More errata today: Anna Nicole Smith dies. Yes, it’s important enough to mention, just because we’d been talking about her the other day. Please, before you judge us, hear me out.
We’d been discussing the ramifications of being able to stipulate where your junk goes when you die. In this case (literally “case,” as in “before the supreme court, being represented by Bush lawyers”) we’re talking about the fortune of $400 million left to her by some old dude … who enjoyed, we suppose, having a young wife. The idea that your family could be left out entirely because you decided that you didn’t like them? Well, that’s kind of a tough one for me to swallow. Not that the old guy’s kids needed much, I don’t think, but that it’s somehow absurd when you think about it. I mean, yes, it’s legally “right” … but in no way is inheritance law morally “right.” Not if it lets you abandon your responsibility in favor of someone or something else, even if it were a just cause: it simply shouldn’t be structured that way.
How should it be structured? Oh, I have only the barest concept, but I’m thinking that you’d have to get the permission of your children before you cut them off. Kind of like you’ve got to get your spouse’s notarized signature before you can cut them out of receiving any life insurance you might have. Make a bit more sense? Something to prevent absolute greedy toadishness would be good, methinks.
In other thoughts, staffers are almost fired for their personal blogs. Yep. Two of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards’ staff were targeted by the Catholic League because they’d written things prior to their joining the campaign, on their personal blogs, expressing disagreement with the Catholic Church’s views on such things as homosexuality, contraception, and abortion. Oh – and they used profanity.
Need I even express an opion here? If I do, and somebody, someday, chooses to penalize me for exercising my right to free speech … well, guess I’d better err on the side of caution, now that Big Brother … ummm … the Catholic League are listening.
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Now that its been days since she kicked off, the “outpouring of grief from bloggers around the world” angle is making me right nauseas. Some twenty-year-old in the Chronicle was quoted as saying that “she was a role model to me.”
Good Lord.
Meanwhile, the fact that the whole blogger thing allowed that presidential candidate to make a Public Statement about how lovely and kind he is in allowing them to stay on — yawn. Roll that PR wheel…
from this side of the pond, we were watching tv when Nicole Smith’s death was considered “breaking news”…what a media circus