Given that the top national news story the past couple of days has been Paris Hilton: The Big House or Her Big House?, does anyone else think we are due for a major terrorist attack? I mean, this reminds me of the summer before 9/11 when all we were worried about was Chandra Levy and shark attacks. But it's even WORSE than that.
I am NOT saying we DESERVE a terrorist attack as punishment for our shallowness or anything like that.
I am just struck by the triviality of the "big news" and wondering if fate or karma or whatever you want to call it is going to bite us in the butt again with a big shocker that reminds us what is really important.
I must say I did get a chance to listen to Rush yesterday and I thought he was right on in what he was saying, and that was how this Paris Hilton stuff demonstrated the media's power to create a story out of nothing and make it become the focus of the national conversation.
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Yeah, I was going to add a postscript about how ironic it was that I was talking about how awful it was that people were talking about it which meant that my post was actually part of what I was complaining about. But you got the point anyway!
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I hear you Biscuithead. We become so complacent that we almost expect that everything will be handed to us forever. That is when we are hit with something terrible. Oh! that's not us, it's Paris Hilton. Just kidding. But you're correct. We're not paying attention and 9/11 hit us. Twice in the sort of recent past the stock market was riding along growing like crazy without the money really being there. Everybody's 401K plans were growing. People became greedy and oops, they wonder what happened to their retirement plans. Nothing is a free ride forever. People need to think and prepare.
Yes I've thought that we could be caught unaware of another terrorist attack again. So far the culprits have been caught since 9/11, but someone could very easily do terrible damage when we're busily concentrating on some silliness.
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I know that Paris doesn't contribute much of anything to society, in fact, one could effectively argue the opposite case. But I still think it's pretty low to take pleasure in her suffering. She is still a human being, you know.
I guess you and Roma of "Don and Roma" are on the same page on this, though. This morning when they were talking about how Paris wouldn't use the toilet in her cell because the guards could apparently see right in there and she was worried that someone would take a cell phone camera shot of her on the toilet, Roma's "compassionate" response was to bring up how "we'd all seen her having sex anyway."
I had two thoughts about this:
1) Don't they provide bedding in those cells? For cripes sake, if Paris was so worried about that she could've just covered herself with a sheet or something while she was peeing.
2) So Roma thinks that since Paris's privacy has been violated once anyway, it's now "anything goes"? Sheesh.
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Paris hasn't lost her claim to privacy or dignity . . . but here is a woman raised to a standard of affluence to which she had personally contributed nothing and may, in fact, have nothing to contribute.
Societies always and forever find objects of celebration like her, idolize them, and then turn on them with feelings of ranging from indifference to vengeance. Whether they find the indifference or the vengeance more cruel seems to depend on the individual.
For the last several years, Paris has been at once the most worthless and the most coddled of all people on the planet. She has nothing to show for it but as many years worth of drugs, sensationalism, and vacuity.
She was caught driving drunk on a suspended license. She will now learn some fraction of what the rest of the world learns for driving drunk on a suspended license. I can't work up much indignation over her plight. The sliver lining here, if there is one, may be the sobering effect this exposure might have on some Spears or Lohans marching to the same drummer.
This message has been edited by Campaigner1 on Jun 12, 2007 9:10 AM
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Like I said, guys, I think an effective argument can be made that Paris's contributions to society have been negative. And I don't know if I was really calling for sympathy for her or indignation for her plight.
It's one thing to be indifferent to her suffering and unable to work up sympathy, it's quite another to gleefully take pleasure in what she's going through. And it's quite another to make some sort of argument that she should suffer MORE because of all her "past sins." It's Roma's "She's a whore anyway, so it's okay to rape her" attitude that I find most appalling and revealing, not for what it says about Paris so much as what it says about the person with that attitude.
Camp, I think your elaboration on my original point pretty much hits the mark:
"Societies always and forever find objects of celebration like her, idolize them, and then turn on them with feelings of ranging from indifference to vengeance. Whether they find the indifference or the vengeance more cruel seems to depend on the individual."
--That's part of what I was trying to get at here. With "Paris's plight" coming so close on the heels of the Libby sentencing, I can't help but compare the two, because I think that there's a similar phenomenon going on.
