The big, important news is, of course, the death of a gold-digging addlepated model (I’m sorry that she’s dead, but really…it’s not something worth flogging over and over on the news), so the feature on atheism that CNN was going to show has been bumped to Friday.
Unless somebody in programming gets a yen for accordion music, I think.
Re Anna Nicole Smith.
Prof. Myers is so naive. The purpose of the cable so-called news outlets is to attract viewers and the late Ms. Smith will attract far more viewers then Richard Dawkins or even Christopher Hitchens.
I’m sure if Dawkins would just agree to dress a little sexier, or shell out for some plastic surgery, he’d definitely move up in CNN’s batting order. Plus, the next book jacket would look great…
Uh.. Who is ‘Anna Nicole Smith’, and why is she important?
You say “gold-digging” as though it was a bad thing. Are you a communist or something?
Well, I won’t be watching CNN tonight now. I was so looking forward to seeing Richard Dawkins too.
CNN missed their opportunity: “Coming up next — what we know about the death of Anna Nicole Smith — and ATHEISM!”
If you want to watch a Richard Dawkins documentary titled “The God Delusion”…link here:
http://www.thoughttheater.com
llewelly:
She’s not important, and the less you know about her, the better.
Prepare yourselves for another “Diana Is Dead!” type week in the media. Too bad Ms Smith isn’t on life support or the ghouls could have made it last for months.
They could have combined the stories:
‘Anna Nicole Smith is dead. And so is God, introducing Richard Dawkins…’
Ashley Moore:
Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.
We’re only a couple hours into the ANS sotry, and the all lights on the MSM switchboard are blown up. This is proof media deregulation is BS with regard to their reporting actually getting better.
I suppose this sort of last-minute “schedule realignment” is to be expected; it’s still unbelievable though how shameless they can be.
maybe they’re hoping that by friday the interest will have died down?
It’s only 15 min. into the program, and already I’ve heard a comparison to Marylin Monroe.
Not. Even. Close.
Well at least it knocked that astronaut off the front pages.
Lucky there isn’t a war on or anything else important.
Stay tuned to see those famous intellectuals Glenn Beck, Larry King and Nancy Grace provide their expert opinion on this important story.
(I’ll be watching Olbermann. I’m sure he will cover this story- but at least he will talk about some other stuff during the hour.)
There’s an old joke about the priest who said, “I’m the humblest man in this room, and I’m proud of it!” I find myself in rather the same position when I say (hopefully without too much boastfulness) that I have no clue who this Anna Nicole person is and couldn’t tell you if my testicles depended on it. Quite literally, all I know is what PZ said in this very post. I can gather that, before she was entropically enabled and converted into worm food, she probably had intimate commerce with Paris Hilton and/or Britney Spears while dusted with cocaine powder like she was a blood-spattered tire iron being tested for fingerprints.
re: llewelly:
Uh.. Who is ‘Anna Nicole Smith’, and why is she important?
Easy. She is a celebrity because she is a celebrity. Let us have a symbolic second of silence to honor her life, a life not devoted to perfection of her craft or humanitarian efforts, but to the act of being a symbol!
Come now. Everyone’s being so dismissive. Aren’t we overlooking the vital sociopolitical and geopolitical ramifications of this startling new development?
CNN is entirely justified in devoting the days they will undoubtedly spend on this vital and developing story… Why, the death of Ms. Smith will have an enormous impact on… umm… on… ummm…
Well, y’know. It’s gonna put a much heavier burden on Paris Hilton. And Britney. Poor dears. Someone’s gotta fill up the new gaps this is gonna open up in the celebrity fluff slots on E! and their ilk… And… umm…
Okay. Ya got me. Lower image traffic on the net… leading to reduced sales in network gear?
New openings in soft core net porn for the up and coming?
An emerging market for Marilyn Monroe look alike… look alikes?
i think any bit of news would have served as an excuse to displace the piece.
“There’s an old joke about the priest who said, ‘I’m the humblest man in this room, and I’m proud of it!'”
