When I heard that Paris Hilton was released from the Century Regional Detention Center earlier this morning after serving only three days of her original 45-day jail sentence, I was pissed off. Seriously. Really pissed off. Quite frankly, I’m surprised that some random lawyer with a craving for equality and justice — or, at the very least, a craving for attention — hasn’t filed a class-action lawsuit charging discrimination on behalf of the many inmates who didn’t receive the “special treatment” that Paris reportedly received. That aside, I want to talk about the other issue that’s key to Paris Hilton’s case: drunk driving. Wait, wait, wait. Hear me out on this one. Now, I must admit that I debated about whether I should post this. Drunk driving isn’t a sexy topic, and it’s not something that crosses my mind on a regular basis. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to moralize here. I certainly get drunk. With my friends. On a regular basis. I just don’t drive while drunk.
Last year, more than 17,000 people died from alcohol-related crashes according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That’s almost six times the number of people who died in the attacks on September 11, 2001. Over at BlogHer, Catherine Morgan — a single mother of two — comments, “[The media coverage] should NOT be about Paris Hilton, it should be about drunk driving.” I couldn’t agree with Catherine more. Yes, Paris drove while drunk. But, let us not forget that she was originally slapped on the wrist with probation for doing so. It was only after she violated her probation that she was sent to jail — a place that’s supposed to be so scary, isolating and alienating that it makes people reflect on the crime that they committed. But, Paris has now been released. And, that kind of makes me mad.
Speaking of getting mad, where the hell are the Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) in all of this? Even though they’ve announced that the number of alcohol-related traffic deaths is the highest it’s been in 15 Years, as of the time of this post, they have yet to strongly condemn Hilton for her criminal behavior. (And, no, that pithy little statement of disappointment issued after Paris’ initial arrest doesn’t count.) Hmm … Are we left to believe that MADD agrees with Paris’ initial assessment of her drunk driving? “It was nothing,” she told Ryan Seacrest on KIIS-FM.
Well, at any rate, at least one person should be happy with Paris’ release. Her mother, Kathy Hilton. According to TMZ (the source of all things good and holy), when Paris was initially sentenced to jail her mother fumed something like, ‘I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this [...] And after all the money we spent!’ Now, now, Kathy. Rest assured. After serving less than 10% of her full sentence, Paris Hilton is home. And, she is safe. I guess I can only hope that the same safety befalls the folks riding in cars on the California freeways should Paris decide to drive drunk yet again.
Okay, this guy is one of my new guy friends. I haven’t really blogged about him that much yet because I’m not quite sure how much I want to divulge. Thus far, I’ve only mentioned that I 
