tim14smith's blog: "paris hilton"

Photograph and text © 2007 by Julius Lester

Whenever I visit Washington, D.C., I always go to the National Gallery of Art. I went there first the summer of 1957 when I spent the summer in D.C. The National Gallery was the first place I saw original paintings by Van Gogh, Cezanne, Winslow Homer, and other artists whose work I knew only in books. Even now, fifty years later, I go there with the same sense of awe I had when I was 18.

My wife and I went twice when we were in D.C. a couple of weeks ago. I spent a lot of time with statues by Rodin, paintings by Winslow Homer, and a special exhibit of 19th and early 20th century photographs of Paris. It was quite thrilling to see original prints of Eugene Atget, one of my favorite photographers.

As we left the gallery I felt a real sense of pride that my taxes go to such a wonderful institution. If you?ve never been to D.C., one of the surprises is that the museums and galleries under Federal auspices do not charge admission ? the National Gallery, the Smithsonian, the Museum of the American Indian, the National Botanical Garden, the National Archive, all free. All paid for from our tax dollars.

Walking down the steps from the National Gallery and heading across the mall, I thought: wouldn?t it be great if the tax laws were changed so that we could designate where we wanted our taxes to go? Not so much in specifics, like the National Gallery, but broadly ? the arts, defense, highways, poverty, the environment, etc. It would be a sure way to know from year to year what is important to the American people. We spend money on what we value, on what is important to us. What we spend our money on tells us who we are, as individuals, as a nation.

I think every American would stop trying to find ways to pay as little in taxes as possible. I know I would gladly pay my taxes if I could legally designate how I wanted them used. And I believe every American would feel the same.

I know such a law will never be enacted. It?s more democracy than politicians could deal with. But what better way could there be of having a government ?of the people, by the people, and for the people?? What better way to free that sentiment from its lofty rhetoric and make it an everyday reality?

TODAY?S QUOTE

?The happiness of society is the end of government.?

John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

TODAY?S WORD

Taradiddle (noun) ? A lie, pretentious nonsense

You may apply this to the politician of your choice, as in, ?The President?s administration has been characterized by one taradiddle after another.?

TODAY'S PHOTOGRAPH

New York City, 1966

Paris Hilton has been offered a $1 million-a-year contract to host a US local radio show. KDWB Radio - which broadcast to Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota - have offered the hotel heiress the six figure sum to co-host their morning ?

Read full story Paris Hilton has been offered a $1 million-a-year contract to host a US local radio show. KDWB Radio - which broadcast to Minneapolis and St. P...
TAGS: hotel heiress, PARIS HILTON

LINK: PARIS HILTON OFFERED ONE MILLION RADIO GIG by julius from Blogs: Celebrity News

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SIMILAR STORIES
Paris Hilton Offered Job to Host Show - Hollywood Rag - Celebrity Ragazine
Paris Hilton?s radio pay day - Celebrity Gossip
MORE FROM Tonight | 24dash.com | New York Times | 24dash.com | PR Inside (Pressemitteilung) | Times Square Gossip.Com | Celebrity Dirty Laundry - The Place for the Latest Gossip, scandals, celebrity pictures

Every quarter, we publish a recap of our five most popular communication-related posts, based on the frequency and the immediacy of hits after they were posted. While we base this on individual posts, some are related to larger case studies.

Jericho Fans Make Television History

When CBS executives cancelled Jericho over Nielsen ratings, fans of this post- nuclear terrorist attack/small town survival drama went nuts, literally. Using the Internet and social media as their point of organization, they launched the largest cancellation protest in history: sending 40,000 pounds of nuts (from just one store); rallied almost 120,000 petition signers; cancelled CBS related-cable subscriptions; boycotted network premieres; sold network stock; sent in countless letters, postcards, and e-mails; captured media attention in every major newspaper and tabloid; and flooded the network with phone calls. Within a few weeks, CBS reversed its decision in record time, heading off what was quickly becoming an exercise in crisis communication. Of all the posts, pointing out the error in CBS? marketing of Jericho took top honors with over 10,000 hits.

