Like Son, Like Mother

Amy Austin | February 9, 2007
I really don't know what else to say but "what?!?!?"

Despite her trashy tabloid & "reality TV" image, I still find this rather shocking and tragic... I guess there will always be that breed of "Live Fast, Die Young (and Leave a Good-Looking Corpse)" around -- I just really did not expect it from her.

Tony Peters | February 9, 2007
Cocaine and TrimSpa Diet works

Mike Eberhart | February 9, 2007
Totally shocked by this!!!! (note: sarcasm)

Anna Gregoline | February 9, 2007
I *AM* really shocked by the insensitive comments I see everywhere about this. She was no angel or role model, but sometimes I wish people could wait more than five seconds after someone dies to snark about them. She was a person. And was loved. And now has a daughter that will grow up without her mom.

Tony Peters | February 9, 2007
sorry you feel that way....when I was told she died I wasn't surprised at all. The woman was a train wreak. I'm actually more surprised that she lived as long as she did. That she died at an Indian Casino is just more telling.

Mike Eberhart | February 9, 2007
I actually think this is probably the best thing for her baby. At least this way the kid won't get screwed up by her mother's complete incompetence. This chick looks like she's been drugged out for the last 5 years or so anyway. I agree with Tony on this one, it is amazin she lasted as long as she did.

Jackie Mason | February 10, 2007
[hidden by request]

Kris Weberg | February 10, 2007
Someone died! Let's all make fun! That'll show ol'....deady!

Tony Peters | February 10, 2007
not making fun of it I'm actually rather annoyed that this is considered news especially considering the real news that's being ignored

Mike Eberhart | February 10, 2007
I'm not making fun of anyone. I just don't consider this news. How many times does this exact same thing happen to other people and you never hear about it. It's already turning into a circus. Now there's 3 guys claiming to be the father of her baby. Give me a break. They are just after the billion dollars the kid is about to inherit. It's getting old already.

Kris Weberg | February 10, 2007
In the four comments by Tony and Mike that I was responding to all the both of you did was talk about the woman herself.

To wit:

Tony: Cocaine and TrimSpa Diet works.

sorry you feel that way....when I was told she died I wasn't surprised at all. The woman was a train wreak. I'm actually more surprised that she lived as long as she did. That she died at an Indian Casino is just more telling

Mike:Totally shocked by this!!!! (note: sarcasm)

I actually think this is probably the best thing for her baby. At least this way the kid won't get screwed up by her mother's complete incompetence. This chick looks like she's been drugged out for the last 5 years or so anyway. I agree with Tony on this one, it is amazin she lasted as long as she did.

But feel free to go back to their wording and point out the sections of their earlier comments that mention or discuss the disproportionate news coverage, and I'll happily retract my criticism.

Tony Peters | February 11, 2007
one of the nice parts of living outside the USA for years is that news of this nature is something I never saw...for me it ranks up there with American Idol, Survivor, reality TV and the rest of the B-list not news clutter that seems to have become important in the years I've been gone. Yup its cynical, sarcastic and probably a bit crass but I fail to see why it's important. Yes she died but so did a number of people in Iraq and that news or how we got into that war in the first place gets less play than how this woman died or who the father of her baby is. I'll step out of this conversation now

Amy Austin | February 12, 2007
Hm. I didn't know this topic would create such a stir... especially for something so un-newsworthy!

No offense, Tony & Mike, but I don't see anyone here bringing up the issues that they feel we "ought" to be discussing over the death of "ol' deady" (Kris, you kill me sometimes) -- not that I expect you to know what they are, what with all the inordinate amounts of Anna Nicole coverage!

