ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT HYPE FIRES.

What do you expect to be when you grow up when your parents named you Paris Hilton, so you're like a walking billboard for the family business? I guess it could be worse: they could have called her Cleveland. Anyway, let's have a little dose of reality therapy here. Is the big story whatever Paris is doing at the moment, or is it "What is it with the media, that Paris is such a big story?"

Let's be honest with ourselves. We love gossip. We love it when the rich and beautiful fall upon their shapely glutes. We watch NASCAR for the thrill of streamlined cars smoothly negotiating scary curves? Hell no! We gape at car crashes. We want to see 'em flying through the air, end over end, smashing into a zillion pieces in a cloud of smoke and liquified rubber. It's all riveting TV, radio, magazines and newspaper stories.

We want our Congressmen and Senators to erupt over violence and nasty language on radio and TV. But if they ever actually took it all away, we'd storm Capitol Hill. The Hiltons have been playpeople for generations. Paris is just carrying on a family tradition, living up to her genes. And you, you're watching Entertainment Tonight tonight, skipping Bill Moyers. So, get over yourself.