Two stories, one weekend: Paris Hilton's going to the slammer for 45 days, and Nicolas Sarkozy wins the French presidential election.
As far as Ms. Hilton's travails go, I'm ambivalent. On the one hand, she seems like an affable, if air-headed, person. On the other, she broke the law, and nobody should be above the law, including wealthy celebutantes. Her mother's goofy antics in the courtroom didn't help; the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and Mama Hilton apparently is no Rhodes scholar either. I suspect that Paris' confinement, which will be in isolation from the rest of the prisoners for her own safety, will be a learning experience. Then again, maybe not, if The Simple Life was any indication of her learning ability.
I read a very interesting article by Michel Gurfinkiel about France's problems, which seem intractable. Mr. Sarkozy seems to have his work cut out for him, and he will still have the old government bureacracy (which like all bureaucracies is resistant to change), which may make implementing reforms difficult. It will be nice having a French president whose default position isn't knee-jerk anti-Americanism. I may even have to reconsider my boycott of French products.