Maybe it isn't really all that "shocking" -- her cousin said that she was "shocked, but maybe not so surprised"... which might be more the effect I was feeling when I started it. I guess that I still just find it tragic... no more so than anyone else's untimely death, I suppose -- but I don't know as much about the everyday people to whom it happens (and thank God, because that would just be too depressing!), and for that reason, I thought it worth mentioning... as I did with Steve Irwin (another premature death of a famous figure which brought about similar controversy regarding the "shock value"). Tragic for different, but also similar, reasons: they were, perhaps the antithesis of one another in spirit -- Steve, a successful and always joyous/smiling TV personality, and Anna, a "poor little rich girl"/underdog/bumpkin/however you see it, but always sad/smiling TV personality -- and both left behind bereaved loved ones, including those young enough to be potentially so for years to come.

To paraphrase someone from another forum: It is always saddening when a young person dies. Whether one agrees with how that person lived his/her life is immaterial. Death is a leveling experience. I don't mean that jokingly. I mean all the petty or not so petty "stuff" in our lives does not matter one whit at that point. Death is so very tragic/hard to deal with for the family and friends. While some death (lengthy irrecoverable illness) is a blessing, Anna Nicole's was a tragedy for herself, her baby, and her family.

"Leveling" also in that it doesn't matter who you are -- it will happen to us all, whether we are drunken bimbos who do it at 39 or Mother Theresa. Either way, it's still pretty sad.

Steve Dunn | February 12, 2007
Sometimes death is funny! Here's proof.

Amy Austin | February 13, 2007
Okay, Steve... you got me. ;-)

Jackie Mason | February 14, 2007
[hidden by request]

Kerry Odell | February 14, 2007
Wow...2 snarky quotes come to mind as I read this thread - both equally tasteless and offensive.

1. Ding dong the witch is dead.
2. Much ado about nothing.

Hmmm...she was famous, a gold digger (or so it seems), willing to sell her body for money (i didn't say sex, but then again we go back to gold digger) and so on. 3 men claim to be her baby's mother, so she obviously isn't a paragon of virtue.

What I find tragic in this situation is the baby's life being overshadowed by her mother's indiscretions and the custody and inheritance battle that will ensue. Add to that the fact that she and other famous people are catapulted to hero status in this country and the real heroes often go unsung and unnoticed.

My hero is not a sports star, a gansta rapper, an actor or musician. It's not Oprah Winfrey, Mother Theresa, or Franklin D Roosevelt.

It is someone who was willing to help people in their time of need, made a career of nursing ill people back to health, and stepped into my life when my dad opted out. My hero is my grandmother, who turned 83 this past Thanksgiving. She has sacrificed and given to others her whole life. Now that she can't drive any more and grows frail with the passage of time, I have the privilege of doing for her what she had done for me.

Anna Nicole's death for me is neither tragic nor newsworthy, but the media doesn't agree. They should let her rest in peace and let the rest of her family go on with their lives and the 3 prospective dad's settle the question once and for all.

Scott Hardie | February 19, 2007
Forgive me for coming on so harshly, but I refuse to call the death of our national dumbass a "tragedy." Up until she died, she was a laughingstock of a public figure, taking her clothes off and acting retarded so we could feel bemused and superior. Now she overdoses and becomes Saint Anna of the tragic death? No fucking way, I'm sorry. Yeah it's sad when someone dies young, especially after losing a son, but let's keep this in perspective; we didn't exactly lose a contributing member of society here. Let's save the term "tragedy" for the 9/11s and tsunamis of the world. Anna Nicole is more "tragic comedy" than tragedy.

To be fair to ol' deady, she apparently did love the geezer. Their relationship started years before they got married, when she already had a six-figure fortune in the bank, and the estate court found sufficient evidence to rule that she did indeed love him. I'll give her that benefit of the doubt.

Kris, I'm surprised by your apparent stance against speaking ill of the dead. After the death of Ronald Reagan, you went to great lengths to denounce him in this forum, and that was before a server glitch ate half the discussion. (link) What's the difference between then and now? That your Reagan comments were serious instead of joking? That Reagan was an elected official instead of a sexpot and reality TV star? I was bothered at the time that a revered public figure with a sweeping positive influence on the planet was subject to scathing criticism in the days after he died, the one time if no other when ideological opponents ought to show respect, but it doesn't bother me in the least that Tony and Mike make jokes after the death of a national clown who lived her trailer park dream. There's no respect due.

