Check the awesome Go Away Paris Hilton video on this site!

www.goawayparis.com

Perhaps I have lost all sense of humor, but I really don't even know how to begin to respond to this hate-filled screed. I am sorely disappointed at Salon for allowing it to run. I feel the urge to respond in so many ways; however, I realize it is so self-evidently over the line that it deserves only an immediate apology from the editors of Salon for allowing it to run. I believe in the freedom of speech, but this speech served no purpose. If it was to entertain, it completely crossed the lines of civility and taste. I have the utmost respect for Salon and have been an avid reader for years. If this is the direction it is to take, however, I shall soon stop my patronage. To fill the pages of this great forum with hate speech is disappointing, to say the least; nevermind the fact that the "I Hate Paris Hilton" bandwagon arrived ages ago and is a tired subject already.

Yours respectfully,

George Byrd

Columbus, Ohio

But i think he's too stupid and sexist to properly word it and develop it.

(1) You're conflating "smarts" with "education."

Wealthy people can be very smart. They don't need a job, so when they get educations, they study things they like. Most people don't want to study engineering. for example, christy turlington went to NYU and got i think a quadruple major in philosophy, sociology, athropology and something else. Wealthy people are free to do exactly waht they want, but that doesn't mean they don't pursue education. "Doing what you want" and "getting an education" are not mutually exclusive.

(2) I doubt very seriously, for example, that either Becky Traister or George Bush's daughters were ever forced to sit for hours studying the Hairy Ball Theorem in topology, but I have no doubt that when I refer to the Hairy Ball Theorem they giggle. Smart.

I doubt very seriously that the overwhelming majority of people ever make their children learn any topology.

(3) You're a sexist. Why do you keep calling her "Becky"? Her name is Rebecca. Why do you talk about daughters and math? Do you think that George HW Bush taught his male sons about math? Clearly, George "fuzzy math" Bush didn't learn any. If you would disentangle your argument about the university system & rich people from your sexism, you might be more palatable.

(4) "We used to be farmers and have fun but during the cold war the people who run the country realized that they would profit enormously by forcing us to stop farming and move to cities. "

Where to begin? (a) farm life was fun? are you NUTS?, (b) people were living in cities way before the cold war, (c) farmers were dirt-poor, and being abused left and right by the people who ran the silos and the railroads, who were profiting at their expense. Don't have any illusions. I mean, if you wouldn't base your argument on statements like this one, maybe you could get somewhere.

(5) You have to develop a sense of self-satisfation from being a smart person because that sense of self-satisfation is all you are ever going to get from giving your life to a University.

Don't impute your individual hangups and grudges against the system to everyone else.

I've never paid attention to this woman called Paris. When I read the headline "So Long, Paris", I quickly clicked on it thinking the article was about the city Paris, France.

I was disappointed & didn't read the story.

I believe that going to University is a good thing and everything, but I did not mean that it was the only way to acquire any intelligence or 'smarts'.

Neither of my parents finished college, and they're pretty intelligent. You seem to be utterly confused as to what intelligence is. So someone has to invent something or make a lot of money to be considered intelligent and smart? That's what your letter (the parts I read) sound like to me.

What I meant by the Parisite's vast resources was not just University, but being able to go to places and experience cultures that ordinary people could not experience. She could afford to go see the Pyramids in Giza, for example, but she'd rather go snort coke in some random nightclub than visit the wonders of the world, or visit a library, or travel to places that do not have nightclubs and vast shopping malls. Not all education takes place in a classroom. She has so much opportunity to learn about the world around her, but she is willfully ignorant. Some have even said that she is proud of how dumb she is.

Oh, and I have something else to address - something I forgot in my initial letter. You don't know Parisite any better than the author does - the both of you came to different conclusions as to what kind of person Paris is.

As I said earlier, the article gave her far too much credit. Someone down the thread mentioned an obscure '80s socialite Cornelia Guest. Her Wikipedia entry is all of two lines. I am sure Paris's entry is bigger, but hopefully she'll lapse into obscurity just like Cornelia Guest...thing is, some other vapid idiot will take her place. Every generation has their share of utterly useless 'celebrities'.

She's boring.

Here are the things it made me think about:

1. How thin the line really is between moral righteousness and plain old hatefulness.

2. How the European witch hunts could be seen in part as a kind of massive outbreak of woman on woman verbal violence, which was materialized by religious and secular authorities in the form of physical torture and execution.

I would just like to point out for the record, Mihoshi, that what you are complaining about with Paris Hilton is EXACTLY what George Bush is talking about when he so sagely said:

THEY HATE US FOR OUR FREEDOMS.

Yes, "they" most certainly do. And moreover, you are fighting in Iraq to defend nothing more than the right of women to act just like Paris Hilton if they want.

Should any of this be defended? Should tens of thousands of people die to protect this?

I really don't think so.