Yeah, that’s an old one, as in Old Testament.
“Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth.” -Numbers 12:3
(The book of Numbers is traditionally considered to have been authored by Moses.)
Authorities pronounced Anna Nicole Smith “stupid” a long time ago.
What did Ms. Smith die of? What caused her demise? Is she really dead, or only resting? She is an ex Ms. Smith now?
What bothers me is that until the ME releases his/her report, there’s really no “NEWS” to report (barring the emergence of an eye-witness or some other such bombshell)… so we’re left with endless speculation, conjecture, and hypothesis.
The power of round-the-clock news, and this is what we do with it?
“I am jack’s complete lack of surprise.”
The reality TV star, Playboy Playmate and former Guess model was 39.
A couple of Google image searches reveal that she was indeed a Playboy model at some point.
Daniel DiRito:
That’s the documentary Dawkins did for Channel 4 in Britain called “The Root of All Evil?”
“Unless somebody in programming gets a yen for accordion music, I think.”
First, you insult creationists, then Scott Adams, then Anna Nicole Smith, and now accordionists!
Where will it end? Have you no shame, sir?
The email I got from CNN said it had been rescheduled for Monday, Feb. 12.
Yes, coverage of a minor celebrity’s death (however tragic and pointless) takes away time need to cover truly major stories, like how upset Republicans are about Speaker Pelosi being given access to military transports for her trips between D.C. and home. Who does she think she is, anyway? Denny Hastert?
Of course, the GOP is concerned about global warming now, since Pelosi lives in California and requires cross-country flights while Hastert is from the Midwest. (Actually, factoring in the difference in size between them, fuel consumption probably comes out about the same per Speaker.)
H. Humbert wrote:
“”Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth.” -Numbers 12:3
(The book of Numbers is traditionally considered to have been authored by Moses.)”
Ha! That’s awesome. A bit more than half as awesome as “This sentence is false.”
It’s really quite disgusting how infatuated many Americans are with the lives of celebrities. They really just need to focus on their own lives and stop worrying about someone they’ll probably never meet.
Oh, why don’t you all get off your high horses. “I don’t know who she is,” etc.. Yes, you’re all so intellectual you couldn’t be bothered to know anything common. Sheesh.
Here’s a quick journalism lesson for you– Feature on atheism (or anything) = what you run when NOTHING ELSE HAS HAPPENED. Because, let’s face it– you can do this any old time. Dawkins is probably willing to wear a CNN pager, and wait in the lobby until he’s told to come be interviewed.
On the other hand, when a 39-year old former stripper worth billions of dollars who went to the Supreme Court last year with a chest out to HERE dies suddenly and unexpectedly, that’s called NEWS. Unless there’s a war on– and by this, I mean a NEW war– dead strippers worth billions are big headlines.
Is Pharyngula a science blog? You are so predictable…I just knew you were going to whine about this one!
Kinda flattering for Dr. Dawkins. He must have smashed whoever interviewed him to bits. First they cut his segment from 20 minutes to 4, then they hired a hitman* to take out Anna Nichole (like when a secondary character dies on a TV show– not a big deal, but enough to cover a show or two).
*official Oklahoma conspiracy, certified by +3 OK Atheists Members :P
Just stopping by to make sure everyone knew that Paula Zahn does this kind of stuff on her show a lot.
I’m in the process of adopting from China and earlier this year she did a show about the topic and had panelists who knew nothing about adoption who got on the show and basically said that people who adopt from China are racists.
I didn’t see the anti-atheist show, but I believe one of the panelists was also on the anti-peoplewhoadoptfromchina show also. Reading all the posts about this feels like a deja-vu from when she did this with adoption.
There was a huge response from the adoption community – apparently thousands of emails were sent in. A few days later they covered the topic again – but honestly they didn’t do much better. I wouldn’t expect them to do any better with atheists.
It seems to me that she doesn’t care about the accuracy of anything on the show and just wants to create controversy – and get the publicity from it.
