THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT...

Does anyone out there still think celebrities are treated anything like we more-normal folks? Those naive few of you just need to read the following post to understand that while freedom, liberty and the Bill of Rights are all great things to have and flash-around when bragging to (or threatening) other countries, simple CELEBRITY and/or MONEY are the best things to have in-hand for certain situations, like when you switch jobs, when you need to rent an apartment or when you get popped for DUI (and we're not talking about you-know-who, his own anti-Semitic self).

First, the hiring of Alan Mulally at FoMoCo as their new chief executive decision-maker. We think in the long run this could be a good thing for Ford and all their employees and for we as consumers, too. But did you read about the compensation package Bill Ford arranged for his buddy Alan? The package which went into effect September 1, 2006, a full week before his hiring was even announced (and Ford's stepping down revealed).  Ford was working free-of-charge; his family's stock ownership in the company (and scores of others, certainly) had already made him a millionaire hundreds of times over the second he was born. His great-great-grandfather Henry founded the company, after all. Handy Trivia Factoid: FoMoCo lost $7.32 million EVERY DAY Bill Ford was chairman.

Here's Mulally's package, evidently approved quickly (and quietly) by FoMoCo's Board of Directors from the NY TIMES: As Ford Motor Co.'s new chief executive, Alan Mulally is staring down a long road as he seeks to turn around the ailing auto giant. But two weeks into the job, he'll be able to bank the lion's share of the $20.5 million he will receive in the first year.

That amounts to $56,164.38 for each day of the year. Mulally, who spent 36 years at Boeing Co., will draw a base pay of $2 million a year in his new job. In the first year, he will receive a $7.5-million signing bonus and a lump sum of $11 million to offset bonuses and stock options he forfeited by quitting his job as head of Boeing's commercial aircraft division.

The 61-year-old executive's pay was disclosed Friday, September 8, 2006,  in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing by Ford.

World at an end yet?

OK, try this one on for size:

Rupert Murdoch, the Australian who was granted US citizenship by, literally, an Act of Congress (it's good to have friends) and the man behind News Corp, which means all the FOX networks and much of the delivery systems for NASCAR, had to find a living space while his $44 million apartment/palace in Manhattan was being upgraded. Never one to shortchange the boss, the company has been paying $50,000 A MONTH for Murdoch's make-do domicile, also in NYC.  Murdoch, in a briefing filed with the USA's Security and Exchange Commission, the $50K/month comes on top of other compensation worth $25.7 million --- $4.5 million in salary and another $21.2 million in bonuses.

And Murdoch doesn't live just 'anywhere', no, he is temporarily ensconced in a penthouse in a Trump Park Avenue building on Manhattan's Upper East Side (near to Lincoln Center, the Time Warner building, etc.). Incidentally, Roger Ailes, who runs FOX NEWS and FOX TV Stations for Murdoch, gets $8.3 million annually in salary, $77,243 for personal security and $124,020 for a car and personal driver.

Crazy yet? Imagine --- Mulally at Ford makes over $56,000 a day! Does anyone have any right at all to make THAT MUCH MONEY? I guess so, but you'd have to prove it pretty strongly to me, when plenty of homeless and hungry in NYC and Los Angeles (where our next crime takes place) make their residences a cardboard box, if they are lucky. Food and health care? Fuhggedabuttit!

Last, and certainly least, but not if you're under 25 years old and are into our Culture of Celebrity, Paris Hilton gets arrested for Driving Under the Influence in Los Angeles. Her press flack, Elliot Mintz, who worked for decades for John Lennon and Yoko Ono (my how he has fallen ... this George Hamilton-wannabe --- check his tan and '50s clothing and affectations --- tells the breathless media outside the LAPD station (Hollywood Division, natch) that Paris had not eaten all day and was weak from hunger. Puuu-ll-ease! Unless you are diabetic, I can not imagine losing control because of being hungry! In a tough, in-depth, hard-hitting interview the next morning with Ryan Seacrest (another no-talent celeb) on KIIS-FM radio, Paris was sobered up, evidently, and told Ryan she WAS NOT ARRESTED! I guess a misdemeanor dopes not count to Ryan and his audience of 15-year-old squealing teeny-boppers, because she certainly was arrested, booked and released on 'her own recognizance.

She also told Seacrest (can you imagine the IQ level with these two in a room? They wouldn't be able to find the door knob between the two of them!) that she had just left a dinner meeting with her sister when she got pulled-over by the cops. DINNER APPOINTMENT?!?! Wasn't she and her flack telling the world she had NOT EATEN all day?

And what did Paris tell Ryan's listening audience she was doing that car? She was "looking for an 'In-N-Out'", the legendary (and rightfully so) hamburger drive-throughs located in So Cal, Arizona and Nevada ONLY. Paris forgot, we guess, that she spent more than a year recently pimping "Carl's Jr" hamburgers!

Ryan needs to learn to ask a question or two, and now that his teenaged listeners figure it is COOL to drive around LA drunk, he needs to apologize to the public, too.

End of world, soon.