So the $10 million Kardashian wedding is followed a couple of months later by a divorce. I hope this doesn't mean we are going to have to mourn America's lost innocence yet again. 

I read a fair amount of journalism, popping in at Google News several times throughout the day to see if there is some big story in progress. Since Google News shows you top stories based on the amount of traffic they're getting, there's a lot of trash in there. And it gives me a weird perspective: I know the names of many celebrities, and a bit about them, without having a clear idea of why they're celebrities. A movie or TV star appears on the scene, but I never see his or her movies or TV shows. Years go by, the star is married, divorced, has affairs, goes in and out of rehab--I learn all this from the headlines, yet still have never seen the things that made them famous in the first place, so their celebrity seems pretty arbitrary. With Kim Kardashian, it may really be arbitrary: there didn't even seem to be any movies, aside from a certain bit of home video, or other achievement. I know there are some young women named Kardashian, and that they seem to be--pardon the language, but it seems to be accurate--rich bimbos, and that they have a "reality" show on tv. But why? Where did they come from? Why are (some) people so interested in them? This is a weird country.