(I wonder how she would feel about people who adopt from China and are also atheists? ;) )
“Ha! That’s awesome. A bit more than half as awesome as “This sentence is false.””
Well, since we’re on the topic of Bible nonsense and you mentioned the Liar Paradox (“This statement is false.”), it’s interesting to note that Epimenides had a version of the paradox in which he stated that Cretans always lie all the time (the paradox being that Epimenides himself was a Cretan). St. Paul was apparently oblivious to the liar paradox, and interpreted it instead as an ethnic slur on Cretans, which he agreed with and wrote into the bible:
Even one of their own Prophets has said, “Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.” This testimony is true. Therefore, rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the commands of those who reject the truth. (Titus 1:12-14)
Despite ostensibly being divinely inspired, Paul clearly showed an ignorance of the point of Epimenides’ rhetorical claim. The moral of the story: Paul was an idiot.
But then most of you knew that already. =P
“It’s only 15 min. into the program, and already I’ve heard a comparison to Marylin Monroe.
Not. Even. Close.”
No kidding. I had no idea that they switched Dawkins off the program. I just thought that they’d be tacking it on at the end, like they said they did before. So I waded through a good chunk of that crap they called journalism waiting for even a modest “and later on tonight, Richard Dawkins will talk with us.” Of course. Hopelessly naive about CNN. Instead we got to hear about a man who dated her and said that kissing her was like kissing an angel or some such, and that she was “our generation’s Marilyn Monroe.” Complete and utter trash.
And I do feel so bad for Olbermann (I was flipping between them, mostly watching Countdown) and that he had to devote the last and first segment of his show to this useless story. But at least he DID talk about something substantative, as always.
it’s really quite sad you know, anna nicole smith lived the last several years in the spot light, and today , when she dies, there is really nothing new to say about her. meanwhile, how many u.s. soldiers died in iraq today? young men and women who we never knew, and who we will never have heard of except maybe a name, and place of birth in the death rolls on the news. how many hours will be devoted to reviewing a life already over-exposed compared to the seconds given to those lives just beginning? maybe the local papers will devote a few paragraphs to a native son/daughter lost, with remembrances of friends, or family, a brief snapshot of a good student, good friend, a good kid…….
we know what we lost, when anna nicole died, some tabloid headlines, some cheesecake photos…
i am sorry for the loss of any life, and my condolences go out to ms. smiths family. but how much time must we devote to a life already examined in minute detail?
and how many iraqi civilians have died today? names we will never know, lives we will never glimpse, hopes, dreams, and potential we will never even imagine existed? gone. and who will comment on them? how much time will t.v. devote to their loss?
They really just need to focus on their own lives and stop worrying about someone they’ll probably never meet.
well, that certainly would have kept us out of Iraq, at least.
OTOH, it also would have kept us out of Darfur.
Oh wait…
Maybe it wont be until Monday—-
Dear Paula Zahn Now Viewer,
Please be advised that due to breaking news coverage of the death of Anna Nicole Smith, the program “Out in the Open: What happened to love thy neighbor” scheduled to air this evening on Paula Zahn Now has been rescheduled for Monday night, February 12. Thank you for your interested, and for being our valued viewer.
Regards,
CNN Public Information
Thank you for your interested
*sigh*
modern journalism in action
I don’t mind if this stretches to Monday. I think the show sparked a lot of Atheists into being more outspoken now.
I’m also noticing the ass kicking and education the believers are taking on Schlussels blog for example.
People are generally ignorant to what an Atheist is. Debbie and Karen were so off, that it has caused a golden opportunity to educate.
Ichthyic– Hey, bad grammar is an improvement! This mass email is at least on topic, and not about Steve Irwin…
Oh, my goodness! She’s everywhere.
Anna Nicole’s C-Section on YouTube:
ya know, it might be a worthwhile thread to explore how the popular media has spent ever more time with triviality like the Ms. Smith issue over the last decade or so.
