anna nicole, we knew ye well... a little TOO well...

i had just about decided i didnt want to fool with this, seeing as how there have been more than enough posts on the subject. my favorite so far... "go and sin some more" by timmy brister over at provocations & pantings. but this isnt really about anna nicole smith, but rather the obscenely lurid coverage of her death and all that's gone with it.

i'm not a fan of CNN. i have respected and enjoyed fox news. i'm rather ambivalent about many of the other news outlets... print, broadcast or online. but to all i'd like to say, "ENOUGH ALREADY!!" as much publicity as anna nicole generated while she was alive (and without any hard stats to back this up) i really believe she's generated far more buzz in death. i know she was a pop culture icon, and as such there was bound to be more than a passing interest in the details surrounding her death, but i first had a notion to pursue this when i saw these 2 headlines at yahoo news on february 18: "embalming of anna nicole smith's body begins" and several hours later that day: "anna nicole smith embalming completed." was the world really on the edge of its seat waiting to find out when the formaldehyde was turned on and off? we didnt even get that much information at the passing of the likes of princess diana, ronald reagan or steve irwin for cryin out loud.

for better or worse, i decided to rant about the AFA first, and then i kind of lost interest in this... until that joke of a hearing down in florida, presided over by the extremely wacky larry seidlin, the "cryin' judge." even though he managed to cram one day of testimony into four, the main reason he probably did so much weeping is because his time in the limelight barely amounted to 15 SECONDS of fame compared to judge lance ito's 15 minutes of fame during the oj simpson trial. i have 2 words for judge seidlin: BOOK DEAL. although considering how quickly he'll fade from public view, it'll be more like a pamphlet.

i really dont understand what difference it makes where anna nicole's body decays anyway. i may be missing something here, but i did develop an aversion to gravesite visits back in my childhood when we used to go visit various grandparents' graves every sunday after mass. we'd stop and buy flowers... or flags if veteran's day or 4th of july was coming up... and we'd always have to kneel and pray. i understand that was a catholic thing (having to do with purgatory no doubt), but here's the deal... THERE'S NOBODY IN THERE! that wasnt my grandfather in that hole, and that isnt anna nicole in that refrigerator in the morgue. whether they bury her in texas, the bahamas or the front yard of the playboy mansion, i just didnt get why that was so newsworthy.

and that mother of hers... you never heard 2 words out of her while her daughter was alive and wrecking her life until it was way too late. but now she wants to make a public spectacle over her departed daughter's remains. and as long as the media enables these folks, they'll stay in the limelight, too. i dont claim to know her mother's heart or motives, and she may not be a publicity hound at all, but now is not the time to be fighting for anna nicole... the time for that has come and gone. hopefully, she'll put half the effort into being some kind of positive influence in her granddaughter's life.

a little confession time here... its been a long-standing practice of mine - since i became a Christian - to pray for celebrities, among them johnny carson, madonna and howard stern (not howard k. stern, companion and lawyer to anna nicole, but howard stern of radio shock jock fame). there's no way to catch them all, but i was aware enough of anna nicole smith that she should have been on my prayer list, but she wasnt. btw, i think many Christians have adopted an "us vs. them" mentality when it comes to hollywood, the music industry, politicians, etc. i remember a good friend of mine in northeast mississippi, who is an area director for an athletics-based para-church fellowship, who had a conversation with the head of a national "Christian family values" association who was organizing a march or rally against homosexuals in washington DC a number of years ago. my friend asked this man, who also happens to be an ordained methodist minister, if he ever considered praying for these folks. his reply was: "you pray for them, i'm marching against them!" for what its worth, to me its hard to dislike someone if you're praying for them.

the glimmer of hope in all this... when i read the comments on timmy brister's "go and sin some more" post, i came across a link to a very interesting video clip... anna nicole professing Christ as Lord and Savior back in 1999. she seemed rather ditzy, though more coherent than she was toward the end of her life... of course this touched off another firestorm of controversy in the subsequent comments, but i suppose we'll never really know anna nicole's eternal destiny this side of heaven, will we.

but back to my point ( i did have one, didnt i?). oh yeah... the major media outlets are fast losing any shred of credibility they may have once had, fox news (my personal favorite) included. if they'd quit giving these camera-happy wanna-be's the time of day, i think they'd all just go away, and maybe a little dignity could be restored to the whole death part of living.

in the meantime, i hope you'll join me in putting britney spears and her family on your prayer list (really). she's beginning to look for all the world like the next big post-mortem tabloid headline. what a tragedy it would be if that came to pass.