DU Eulogies. Alas!

[PCIntern]

Tim, we hardly knew ye.

I for one am extremely moved and saddened by his death. The loss of a bright man, a contemporary of mine in age if not in station, a successful man, and a family man, is a loss for humanity and his death diminishes us all.

On DU, we respond in a rather peculiar fashion to deaths of famous folks, irrespective of their political affiliation, morality, seriousness of purpose, or influence:

1. Shock and awe. Posts are exemplified by the OMFG!, R.I.P., Rest well, Know Peace, and the like.

2. Minor tributes. Posts are exemplified by, "I didn't agree with many of his positions/policies/opinions, but...(fill in one of the above)

3. Initial Cynical Posts. Posts are exemplified by, "I don't mean to minimize his/her passing but..." or "Although he was a political scumbag, I'm sure his family will miss him terribly and (fill in from #1)

4. Response to Cynicism. Posts are exemplified by, "This is not the time..." "You are not a decent human being", "You are a sociopath." and the like including "Official Ignore Announcements" (OIA's)

5. Tinfoil Hat posts. You can guess. Maybe they're right? Ever think about that? If they are, we are in worse trouble than we can ever imagine.

6. Remembrances of Times Past..."My most memorable Russert/Reagan/Nixon/Agnew/Novak(!) moment was...(the last was...well, never mind)

7. Youtube links for "Worst of..."

8. Let's get back to life...and the Election of 2008.

[Lex]

1. You forgot to mention the list posts.

nt

[PCIntern]

2. Those are meta-posts...

if you're talking about what I think you are talking about.

[BlooInBloo]

3. "list posts"?

[Patsy Stone]

4. Posts proclaiming there is too much media coverage of it. n/t

[Berry Cool]

5. Yeah. "How DARE they spend hours and hours of coverage on this...

...when horrible thing X is happening in the world?"

I am getting pretty sick of that attitude myself. It seems to be applied not only to the likes of Anna Nicole Smith (understandable) but also to people who actually maybe did some good in the world and had a modicum of value.

[Patsy Stone]

7. I don't know

I mean, who couldn't see that the media would go psycho over Anna Nicole's death? Plus, there was a cast of characters there that was so much better than any casting director could have come up with. They made a media feeding frenzy into an insane, off the wall, unseen since the OJ trial media feeding frenzy. Three words: Prinz von Anhalt. :)

But, yes, 24 hours of discussion and a coupla five or six hours on the cable news division of his network isn't too much in this case, IMO.

[NRaleighLiberal]

6. Yup. But, actually, it reinforces that we are all just people, really, each

with different ways to react. There are extroverts, introverts, peacemakers, ranters - and it is complicated by where each of us are in our lives. Our family has experienced much loss over the last 1.5 years - two fathers, an aunt, uncle and cousin, a job - and age and tragedy really does impact on how each of us process the next disaster - be it in or out of the family.

After watching and participating in DU since 2004, I have two divergent thoughts - it is an amazing, remarkable group of passionate bright people...and it is as extremely diverse in thought and style as would be expected considering the range of ages, experiences, cultures.

[petronius]

8. The fine art of the DUlogy

If you watch carefully, you'll notice that individual posters play different roles depending on who the star of the show happens to be...

(On this one, I'm a 1 --> 4 --> 8.)

[PCIntern]

9. DUzy for "DUlogy"!!

EXXXX-CELLENT!