Michael Vick is a skinny blond addict

It's official now, or will be in a few days: Michael Vick is guilty. Sort of. So feel free to bash him now.

He's poised to cop pleas next week to some wrong doing, but in the usual manner curiously reserved for people who can afford the best attorneys, it appears he won't actually have to plead guilty to the worst of what he was accused of - dog fighting, dog murder, etc. It looks like he'll get to plead to something like conspiracy, and violating interstate commerce laws, etc.

Maybe he'll get a year-and-a-half in prison, maybe a little more, maybe less. One thing's for sure. He'll serve a lot less time than if he wasn't rich and famous and hadn't had the best lawyers arguing on his behalf. The rich and famous part wouldn't be as relevant if it wasn't tied to the best (meaning high-priced) lawyers part. But who are we kidding? It would have been refreshing to see him step up and say "I did it. I didn't think about the harm, the foul, etc. But I did it. I allowed dog-fighting and executions to go on on my property. I watched the fights. I gave money to finance the fights and back the gambling element of it....I was wrong. No excuses. I'll take my lumps." To be fair though, in his position I guess I'd have tried to get a deal too. I'm pretty sure I'm not noble.

So anyway, Michael Vick has become Paris Hilton. Actually he has become Nicole Richie. Lindsay Lohan. He is rich and famous and has managed to secure a fraction of the punishment his behavior calls for. He has become another symbol of irresponsible privilege getting away with "murder." What the hell? Do you have to eat a live baby on a plate made from endangered elephant tusks to actually get a substantial punishment if you're young, rich, and famous in this country? If I ever decide to misuse the great pimp-slap of justice I'm either gonna go to Los Angeles to do it or I'll try out for a pro sports team. That way I'll be assured at least a ticker tape parade on my way into jail and on my way back out an hour-and-a-half later.

Thank God I'm unable - and unwilling to try - to picture Michael Vick in high heels, drunk, with a breast accidentally falling out of his shirt, or a drawerless butt cheek peeking out from under his skirt, or crack rocks falling out of his pocket, or crashing his car into a tree, or speeding with his lights off the wrong way up a one-way street.

But he is now a member of the sisterhood. He is a Lohan, a Richie, a Hilton. Even after he gets out of prison (if he goes). I'll never look at Vick the same again, because he'll look like a skinny blond woman to me.

Larry King should retire

If you are in the TV news biz and reading this post right now, be ashamed.

I won't front. I watched Larry King's hour-long interview with a recently released convict tonight. And I watched it the way you watch the coroner's office workers gathering body parts scattered along the side of the road following a horrific accident. I wanted to see what would happen!

And while I did not expect the person being interviewed to offer anything of substance, I did expect Larry "King of the Broadcast Interview" King to at least ask the substantive questions.

Instead he spent an hour asking about how tough serving 23 days (in Los Angeles math; 20 - 21 in normal human math) was, asking several different ways if she had changed, asking generic questions about who the real convict is vs. what of her has been captured on amateur film, etc.

I'm still a relative pup, all things considered, but I remember the old days when Larry King was on the radio and would have also asked the following questions:

• If you're so claustrophobic - the ailment you cited this evening to justify why you deserved to serve the balance of your sentence on house arrest - how can you tolerate driving around in small cars? Doesn't being closed inside a vehicle make you want to jump out at traffic signals and run down the street screaming and ripping your hair out?
• Is it just me, or are you suggesting the greater wrong here was how much time you served, rather than your driving while (legally) intoxicated - the infraction that started this ball rolling in the first place?
• You say you empathize now with people less fortunate than you. You have been captured on tape a number of times ridiculing the poor and calling friends, enemies, and your sister poor or something like that, as if it was an insult. How is that behavior empathetic?
• You've vehemently denied that you are a racist, and yet you've been captured on tape a number of times referring scornfully to specific black people as niggers and even calling your friends that word while laughing hysterically. Based on those tapes, why should we believe you are not a racist?
• Other than pay taxes and occasionally handing out dough to a panhandler, name one socially redeeming act you have committed in the eight years since you became a legal adult.
• I asked you to offer something about you don't like, and you answered that your voice gets high and squeaky when you're nervous. That's it? There's nothing about your public behavior or your character that could stand a little improvement?
• You made a sex tape with a boyfriend a few years ago, which, after the two of you reportedly broke up, he sold on the Internet. Is it true that you split the profits with him? Regardless, was it tough after that to look into the faces of young girls at your book signings and public appearances and hand them autographed pictures of yourself? That's the act of a role model - a person exhibiting model behavior. Do you think you were responsible enough then to present yourself as a role model?

I miss the old Larry.

Lie to your children, please!

Please tell your kids that if they grow up and break the law and get caught they actually will be punished for it and won't be given preferential treatment in the administration of that punishment.