Is it really that there is a supposed demand for this drivel that drives it? Or is there something else going on?
have any real students of journalism analyzed this apparent tendency and at least tried to provide objective evidence one way or the other to explain it?
I’m genuinely curious why Anna Nicole Smith warrants massive national media coverage, as just the most recent example of this.
No relation to the post, but this comic made me laugh out loud :
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=705#comic
Abie, how about this one:
http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20060714.gif
I just watched to that Debbie Schlussel clip. Does her speaking voice remind anyone else of Bob Dylan’s singing voice? She should stick to the written word if she feels that she has to stay in journalism!
I honestly cant blame CNN for covering Anna’s death and bumping the atheist topic. It was sudden and they need to be on top of the media competition. And they did just cover atheism yesterday.
Anna may be unimportant to us atheists and secularists, but to the average eddy punchclock she IS, unfortunately, important.
If they run it Friday, I will be glad.
In my experience, news has become increasingly driven by advertising. Its not quite as simple as doing a story that sells or gains viewers as much as it is a gradual erosion (from the bottom up) of any sort of awareness that there is a duty to provide useful, meaningful content for readers/viewers.
Its also a failure of the imagination of what news CAN do, or what it CAN be. Younger folks have very little mainstream role model of a strong news source, so unless they’ve been doing some serious digging on their own, they’re never going to see real reporting.
There’s also the fact that, let’s face it– if you have much intelligence at all, you don’t NEED to go to CNN for news coverage. Between blogs, forums, listservs, community radio, etc, we have all the news we need. Gathering news is no longer some sort of amazingly difficult task, so the only ones left watching are either lazy, or doing it because they need some common denominator “hot issue” to draw people to their blog.
llewelly and others (like me) who are/were ignorant as to who ANS was, will find up-to-the-minute and fulsome details at this familiar source for popular culture and some other topics:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Nicole_Smith
Man those wikipedians move fast, I checked it less than a minute after it was announced she died and someone already had her death date up but that article was *bare* bones. I swear..
By the way, is there a time for this segment friday?
Well come on, be fair. All you athiests will look just as pretty by Friday, whereas Anna Nicole’s visual aspect will be greatly reduced by then, what with the decomposition and such. Got to get your meat while it’s fresh!
It’s been estimated that 150,000 people die each day on our planet. Of today’s 150,000, I guess she was the most interesting.
After all, she did have three arms:
http://www.udargo.com/mub/index.html
Yeah, I was hoping to see this bit. I guess I will have to wait until Friday.
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/209/story_20904_5.html
If anyone is interested, Sam Harris is winding down his debate with Andrew Sullivan. Say what you will about some of his ideas, but he certainly makes an articulate case for atheism here.
I’m glad I don’t watch television. I didn’t know she had passed on until I bumped into this blog entry. Hah! Its no fun when anyone dies (I’m sure there are exceptions, but this isn’t exactly one of them, at least not for me). On the other hand, it shouldn’t be all over the news. When a single mother of three dies, and they have no available family to help, that should be front page news!
You know, I feel sorry for her friends and family. The problem is that she just isn’t important enough to be front page news, but the American media (and, if Britain is any indication, English-speaking media in general) love “if it bleeds it leads”.
The woman was a human train wreck who got blown apart by losing her son while on the verge of getting her life together. I tend to be a stickler about using the word “tragic”, but this situation, while not exactly matching the classical definition, is close enough for government work. But at the end of the day, she’s just not significant enough for the amount of press coverage she got today.
RE: brian
RE: “The problem is that she just isn’t important enough to be front page news, but the American media (and, if Britain is any indication, English-speaking media in general) love “if it bleeds it leads”.
The reason they seem to like the same stories etc is because basically the same people and the same companies own large %s of the media in the US, the UK and Australia. Murdock, of course, is the obvious one.
Having sad that, I am sad that Nicole has died. I think she had a messed up life and a harsh one, regardless of all that money.
“Despite ostensibly being divinely inspired, Paul clearly showed an ignorance of the point of Epimenides’ rhetorical claim. The moral of the story: Paul was an idiot.”
