Los Angeles, CA

My Internet has been knocked out for nearly a week, and when I come back all ready to catch up on LA (since the Internet is my newspaper), all I’m hearing about is Britney Spears’s breakdown last night! The sad thing is that everyone has been able to see this coming for months now. Honestly, I’m surprised something didn’t happen sooner, especially with her need to drive all day and all night just to be doing something.

Anyway, last night at around 8 PM the police were called because Britney refused to hand over the kids to her ex-husband’s bodyguards. After a three hour standoff in which Britney was reportedly locked in the bathroom with the children, she was taken away in an ambulance and both she and the children were examined at Cedars-Sinai. The boys were released around 4 in the morning and went to Kevin Federline’s, while Britney was admitted and is under watch. There are rumors that she was drunk, or high, or both, though some are saying that she’s just erratic because she’s having a breakdown. Either way, I’m sick of people insisting on watching someone get to this point without ever lifting a finger to help, and getting entertainment out of someone else’s pain. There’s shadenfreude, and then there’s sadism, and I think we as a society have hit the latter. Most people aren’t watching that lame TMZ show every day hoping to see someone be rude to a conceited starlet, they’re hoping to see someone get punished or hurt badly.

Sorry, I’m not supposed to be here to morally lecture, but hopefully this will be the first and last time I post about any of this. If you want a gossip rag, go to a gossip rag. If you want to read about Los Angeles and all that it has to offer outside of paparazzi, come here. The two won’t mingle here any more.

Here’s some news you probably missed during the first few rounds of the Mel Gibson “sugartits” debacle: the drunk actor was given star treatment during and after his DUI arrest. A panel of six attorneys have been reviewing the way LA Sheriff’s deputies handled Gibson’s arrest, and have decided that they were decidedly unprofessional and biased towards the actor. Mel Gibson was not printed, at least not forced to provide a palm print like everyone else, and was even personally driven by the deputy to the impound yard to pick up his car, another big no-no. The most surprising information was that Mel’s drunken ravings, which made news worldwide, were left off of the original police report, and were only added on later as a note to be seen only by the district attorney. The memo was leaked somehow to gossip websites, and that’s how it became known. I still find it surprising that people insist on covering for celebrities who don’t really care about them as human beings and treat them like garbage, just because they’re famous. If they’re getting in that much trouble, it’s probably for a reason, and not because they’re such a nice guy or good person. Don’t make it worse by whitewashing their mistakes. Make them learn from them!

In another bit of surprising news, the same panel agreed that Paris Hilton did not receive any preferential treatment during her arrest and incarceration. Sheriff Lee Baca came under a lot of fire for his treatment of the celebutard, especially when she was released after a couple of days in prison and allowed to spend the rest of her sentence with only an ankle bracelet monitoring system. She was subsequently ordered to finish out her sentence in jail, when she cried and screamed as only a rich, spoiled heiress can. The report by the panel of attorneys, however, found that two doctors did in fact examine Hilton and recommend she spend the rest of her sentence at home. While having female misdemeanor prisoners released after a few days was normal, what was abnormal was the fact that Paris had to serve her full sentence, apparently.

This is only a small part of the report. To read more, go here.