Kris Weberg | February 20, 2007
I'd argue that therte's a difference between a lengthy, mixed critique of a high-level politician on policy grounds and the ridicule of a fool made a celebrity by the media. It's the difference between criticism and simple mockery. Saying that the accomplishm ents attributed to Reagan's presidency aren't all they're cracked up to be is a far cry from calling a dead woman a "national clown who lived her trailer park dream" or a "train wreak [sic]."

Taking shots at Anna Nicole Smith at this point is just too damned easy, and frankly pretty insignificant; critiquing Reagan's political legacy, one which plenty of politicians today would at least claim to be modeling themselves upon, has something to do with something beyond the pleasant feeling of standing in righteous judgement over one's putative inferiors.

But as strident a defense as that is, I'll also freely admit a streak of contrarianism -- if everyone is revering Reagan, I'll tend to puncture it; if everyone is bashing Anna Nicole, I'll tend to argue that bashing is uncalled for. If that makes me a hypocrite, it makes me a hypocrite. But it's always nice to at least consider the other side of the story, so long as the other side of the story doesn't involve the justificationb of atrocities. (There is, for example, no point in considering, say, Ted Bundy's side of serial killing.)

Scott Hardie | February 22, 2007
Who says death can't be funny?

Scott Hardie | February 23, 2007
I apologize if my comment (first paragraph) was too harsh. I didn't mean it as a personal reply to any one person or point, except Amy's correct point that it's sad when someone dies young. I hear "tragic" being used everywhere to describe Smith's death, and I just can't fathom someone who's the butt of jokes one day being held so highly the next. This subject has unexpectedly become something of a national raw nerve, so I hope the general silence isn't a sign I hurt someone's feelings.

With this event dominating the national news and the national discourse, I know some people who have been thinking about old friends and family who have lost touch, and been contacted by those same people out of the blue, as though this news story has somehow reconnected us. It's almost like post-9/11 again with the American flags in everybody's windows, but instead with Anna Nicole on everybody's TV screens. It's a tabloid-ready, white-Bronco brand of shared national consciousness, but damn if it doesn't seem to be happening.

Amy Austin | February 23, 2007
Well, I'm not hurt... I didn't give much thought to using the word "tragic" -- it is cliche -- but I do agree with much of what Kris said on the matter. Also, I brought the subject up only a moment after learning of it myself (at 4 in the morning, which was well within 24 hours of it even happening... about 14, I believe); and now that the topic has had a full 2 weeks to stew in the news, I have to admit to Anna overload as well (and I really didn't see it coming, believe it or not -- unlike, I suppose, Mike & Tony, who apparently saw way more coverage than I at a very early juncture?), but I also thought that the "news" fatigue being expressed in a mere 2 days was a bit much.

Is it sensationalism at its worst? Yeah. But face it... gossip (esp. that of the "celebrity" variety) will always beat out the "real" news when it comes to viewership and ratings. (And hey... can we really criticize? It sure gives us a lot of fodder for playing Goo!)

Kris Weberg | February 23, 2007
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee. -- John Donne

Grief is a species of idleness. -- Samuel Johnson

I did not attend his funeral, but I wrote a nice letter saying I approved it. -- Mark Twain

What bereaved people need is a little comic relief, and this is why funerals are so farcical. -- George Bernard Shaw

Pick the one you like, I guess. (Hint: If you pick the Donne, you may be a dork.)

Amy Austin | February 23, 2007
Well put, Kris. (Are you a dork? ;-D Can we start the "...You May Be A Dork" a la Jeff Foxworthy discussion now???)

Kris Weberg | February 26, 2007
Yes; and for having to ask, so are you.