c/d: paris hilton

I never saw her show and I'll assume you're telling the truth about how she behaved on it. But I don't think this is "classic comedy". Not funny.

Show=Life

So, it's late at night/early a.m., and I am thinking in my own clumsy way that this whole deal is almost a sort of (overdue, both chronologically and otherwise) symbolic slamming shut of doors on and finally waving goodbye to a whole bunch of noxious cultural phenomena that I associate with the early '00's.

..and now I'm looking forward to the day when American Idol is cancelled...or Vice magazine folds. It's maybe a little like how seventies stuff like the Weathermen, SLA, and Watergate underlined the demise of "the sixties". Or the JFK assasination or Beatlemania being a belated end to "the fifties".

I can barely even think right now, let alone write, and maybe my muddled observation and crappy analogies make little sense outside of my own mind, but man, it's just I think this decade so far has sucked, horribly, in so many ways. Good riddance.

Don't hold your breath.

nabisco is otm, also, this whole farce has become so 'oh fortuna!' and closed pyloric valve-ish, i find it impossible not to laugh.

Quit it with the obscure references already; wtf is a pyloric valve?

Stop it or I'll give you a myoclonic jerk.

if i explain and you are abrupt i will regret doing all that typing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pylorus

nabisco trying a bit too hard to be otm. How do you know she doesn't have any redeeming qualities? What a judgement to make requiring god-like powers!

whilst this comment nails it, as far as I'm concerned:

Aside from whether you like her or not, the authorities are really messing up big time. She's being batted around while they play politics. Disgraceful.

nabisco didn't say paris has no redeeming qualities, he said she has 'more or less none of the few redeeming characteristics of the fantasy character she sometimes plays'; it's not at all the same thing.
also, saying someone is 'trying a bit too hard to be otm' then accusing them of being judgemental seems incongruous.

..and now I'm looking forward to the day when American Idol is cancelled...or Vice magazine folds. It's maybe a little like how seventies stuff like the Weathermen, SLA, and Watergate underlined the demise of "the sixties". Or the JFK assasination or Beatlemania being a belated end to "the fifties".

Yes, but 9/11 was supposed to be the belated end to the frivolous & ironic 1990s--and that didn't happen--though I like the idea of Paris as Patty Hearst. Maybe she'll convert to NOI and start slinging bean pods.

Aside from whether you like her or not, the authorities are really messing up big time. She's being batted around while they play politics. Disgraceful.

so many other things are more disgraceful though

yeah. its not really dsigraceful compared to gitmo, is it?

Here's the weirdness of the day.

Okay, that is messing with my head. Maybe we really are in the end times.

yeah, that connection is just screaming for photoshop hijinx

To make it weirder.

girls are always crying about something

Okay did someone seriously compare the cultural impact of Watergate to the cultural impact of Paris Hilton going to jail?

to be honest, i think more than a cursory reading of foucault is needed there

hahahahahahaha GARETH FOR THE WIN

locking up people for this shit is ridic and there's a lot of weird people upthread. however i basically agree with:

it's a bit silly to waste state resources keeping non violent criminals in jail, I think, in general, however, in this case I think they should go all the way and put her to death

-- akm, Friday, June 8, 2007 3:47 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

I wonder if the guy who took the picture of the street execution had anything to do with the Lindsey Lohan hoo-ha shot.

"can I please get one of Wham!'s CHOOSE LIFE shirts that says CHOOSE STALIN shopped up in here real quick, thanx"

as far as dictator tshirts go, i once saw a black shirt (hehe) with solid white lettering that read "HITLER SUCKS". except that i quicky found out it actually read "HOLLISTER SUCKS". still, i think that a tshirt reading 'hitler sucks' is a fantastic idea.

i am watching an anti-pot commercial that features a dog telling a teenage girl he wishes she did not smoke weed.

dude, if the dog would just start smoking the weed, everyone could chill out.

yeah. its not really dsigraceful compared to gitmo, is it?

comparing this to gitmo, which i don't think anyone's actually done, would be exaggeration on a par with eg comparing paris hilton to stalin and nixon

this sets the stage for awesome Paris: At Folsom Prison record in 2008

also
http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/02/08/hilton.jpg

can we call for a moratorium on douchebags like Andrew Sullivan saying shit like "and the beat goes on" or "and so it goes"

or anybody really for christ's sake

locking up people for this shit is ridic

for driving drunk, without a license, after twice being forbidden to drive? of course, because that's harmless, right?

it's not harmless at all, but tbh i generally think jail is a poor way of influencing behaviour. confiscation of property in this case would do it--in case of most people confiscation of car would work, but i suppose less so for someone that rich.