–AL
Well, no. When Callimachus quoted “Cretans, always liars”, he wasn’t doing a cute paradox, he was attacking Cretans for their beliefs (before 240 BC, this was). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epimenides_paradox
gives a version — and we know better than to trust Wikipedia, but if you look at the entire Epimenides quote, it’s clearly about Cretans and not paradoxes. If later philosophers saw grounds for a clever paradox there, fine; but it doesn’t make Epimenides a paradox-monger.
The conclusion to be drawn about St Paul, therefore, is neither supported nor falsified by the facts at hand.
‘H. Humbert wrote:
“”Now the man Moses was very humble, more than any man who was on the face of the earth.” -Numbers 12:3
(The book of Numbers is traditionally considered to have been authored by Moses.)”
Ha! That’s awesome. A bit more than half as awesome as “This sentence is false.”‘
–SteveC
Then there’s the story (recited in “Zen Flesh, Zen Bones”) of the monk who was known as the most humble man in Japan. Another monk, receiving a letter from him, saw that it was signed “He who is humble”, and scorned the hypocrisy of a man who would brag about being humble. The abbot explained, “You don’t understand. He is so humble that he doesn’t think it’s anything special.”
Sort of reminiscent of Einstein, no? He was aware that he had some special talents — he wasn’t stupid, after all — but didn’t think it much of a big deal.
I always think of him when I see a bumper sticker or tag line to the effect “When you’re as smart as I am, it’s hard to be humble.” I mean, it wasn’t hard for Einstein; what’s this guy’s problem?
(s)
He who talks the talk about humility
I’m sorry, I don’t wish anyone to die – especially as young as that. It’s sad, no matter what the circumstances.
BUT, Blake’s post (the one ahout Britneys Spears and Paris Hilton) msde me fall off my chair laughing.
Oh dear…
I just had occasion to post David Hume’s famous lines about “monkish virtues”, such as humility, over on Richard Dawkins’ site. They are wonderful. Let’s go and find them…
Here we are:
“Celibacy, fasting, penance, mortification, self-denial, humility, silence, solitude, and the whole train of monkish virtues; for what reason are they everywhere rejected by men of sense, but because they serve no manner of purpose; neither advance a man’s fortune in the world, nor render him a more valuable member of society; neither qualify him for the entertainment of the company, nor increase his power of self-enjoyment? We observe, on the contrary, that they cross all these desirable ends; stupify the understanding and harden the heart, obscure the fancy and sour the temper. We justly, therefore, tranfer them to the opposite column, and place them in the catalogue of vices; nor has any superstition force sufficient among men of the world, to pervert entirely these natural sentiments. A gloomy, hair-brained enthusiast, after his death, may have a place in the calendar, but will scarcely ever be admitted, when alive, into intimacy and society, except by those who are as delirious and dismal as himself.”
It could have been worse:
“Coming up next — the death of Anna Nicole Smith — we have started with fake boobs, later we will also meet Richard Dawkins”
No one here (Sweden) could be ignorant about Anna Nicole Smith.
A large dress chain, that likes to provoke, run her as clothes model -93. That made a huge splash, especially the underwear. First because they had to reprint posters because people ripped most down. (Either people where provoked, or kept them. Same thing when they posted Pamela Anderson. :-o ) Then a campaign started, IIRC involving blockades, to get the posters down. It ultimately failed since it aroused even more interest.
Today she was first page news.
It could have been worse:
“Coming up next — the death of Anna Nicole Smith — we have started with fake boobs, later we will also meet Richard Dawkins”
No one here (Sweden) could be ignorant about Anna Nicole Smith.
A large dress chain, that likes to provoke, run her as clothes model -93. That made a huge splash, especially the underwear. First because they had to reprint posters because people ripped most down. (Either people where provoked, or kept them. Same thing when they posted Pamela Anderson. :-o ) Then a campaign started, IIRC involving blockades, to get the posters down. It ultimately failed since it aroused even more interest.
Today she was first page news.