Scooter Libby was apparently sentenced not just for the crimes that he was charged with, but also for additional crimes that weren't proven in a court of law but that alot of people think someone should pay for. So a lot of people think that's just. I think that's unjust. Alot of what's going on with Paris, it seems, is people wanting her to suffer a greater degree of punishment for all the "crimes" she's committed that having nothing to do with her actual law-breaking, like being rich and pretty and spoiled and obnoxious and irresponsible and undeserving of all the attention she gets.
I think she should face the consequences of her actions and suffer the punishment that fits the actual crimes she committed, no MORE and no LESS.
But there's an extra element here that you touched on, Camp, and which I was trying to get at in my first post. WE as a society are guilty of making this person who really should not be the focus of our attention the focus of our attention. I know she has great publicists, alot of money, and a lot of people think she's nice to look at, but she didn't single-handedly make herself into this phenomenon. Who watched those horrid "Simple Life" shows and made them popular? Who downloaded all the copies of Paris's porn? Who is buying all the magazines that the paparazzi who surround Paris constantly sell their pictures to? Did Paris herself make the executive decision to make her "going to jail" story or her "got out of jail" story the TOP FRIGGIN' NATIONAL NEWS STORY FOR TWO OR THREE DAYS IN A ROW? And why would these "news" editors do this unless they thought they were giving us what we wanted? Did someone hold a gun to Don and Roma's head and force them to talk about her?
Yes, she is a vacant person with a vacant life and a vacant soul that she tries to fill up with what the world has to offer: parties, clothes, fame, famous friends, drugs and alcohol, etc.
But let's not fool ourselves regarding her popularity and our own role in it. I think we're all aware of responsibility here, especially those like Roma who can't face this fact and are trying to assuage their own guilt by viciously attacking Paris.
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Wow. I don't want to say "great minds think alike" (even though I did anyway), but I'm amazed at how similar Christopher Hitchens' view of this is to what I was trying to get across. This is especially for Dagon, since "Snitch" seems to be somewhat of a hero of his right now:
Siege of Paris
The creepy populism surrounding high-profile defendants.
By Christopher Hitchens
" . . . And now here I go, clearing my throat as above before deciding to do something I would have never believed I would do, and choosing to write about Paris Hilton. Choosing to write about her, furthermore, not just as if she were some metaphor or signifier, but as a subject in herself. At some point toward the middle of last Friday, it seemed to me, one was being made a spectator to a small but important injustice. Those gloating and jeering headlines, showing a tearful child being hauled back to jail, had the effect of making me feel sick. So, you finally got the kid to weep on camera? Are you happy now? . . .
" . . . I didn't at all want to see this, but what choice did I have? It was typical of a universal, inescapable coverage. Not content with seeing her undressed and variously penetrated, it seems to be assumed that we need to watch her being punished and humiliated as well. The supposedly "broad-minded" culture turns out to be as prurient and salacious as the elders in The Scarlet Letter. Hilton is legally an adult but the treatment she is receiving stinks—indeed it reeks—of whatever horrible, buried, vicarious impulse underlies kiddie porn and child abuse."
There is an old saying, "What gets rewarded gets repeated." Paris' behavior has been rewarded over and over again with adulation and retelling in the tabloids. Who is she blowing? Is her nipple showing? Has her recently shaved pussy been photographed as she exits a car? Does she look like she's enjoying the sex she performs for video cameras? (per Christorpher Hitchins), and whatever.
Who really cares?
Yes, she's a horrific example of American womanhood and satirists of every century would have made her a person of legendary footnoting. She would have her own entry in the next edition of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable with Johanna Southcoat and Margery [of] Kemp.
And many people would laugh fairly and some unfairly. That seems to go with the territory.
The right to drive drunk on a suspended license crosses the line. She may or may not care whom she offends by open sex or by not appearing to enjoy it. But think of it like this:
"Yes, Im a whore. Of course, I'm a slut. Certainly, I suck the c*cks of strangers on video for money I don't need. Naturally, living a life like this requires that I be drunk or doped up most of the time. But I would never jeopardize innocent third parties by driving drunk on a suspended license. That would be wrong."
What a difference that single, socially-redeeming statement would have made -- if it were true.