If she has one working brain cell, this is going to be the deterrent of a lifetime. Forty-five days of house arrest wouldn't.

If she has one working brain cell

deterrence theory has a funny way of NOT WORKING.

OH, WELL THEN LET'S JUST SCRAP THE WHOLE SYSTEM AFTER THE GUILTY VERDICT.

what would you suggest then, nrq? and if it was some travelling-salesman bonehead driving drunk while banned, should they not go to prison if repeated cautions don't deter them?

i'm really not a 'lock em up' type person at all, but driving drunk is pretty fucked up and indefensible.

I don't know where this idea came from that the 90s were frivolous and ironic. People in the 90s were ridiculously earnest and idealistic, especially compared to this decade! The 90s wouldn't have paid any attention to Paris, not just because you couldn't get high-speed video on the internet, but because the 90s were busy thinking Alanis Morrissette had interesting things to say, and being charmed by Jenna Elfman, and celebrating Earth Day, and experimenting with being actual lesbians instead of just making out with friends at parties, and admiring Pedro's activism on the Real World San Francisco. Which had its own Paris, and his name was Puck. Peeps in the 90s were serious, and instead of celebrity trash culture we got our yucks out of random historical cultural trends, like buying vintage Thundercats t-shirts and watching 50s educational films on hygiene.

(I think this is because the youth demographic in the 90s was OLDER and small, and has now been supplanted by a younger boom generation that is way more conventional about stylishness and materialism and celebrity culture. In high school terms the 90s were a geek/freak decade, and the 00s are a jock/cheerleader one.)

there are still lots of earnest people around at the moment, nabisco.

In the '90s the political obsessions were mostly centered around Bill Clinton's penis--frivolous. Buying Thudercats t-shirts=ironic. The '00s are just like the '90s except that instead of finding new things we've just mainstreamed all the stuff that seemed slightly edgy back then (trucker hats, Bill Stiller, grunge, hip hop, reality shows, live helicopter shots of slow moving vehicles) and kept it going ad nauseum.

There were earnest people in both decades--I mean you've got Emo & True School & the netroots & the 9-11 Truth idiots & a million political documentaries now.

Uh, Ben Stiller.

and, Thundercats

Buying Thudercats t-shirts=ironic

Unh-uh. So sincere. Ho!

Haha wait you mean my vague description of decade trends doesn't accurately describe EVERYONE?!?!?

No seriously though, I'm not saying kids today aren't earnest, just that there are certain types of 90s idealistic earnestness that are considered pretty passe these days -- it feels like young people now inhabit our society a lot more naturally (because they grew up in a really large cohort of children) and instead of the attempted thinky/progressive earnestness of the 90s they're just naturally, conventionally earnest. (And that'll probably continue, because kids growing up on stuff like High School Musical are MEGA on the having-a-huge-culture-cohort thing.)

In any case it seems completely wrong to say the 90s were frivolous and ironic.

xpost 90s political obsessions were not centered anywhere near Clinton's penis

Haha I should really be using the Real World to trace a timeline of youth culture preferences, but it seems not with it without Dan around to assist -- from AIDS activists and cartoonists to ... everyone gets drunk and naked a lot. That's the kind of shift I'm talking about w/r/t the kids.

xpost 90s political obsessions were not centered anywhere near Clinton's penis

Don't know what yer on about now.

For one thing I'm on about the Lewinsky thing not happening until 1998.

In terms of socio-political issues way more of the 90s were spent fighting about gays in the military and abortion than Lewinsky (or any of the other women making Clinton-related accusations, which mostly just helped conservatives hate Clinton on a personal level without its becoming much of a political issue).

yeah, the 90s were much more about Billary murdering Vince Foster, and the cottage industry that developed from getting the truth out.

i'm serious, too

80s cartoons aside, I agree that putting people in prison for drunk driving won't stop drunk driving accidents from happening. People under the influence of alcohol are terrible at making decisions about right and wrong.

What we oughta do is produce cars that are fool-proof, so that drunks can't operate them. Breath alcohol ignition interlock devices oughta be as standard as airbags. If people will try to drive drunk regardless of the consequences, might as well make it really difficult for them.

Paris wasn't drunk the second time she was arrested though, right? If you know you're not supposed to drive, don't fucking drive. And if you know you're not supposed to drive and you want to do it anyway, try and be real low-key about it. Don't drive like such an idiot (lights off; 70 in a 35) that you'll get pulled over.

Paris wasn't drunk the second time she was arrested though, right?

yeah, the point is that a) drunk driving is bad, and b) being brazenly cavalier about the punishment the justice system does dole out to you is just fucking rude.