ARCHIVED COMMENTARY
We'll Always
Have Paris...
For edition of June 11, 2007
Some bimbo at Fox News opined the other day that Paris Hilton had helped make this a better world, but we’d rank the It Girl’s contribution to humanity somewhere between that of malaria and dwarf-tossing. Why on God’s Earth are the news media so obsessed with her? It surely isn’t because the public can’t get enough of her simpering smile and preening narcissism. To the contrary, as far as one can tell, Paris Hilton is universally despised.
You should have heard the audience boo the mention of her name on Conan the other night; the jeering went on for a good three or four minutes. The extended insult was supposed to have been a joke – one which Conan encouraged by sauntering off the set for a quickie massage and a drink at the water cooler. But the audience’s hostile reaction was extraordinary -- not only for its uncharitable lack of brevity, but for its rabid vehemence, which surpassed both in malice and volume the famously nasty reception Britney Spears got a few months ago when her face popped up on the Jumbotron at a Lakers game.
Sexual Liberation
A generation ago Paris would have been know as “that slut” to her debutante friends and the untold legions of fratty boys who would have known her intimately. However, her notoriety would have gone no further than that, and she would have achieved her 15 minutes of fame as a thinly fictionalized character in a Truman Capote novel. Nowadays, though, feminists having banished the word “slut” from politically correct discourse, Paris Hilton has become a Western icon of sexual liberation, and, far from being ostracized by polite society, she has become a ubiquitous if unbeckoned presence among us.
The tabloids and TV networks act as though we are endlessly fascinated by her when in reality most of us would rather watch a documentary about gum disease. Still, they persist. Does anyone doubt the woman could commit murder and parlay the crime into a $10 million book deal? The result would not be a timid “If-I’d-done-it” tome like O.J. Simpson's abortive literary flop, either, but rather an unrepentant, ghost-written, in-your-face paean to death-by-Stoli-and-cyanide.
Decline & Fall
Paris Hilton’s recent, short-lived release from the L.A. County jail a mere 48 hours into a 45-day sentence for a DUI-related infraction set the pundits hissing and clucking about the “travesty of justice” that had been committed by the Sheriff’s Department. But the real travesty is that this brazen degenerate’s affront to all humanity – commandeering our attention by “accidentally” leaking to the entire world a video of herself naked and performing fellatio – has gained her more attention, probably, than even her cynically calculating mind might have imagined. The fact that the news media cannot avert its eyes, and that it has consistently sought to capitalize on rather than censure her, is sickening evidence of the West’s acute moral decline. If Hester Prynne had to wear the sin of adultery on her chest, then Paris Hilton, for the far more serious offense of setting an atrocious example for tens of millions of teenage girls, deserves to have the word “TRAMP” tattooed on her face, then banishment to…Afghanistan.
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Seminar Opportunity
Only a few Australians have signed up so far for the June 30-31 online Hidden Pivot Seminar, so if small class-size appeals to you, this is the session you’ll want to attend. The seminar will likely be the last I will offer at a time of day that is convenient to students from Australia and New Zealand, but the show will go on regardless of how many students enroll.
If you have been waiting for just such an opportunity, please click here (then click the “Upcoming” tab) to reserve a place in the classroom, or here for detailed information about the course itself. Incidentally, these hours will work for anyone in the U.S. who would prefer to take the course in the evening. The hours, in Eastern U.S. time, are from 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 Friday and Saturday, June 29-30. This translates to 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Sydney time, Saturday/Sunday; or 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. Hong Kong time.
Free to All Graduates
Incidentally, all seminar grads will soon have free access at all hours of the day to a recorded version of the seminar, as well as to the Q&A forums held in conjunction with each class. In addition, I am in the process of creating an advanced tutorial built around some especially difficult charts. It will also be free to seminar grads and accessible round-the-clock.
