Inquiring Minds

Here's what is missing from your regular "CSI" episode: Anna Nicole Smith accidentally overdosed on at least nine prescription drugs — including a powerful sleep syrup she was known to swig right out of the bottle — after a miserable last few days in which she endured stomach flu, a 105-degree fever, pungent sweating and an infection on her buttocks from repeated injections. I was okay until it got to the part about "pungent sweating." This, I can only assume, is part of the public's right to know. I'm not sure I'll be sleeping any more soundly with the mental image of Ms. Smith's infected buttocks now firmly ensconced in that catalog of visions that are best kept under lock and key.
And now comes the punch line: "She refused to go to the hospital because she wanted to avoid media," attorney Lilly Ann Sanchez said in a news release. "Anna called the shots in Anna's life and everyone close to her knows that." This comes from the attorneys representing Anna's attorney, "husband" and periodic Svengali, Howard K. Stern. You may remember the calm reason that she exhibited as a high school dropout, married at seventeen. Or the cool, calculating Anna from her days as a Playboy Playmate. Or her stint as a reality TV star, the tagline was most likely her ingenious notion: "It's not supposed to be funny. It just is." The only shots Anna called were the ones that were jabbed into her infected buttock.
I want to believe that Horatio Caine might have spared us some of the ugly details.