What the fuck. What happened to no special treatment? What happened to treating a celebrity like any other drunk driver? What happened to sticking it to a 26-year-old hotel heiress who thinks the rules don’t apply to her? Paris Hilton was released from prison early Thursday morning after serving just 3 days because of what prison authorities called “an unspecified medical problem.” While on Thursday, the gossip show Entertainment Tonight reported on its website that the “unspecified medical problem” was a rash, on Friday it seems that the details concerning her release have been cleared up a bit. And if Paris has a rash, I hope that’s cleared up too. Though the type of rash she would have doesn’t ever totally clear up. It goes away briefly and then flares up periodically. According to semi-reliable media reports early Friday morning, Paris refused to eat and cried for two days straight in her 12×8 foot cell in the “special needs” wing of the Century Regional Detention Facility in Los Angeles. Friday’s Akron Beacon-Journal cites a source who writes, “Paris was apparently suffering from severe panic attacks and depression, where she even became suicidal. Towards the end of her stay, Paris began what others call a nervous breakdown. Her psychiatrist was so concerned for her well-being they did everything possible to get her to a place which was comfortable for her and her health.” While Paris is accustomed to helping men get off, Thursday, Paris got off. Easy. She did what a little spoiled baby would do. She cried until nobody knew what to do with her and gave her what she wanted. Well you know what, Paris Hilton isn’t a baby. I’ve seen her sex tape. Babies don’t moan while they rub their nipples in front of a camera. Babies don’t answer their cell phones in the middle of having sex. And surely, babies don’t get drunk and weave down Hollywood streets in their Mercedes Benz. What’s more, her original sentence of 45 days had already been reduced to 23. She did 3. But authorities will have you know that she wasn’t “released,” she was “reassigned.” To her mansion where she’ll serve 40 more days in a bikini sipping frozen drinks by her pool. If you find yourself hating Paris Hilton for being the embodiment of the corruption of American values, just think about this– according to prison policy “All prisoners entering California’s Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood are subjected to a full strip and invasive search upon arrival.” I can only wonder what they found in there.

•MSNBC: Paris’ Release Creates Controversy
•Beacon-Journal: Jail Made Paris Sick
•Stuff: Paris Subjected to ‘Full Cavity Search’

Shanghai is good for a really weird story about once a week. This week, the “who” was a 40-year-old man with mental problems. The “what” was a hostage crisis. The “where” was a KFC on the corner of Yangliuqing Road and Wuning Road in downtown Shanghai. The “when” was between 3pm and 9:35pm on Wednesday. And the “why” I already said, the hostage taker was mental. For nearly 7 hours Shanghai police talked down a man who took a 3-year-old girl hostage who was eating lunch with her mother at KFC. The man grabbed the little girl and held her at knifepoint in the crappy plastic play area. The girl’s mother was evacuated from the restaurant during the hostage negotiation and the man’s family was called in to assist in convincing the crazy to let the girl go. Over 100 police and 800 spectators were on hand for the crisis. So what did the hostage taker demand? An airplane? No. A helicopter? Nope. The mental hostage taker requested two large bouquets of flowers and a taxi cab. At 9:34pm, police called on a sharpshooter to take out the hostage taker. A minute later the man was pronounced dead and the toddler was rescued by police (photo) and rushed to a local hospital. According to reports, the police carried out a quick and disciplined strike. The sharpshooter wasn’t just good, he was finger-lickin’ good.

•AP: Police Kill Child-Hostage Taker in China

Another June 4th has come and gone, and much to the displeasure of China, what happened at Tiananmen Square 18 years ago yesterday has not been forgotten. Many had hoped that the new China, the Olympic China, would do things a bit differently this year to show to the rest of the world that it is making strides to correct the the wrongs of its past and prove that that was then and this is now. Instead, China demonstrated yesterday that, as another year passes since the Beijing democracy riots of 1989, the nation’s leaders are still unwilling to own up to a tragedy and that the gap between reality and historical revision continues to grow wider.