Sadly, it is not true. Her first instinct was to treat the matter like a joke. Her second was to fire her PR guy for misinforming her on that little matter of the meaning of suspended driver's license. Her third was to ask the governor for a pardon. Her fourth was to get out of jail free on account of an "unspecified condition." Her fifth was to go for the sympathy vote by sobbing for the mother who let her turn out this way.
In a perfect world, a gowing pile of excuses and alibis would not be analogous of the smell of blood in the water. Her penalty would be the standard one. And it would have been over already. A monetary fine that wouldn't equal what she pays for hair extensions every week would be forgotten before the ink dried on the check. Two days in the slammer and some good behavior time off and it would be history.
But this isn't a perfect world. It is one that rewards whores and sluts till they cross the line and then it turns on them with unbridled puritanism. Those may not be goals of our society but they are the rules that never change.
The behavior stops when the rewards change. Paris is now playing her last cards: "I'm sorry. I'm reading the newspaper. I'm reading the Bible. I'm going to reform." We'll see.
This message has been edited by Campaigner1 on Jun 13, 2007 8:27 PM
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Paris Hilton is being punished for her celebrity status with a much stiffer sentence than the vast majority of inmates convicted of similar offences, according to an extensive survey of recent jail records.
The Los Angeles Times analysed two million jail releases and identified 1,500 cases since July 2002 that involved defendants arrested for drink driving and then sentenced to jail after violating their probation by driving without a licence.
Around 60 per cent left jail after four days. But Hilton was last week ordered to serve the full 23 days of her sentence, meaning she will end up doing more time than 80 per cent of others in similar situations.
And I'm forced to repeat myself again: I think she should face the consequences of her actions and suffer the punishment that fits the actual crimes she committed, no MORE and no LESS.
I'm a little confused about what you're trying say though. If it's "that's just the way the world is," and Paris is getting everything she deserves, that's fine.
However, your question of "Who really cares?" is the whole point. Apparently, a lot of people care, enough to make everything Paris does a sort of sensation, which I think is pretty horrifying. But Paris can't do that all by herself, and that's the point I was making. Apparently, alot of people care enough to get all worked up about whether she is being punished sufficiently for her "whorish ways."
I hate to put myself in the position of "Paris defender," and I'm not, as far as I will always assert that she should face the consequences of her behavior. On the other hand, I strongly believe in the Christian principle of human dignity and in the idea that humans have innate dignity as God's creatures even if the particular human we are talking about seems not to respect that dignity themselves.
Now, that belief is often tested and does have limits (and the limit usually corresponds to a limit on evil-doing to other humans--like, I simply could not find any interest in joining Mr. HP's crusade for the dignity of Saddam Hussein--and if only we could get the Lefty types and the MSM to show a fraction of the disgust with people like Saddam Hussein that they do with Paris!).
But if you'll look at my history of posts both here and on the old Headbutters, you'll find that in situations like these I tend to come down on the less judgmental side, or at least the side that takes no pleasure in the suffering of completely screwed up humans. Try finding the Patrick Kennedy thread and note my reaction to his drunk driving escapades and arrest.
So my main reaction to Paris is not one of delight when she finally "gets what's coming to her," it's the same reaction to her that I've had all along, sadness that a person could be living a life that so far misses the mark of what humans can be with God's help, and yes, a bit of pity for her sad and empty life.
I also have an element of caution about being sure that I know the absolute facts of her life and situation and what she is feeling and what motivates all her behavior that makes me very uneasy with the sorts of statements you are apparently comfortable making in your above post. For one, I have no idea where you got the info or idea that her "sex tape" was an example of "sucking the c*cks of strangers on video for money [she doesn't] need." I always thought it was that an ex-boyfriend had taped her and sold the tape. That doesn't seem to be that unusual these days. Should these high-profile women, or women who are currently anonymous but who expect to possibly be famous at some point be more cautious about letting these louts tape them? Of course. On the other hand, if they're in a relationship where they trust someone, you can see how they'd be taken in. And I don't necessarily see a cry of "Mom, it's not right!" as "playing the sympathy card," especially given the fact that, according to the above article, SHE WAS RIGHT about it being just a little bit unfair.
