I don't really care...

But I had to blog about this.
Martha Stewart is a waste of good air, but the MSM seems infatuated with her.
So here's my less-than-mainstream contribution to the flow of crap about the amazing Martha.

Crime and Punishment, the Celebrity Version
By JONATHAN D. GLATER
New York Times
Published: March 6, 2005
As the conviction of Martha Stewart for lying to federal investigators worth the effort?
For her, "the last five months in Alderson, West Virginia has been life altering and life affirming," Ms. Stewart gushed in a statement on her Web site on Friday. She added, "Someday, I hope to have the chance to talk more about all that has happened, the extraordinary people I have met here and all that I have learned."
Prison, it seems, was a good thing. And that could present a problem for criminal law enforcement.
Punishing wrongdoing, the theory goes, has two primary goals: to penalize the wrongdoer and to deter potential wrongdoers. But in Ms. Stewart's case, it is not clear that either goal was achieved.
"It achieved everything the government wanted it not to achieve," said Nina Marino, a defense lawyer in Beverly Hills, Calif.
"From the government's perspective, the objective of incarceration is to punish someone, and I think that Martha Stewart has, ingeniously, instead of being punished turned it to her advantage."
Of course, Ms. Stewart is a most unusual ex-con; few have her public relations savvy or resources. "Stewart is very successful at spin," said Austin Sarat, a professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College. "The prison episode right from the beginning has been successfully spun."
Then, too, the negative impact of Ms. Stewart's conviction was mitigated by the nature of the crime. She was never criminally charged with insider trading, but rather with lying to investigators looking into a stock sale in December 2001.
To many, that just does not seem terribly heinous.
"We use prison too much and often for the wrong things," Mr. Sarat said. "And like anything else we use too much, and for the wrong things, it loses its currency."
Some rap musicians have for years burnished their street credibility through weapons possession charges or worse.
But Ms. Stewart has used prison to soften her image - to make her, in the public eye, a more sympathetic person than the perfectionist entertainer and executive she was seen to be before her sentence.
Conceivably, her success could subtly undermine the deterrent effect of a prison sentence, but that is neither here nor there, said David Becker, a former general counsel at the Securities and Exchange Commission who is now in private practice in Washington.
People go to prison and serve their time; once they have done so, they're through, Mr. Becker said.
"The criminal justice system is not about cleansing one's soul," he said.
So even if Ms. Stewart emerged from the Big House a hotter commodity than when she went in, justice could still have been served, Mr. Becker said. If nothing else, he suggested, Ms. Stewart has probably learned not to lie to federal investigators.
"I have to believe that confronted with the same circumstances she would act differently," he said.

In terms of real life-real news, I was in Lansing yesterday and Friday reffing the women's under-14 and under-19 state tournament.
There was some decent hockey, but allow me a moment to share a few observations.
There is a lot of stick work in women's hockey. Body checking is not allowed, and although there is a decent amount of contact, the girls have made up for the lack of checking with an amazingly high number of hooks, slashes, trips and cross-checks. It makes for busy referees.
The language is appalling, as well. In 30 years of hockey, I have never heard the foul language I heard this weekend come out of men. I can't figure that one out.
There's nothing more attractive than a 14-year-old girl turning to an opponent and spewing a string of vulgarities that would make any sailor blush.
Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?
Here's wishing you all a blessed Sunday.