to health or life.

Generally, for those it does, there are corollary symptoms, a weakened constitution due to consistent malnutrition, opportunistic diseases or infections, all sorts of things.

Generally, a person whose withdrawal symptoms are fatal or medically critical is usually a physical basket case to start with. They don't look and function like Paris Hilton.

Yes. Antigua (with an ankle bracelet)...the simple life...

I'm worried about Andrew's choice of women to get engaged with . . .

She should be punished for what she did, not who she is.

I used to prosecute drunk drivers and so I spent some time with alcohol abuse specialists and technicians, and medical personnel.

Longtime alcoholics develop an increasing tolerance for alcohol, such that they can continue functioning when other people are passing out.

But they're still impaired. Alcoholics compensate for impairment by developing a variety of 'tricks' or minor coping strategies. For instance, speech tends to slur, so the alcoholic will tend to speak more carefully and deliberately, and will tend to avoid words that contain 's' so as to avoid the automatic slurring. They can, because of this, come to seem more deliberate and sharper, but their actual mental and physical processes have been materially impaired, and are simply masked.

When reaching for an object on a table, they'll tend to opt for a sweeping motion, which makes it easier to smoothly close in on and obtain the object. If they were to reach directly for it, then they might miss or become clumsy. They stand arch their backs to stand straighter, widen their stance to avoid wobble. There's all sorts of little ways to compensate to mask the true state of intoxication.

But they really are intoxicated, their reflexes really are impaired, their mental function really is diminished. Compensation is good for walking around the house or hanging out at a party, but anything that actually requires exercise of skill or thought... well, there's no faking that, and there's no compensating for that. Diminished reflexes are diminished reflexes. Reduced capacity is reduced capacity. In normal circumstances, those reflexes and capacity are there as needed. For intoxicated persons, they aren't.

Your friend, from what you describe, is simply a long time functioning alcoholic. He's just been a habitual and chronic drunk long enough for compensating mechanisms to have evolved. And the fact that he's got these remarkable compensating mechanisms is proof all by itself that he's been at it for a while.

No, because many people deep down actually want to be Hilton. Her "crimes" are diffused to have almost zero impact on the average viewer, while her wealth and luxury is very appealing. People want wealth and luxury, and they want vicarious icons.

It would be like trying to justify the estate tax because rock stars misbehave at hotels and throw sofas out windows while snorting cocaine off stripper's tits and such. No, most would like to be a rockstar. If every oil baron had a daughter like Hilton, it would be a far more beloved industry. Sad, but that's the way it is.

The reality of course is that there is nothing sexy about using one's wealth to shit on other people.

Do an expose on Hilton maids, what they earn and how they're treated, juxtapose that with Hilton, and then you have a reality check and people snap out of vicarious glamor mode. Then her popularity goes way down.

I didn't say it would be pleasant. Just, it's not such a terrible sacrifice if one is an exhibitionism junkie. She has to keep upping the ante to stay in the media spotlight.

Take that guy who locked himself in a fishbowl for several days to be on TV. Way harder and was a serious health risk. Far more training and suffering for a far smaller reward and amount of celebrity.

Do you really think her sex video and everything else was all a big accident? This is all a completely predictable outcome from her crime which was perfectly gauged to produce a great deal of media attention with a little, but wholly doable, amount of pain.

And her next act will be ratcheted up just a little more, to exactly the level necessary to get her back in the news, to which she'll have calculated the best way to pay the minimum price for it.

Yes there had been other TV stars, but the Beatles were the first to really take advantage of the medium and were the first truly media managed super band. To make an analogy, Kennedy had natural charisma which played well on TV and helped him defeat Nixon who was wasn't telegenic. But Reagan was the first real TV president wholly driven by performance and sound bite. And GW Bush in the next step in that evolution. (devolution?) Kennedy is to Elvis as Reagan is to Beatles as GW Bush is to the Backstreet Boys or some other completely vapid and wholly producer manufactured puppet act, that started seeing huge commercial success in the 90s.

Hilton certainly is a leader in her own way, as an icon at least. Which she knows, and is why she craves celebrity and influence in brings.

