NYC club scene mourns the loss of another coke whore

I know I watch/read a lot of tabloid “junk”, especially when I have a down moment at work. What can I say? I am a mere sociologist who soaks up what the media spits out and tries to find any relevance. I've stumbled upon something recently that I am having a hard time wondering why anyone would give a shit about:

Tara Conner

I found the news conference on the fate of Miss USA’s crown to be a hilarious and yet pathetic example of how skewed the media is with reference to priority news. It also peaked my interest how her tearful press conference just solidifies the notion that we are all sorry once we're caught. She's 21. How is she supposed to carry such "responsibility" when she hasn't even grown up. Puh-lease. Sympathy lost.

here's the press conference, you can see for yourself:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061219/ap_on_en_ot/trump_miss_usa

Back to the fact that this news story was just about everywhere across the internet today. It was like the world stopped and wept for Tara.

(Stiffling vomit, excuse me for a moment)

While men are presumed dead atop Mt. Hood and the escalation in Iraq has raised historical questions of the fate of our nation, we have little miss Tara Conner sobbing to Donald Trump in front of countless reporters about how grateful she is to have this opportunity not stripped from her due to her partying ways. It was like the girl pleading with daddy that she honestly didn’t mean to wind up snorting coke off a male stripper’s abs at a night club in NY. Well, I only assume she did such a thing. Coke and men were among her many rumored indiscretions.

Look, I think celebrity “flubs” are humorous and usually give me a warm fuzzy seeing the rich and famous crawl to the proverbial toilet of despair and humiliation because suffering is universal and who shouldn’t suffer like the rich and famous from time to time? BUT, these pathetic stories should never eclipse the real issues and news no matter how juicy they are.

To add insult to injury, Tara Conner was a top search for the day on Yahoo. TOP SEARCH?! Not Darfur, not the worsening situation in Iraq, not even “what to get my sweetheart for Christmas?” Pathetic. I only noticed because I was checking my fantasy football score, but that’s beside the point. Fact is, Americans are only interested in what we are given. Surely, if Bush had his way, he would shield us entirely from the truth in Iraq and just give us "Tara Connor" stories in an endless loop instead of news. "Oh, the war in Iraq? It's been downgraded to a regional "conflict" (wink) but did you hear about Tara Conner?!"

I think it’s a sad commentary that we are supposed to empathize with a 21-year-old hick-chick-turned beauty queen from Kentucky who got a taste of the big apple and in essence it got a taste of her. Isn’t that a terrible cliché of “making it” big and then finding social demons ever-present and ever tasty and then fumbling with regret? Spare me the rhetoric and Britney-esque tale.

I am not saying that the news should always avoid the bubble-gum and TomKat baby news or even the latest Paris escapade at Taco Bell. All I am saying is that maybe the Tara Conner story should have been a byline of a byline of a byline tucked away with all the other ever so unimportant drug binges of her famous counterparts. Priorities.

As Tara Conner shuffles off to an infamous rehab clinic, we all will rest knowing that she is “truly sorry, and thankful to the Donald for her second chance”. Puke.