However, to go completely against what I just said about speculating on her life and her motives, I do think it's true that there is a bottom-line motivator here, and that, whether consciously or not, she understands her own state (I mean, understood it before her recent "awakening") so that is why she has to self-medicate with parties, booze, drugs, fashion, celebrity, casual sex, etc. to ease the pain and shame she feels about her own life and her place in the world.
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I think the issue here is what is the role of punishment in deterring future behavior. As I understand it, short sentences don't mean the law limits punishment for certain behaviors to short sentences nor is it bound to statistical averages in handing down sentences . . . just that for reasons of economy and, hopefully, effectiveness, short sentences have been found to work for most people by producing a deterrent effect that is the same as longer sentences -- and less disruptive to the daily lives of people with jobs and other responsibilities.
But most people aren't all people. When you have one who seems to think that she can get a pass to drive drunk on a suspended license by firing a PR guy for not explaining "suspended" with emphatic enough language to make it sink in, then you may be dealing with one of those not captured in the definition of "most."
For such a person, the full rigor of the law remains an option. When such a person noises around plans of seeking a pardon or brings in a psychiatrist to promise (off-the-record) that she has an unspecified medical condition and needs to be in a mansion forthwith, again, you may be looking at a situation that requires more than the usual four-days-and-you're-out, go-and-sin-no-more treatment.
In short, Paris might have gotten more than the usual statistical averages because she needed more than that to even know she was being punished. And conceiveably, she may have gotten it for reasons other than a decade of slutty behavior.
Apart from formal punishment by the courts for what seem to me to be defensible reasons, there is the informal, non-legal punishment administered by millions of nobody's who have greedily read her comings and goings and made her into a sort of icon. Yes, their prurience is no doubt part of what she has mistakenly regarded as her natural share of the plenet's adulation. And yes, on a moral level, they share a responsibility for her possible delusion that she is important. But they didn't drive drunk.
Because all of these judges and punishments overlap in time, it may be easy to confuse them. And when people of Al Sharpton's ilk get into the picture and create more confusion as to the nature of punishment and for what reasons different sentences are given out, the situation becomes more confusing still.
Paris is notoriously rich and is therefore likely to be thought of as likely to buy her way out of the normal course of justice. The need of justice to be seen as beyond a respecter of persons sets up a natural tension in public perception. Couple that with her early hope of getting the Governor to pardon her and you have a highly visible situation that no judge can ignore in this day of instant communications.
Then too, jail was only one part of the punishment. There was the matter of a $1,500 fine. For most of us, a fine of that size would be a memorable financial event -- and one with a deterent effect. Most of us make our own money and such a fine coupled with jail time would be a striking deterent.
It is no secret that Paris inherited more than most of us will ever make. Therefore it could be argued that the standard financial side of her penalty would be of no deterrent value.
This brings us back to the deterrent effect of a punishment. For most of us, missing 23 to 45 days off the job would mean termination and and perhaps irreparable losses, home-mortgages, car repossessions, taking care of family, and so on.
That is not the case with Paris. For most of us four days would mean we could be back and lose a week's vacation and feel the full effect of deterence. Since the law is there to deter and not to deprive every lawbreaker of his or her livelihood, an effective sentence of four days may well have a sobering effect on most of us without the need to ensure we lose our jobs as well.
Clearly time-off-the-job is a different order of concern for Paris than for most of us. As is whatever she does for a job.
When you factor in all the insulating material in her lifestyle that could prevent standard punishment from being an effective deterrent to her, I don't think her "punishment" is out of line with what others might receive. Like you, I don't take any joy from watching her suffer. But I hope for her sake she suffers enough to change her behaviors before she drunkenly drives over something less fixable than her social calendar or her ego.
This message has been edited by Campaigner1 on Jun 14, 2007 7:22 PM This message has been edited by Campaigner1 on Jun 14, 2007 5:42 PM This message has been edited by Campaigner1 on Jun 14, 2007 3:35 PM This message has been edited by Campaigner1 on Jun 14, 2007 3:33 PM
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I can see the sense in your argument and agree with some of your points. But there are a couple of things that still bother me.
