a life under a microscope.

All the cable news networks are all over the death of Anna Nicole Smith, and the guessing game of what caused her death (breakdown? drugs?) is going on until actual facts are injected into the category of "developing news" (boy, is that one that I like a lot; it's when a breaker is no longer a breaker, but you don't know fuck-all else.)

In the last year, she's been a serious fixture -- giving birth in the Bahamas to a baby whom the paternity is being questioned, having her adult son die while on the islands to visit her, getting married to her lawyer, and let's not forget that she's gone to the U.S. Supreme Court to deal with the decade-long fight with her late husband's family over his billions.

That would take the fight out of a normal human, and if she was taking various medications or other drugs to ease the stress or pain, I wouldn't blame her. Usually, I'm much more cavalier with cracking jokes about celebrities and their vices, but for some reason I have serious sympathy for Smith, especially after watching what a train wreck she was on her E! reality show a couple of years back. It was different than viewing Britney Spears (the Redneck Train Wreck), Lindsay Lohan, or any other screwy celeb babe -- Smith actually looked and acted in ways that made you fear for her life, even as you loathed some of her on-screen behavior.

(Admittedly, some of my sympathy may be borne from the artist as a budding horndog -- Smith was one of the first Playboy centerfolds I saw, finding an old issue in my neighbor's dad's collection.)