Tengu House

The Last Paris Hilton Post You'll Ever See on This Site

Look, I don't like this any better than you do. But while I was enjoying my lunch (or trying to), it was brought to my attention that CNN and Fox News are both running indepth team coverage of the "Breaking News" and "Developing News" story of the day, which is that Paris, after being released from the pen for health reasons, has been ordered back into court by the judge. Apparently, outside of her palacial estate, there waited a Sheriff's deputy to take her back in as soon as she got home.

There were also about fifty MILLION media vans.

So here's my question: This is what you, the American people, care about? This obviously clueless, spoiled, half-witted little princess? This is your major concern of the day?

Or is it simply that the mass media have decided that this is what should be important to you? Does anyone really, honestly, give a rat's ass about this chick? I don't think even Paris Hilton honestly cares about Paris Hilton.

And here's what I would like to do about it: I would like to suggest that the next reporter, comedian, blogger, announcer, animator, writer, drug pusher or pimp who so much as utters her name in public*, gets temporarily deported to Western Dharfur, where he or she can spend the next three to six months (depending upon the severity of the offense) reporting on something that's actually important to the human race.

Or to southern Thailand, to cover the strife occuring between Thai Buddhists and Malay/Indonesian Muslims.

Or to parts of Central or South America, to witness firsthand the effect that the illicit drug trade, fueled by rich Americans like young Ms. Hilton here, has on the poor families and villages who are caught between corrupt governments and narco cartels.

I'd like to do that, but obvously that would violate the free speech rights of a whole lotta folks, who are, after all, just trying to make a living by telling you and me what's really important in this country. Thank goodness we have them - otherwise, how would we ever know these things?

How would we ever know what kind of perfume and underwear Ms. Hilton wears? How would we ever understand how difficult it must be to be her? How hard it must be to not be allowed to come and go as she pleases?

Look. I don't like it any better than you do. But while I was enjoying my lunch, little Paris's little world got sucked into a vaccuum. And thankfully for the rest of us, we have CNN and Fox News to suck us all in with it.

*For our part, Tengu House has placed a permanent ban on further posts containing the name or likeness of, or any other direct or indirect reference to, Paris Hilton. People who are famous just for being famous don't particularly deserve our time. She's a sentient being, and should be treated as such, no different from the rest of us.

Twenty Friggin Four

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The following takes place between the time I sat down at my desk this morning and now.

Why do people automatically assume others watch 24 and American Idol? I walked in on a conversation this morning, in which two women in my office were discussing someone who made someone else cry. When I asked them who they were talking about, they replied with the name of some fictional TV character, and then looked shocked - SHOCKED - when I didn't know who that was. Why is it that my co-workers think I have nothing better to do with my time than to lose myself in ecstatic bliss over the return of Lost? One colleague said this morning that she thought I should watch 24 because I'm a Marine (which I'm not). "You don't watch 24? Aren't you a Marine or something?"

Now, I ask you, Dear Friends: Is this the behavior of rational adults in this, the 21st century? When did being a veteran equate to being addicted to television? And when did it become simply assumed that healthy, active people in their mid-30s should be so television-absorbed?

I don't have anything against television per se - but it's not about television. It's about the automatic assumption that everyone watches that much TV. Does it make sense to you, Dear Friends, that the same people who assume that everyone routinely  spends four hours a day following the adventures of fictional castaways and reality shows, cock their heads and stare at me like I'm a wierdo as soon as they hear the word Buddhist or that I spend time each day in meditation? Why is something wrong with a person who'd rather spend his or her time in the temple or the dojo than in front of the tube?

I've always, since I was a teenager, called into question the motivations of American society at large. But I guess it's starting to get to me, more now than ever before. When sitting in front of the television has become our national pastime, when the news from every outlet resounds with stories about astronaut love triangles and dead ex-stripper burnouts - when all roads lead to intellectual laziness - I can't help but feel like maybe our society is heading in the wrong direction, and like maybe I'm somehow different.

So what, Dear Friends, should I do? Take up a more confrontational approach and ask people what it is about their lives that they hate so much? Just let it go, forget the whole thing, and continue to be the odd man out, the only person in the room who doesn't know who's winning on American Idol?

Or, should I just shut up and reach for the remote?

Smootchie's Take on the Bowl

Congrats to the COLTS!

We didn't have much of a Super Bowl party in my house. Without a horse in this particular race, and with a family member feeling a bit under the weather, we just kinda quietly watched the game.

Well, maybe not so quietly. Smootchie and I did our fair share of yelling, as we'd decided to support the Colts (we like the idea of a team that got beat by our Texans winning the Bowl).

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So it was a pretty relaxing evening. Smootchie did have some questions, though.

One was, how does a team as good as the Bears, who made Super Bowl history with the first-ever opening kickoff return for touchdown, STUNNING the crowd and the Colts (and us), allow the Colts to dominate the rest of the game?

The answer, also provided by Her Smootchiness, is momentum. One analogy that can be made is of the tortoise and the hare; another is of pushing a car - you don't just walk up and make it move, you've got to take a few seconds to push first.

No huge trick plays, no college-ball switcheroo reverse statue-of-liberty flippy-floppy where's-the-ball tomfoolery - just football. Pass plays and runs for eight yards here, ten yards there, and the occasional four-yard run and thump, to move the ball steadily down the field in the face of one of the league's best defenses.

That's momentum.

"And taking advantage of all those turnovers," Smootchie reminds us. "Always hang on to your football when you're being chased by big guys in Bear suits."

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Smootchie also wanted to know, who was that nice lady who was singing at halftime?

We told her we had no idea.