I know you intend to argue that Paris was a "special case" who needed Special High Intensity Treatment, but you're pretty much making my case for me that her punishment went beyond the normal or average simply because of who she was or who she was perceived to be (namely, a rich spoiled beeyaaatch) and not due to the real circumstances of her actual law-breaking.
Second, I'm bothered by how much of your argument parallels the arguments of populist liberals engaging in class warfare. For example, I know many liberals who approve of the European "progressive" system that bases traffic fines on the income of the offender, with the fine being a percentage of income. So you have the rich paying these ungodly sums for speeding tickets and the like. The argument would be much the same as yours--the regular fine wouldn't be "enough" punishment and the rich really need to "feel it," plus the percentage system or however they calculate it supposedly makes everyone "equal" under the law.
Seems like you're making the same sort of argument, that we need to increase the fines and punishment for people like Paris so that they will really "feel it."
I understand what you are getting at, but there's a principle here that I think goes beyond Paris Hilton. This is all in the perception. I don't want to be sitting in the courtroom next to some guy who is charged with the exact same crime I am, and have the judge order me to pay twice the fine the other guy has to because I make twice as much money. Or maybe he will order that the other guy doesn't have to pay the fine at all because he has no income. Does that seem fair to you? Not to me.
Seems like those kinds of fine-setting decisions have always been based on the seriousness of the offense being alleged and bringing a host of other considerations in that "should" somehow be considered seems out of whack to me. I thought the law was not supposed to be a respecter of persons--I know that is not always the case, and that people get the shaft every day, but I don't see that this situation is going to be remedied by a kind of reverse discrimination in all cases involving the wealthy, the snotty, and the arrogant. I think this is a principle important enough to fight for even if it puts me in the position of being perceived as a Paris Hilton apologist.
And a lot of your rhetoric here really bothers me because it echoes the same sort of sentiments I hear from the liberals I am constantly surrounded by--people who are against repealing the death tax or the estate tax because it offends their tender sensibilities that some waste of space like Paris stands to inherit billions someday.
I'm befuddled by their obvious envy and rage because, frankly, it won't affect me in the least one way or the other if Sam Walton's worthless nephew inherits a couple billion and I don't have that much of a desire to lord over other people's lives.
The bottom line seems to be that alot of your argument that Paris "needs" the most severe punishment because she "won't get it" otherwise seems to be belied by the fact that serving even the slightest percentage of the sentence that "normal" people would get has "scared her straight" or at least has caused her severe emotional trauma and HAS disrupted her life. One could easily argue that she is used to such a pampered life that two or three days in jail for her is akin to a couple of months for a normal person.
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...i think the judge is enforcing harsher sentencing on miss hilton because of the belligerence she showed towards the proceedings; being caught driving on the suspended licence twice and missing her court date.
the lighter sentences that have been published are referring to average time for the transgression itself, not taking into account whether or not they dutifully made all of their commitments and took the process seriously. miss hilton clearly did not, that is why the judge stated that she would serve the time and that house arrest was off the table.
peace
This message has been edited by toxicopoulus on Jun 15, 2007 3:19 PM
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Biscuit or Ouch. I don't know which I want to say more. . .
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June 15 2007, 9:19 PM
Camp,
I can see the sense in your argument and agree with some of your points. But there are a couple of things that still bother me.
I know you intend to argue that Paris was a "special case" who needed Special High Intensity Treatment, but you're pretty much making my case for me that her punishment went beyond the normal or average simply because of who she was or who she was perceived to be (namely, a rich spoiled beeyaaatch) and not due to the real circumstances of her actual law-breaking.
She was not a special case because she was Paris -- or because she was perceived to be a slut. She was a special case because she didn't accept her straight-forward punishment but tried to get around it by firing a PR guy who would have borne the blame, by raising the issue of a pardon, by having a psychiatrist get her out based on off-the-record interviews with the sheriff.
Second, I'm bothered by how much of your argument parallels the arguments of populist liberals engaging in class warfare. For example, I know many liberals who approve of the European "progressive" system that bases traffic fines on the income of the offender, with the fine being a percentage of income. So you have the rich paying these ungodly sums for speeding tickets and the like. The argument would be much the same as yours--the regular fine wouldn't be "enough" punishment and the rich really need to "feel it," plus the percentage system or however they calculate it supposedly makes everyone "equal" under the law.
