Like ATMs, cell phones and the Blackberry, it’s hard to imagine life without the hot news celebrity gossip site. Right now they are camped out with two live feeds in front of the courthouse waiting for Britney to arrive. Yesterday they caught Britney on a shopping outing with her new highly questionable … and still married … escort paparazzi Adnan Ghalib. She was  screaming f**k you to the hordes of paps and baby talking in her new fake British accent. And today she goes before the Judge (if she shows up) in her custoidy hearing. Good luck!

Does Britney know that she’s sleeping with the enemy? Does she know anything anymore? She wants to convert to Islam, she reportedly wanted to fake her own death and move to Pakistan, she held off cops topless and cursing in her home last week with her kids before being hauled into the hospital for psych tests. How do we know this – the same way lawyers, prosecutors, journalists and Judges get the latest on Britney – they read TMZ.

Just when you think the Britney story can’t get any more bizarre it ramps up to another level. Is that the definition of a train wreck? It is horrible and destructive yet you cannot look away.

It’s been whirlwind week for Paris Hilton, and the rest of us who breathe the air that surrounds her – that air can carry on the jet stream from the Hollywood Hills to Manhattan Valley.  She was released from prison, got to eat Taco Bell, went corporate and bland for Larry King, and she’s on the cover of People looking like an out of place Cosmo girl.  Wow. I knew there was some serious PR positioning going on here but can you re-invent yourself on such in a mass scale in a matter of days? Apparently.

Paris has discovered a new, deeper kind of love, the love of the admiration of the people – so now we can deepen our appreciation of her. It is a Diana-kind of celebrity that penetrates and transcends, that’s what she’s after. In that respect she is much more mature than Lindsay and Britney. Paris has “meetings” and talks about her many businesses. If anything, the outfit she chose for the Larry King interview was “corporate.” She looked like a successful careeer woman who just happened to spend 23 days in prison. She was suited up for Fortune, not Vanity Fair.

Paris earns her own money, she wanted to make that clear. This means that we will have to grow up with Paris, we will have to mature as she matures, every revelation of hers will be ours, and wait until she finally finds the first love of her life, who will surely be the first of many. Can you imagine a Paris Hilton wedding? It would be sure global chaos.

A defining moment in American culture passed like a comet through the videosphere last night as Paris Hilton patiently answered probing questions from the CNN bologna salesman Larry King. What can you say about Paris? Poised, repetent, she rehearsed her lines well. I believed her.  Did Mike Sitrick media train her?

Sing glory halellujah, Paris will be burned in our social consciousness forever, at least as long as I am alive. Her latest positioning is for the long-term. She will go to a poor African country we never heard of and start adopting babies. To spare the innocent, she will volunteer to walk across fields where there are suspected landmines. She will reduce her carbon footprint by wearing heels instead of pumps. She will buy a time share in Darfur.

It is admirable that Paris wants to jettison the ‘bad’ people in her life and maintain her core of purity, chastity, and nobility. I believe that she believes that she has been transformed and that partying and drugs were never part of her life. The sphere of her world extends about six inches beyond her personal space, she is a master illusionist. She is beginning to channel Madonna – reinventing youself is as simple as issuing a press statement and appearing on a talk show. We no longer have Party Girl. We now have Power Woman.  That’s entertainment. That’s PR.

New York Times serious liberal readers absolutely freaked when the Gray Old Lady finally, finally got wise and put Paris in the lead story Online with videos, big, vivid photos, a blog, and constantly-updated reports from the post-confinement front.  The comments on the Times blog were united in horror, with variations of: my god there is war and disease, discord, poverty and serious issues – what is this crap? Why is the Times doing this? Why – because it’s news and the L.A. County Sherriff’s spokesperson said that this was on a whole new level – bigger than O.J. or Charlie Manson – we’re talking end of the world stuff.

If the liberals would stop kvetching long enough to watch this AP video of the Paris prison release extravaganza on The New York Times website they would have seen that we are indeed in the midst of the rapture. Hallelujah! 

Who is that man on his knees? As soon as Paris was released from confinement he began screaming PARIS YOU DID IT, YOU DID IT, OUR PRINCESS IS FREE! He was waving a sign that said LIBERATE PARIS. Then, in a spooky desperate anguished cry he screamed repeatedly DON’T YOU EVER GO AWAY AGAIN and he fell to his knees crying. What’s really weird is that nobody seemed to pay attention to him. This is California, right?

There are two possible explanations for this behavior. Either he is a psychopath who should be kept out of these situations, lest he do  harm. Or he is a personification of our worst tendencies as a society and he has been sent as a sign that our idolization of false gods dooms us as a civilization. I fear the former and trust the latter. Paris may be our modern-day St. Joan, but she could also be the Anti-Christ. I can imagine that the Anti-Christ would really like Taco Bell after being forced to scarf gruel for 23 days.

Meanwhile, nobody can figure out how Paris looked so hot, absolutely radiant, after emerging from prison. It has already sparked a post-confinement beauty craze. A new facility has sprung up in Malibu called CONFINEMENT: IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU. Instead of 28 days in rehab you spend time in a mock prison. You have to wear an orange jumper, you shower in public, get a pillow if they feel like, and you have to sleep on a hard bed in a cold cell. Solitary confinement is extra. On your last day they fly in Frederick Fecacca to cut your hair, Selma Magoosh as colorist, Francine du Tush for makeup, and Mr. Severance to coordinate the outfit. Nothing makes you feel younger than freedom, baby. Take off those cuffs.

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4:00 PM, EST, NYC: We are not less human than Paris Hilton, hallelujah, say the mass of commentators who are exulting “this great day for America” as a crying, disturbed Paris Hilton is shipped back to jail to fulfill her sentence. The picture of Paris, handcuffed and crying in the back of the Sheriff’s car on her way to court accompanies the accounts of Paris crying for her mother in the courtroom. She was also heard saying “It’s not right.” One witness said that Paris was “physically escorted” out of the courtroom by a female deputy. Programming has been interrupted, specials are planned for this evening. This case is sparking a showdown between the Court and the Sheriff as Paris’ legal team is preparing an immediate appeal. Yes, this is really happening. You can’t make this up.

2:35 PM EST, NYC: Cut all programming. It’s live every second, every move, with hundreds of paparazzi and media swarming the Sheriff’s car with a handcuffed prisoner in the back, being taken to face the judge. Photographers and reporters were trampled outside the Hilton’s Hollywood Hills estate, and a couple of frenzied paparazzi even ran after the squad car as it made its escape. Choppers hovering overhead are following Squad Car #865 on the freeway as it makes its way in light traffic to the court.  The sheriff’s car is currently at the intersection of the 10 and the 110 freeways, pulling up to the courthouse. Media from all over the world is set-up in front of the court. See live coverage through KNBC.com Los Angeles. “Why oh why are we so fascinated with all this?” asks the TV Anchor.  I don’t know but if you are it doesn’t get better than this. Are we ready for Paris in Jail – the sequel? And this story has not even really yet begun. Love the live feeds from local TV. They pull in raw footage you never see on TV, and other web-based video sources. It’s more raw and immediate than TV.