About five minutes into "The Simple Life" on Fox, I had to look away, look away, Dixieland. Paris Hilton and Nicole ("I AM black!") Richie trying to navigate backroad Arkansas in a squeaky pickup truck... the sweet Leder family swigging their pollypop from plastic cups... the cows wondering whose French manicure is caressing their udders. Something about this reality show was just too, too embarrassing. Watching it, I was embarrassed for the rich girls, for the host family, for the cows, horses, fireflies -- all creatures great and small being exploited in the name of entertainment. Paris and Nicole, in their teetery 2,000-dollar shoes and butt-skimming jeans, looked like freaks from a planet far, far away from real American life. The Leders, a normal heartland family working hard to hustle fresh milk to the masses, are in the position of having their everyday-ness held in contrast to the ridiculous, materialistic fluff that Paris Hilton and her little friend call existence. And who wouljd we rather have as next-door neighbors? The Leders? Or Paris and her film crew? She's a symbol of all that is terribly, horribly wrong with American society in 2003. She reps all the wrong values, all the vacuousness that the young folk seem to revere. And now that I feel like a sad old fart, I'll sign off and go watch "The Andy Griffith Show."