Funny that you should mention that. You probably recall the delusional Lewis1 who once came here complaining that when he was caught speeding in his new BMW he paid the same penalty as the poor guy who got caught in a beat-up old Ford Fiesta. His goal was to pay the kind of fine that the President of Nokia in Finland or Estonia paid, i.e., in the range of $100,000. I disagreed with Lewis on that as on everything else he ever wrote -- including the "fact" of his BMW -- and should have raised the issue explicitly here, if only to diffuse it.
Seems like you're making the same sort of argument, that we need to increase the fines and punishment for people like Paris so that they will really "feel it."
No, the state should never be in a position to fattten off the resources of its productive people by giving its cops or judges the free run to make their quotas off the rich. By the same token, it isn't realistic to think Paris is deterred by the sum of $1,500 the way that I certainly am.
I understand what you are getting at, but there's a principle here that I think goes beyond Paris Hilton. This is all in the perception. I don't want to be sitting in the courtroom next to some guy who is charged with the exact same crime I am, and have the judge order me to pay twice the fine the other guy has to because I make twice as much money. Or maybe he will order that the other guy doesn't have to pay the fine at all because he has no income. Does that seem fair to you? Not to me.
No it doesn't seem fair to me but a surprisingly small portion of the laws we have resonate with me as unquestionably fair. In Chicago, a landlord tells me, a deadbeat renter can't be evicted from November to April because the reasoning is that if can't pay this landlord, he can't pay the next one either and he's got to sleep somewhere. So the courts dump the deadbeats on their present landlords. I find this and so many other things unfair that I can't count them.
Seems like those kinds of fine-setting decisions have always been based on the seriousness of the offense being alleged and bringing a host of other considerations in that "should" somehow be considered seems out of whack to me. I thought the law was not supposed to be a respecter of persons--I know that is not always the case, and that people get the shaft every day, but I don't see that this situation is going to be remedied by a kind of reverse discrimination in all cases involving the wealthy, the snotty, and the arrogant. I think this is a principle important enough to fight for even if it puts me in the position of being perceived as a Paris Hilton apologist.
And I, for one, have not raised the issue of apologizing for Paris. We are talking the principle of the thing not the motivation of one another.
And a lot of your rhetoric here really bothers me because it echoes the same sort of sentiments I hear from the liberals I am constantly surrounded by--people who are against repealing the death tax or the estate tax because it offends their tender sensibilities that some waste of space like Paris stands to inherit billions someday.
I'm befuddled by their obvious envy and rage because, frankly, it won't affect me in the least one way or the other if Sam Walton's worthless nephew inherits a couple billion and I don't have that much of a desire to lord over other people's lives.
Nor do I. And, left to me, there would be no death tax for anybody, irrespective of their wealth and especially irrespective of the tender sensibilities of leftists. I have no problem with Paris resurrecting Johnny Cocheran to represent her in court -- no matter what the cost of such a procedure.
I do have a problem with running a psychiatrist in after the judgement to spring her for no earthly reason that he would say in open court, supposedly to avoid the dire consequence of her not sleeping in her own bed. I am not against well-placed mercy. I am against conniving sheriffs over-ruling judges for reasons that are not part of any public record. Anything she and her psychiatrist were willing to do on the record was within bounds. But this reach-around in the dark is not part of the process. I'm surprised it doesn't bother you more too.
The bottom line seems to be that alot of your argument that Paris "needs" the most severe punishment because she "won't get it" otherwise seems to be belied by the fact that serving even the slightest percentage of the sentence that "normal" people would get has "scared her straight" or at least has caused her severe emotional trauma and HAS disrupted her life. One could easily argue that she is used to such a pampered life that two or three days in jail for her is akin to a couple of months for a normal person.
Maybe she was scared straight. Maybe but I have little faith in deathbed conversions. She had the chance to show up on time, respect the process, and face the music. Had she done so, in all probability, her sentence would have been the average. Her good time would have had her out by now. Whether there is a next time and, if so, how she deals with it will tell the story.
This message has been edited by Campaigner1 on Jun 15, 2007 9:29 PM
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