PARIS IN THE SPRINGTIME

I have tried and tried to avoid writing about Paris Hilton, but I just can’t do it.

Paris is a celebrity by birth and contributes nothing to society (society balls don’t count). She has had the way smoothed for her all of her life. All the bumps in her path were ironed out, all the valleys filled in and she just went merrily along the path of her monied life.

All of a sudden in September 2006 a big obstacle popped up in her path – she was arrested for drunk driving. It was later knocked down to a charge of reckless driving and she pleads “no contest”. As is customary in cases such as this, Hilton's license was suspended by the California DMV.

Sometime after her license suspension Paris apparently thought that she had waited long enough for a rich girl, and decided to drive without her license. She was caught three times behind the wheel before someone, on February 27, charged her with violating her probation and sentenced her to jail for forty-five days. She took the verdict like a child and cried.

I can’t imagine what she did for Los Angeles County Sheriff, Lee Baca (actually, yes I can), but he changed the punishment to House Arrest with no restrictions other than she had to stay within a 3,000 to 4,000 foot area for the rest of her sentence.

If it weren’t for her need of attention she might still be out and throwing parties at her lavish 2,700 square foot house with booze and friends and whatever, but she just had to issue a written statement thanking the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department for their fairness and professionalism.

Anyway, she was again taken before the court and told that she must serve her sentence in jail. “Mom, it’s not right,” she pleaded tearfully to her mother.

It was painful to watch. A young woman, begging her mother, the person who should have taught her right from wrong, to help her.

A lot of adults who are Paris’ age and younger were taught by their parents that they were faultless. Everything they did was praised as if they had really done something that deserved such accolades.

Is all this the result of her upbringing? What makes Paris think that the rules don’t apply to her?

Perhaps her time in jail will be the ultimate blessing in disguise, since this is probably the first instance in which she's actually faced an unpleasant consequence for any of her actions.
It is also probably the first time in her life that someone made her do something she didn’t want to do.

THIS JUST IN:
Paris has found God and says she is now a different person. "I'm not the same person I was," she said in a collect call she made to her mother, who just happened to be talking to Barbara Walters on the other line.

"I know now that I can make a difference, that I have the power to do that. I have been thinking that I want to do different things when I am out of here. I have become much more spiritual. God has given me this new chance.

"My spirit or soul did not like the way I was being seen and that is why I was sent to jail. God has released me."

It usually takes years for a prisoner to get religion. Hilton's conversion appears to have taken place with remarkable speed.

I wonder what Paris’ party pals will think about this.

The California Curmudgeon