If one observes the media critically their reactions to events are highly predictable because they are poll/market driven and patronize to a lowest common denominator, based on clinched perceptions of the public. So, simply take a clinche about the general public, pander to it (predictable moralizing to cover the sensationalizing, with tacit endorsement) and you know ahead of time exactly how the media will respond to events.

That's what Rove does better than most, but all polls do to some extent, and frankly it's not that terribly difficult. It's hard to impossible to predict long-term changes and blowback because the "victim" is learning, which is the exact problem with Machiavellian plans and we've seen this in everything from Bush's opinion polls to decades of FP. But it works great in the short-term and certainly well enough for product marketing or people like Hilton to manipulate the media.

Hilton has it down to a science. She does something like this, the cable networks cover it so much in a predictable way, the intelligencia pretend to ignore it but ultimately give in and have to make some point about it such as this thread, someone like me complains how stupid it is, and someone like you says it's all just natural. Along the line millions of people get the idea she's important, and emulate her in many small ways from fashion to attitudes. And of course, her name is a brand name, which now has an infusion of sexiness and curious interest a traditional ad campaign can hardly buy.

Rinse and repeat.

Eventually we'll see so many "leaked" sex videos and so many debs and failing pop-stars "caught" on camera in "embarrassing" moments (only to to see their popularity and careers temporarily revitalized) people will see the pattern and realize they're being had, even if they never exactly figure it out. Hasn't happened yet though, so expect more.

Colour me skeptical.

I don't have any crayons that color. Sorry.

I've dealt with cases involving people who died of alcohol poisoning, and I've seen first hand examples of drug and alcohol addiction.

I haven't known anyone to die from "alcohol poisoning" - presumably you don't mean the alcohol was poisoned. :-)

I have, however, known many alcoholics. You don't even have to be Irish for that. :-)

Withdrawal, particularly cold turkey withdrawal, is often a harsh and unpleasant experience.

I witnessed the DT's in my father at a very young age and indeed it was most unpleasant. They called it "the snakes" as best I recall. There are snakes in Ireland despite rumors to the contrary.

normally it does not pose a medical threat to health or life.

[This is from About.com:]

Once DT's begin, there is no known medical treatment to stop them. Grand mal seizures, heart attacks and stroke can occur during the DT's, all of which can be fatal.

[From wisegeek.com:]

Delirium tremens is a medical emergency, and its effects are the reason why chronic alcoholics should not attempt a “cold turkey” approach to ceasing drinking. With medical intervention, the fatality rate from delirium tremens drops to 5%.

No word on what the death rate was before "medical intervention" but that number seems surprisingly large even to me.

there are corollary symptoms, a weakened constitution due to consistent malnutrition, opportunistic diseases or infections, all sorts of things.

Generally, a person whose withdrawal symptoms are fatal or medically critical is usually a physical basket case to start with. They don't look and function like Paris Hilton.

Hilton doesn't look malnourished to you? :-)

I caught a city bus once in Vancouver, Washington (as best I can recall), while talking to a young man who seemed to be maybe in his late 20's or early 30's. A derelict was walking toward us, checking garbage cans as she came for whatever she might retrieve. I would have guessed she was in her 50's or more.

"You see that woman," he said. "We were classmates in high school. She came from a very wealthy family. She was part of the in crowd."

Yeah.

I guess her loss wouldn't have meant much anymore to anyone. Never know for certain.

I have wondered what teenagers that can get the DT's might look like. Never saw one of those that I know of but I have seen many young addicts who didn't look like the derelict. They looked more like Paris Hilton to me.

In fact at my age, all young women look like Paris Hilton. :-)

Best, Terry

Today, perhaps we need these millionaires to put the fear of, um, god into the communists.

Where's Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque and the 2e Division Blindée when you need them?

Did the sheriff change his name from von Choltitz?
--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

"I haven't known anyone to die from "alcohol poisoning" - presumably you don't mean the alcohol was poisoned. :-)"

You may not, but it's a very real concern in emergency medicine.

I never had any doubt that amateurs could get into trouble playing at a pro's game.

You will note it does recommend DT patients be in an ICU

May I