Epimenides had a version of the paradox in which he stated that Cretans always lie all the time (the paradox being that Epimenides himself was a Cretan).
There’s no paradox there; if some Cretans lie sometimes, his statement is merely false.
The woman was a human train wreck who got blown apart by losing her son while on the verge of getting her life together.
So you equate losing 69 pounds with getting one’s life together? I saw her on her reality show; she was selfish, mean, and stupid; no great loss, frankly.
It’s been estimated that 150,000 people die each day on our planet. Of today’s 150,000, I guess she was the most interesting.
I doubt it very much. Go to your local nursing home to find interesting people.
Now here’s a newish argument for the creationists to use:
“If you were walking on a beach, and happened to find Anna Nicole Smith lying in the sand, you would clearly know that she was not a product of random events, but that she was designed!”
And for once, we would have to agree with them…
Regarding the “All Cretans are liars” thing, back in 2004 I found this story:
I’ve always wondered what they did with that particular bit of information.
“Maybe the rapture has come and she was the only one taken.” – dances_with_sneetches @ metafilter
Here is a program that CNN can use when it has nothing more interesting, which is usually.
http://www.cheddarvision.tv/
Explanation here.
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2193318.html?menu=
Deaths of freakish celebrities will always make the news. What can you do?
My reaction on her death: surprise. She was young, after all.
Anna Nicole Smith may have been designed, but surely not very intelligently.
Now, the humility joke goes like this:
It’s the last part of the Yim Kippur service, the holiest moment of the Jewish year when God prepares to hand down his judgement on his people for the year ahead.
In the hushed and awe-inspired synagogue, the Rabbi throws himself prostrate in front of the Ark and cries out “Oh Lord, have mercy on me who is as nothing before you”. Beside him, the Cantor throws himself to the ground and cries out “Oh Lord, have mercy on me who is as nothing before you”. Then the chairman of the synagogue throws himself to the ground crying “Oh Lord, have mercy on me who is as nothing before you”. And the cantor turns to the Rabbi and says “Now look who thinks he’s nothing!”
Russell Blackford:
On a philosophical level, I agree totally, and in a more solemn venue I would have voiced the same opinion. When I imagine myself in the place of her family members, I can sympathize fully with the pain they must be feeling. (Having had a death in my circle of friends turn into a bacchanal of tabloid fear and loathing, I can also appreciate that her family might be wishing for quiet.) But. . . .
At least my Warren Ellis impression is a success.
Just wait. Paris Hilton or someone like that will die on Friday, and then the atheism show will be pushed back further. In fact, I think CNN is purposely offing stars just so they won’t have to show it. It’s a conspiracy!
Life expectancy at birth in Zimbabwe: 39.29
Life expectancy at birth in Swaziland: 32.62
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html
Toatlly off topic alert:
“Paris Hilton or someone like that will die on Friday, and then the atheism show will be pushed back further. In fact, I think CNN is purposely offing stars just so they won’t have to show it. It’s a conspiracy”
I don’t know why, but this totally reminded me of my xian neighbor who convinced we (his atheist neighbors) are bigoted against him and are out to get him because we parked in the street in front of his house. Which means that he can’t park in front of his “own house”.
There’s only parking on one side of the street. He has a driveway. We do not (downstairs tenant hogs the whole thing).
I’m rather curious to know what Niger Innis has to say about atheism. I roomed with him during college. I’m concerned that this might be disappointing.
But my bigger reaction is: why the hell would anybody care what Niger Innis thinks about atheism? He has no special knowledge on the subject. He’s a “black conservative” basically because he’s inherited a civil rights organization that was taken over by his father and steered in a contrarian direction.
I for one am saddened. She could have been an atheist for all we know, and just couldn’t deal with all the anti-atheistic BS in this country. Plus she was HAWT!
Well come on, be fair. All you athiests will look just as pretty by Friday, whereas Anna Nicole’s visual aspect will be greatly reduced by then, what with the decomposition and such. Got to get your meat while it’s fresh!
