In the Not-News

I have a brand new hero – and apparently I’m not alone.

In this video of a recent MSNBC broadcast, news anchor Mika Brzezski angrily refuses to lead her news segment with another meaningless schlock piece on Paris Hilton.  She even tries to light the script on fire, then shreds it.

If there was any thought to her getting fired, think again — do a quick Google on Mika Brzezski and you’ll find out that (a) She’s the daughter of Zbigniew Brzezinski and, (b) she’s getting a standing ovation around the blogosphere for saying what we’ve all been thinking for years now:  Paris Hilton is not news.

I’ll go one further.  Paris is a spoiled, brainless, no-talent twit (SBNTT) whose only claim to fame is a rich daddy and a sex tape.  It takes so much talent to have sex on tape, you know. 

So why is our media saturated with this SBNTT?  It’s more than just slow news days.   There’s a war going on.  There are other no-talent twits making news (we call them politicians).  She was arrested 4 days before the 6th anniversary of 9/11. 

But all of that was relegated to second page when the blonde heiress rushed out for a midnight snack and got nabbed for being drunk at the wheel.   Then again when the judge – also a hero of mine – insisted that she spend 45 days in the slammer.  And yet again when the sheriff let her go home, leaving her new girlfriends holding the toilet brush back in the slammer.

Real justice would have been to let her go home to house arrest, but require her to bring the other inmates with her.  Let them suffer in the luxury of the Hilton mansion for the remainder of their sentences, too.  They could have made one great reality show out of that.  It’d be more interesting than watching the anorexic Nicole (“I’m not a role model“) Richie try to milk a cow.

What is it with us?  Are we so afraid of having our brains challenged and being made to think that we’ll settle for any old silly, vapid dreck?   Are sitcoms the limit of our public thirst for knowledge?  Understanding this, why are we surprised when so many people actually swallow, hook line and sinker,  Intelligent Design “theory” and seek to have the cornerstone of modern biology – Darwin – excluded or diluted in our schools?

We are mentally lazy.  I’m convinced of that.  I get that way, myself.  My secret vices are detective fiction and online games – while Richard Dawkins or Alan Clark sit unopened next to my reading chair.   I rationalize it as my entertainment – everybody needs some entertainment.  But too often, I find myself thinking “one more quest” instead of learning something new in Photoshop or finishing Clark’s epic masterpiece on Barbarossa.

I’m also convinced that whoever said that Man thrives on adversity was correct.  Without adversity, it’s human nature to lapse into complacency.  Wars, as terrible and evil as they may be, focus mankind’s creative talents in marvelous and remarkable ways.  Poverty and prejudice have undoubtedly produced more artists and comedians and writers than luxurious leisure. 

That explains something else.  How can you expect someone like Paris, coddled in the lap of obscene wealth and fame without having earned it, to discover whatever creative soul may lie within herself?  Maybe, instead of sending the inmates to live with her, they should have sent Paris to live in a ghetto somewhere for a few months.  Not for the sake of Paris, but to demonstrate that justice is blind to privelege and perhaps even wake up one wealthy heiress to how much real need there is in the world. 

But enough about her.  I have some books to read.