Like the Paris Hilton story. Look at how many so-called journalists erupted in heated public outrage when Lee Baca tried to give Hilton an early release.

Not a single one of those so-called journalists had a thing to say in the way of an apology when the staff at the LA Times went through the actual incarceration statistics for the county jail system and found that most female DUI probation violators get sent to home detention.

The real story behind Paris Hilton's "outrageous" and failed early release was a county jail system that is badly overcrowded.

Nobody cared! An overcrowded jail system is not a sexy story. It wasn't sexy or scandalous enough to warrant coverage in Salon.

BUT happily, the enormous outpouring of misguided rage over Paris Hilton proved to be a good thing for Sheriff Lee Baca. It gave him a good platform for fighting back.

He fought back and he won. Now they're building a new county jail, and the ACLU is consulting in its design.

Along with the new jail, there will be a formal system in place to prevent overcrowding, using home detention and early release.

So sometimes good things do come out of scandal. We will have a safer county jail, and the prosecutors and the lawmakers will be fully forewarned that if they incarcerate too many people for the jail system to handle, then some prisoners WILL be sent home early.

- this has nothing to do with celebrity scandal, but I was hoping you would contact me re: global warming. I've read some of your posts on the subject here at Salon and was hoping you could help fill in some gaps in my knowledge.

email me at Auntieentity@hotmail.com if you would.

Thanks!

And yeah, anonymous wealth would be the way to go.

When my kids say they want to be rich and famous, I advise them to just try being rich first, and see if that doesn't fill the bill.

Gawker editor Emily Gould demonstrated the knee-jerk immaturity of the young have-not, asserting that celebrities are "protected by piles of money."

John Lennon had piles of money. See how well it protected him?

She's enabling mentally ill people who overidentify with celebrities.

She's going to get someone killed.

the obsession with watching the mighty (or at least famous) fall, is all about envy. envy, in case you didn't know, is not about simply coveting something that somebody else has, it is about destroying what the other has because the destroyer isn't able to have it for him/herself. we destroy the good in others or exploit the vulnerable in order to acheive our own narcissistic sense of worth which is built on nothing more than a flimsy sense of self made pseudo-real by brand names and pockets stuffed with cash. this past year has indeed spawned a particularly vicious brand of gossip and character assassination and has at times been tempting to taste and repeat at the water cooler. it will be difficult no doubt as i have been injesting such garbage even since the dawn of page 6, but reading this stuff of late is like gorging on cheeze puffs and fried doughnuts. it feels somewhat good going down, but leaves one hell of a sandy, gritty, bitter aftertaste. the only way to rise above the literary grime, is to simply quit reading it. lord knows the time has come.

happy new year and may the best resolutions win!

I find Gervais' work simultaneously brilliant and cringeworthy. His season (series?) finale was excruciating.

Part of the success of the Gawker/TMZ/gossips sites is that they are superb time-wasters at work. Have to participate in a boring telephone conference? Surf the internet while everyone else talking. Need to take break (but can't leave your desk?) Jezebel is there for you.

I can't imagine how much productivity is lost at work by people who are surfing gawker sites.

It wasn't the greatest movie, but it sure captures the mood of the moment in our dumbed-down, celebrity worshipping/bashing culture.

Too bad we're not taking more of an interest in the world, but maybe we just don't want to deal with reality. And who can blame us? Iraq, subprime mortgage meltdown, selling our assets to the highest bidder, the current administration, the next administration (whoever they may be), etc.

Reading both Perez Hilton and the NY Times isn't such a stretch, really. I do it all the time.

A lot of the time, when the papparazzi see a celebrity somewhere and generate lots of material for the blogs and TV shows and magazines, its because said celebrity went to where the papparazzi are. Britney and Lindsay and Paris may get followed around, because they are guaranteed to do something stupid if you wait long enough, but for the most part the celebrities do seek this kind of attention out. There really are more than 3 restaurants in LA.

Mostly, I think this is the result (or maybe the cause) of fame without a corresponding amount of talent. When's the last time you saw Kevin Spacey or Meryl Streep on one of these dumbass shows? People with talent don't need publicity to get work. Paris Hilton wouldn't exist without it. Neither would Britney or Lindsay.

Harrassing people who are doing nothing more than trying to get something to eat is ridiculous, no matter what they have chosen to do for a living, and it should be made against the law. Simply by prohibiting someone from profiting from the sale of a photo taken without permission we would raise the national IQ by 15 points.

If these so-called "reporters" would invest half the energy they spend informing us about what people of no real consequence do in their free time into informing us about what elected and appointed officials do while they are at work, this would be a much better place to live.

When I was a young boy, ten or so, I was in NYC with my parents. My father hated it, he worked there, my mother thought it glamorous, she did not work there. I recognized someone across the street. I was all noise and wanting to saying Something to them. My father set a gentle hand on my shoulder and said, "Charlie, those people deserve time alone with their family". To this day I leave people alone unless we are in the check out lane at the grocery store together. All I expect from them when I see them perform is All Their Damn Loot. I want all their skills there for me to see and appreciate. I do not see what the entertainment value is of watching someone's, anyone's life dissolve around them. Very good article by the by... have a Happy New Year ....