I never found her to be particularly attractive in the first place. When I was a younger man, I had the playboy issue she was in and I thought it was a letdown from their usual fare. And since then she just got skankier.
I’ll give her due credit though: she knew how to draw attention to herself despite her lack of looks or talent.
So you want equal time with Anna Nicole Smith? Well then stop whining, get a boob job, pose for Playboy, marry a 90-year-old millionaire, get him to leave you his fortune, carry on a public legal battle with his children over the inheritance, take lots of drugs, have sex with your photographer and marry somebody else you’ve been sleeping with at the same time so there can be another public legal battle, this time over paternity, and then overdose on drugs while yacht-shopping in Florida, leaving the child over whom you’re fighting in court in someone else’s care. It’s simple!
(I apologize if any of my facts are incorrect or incomplete. This is only as much detail as I have been unable to avoid absorbing.)
By the way, ANS didn’t die of a drug overdose. She died of a karma overdose.
Oh, you’re just mad because she never called you, after all those hours you spent holding up her centerfold with one hand. ;-)
So I went home sick last afternoon. I decide to just relax on the couch and watch some TV. I flip it on CNN and a very serious and important sounding show begins: The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. And they begin with breaking news on Ana Nicole. I turn it off. 10 minutes later, I wander back. Now they have a doctor talking about what might have happended. I still don’t care. I go to another channel. I turn it back 35 minutes in…and they are still going on about Smith’s death.
Isn’t there a war going on? How about the Libby trial? All those helicopters getting shot down? The corruption hearings? anything? Is this what passes for news? Between this and Blitzer’s obsession with the non-story that is Pelosi’s flight methods, I’m beginning to think he is one of the most ridiculous people on TV (although I guess I’ve believed that for awhile. When he was pleading with Cheney’s wife that he was in fact a patriot revealed what a tool he was).
So you want equal time with Anna Nicole Smith? Well then stop whining, get a boob job, pose for Playboy, […] It’s simple!
It’s PETA!
“Please be advised that due to breaking news coverage of the death of Anna Nicole Smith, the program “Out in the Open: What happened to love thy neighbor” scheduled to air this evening on Paula Zahn Now has been rescheduled for Monday night, February 12. Thank you for your interested, and for being our valued viewer.”
“Out in the Open: What happened to love thy neighbor”
Does this sound like a hit peice or what? Atheists are out in the open and then they use a verse from the bible…
is it “Why don’t atheists love thy neighbor? What’s wrong with them?”
OR am I looking at it wrong… “why don’t the religious love their atheist neighbors?”
You can’t make this stuff up: a real soundbite from last night on CNN:
http://caffertyonannanicole.ytmnd.com/
“Is Anna Nicole Smith still dead Wolff?”
Posted by: The Atheist Jew:
Of course not, Monday is Darwin Day! It couldn’t have worked out better if it had been predestined by an omnipotent creator.
(Of course now that I opened my mouth it will get pushed back again so that I may eat my words.)
Here’s a really good artice relevant to this topic:
http://www.attytood.com/2007/02/breaking_news_young_woman_meet.html
It helps put things in perspective – highly recommended.
Oh come on, her death is a huge story in the entertainment and “news” industries. You expect a bunch of people who have lived off of her skankiness, plastic boobies, and ill-bred antics, not to shed some tears and lament their tremendous loss? She and Paris were almost the perfect celebrities, no observable talents (Paris does know how to play violin well, but not so well that anyone would know that if she wasn’t Paris Hilton), with no real respect, and can be alternatively praised and laughed at (unlike an honest to God star), depending on the mood of the “commentator”.
The great thing is that they know that Anna Nicole really was more important than God or any “God question”, and they know that she was expendable to anyone except the paparazzi and themselves (not much difference any more).
