Burnt Orange Report

"Greed is good"

By Nathan Nance

Guest post by Nate Nance

Just skimming through Slate, I saw the headline "Who's more interesting, Paris Hilton or Karl Rove?" I knew that I had to write something about that.

The article is on Barbara Walter's special and the throwback to the 80s that it brings to mind, like putting Paris Hilton at No. 2 behind Karl Rove, and listing usual celebrities like Mel Gibson and Oprah Winfrey. I have to say I agree whole-heartedly with the conclusions about consumerism and celebrity worship found inside. I have to add, so what?

I think a little celebrity worship is good. I like Paris Hilton. I think she's got a nice tan and lots of ambition to be a major star. What's wrong with that? I like Karl Rove because he wants to win, kudos to him. I like Oprah because... damnit, she's Oprah! Mel still kinda weirds me out.

And it's the American Dream to succeed and be rich and turn your back on everybody and drive a Ferrari (OK maybe that's just my dream). I want people to get rich and live a good life, then I have no problem taxing them at 40% and paying for everyone's college tuition or health care insurance. And if we tax them into the poor house, they can get in one of our many wonderful govt. programs that make poor people rich so that we can tax the hell out of them to help poor people. It's the circle of life.

The only problem I see with celebrity worship is that occassionally someone tries to kill the president because they think they are in love with Jodie Foster (come to think of it, the 80s gave us that, too). Price you pay, I guess.

Seriously though, a little star gazing is all right and it keeps the dream alive. And consumerism keeps the economy humming along (Paris Hilton... humming?), albeit not so well right now. As much as we might not all agree with some of the values that lie underneath all of this, they are American values that got through the Reagan years and got Bill Clinton in the White House.

This is a guest post from Nate Nance. Nate is a sports/news clerk at the Waco Tribune-Herald and writer/editor of Common Sense a Texas-based Democratic Web log. He can be reached at nate_nance@yahoo.com.