Link: Jericho

Wal-Mart Strikes Back Against Julie Roehm

If networks are looking for a new made-for-television docudrama, the ongoing Julie Roehm story continues to turn heads (and maybe stomachs). Filled with twists, turns, sex, back room deals, character defamation, lawsuits, countersuits, media bias, allegories, and more spin than the planet Jupiter (which rotates once every 10 hours), this story demonstrates the pitfalls of second-tier executives becoming public figures and the companies that keep them. In the end, if she has any credibility left, Roehm?s personal brand will always be linked to the short-lived, um, alleged Wal-Mart funded affair with a subordinate, her master-class ability to spin herself into another lawsuit and, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, being more indestructible than a cockroach.

Links: Julie Roehm, Wal-Mart

Digital Media Will Change Everything

While some might say it was the very loose Jericho link, we like to think it is related to the increasing interest in the future of digital media, specifically how old media is becoming new media. When we gave some attention to how News Corporation and NBC Universal are speeding ahead with the addition of FUEL TV, Oxygen, SPEED, Sundance Channel, and TV Guide as content partners committed to bringing programming to Web video consumers, people wanted to know what it might mean. To us, it means that one day very soon, broadcast news and entertainment will be forever fused with the Internet, people will access it all via versatile technologies like the iPhone, independents will have the potential to break into the big leagues overnight, and businesses will fully develop what we sometimes call income marketing.

Links: Digital Media, NBC Universal, FOX

Paris Hilton Splits Public Interest

We don?t know about you, but Mika Brzezinski of MNSBC perfectly captured the public?s sentiment over Paris Hilton. In a YouTube clip, Brzezinski refuses to lead the news with Hilton, but then goes on and on about how she refuses to cover it, making her refusal to cover Hilton carry on probably three times longer than if she would have just read the script. Love her, hate her, love to hate her, or hate to love her, we?re not buying that you?re not interested because if we post about her, we always see spikes even though we generally only cover communication side items like blaming publicists, marketing humor, and overly long media statements from jail. Hmmm? maybe that?s why Hilton took second against Roehm in terms of most read public figure.

Link: Paris Hilton

The Office Parodies A Public Relations Nightmare

Although some follow-up stories to JetBlue and Jobster came close, NBC Universal's 2006 Emmy Award-winning show, The Office, proved fictional crisis communication is sometimes more fun than real life. For our part, we wrote up how The Office episode "Product Recall? mirrors how executives sometimes allow a crisis to run away from them by applying ?tried and true? communication strategies. In the show, Michael Scott (Steve Carell), regional manager of Dunder-Mifflin, applies the practice of ?always running to the crisis and never away from it? after a disgruntled employee at the paper mill put an obscene watermark on one of their most popular paper products. The operative word in this case is ?always.? Crisis communication rules are only guidelines, silly.

Link: The Office

It?s very promising to see non-bad news posts starting to give bad news posts a run for their money. We're still hoping good news and educational posts might one day dominate the top five (admittedly doubtful). For example, when it comes to social media, we?d love to see more attention given to our underpinning concept that strategic communication is best suited to drive social media despite the fact that most companies seems to be trying to do it the other way around.

Anyway, while those were the top five posts (and related case studies) for the second quarter, several others came close (and almost all of them beat out last quarter). Runners up (no order): Fans of the The Black Donnellys lobby for HBO to save the canceled NBC show; PR bloggers made a non-issue into an issue over Nikon; JetBlue proved you really can overapologize in a crisis; Jason Goldberg of Jobster goes a whole week or so before behaving badly again; and our sum-up of Harris Interactive mobile advertising research despite my initial skepticism, mostly fueled by a not-so-great Webinar release.

So there you have it, except for one very, very important ingredient: thank you all for dropping by, adding comments, promoting several stories, and continuing to bring communication issues to our attention so we may offer up our sometimes serious, sometimes silly take on them. Whether you agree or disagree, all of it lends well to the discussion and I appreciate those who remember to target the topic and not each other in providing input.

I?m sorry to say this, but I followed Paris Hilton?s jail-time woes quite closely. This isn?t something I wanted, believe me. But I?m now working with a prison-reform organization called the Pennsylvania Prison Society, so when Hilton became one of the 2.1 million people imprisoned in the United States, she became part of my constituency. (Someone at the organization suggested we send her a membership envelope, but we?d have to change the dues to?as she would say?like, a gazillion dollars.)

When I first heard she was going to jail, I?m ashamed to admit I felt a satisfaction that runs counter to my mission of fostering a just and humane correctional system. If I want others to be treated fairly, I suppose I should?ve advocated for her as well. But since most people are treated like shit, I kind of wanted her to be treated like shit too?just so she?d know what it?s like, especially for women.

