In defense of Paris

Nothing to add.

I can't think of anything better than the dumb and diseased jokes already out there.

You have to admit she's a societal phenomenom -- when everything on the subject out of everyone's mouth is already a cliche before it hits your ears.

On second thought, I'll add that I'm not dismissively appalled by the Paris Hilton story.

Earlier this year, the Associated Press decided to go a week without doing a Paris Hilton story. The word eventually got out, and the AP then wrote a self-serving story congratulating themselves on their attempt to give us less Paris Hilton.

Because, you know, we can't be trusted with information on Paris Hilton. There are too many people out there who might take the Paris Hilton story and try to be billionaire heiresses with a sex drive permanently at the Vulcan seven-year peak level.

Nah. The story has a barometric importance. Everyone needs points of comparison to figure out who they are.

Paris Hilton is a combination of characteristics so far out on the edges of the bell curve that she's at a point for which 99.9999 percent of us have no reference. She's like a Niagara Falls of money, fame and sexual recklessness that we can only gawk at behind railings.

So I don't mind the occasional Hilton update. She doesn't get preachy, or is laughably inept when she tries. She only wreaks havoc on the lives of the people who follow her around, not the general populace.

I don't get any feeling whatsoever regarding her latest advertising deal or the latest trip to the slammer. Hilton is just an odd, horse-faced sign that pops up every now and then on my television screen to remind me of how bad things can get if I make the wrong decisions.

Which is more than can be said of most celebrities.