My Sunday Feeling

I write these words not too far removed in real time from Paris Hilton getting thrown back into the County Jail crying and screaming by an apprently irked Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge. For those of you that live in a tree, this completely useless young woman was ordered to serve 45 days for contempt of court. The Sheriff's office released her to home detention after only 3 days citing an undisclosed medical condition that further incarceration would allegedly exacerbate.


The reaction to her release was swift and predictable. Hit the link below to see the e-mails on the subject gathered up by the good folks at The Smoking Gun.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/0608072paris1.html

I guess I'm kind of ambivalent about the whole silly episode. On the one hand, it is hard to feel too sorry for her. She and her fellow travelers Britney Spears and Nicole Ritchie are self-promoting slackers of the first water. Paris Hilton is precisely the sort of unsympathetic defendant that a judge tends to make an example of if he or she gets the chance. And of course, when you are dealing with a self-absorbed bubblehead like Hilton, the odds are good that you will get precisely that chance.

But let's look at the other side of the coin. It wasn't like she killed anybody. She was found gulity of a misdemeanor. She had no criminal record prior to then. The jails are crowded. And they house real criminals who represent genuine threats to society. People with records like Hilton's tend to get released early in the state and local criminal justice system. It happens every day to the less notorious.

But still, there are folks in there that have medical conditions as well. Some of them are pretty serious. They don't get to leave. There is that side of it as well.

Here is what I think will happen. She will do about another week or so while her lawyers gin up a case for her release due to some medical neccesity. The judge will release her to home detention or maybe he will impose an additional obligation of public service-2 words rarely uttered in the same breath with that airhead. Or, maybe she will accumulate enough "good time" (I think it is 4 days credit for each day served ) that her sentence will "flatten out" and she will be released to get out in a week or so even if she doesn't go back to court. In any event, if she has any sense, a big if given her past escapades, she will lay very low when she is released.

The hopeful news for parents of teenage girls everywhere is that perhaps Hilton's street cred took a hit when she went to jail screaming and calling for her Mommy. Granted, nobody likes to go to jail and it's not like she exactly fits the usual profile in there. But then again, there are people who have been on the receiving end of death sentences that bore the imposition of same with greater dignity than what Hilton was able to muster under far less trying circumstances.

As for the inmate herself, I have my doubts that she will learn very much from this. I have my doubts that she will accept responsibility for her actions. One of my friends thinks Paris is crazy. I happen to think that she's not very bright although she is Madame Curie next to fellow reveler Britney. Whatever. There is a big difference between self-absorption and self-awareness. For whatever reason Paris Hilton has very little of the latter.

No, we can't expect much of anything out of these completely useless young women that the cameras love to follow around. No sense in holding your breath until the next incident. I just hope nobody gets killed the next time one of these morons does something stupid behind the wheel.