Women in prison have a rough time of it. While men in prison often have mothers, grandmothers, girlfriends and ex-girlfriends at visiting hours, women?s friends and relatives have a tendency to slip away, perhaps because it?s not cool for a woman to be in prison; it?s just sad. Seventy-five percent of the women in prison have children, but those visitations fall off too?an inevitable but crushing disappointment.

Women imprisoned in the U.S. are often supervised by male guards (against international standards), and are subject to harassment?a depressing follow-up to childhoods fraught with physical and sexual abuse. There are women in jails who remain shackled and handcuffed all day for months at a time?even if they?re sick, even if they?re pregnant, even if they?re in labor. And women in prison lack sufficient access to mammograms, pap smears and other gross and painful things women need access to.

In Pennsylvania 19 percent of the women in state and city prisons are serving time for a drug-related offense?the kind of time Hilton neatly avoided despite magazine photos of her indulging a penchant for substances. (She should also have been imprisoned for not wearing underwear when she knew she?d be photographed by paparazzi?more evidence of the legal system?s failings.)

The only thing Hilton has in common with most women in prison is that she?s part of a growing trend of incarcerating higher numbers of female offenders. Between 1990 and 2002 the number of women behind bars rose 121 percent?almost double the rate for men.

Welcome to the party, Paris!

Even if I wanted to ignore her jail time and enjoy a Paris-free month, such hopes were dashed when, three days after she went in, she was released?albeit with a clunky GPS system attached to her leg. The reason for the release was some vague medical problem, which was trumpeted on TMZ.com as attention deficit disorder.

Poor girl wasn?t getting her meds, they said. Paris Hilton may or may not have ADD, but given the amount of drinking she does (hence the jail term), the medication can?t be having much of a salutary effect.

Another wrinkle is that her ADD medication is Adderall?the stimulant hard partiers take to enable them to drink longer. I?m not surprised she has a prescription for that.

Sniping aside, what?s most upsetting is that Paris Hilton wept a few cranky tears and received immediate help, while the truly mentally ill languish. Bureau of Justice Statistics research shows that fully half of state prisoners have a mental health issue, the tragic result of an inadequate healthcare system and a lack of funding for community resources.

In March the Boston Herald featured a piece by Jamie Fellner, the U.S. program director for Human Rights Watch. Writing about the mentally ill in solitary confinement, Fellner noted, ?Why are mentally ill prisoners in segregation? Because prisons have become this nation?s mental health facilities.?

Most people agree solitary confinement is cruel and unusual punishment for the mentally ill, who are three times more likely to commit suicide than their counterparts in the general inmate population. But last year New York Gov. Pataki vetoed legislation against it, and it looks like Gov. Spitzer is poised to do the same. In fact Spitzer?s only concession has been to cut solitary for the mentally ill from 23 hours a day to 21?not exactly a boon for someone whose illness worsens under those conditions. It?s no wonder people with mental health issues are more likely to cycle in and out of prisons and jails.

I have a feeling, however, that despite her alleged mental problems, this was Paris? last stay in jail. Having now found a sense of herself as a serious person, the self-described blond icon will perhaps become the Princess Diana of the incarcerated set, taking up the cause of, for example, the people of color who are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system. After all, some of her sort-of best friends are sort of black.

Perhaps incarceration will complicate her cartoonish image, like sticking a swizzle stick into a cup of axel grease. Maybe she?ll join Bill Gates and Bono and Angelina Jolie as the newest charter member of the Hollywood U.N.

Last week her father told Greta Van Susteren, ?She sees the light at the end of the [23-day] tunnel.? Just another thing that made her different from the rest of the prison population.

[Image of Paris right after her release from jail.]

Hollywood heiress and socialite Paris Hilton surrendered last night after a music award show to begin her 23 day jail sentence, a day before her original sentence was set to begin.

The LA Sheriff's Department reported that they met Hilton at a outside the Lynwood correctional facility in order to keep the facility safe and free of gaggles of photographers following Hilton wherever she goes.

While she was able to strike a pose for her booking photo (at the right), Hilton will not be able to wear her extensions in jail.

OMG! Paris without extensions.

Paris Hilton in an orange jumpsuit inside a jail cell?

That's SO hot. Somebody get pictures!

