I see the tree, but I don't see the connection.

WILMINGTON, North Carolina - Traffic was backed up and police were called to control the crowd after a Wilmington gas station accidentally set the pump price at 35 cents a gallon. The Wilmington Star-News reported Friday that hundreds of drivers flooded a BP station for the cheap gas after the price dropped around 9 a.m. Thursday. Station employee Shane Weller said the price for premium gasoline was supposed to be $3.35 a gallon. He complained that customers paid the cheaper price all day without saying a word.
It was all the extra traffic that led station employees to the mistake around 6 p.m. They found it after calling their district manager, looking for permission to changing the price as a way of stemming the flow of customers.

That's the ancillary effect of the cellular telephone. In the late 1970s, when gasoline was an obscene 65 cents a gallon, and there was rationing and people complained, there was no way to find out about a dumbass gas station attendant undercharging motorists. Now, however, dumbass behavior is a phone call away.

MOTORIST: Hey, Llewellyn ... there's thirty-five cent gasoline in Wilmington!

LLEWELLYN: Get the fuck out!

MOTORIST (Llewellyn's cousin by marriage): No kidding. Some dumbass is charging thirty-five cents for gas. 'Member that Shane from high school? The stupid ass that couldn't get that shop-class lamp to work? Well, he's got the price all fucked up. Get-chur-ass on over here a-right-quick-like.

LLEWELLYN: OK. First, I gotta find a baby sitter for little Llewellyn junior and somebody to get this Goddammed dog offa me. Save me a space!

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ROME (Reuters) - She had no desire to be just another smiling face in Italian politics. So when porn star Milly D'Abbraccio designed her campaign posters, it was obvious she was going to show off her bottom. Targeting her male fan base, the veteran of Italy's adult entertainment industry has plastered images of her derriere all around the Eternal City in a bid to win a seat in Rome's city hall. If elected, D'Abbraccio wants to create a red light area with strip clubs, erotic discos and sex shops called "Love City" just kilometers away from the Vatican. "It would be something cute, clean -- nothing to do with prostitution," said the actress whose films include "The Kiss of the Cobra" and "Paolina Borghese, Imperial Nymphomaniac."

It occurs to me that the term "star" is a bit over-used these days. First, we're stuck with the "Dancing With the Stars", where the "stars" have to be Googled to find out what they're famous for - if anything. Then, it's the cliche porn star moniker that really doesn't mean anything.

If one is a "star", then one should be accepted by mainstream America. We're told that pornography is a billion(plus) dollar a year business, yet your best friends will never admit to watching it. It's the social equivalent of Asian massage. The business would not exist if it didn't have customers, yet nobody admits to using it. So, what is it? These businesses aren't charity organizations, so someone must be using them.

Maybe Milly really is a star. I don't know, because I'll never get anyone to admit to knowing who she is or admitting to watching her films. That's a shame, because everyone knows who Meryl Streep is, even if you don't like her. Pornography is the last vestige of private behavior, and since the advent of home video, nobody has to admit to watching it. We never see them in public and the rental stores have those louvered doors so that we won't know who's in there.

That's the way we like it. We freely admit to being sexual creatures and sell drugs to enhance it, but when it comes down to it, we'll never admit to being aroused by anything like pornography. We won't call our friends and tell them about some hot new sex video we saw as quickly as we would about 35-cent gasoline, even though both of them might excite us, albeit in different ways.

We might get a little chubby over the cheap gas and the hot pussy, but only one elicits a phone call and a big line to get more.

What's wrong with us?