My major complaint is that the coverage was so boring and repetitive. True, I wouldn’t have watched much anyhow, but if they could have just brought in a few rumors of drugs, self-despair (say, she finally sees herself as others see her, promptly ODs), or ballooning weight, I could have watched a few minutes. But blah blah she was such a great mother (right, who’d like to claim that gold-digging skank, no matter how loving and supportive she might have been to her son?), “Marilyn Monroe”, and gee, she tried so hard (my problem with her is that she didn’t have the sense to give up when she had nothing to offer the world) wasn’t only hypocritical and sanctimonious, it wasn’t close to believable or interesting. Damning with faint praise just isn’t very entertaining.
Oh well, I’ll still give them some credit if they finally do air the Dawkins-Hitchens bit.
http://tinyurl.com/35s39o
“why don’t the religious love their atheist neighbors?”
It’s simple, Steve: they interpret “love thy neighbour as thyself” to mean “…but only if the neighbour is Christian.”
It’s scarily convenient how they flat-out reject Jesus’s actual teachings, isn’t it?
I was trying to Suss out what the meaning of the segment’s title is…
Still not sure.
God is pissed about this after He blogged that Richard Dawkins was going to be on and Paula defied his word. Now He’s sending her to hell:
God: Paula Zahn to Join Anna Nicole Smith in Hell
Favorite bit:
This thread is almost past the use-by date, but I think people should write to the sports journalist Stephen A. Smith and tell him what a great job he did.
Get real, we need people like him.
His address,
ssmith@phillynews.com.
Life expectancy at birth in Zimbabwe: 39.29
Life expectancy at birth in Swaziland: 32.62
Now that is sad, and sadder still is that it isn’t necessary, and that we all play a role in it. But the notion that every death is sad is rather pathetic, and cheapens the emotion; should we feel sad at the death of every fetus? Every earthworm? Every despot? Sure, ANS’s family members are sad, but we aren’t them, and lack their emotional ties to her. I’ll save my sadness for losses that really mean something to me; there are far more than enough of those.
Plus she was HAWT!
That’s another thing; a lot of this faux sadness is over the loss of an image to wank off to; it has nothing to do with the real person, who these folks never knew.
“Is Anna Nicole Smith still dead Wolff?”
Yeah, every once in a while Cafferty makes me like him. Wolff Blitzer, OTOH, seems to have undergone a double hemispherectomy.
Here’s a really good artice relevant to this topic:
http://www.attytood.com/2007/02/breaking_news_young_woman_meet.html
It helps put things in perspective – highly recommended.
Thank you. I hope all those bloviating here about how sad every death is will think for a while on their failure to express any sadness about Ms.Parcell. Here are some other folks that they might want to consider expressing sadness for:
DEFRENN, Jason G., 34, Chief Warrant Officer, Army; Barnwell, S.C.; First Cavalry Division.
MATHENY, Randy J., 20, Sgt., Army; McCook, Neb.; 1074th Transportation Company.
VAN PARYS, Brandon J., 20, Lance Cpl., Marines; New Tripoli, Pa.; Second Marine Division.
YOAKUM, Keith, 41, Chief Warrant Officer, Army; Hemet, Calif.; First Cavalry Division.
FRAZIER, Joshua J., 24, Sgt., Marines; Spotsylvania, Va.; Second Marine Division.
I could go on an on.
I never found her to be particularly attractive in the first place. When I was a younger man, I had the playboy issue she was in and I thought it was a letdown from their usual fare.
Yeah, her biggest sin was that she just wasn’t attractive enough. But maybe it’s just that the airbrush guy was out sick that day.
I’ll give her due credit though: she knew how to draw attention to herself despite her lack of looks or talent.
Oh, don’t be so jealous.
Didn’t he say “all Cretans are liars”?
Didn’t he say “all Cretans are liars”?
Ugh. I can’t stand watching CNN during this ANS nonsense. Some islam woman on there at 8 central talking nonsense about changing her religion for the better. Then some scary looking coroner who worked on ANS. It’s on in the next room waiting for Dawkins, but I can’t stand any more of this mind numbing idiot box.
Did I miss Dawkins? Do people actually watch this Anna Nicole Smith “breaking news” crap?