[mod hat on] not_alice, I think everyone understands your point of view, and it would be good of you to drop it, or open another thread to discuss it.
No warning issued.
[mod hat off]
Why is this such news? In my opinion it’s partly because of the celebrity factor, both her own and John Edwards’, and also because she was dealt a triple whammy depending on how you want to count the blows. Death from cancer, preceded by her husband having an affair and fathering a child through it. Celebrity marriages break up all the time, but to have the aggrieved party endure a fatal disease concurrently is a little more unusual. People do feel badly for her, and the wealth factor may be a part of that, too, because here she was with all this success and accomplishment, but sometimes that isn’t enough to get what you need.
Let us be quietly sad that another person, much like us, has died, and hope that before the end she was granted a moment of clarity in which she could see all her deeply-held faiths and deeply-held falsehoods held up against the truth and celebrate the similarities and accept the differences. Let us also be sad and hopeful for the other two-thirds-million or so who have also died, in either better or worse circumstances since, and also be sad and hopeful for ourselves, still waiting for that moment, and more, of the clarity we’re talking about.