Hilton showed on the red carpet Sunday to attend the MTV Music Awards. She stopped for a brief moment to talk to reporters.

Who is this guy Paris was with this weekend?

"I've gotten thousands of letters from all over the world," Hilton said, adding that she could have opted to serve her time in a "upscale" jail.

"I did have a choice to go to a pay jail," she said. "But I declined because I feel like the media portrays me in a way that I'm not and that's why I wanted to go to county, to show that I can do it and I'm going to be treated like everyone else.

"I'm going to do the time, I'm going to do it the right way."

In May, a Los Angeles County judge sentenced Hilton to 45 days in the slammer, but the sentence was subsequently reduced to half that time on the condition that Hilton serves her time on good behavior.



DISCUSS: Does Paris Deserve The Right To Set Things Straight? Please click the Comments link (no registration required) to voice your opinion.

VIEW: Paris Hilton's Arrest Record Report

LABELS: View Paris Hilton labels (scroll down page)

Here is your first look at season five of Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie's reality show, "The Simple Life." After spending season four apart, the pair met up for the first time on camera and Extra has your first glimpse.

For this and more of Paris and Nicole, watch the Simple Life when it premieres this Memorial Day on E!
TAGS: Nicole, Simple Life, Paris, Paris Hilton

LINK: Paris And Nicole "Make Up" In New Season Of "Simple Life" by The Huffington Post Huffington Post from Boxxet Blogs

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SIMILAR STORIES
Richie and Hilton to counsel fat kids - Paris Hilton Sex
Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie to counsel fat kids - Topix
MORE FROM Topix | National Ledger | Hot Celebs Home | We Love Celebs!

This Boxxet RSS feed for Kim Kardashian contains only content that has been rated as "Better" or "Best."
Below are rated "Good" by Boxxet. You can go to the Boxxet for Kim Kardashian to see even more.

* Candids: Kim Kardashian in Hollywood -- by Sheena from Saiko Jungle
* Grumpy Links -- from The Grumpiest
* Kim Kardashian - Candids, 2007.06.27 -- from Hollywood Rag - Celebrity Gossip Board
* Real Quick: Charles In Charge Lied To Us -- They Should've Given ... -- from Wendy Wayrad
* MUST-READ HOOPLA -- by Chi from URBAN-HOOPLA.COM
* Weekend Backwash -- by Sparkle-C from Celebrity Gossip; A Dish Best Served Cold!
* Kim & Her Mom in LA -- by Sarah from Untitled
* BET Does Not Care About Black People -- from Chubby Black Blogger
* Paris Hilton has never used drugs -- by Nate Nance from Common Sense
* 06/29/07 - Hip-Hop Rumors: MILITARY SNITCHES GET STITCHES -- by J-Banks from Hip Hop Message Board
* See more at the Boxxet for Kim Kardashian

MSNBC Morning Joe Anchor Mika Brzezinski is so sick of hearing about Paris Hilton?s every move that she ripped a leading report on the heiress? recent release from jail to shreds on the air during Wednesday morning?s show. ...
TAGS: heiress, Paris Hilton

LINK: MSNBC Morning Joe Anchor Mika Brzezinski Rips Up Paris Hilton ... by Castina Pop Crunch from Google Blogs

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SIMILAR STORIES
Anchor Rips Up Lead Story on Paris Hilton - MilkandCookies.com: Headlines
MSNBC Journalist Tears Up Paris Hilton "News" Story - Bodog Beat
MORE FROM BuzzMachine | Daily Mail - UK | Sky News | Jossip | ShortNews.com | Message in a Matrix | Volconvo Debate Forums

For reasons of posterity I have saved the text of Paris Hilton's petition to Governor Gropenator that she not go to jail below. If it wasn't real I would think it was satire. (I mean, wow, what would our "mundane" lives be like without Paris Hilton's "beauty and excitement"!)

The petition is an example of writing written by and for the incredibly stupid. I'm willing to gamble that Paris wrote it herself. I encourage everyone reading this to sign Paris' petition as Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck or Mao Zedong, or whatever...

Paris Hilton will have it much easier than us mundane folk in jail. The jailers will segregate her so that she doesn't get her ass kicked, though I suspect the women in the jail will be more interested in getting her autograph than kicking her ass.

Paris will live. She not only broke the law, she showed contempt for the law and absolutely no remorse whatsoever. Let her do her time like the mundane people.