According to media reports, June 4, 2007, began like all the anniversaries for the last 18 years. Authorities ordered increased security in Tiananmen Square to suppress potential protests, tourists gathered to observe the daily flag-raising ceremony and paramilitary police (photo) and plain-clothes officers patrolled the square listening in on conversations and snuffing out any public displays of commemoration to those victims of the 1989 “crackdown.” I will refrain from using the m-word. You know, the one that ends in “-assacre.” In Tiananmen Square Monday, there were no reports of protest.

The only place where China permits public commemoration of June 4th is Hong Kong, where in each of the 18 years since the crackdown, a mass candlelight vigil honors those who died in what China still calls the “counterrevolutionary riot.” As promised, when Hong Kong was handed to China in 1997, Beijing respects those civil liberties granted under British rule. In Victoria Park in downtown Hong Kong, thousands assembled to light candles. In an AP story that ran in the International Herald Tribune Monday, one attendee was quoted as saying, “The June 4th incident is a tragedy for China. We need to vindicate it.”

Perhaps the most interesting story concerning the Tiananmen anniversary occurred thousands of miles from Beijing in the Sichuan capital of Chengdu. On the lower right corner of page 14 in the Chengdu Evening News there was an ad that read, “Paying tribute to the strong-willed mothers of the June 4th victims.” The ad alluded to the most high-profile group dedicated to the memory of those killed in the riots, the Tiananmen Mothers.

For those that don’t know, the subject of the Tiananmen “crackdown” is by far the most taboo subject in China. Google was not allowed to operate its search engine in mainland China until the internet company agreed to remove information about Tiananmen Square. Likewise, the primary reason for the Wikipedia ban in China is that the open-source online encyclopedia refused to censor its content on the riots. The ad in the Chinese-language paper with a circulation of 200,000 represents a serious breach in China’s policy governing public acknowledgement of the event.

Chinese authorities questioned staff at the newspaper in an attempt to discover who posted the ad and if any journalists took a role in publishing the ad. An anonymous source told Reuters that the ad was placed by a local democratic activist.

The Tiananmen Mothers have been petitioning the Chinese government for years to issue an official report documenting the events of June 4, 1989 and give an official death count for the riot. Needless to say, this has not happened. In the eyes of China’s leaders, the military was justified in killing protestors in that the riots posed a threat to the state. In 2004, China’s President Hu Jintao said that the Tiananmen crackdown was a necessary measure to ensure the economic development and stability China enjoys today. And therein lies the disconnect between China and most other places. And therein lies the reason why human rights groups castigate China and question whether Beijing deserves to hold the 2008 Olympic Games. In the meantime, the world waits patiently for China to admit what really happened on June 4, 1989.

•AP: Tiananmen Square Survivors Seek Reform
•Reuters: China Investigates Tiananmen Newspaper Ad

With less than a year before the first 2008 presidential caucuses, the Democratic candidates were on display Sunday in their second televised debate from New Hampshire. And unlike their Republican counterparts, the debate was not dominated by scaring viewers shitless about “imminent threats,” “terrorist attacks” and “torture.” The Democrats slammed the Bush administration, discussed methods for withdrawal from Iraq, opined on education reform (not mentioned in the Republican debate), and uniformly rejected Bill Clinton’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for gays in the military. The debate was broadcast on CNN and moderated by the man with the most carefully-groomed beard in all of television news, Wolf Blitzer. The most interesting part of the debate for me was when the Wolfman asked the candidates whether or not they would support boycotting the 2008 Beijing Olympics if China did not change its policy regarding the Darfur genocide. Only New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and former Senator John Edwards raised their hands. Richardson, who traveled to Darfur in January, said of the potential Olympic boycott, “We need China, which has enormous leverage over Darfur. If the Chinese don’t want to do this, we say to them, maybe we won’t go to the Olympics.” Edwards, who seems to be more lost than ever when it comes to the issues, acknowledged support for the boycott saying, “We should use whatever tools are available.” Had I been one of the candidates, I would have asked Edwards, “are you available?” and then stuck my hand out to whomever was next to me for a high-five.

•AFP: US Democrats Demand New Foreign Policy