Tell them that jails will not be too overcrowded to hold them.

Tell them that if they get a rash in jail they will not be released early. They'll just be sent to the jail clinic, given ointment and returned to their cell.

Tell them that crying jags and fits of hysteria will not get them released early from jail either. Tell them that those things will get them molested by their fellow inmates...but not released early.

Tell them that being rich and famous will not matter if you're caught breaking the law.

Tell them that if they do break the law and get caught that you will not disrespect the system by loudly ridiculing the prosecutor who takes them to task or the judge who metes out their punishment.

Tell them you can not repeatedly drink and drive and get caught and get away with it.

Tell them that even if they move to Los Angeles they will not be able to murder their ex-wife and get away with it (had to slip this one in).

Tell them that being born into money will not get them status - that if they want status they'll have to work hard and perform socially benevolent acts.

Tell them that making fun of poor people and ethnic minorities on tape will not make them popular. Tell them such acts will demonstrate that they're mean-spirited bad people.

Tell them that using racial slurs will not get supposedly hardcore rappers to be their friends. Tell them those rappers will stand on principle and reject their friendly overtures.

Tell them that making a sex tape with an ex-flame and pretending to have no knowledge of the tape prior to its release will not make them popular. Tell them it will get them scorned and pitied.

Tell them that if they do all of the above and later launch their own perfume line and write a couple of books that otherwise good moms will not take their impressionable little girls to public appearances to buy the perfume and books and get autographs.

Tell them that there are even karmic and cosmic consequences to being a self-centered, racist, condescending person who contributes little to greater society in the way of responsible behavior.

Tell them that it pays to do the right thing.

And hope and pray that they're old and have kids of their own before they realize sadly that some of what you told them may not have been true.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

PARIS HILTON IS SENTENCED TO 45 DAYS IN JAIL.

What did one inmate say to the other?

Who cares? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

But seriously, after the sentencing Kathy Hilton, the jailbird's mother, told the prosecutor he was pathetic.

Bad message, mom. He didn't pour the booze down your daughter's throat or force her to drive repeatedly on a suspended license. You should have hugged the prosecutor and thanked him for locking your rocket scientist up and thus maybe inadvertently helping her clean up her act.

OK, that's all the serious stuff I have to say.

Back to what I was saying earlier: ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

An Open Letter to Extra, ET, Access Hollywood, Inside Edition, E! Entertainment Network, and MTV, among others

Dear Entertainment News Networks,

For the past six or seven years you have led the charge in perpetuating the hype surrounding the invention of the "celebutant."

You have glorified people with no inner glory. You have elevated to hero and heroine and star status people whose only original contributions to Earth were the steaming half-pound they left in the toilet each day and sucking away good breathing air that the rest of us could have used.

You have, like a sidewalk pharmacist, peddled the cheap high of quick glimpses into lavish living, knowing full well that the desperate and sad and even the genuinely ambitious among us would soak it all up like a collective crack head looking for that last crumb to cook, cut, and smoke.

You saw that the empress had no clothes, and you praised her wardrobe anyway.

And now, the queen of this wag-the-dog kingdom you created has shown a huge sign of tarnish. In this day and age where nothing done outside the confines of your own home is ever truly a secret, your queen has been caught on tape uttering most foul language about ethnic minorities and gay people - essentially "groups" of people who hadn't done anything to offend her, certainly nothing that warranted the language she used.

For years she periodically denied harboring the hateful feelings behind the language she used on the most recently "released" video. But she's been "outed." The tape, like statistics - thank you Mark Twain, doesn't lie.

So I ask, Mighty Networks, are you all talk? Or are you sincere about reporting "real" celebrity news?

Think hard before you answer. Because if your answer is the latter, that means the "right" thing to do is stop telling us stories about her. Stop reporting when she has an underwear malfunction. Stop telling us when her tiny dog escapes Hollywood and flees to South L.A. for some peace and quiet. Stop telling us when she doesn't show up for $1 million public appearances at nightclubs whose owners hope to cash in on her infamy. Stop telling us when she's overheard making light of some immoral or amoral behavior. Until she publicly apologizes for her behavior and her recorded bigoted language, and demonstrates a socially redeeming quality without first being advised to do so by a publicist, just stop talking about Paris Hilton.

Sincerely Yours,
Burnettiquette

CC: Nicole Ritchie (don't forget Nicole, your dad belongs to one of the groups she spoke so harshly of), Publishing Houses, Hamburger Joints, Fragrance Makers, Fashion Designers, Owners of About-to-Open Nightclubs, Animal Shelters that approve her for adoption, and every shameful mother who took her pre-teen daughter to one of Ms. Hilton's book signings or public appearances for an autograph