With a 'Hillbilly Smackdown' featured on Jerry Springer yesterday, it's a wonder anyone was trading stocks. We gave it a try ourselves, attempting to 'work' a backspread position in Citigroup, but the stock was untradable as it vibrated within an 8-cent range most of the day. At that rate, if you'd been flipping 5,000-share lots errorlessly all day long, you might have made enough to pay your data costs after commissions. We have a suggestion if the stock market remains in tedium's grip come Wednesday: Join us in writing Britney Spears, who could probably use some bucking up. Consider what the poor girl has been through recently. Just this week, she lost custody of her two young children to Kevin Federline, the classy guy who once threatened to air their sex tape on the Internet. A couple of weeks earlier, Britney's supposed comeback on an MTV awards show laid an egg when she performed with all the verve of a tap dancer strung out on heroin. Her agent threw in the towel as a result, joining a growing list of deserters that already included her lawyer and her bodyguard. When the latter was testifying against her in the custody battle, adding 'druggie' to the evidence against her, Britney was making headlines elsewhere, plowing her car into parked vehicles, and frolicking in her underwear on a Southern California beach. Nothing like being on 'suicide watch' with the whole world watching. Owen Wilson is at least getting some privacy, presumably because, unlike Britney, he was never a hottie. But Britney would have to move north of Norway to escape the media's relentless attention. Before she takes the gas pipe, we have a suggestion: Turn her over to Dr. Phil, in private sessions. If he can't put her on the right track, nobody
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