One wonders what the majority of Canadians and Americans are talking about around the water cooler at work these days. Could it be, on the part of Canadians, that we’re dumping another $200 million dollars into Afghanistan? Maybe it’s that the terrorism legislation ushered in shortly after 9/11 is being voted down despite the Prime Minister’s exploitative use of the families of the victims of the Air India tragedy and those Canadians who lost loved ones on September 11th in an attempt to influence a different outcome? Perhaps concerned citizens are lamenting over the third innocent Afghan in a week to be shot dead by Canadian soldiers?

On the part of Americans, maybe it’s the utterly explosive fact that their government is funneling money to radical Sunni grounds in places like Lebanon to combat Shiite groups like Hezbollah, but who can then take that money and use it to support Sunni groups in Iraq that, in turn, can use it to facilitate operations to kill American soldiers? Maybe Americans are talking about the historically perverse nonsense that has recently come out of the Secretary of State’s mouth on national television, or the lies that flow seemingly without hesitation out of the Vice President’s mouth whenever he opens it? Perhaps they are debating what many feel is the imminent US assault on Iran, the fact that Israel is going to ask the United States for more military aid, or that a surprising number of them still believe that the regime of Saddam Hussein was somehow involved in the attacks of September 11th? Maybe it’s the inability of the Democratic majority in the House to have any real impact on war policy, or the ever increasing abuse of their Constitutional rights and the dissipation of their national character?

Despite all of these things, and there are many others besides, I’m going to go with the death of Anna Nicole Smith as being the foremost topic of interest. After all, she was a stripper, a playmate, modeled jeans, and had her own reality television show.

What isn’t there to talk about?

Saint Anna deserves your undivided attention. In fact, what happens to her now decaying body deserves non stop coverage on pretty much every major cable news network. Forget that, five years on, basic services in Baghdad are intermittent at best, or that innocents are killed in an illegal war in their hundreds on a daily basis, or that global human rights standards have declined since 9/11, or even that while composers are celebrated for works in remembrance of the Holocaust that the world has done nothing to even realistically confront the genocide currently occurring in Darfur – there’s Anna Nicole Smith’s remains to worry about.

I think Joyce Marcel put it best over at Common Dreams today in her piece entitled She Died For Your Sins…

“Maybe you think that’s a little strong?

But she did. She died for all of you who watch “American Idol” week after week - that’s 33.5 million of you, by the way - making that cruel show the most popular program in America. For six years running.

And for you who cast more votes for the last Idol winner than for the last president of the United States.

And for you deluded men and women who think surgery is the way to a happier life, who never understand that beauty is only skin deep, who go on television shows to get nose jobs and who risk your lives to get your stomachs stapled.

And for you nitwit comedians who make jokes about women’s “racks” and the rest of you men who place so much emphasis on bust measurements that women without large breasts feel inferior. And that goes for you, too, Hugh Heffner. You have a lot to answer for. And Howard Stern, you too.

And for you gold-diggers out there looking to marry money, and for all of you who already have - and that includes all of you who married Donald Trump.

And for you women desperate to be “famous,” for whatever reason, who do anything to get attention, to be photographed, to be on television even if it means showing your breasts to a passing camera, or sleeping with casting directors, or making porn.

She certainly died for all of you.

One commentator said that while Diana was “The People’s Princess,” Anna Nicole Smith was “The People’s Whore.”

There’s your mascot, America.â€?

Indeed.