Kardashian's former nanny tells all!

The Kardashians' erstwhile nanny has written a memoir about her years with those wretches. No publisher yet.

The sons were obnoxious brats and she was almost fired for slapping them. Well, I wouldn't judge the children based on their conduct at that stage, and the nanny shouldn't be hitting people, either. In case you think corporal punishment might have been beneficial to the horrible Kardashian children, I recall Sharon Osbourne telling an employee who was going somewhere with Jack that "You can smack him if you need to." Hitting didn't do him any good.

Well, as I said before, these reality shows are all about rich people who don't deserve to be rich. In other words, they're about rich people. The genre reached its zenith with My Super Sweet Sixteen.

I have seen reality shows about poor people. There was one, made by MTV. Maybe the kid filmed it himself. It was a young fellow with his parents who looked older that they should have. At one point, they tell him that they won't be around forever and they want him to be able to support himself.

"That's why I'm doing this! So I can be a star!"

The parents burst out in what seemed to be completely genuine cackling laughter. The MTV editors cut in a shot of the young man obviously filmed at a different time hanging his head.

Of course, the whole thing might have been pieced together in the editing room. I don't remember if it was all filmed in one shot.

Is there anything terribly wrong with this? Is it wrong for people to set out to become YouTube celebrities? Does the fact that there's money involved make it better or worse?

There does seem to be an inverse relationship between making money and social approval when it comes to kids in these things. People are outraged when kids go into acting, appearing in TV commercials or whatever and actually making money. But they don't mind the kids working for weeks, going through grueling rehearsals, to be in some lousy stage play for free. They approve completely of stuff like clog dancing, but not a performing art that people might actually want to see.

That seems to be whole theory behind school music programs. They play classical music and jazz, two of the least popular genres in terms of CD sales. And people approve of it completely because it's a way of making sure kids never try to become musicians.