RIP Whitney Houston

[Kestra]

We aren't children. We understand how addiction works and you don't need to explain it here.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

So your goal is to be the equivalent of the Westboro Baptist Church of the thread?

Not at all. You want to teach your kids that she led a great life and made smart choices, more power to you. I'm simply stating my opinion on a squandered life and how I plan to use it as a lesson for my kids.

Would you celebrate the life of a friend or family member who was a drug addict?

Since I recently had to deal with a similar situation minus the celebrity. I mourned the person I lost deeply, but the night I came home from the hospital, I sat my kids down and told them that the persons choices led to death. I refused to sugar coat it or make it sound like a tragedy when his actions led to his own undoing.

But in this case we don't know what happened. And that she tried to fight and may have failed against her addictions is sad. But at least she tried. Some addicts never do that.

I must add this, BillJ... "Mourn with those who mourn." You may not regard Whitney as someone to be mourned, but there are many people in this thread who are mourning for her or at least her family who loved her.

 

[datagal]

So your goal is to be the equivalent of the Westboro Baptist Church of the thread?

Not at all. You want to teach your kids that she led a great life and made smart choices, more power to you. I'm simply stating my opinion on a squandered life and how I plan to use it as a lesson for my kids.

Would you celebrate the life of a friend or family member who was a drug addict?

Since I recently had to deal with a similar situation minus the celebrity. I mourned the person I lost deeply, but the night I came home from the hospital, I sat my kids down and told them that the persons choices led to death. I refused to sugar coat it or make it sound like a tragedy when his actions led to his own undoing.

Who said anything about sugar-coating her addictions. My God, we really don't know what killed her.
You may not respect her for her shorcomings, but at least....at least respect those who mourn her passing.
Right now, her family, friends and fans are hurting over this loss.
But I think Peach said it best.

 

[Amaris]

I look at it like this: imagine someone dear to you dying. Then imagine someone in the crowd saying "who gives a shit?!". That person is not some prognosticator, some wise sage dispensing truth with a practiced eye. That person is a callous asshole. Whether someone is remembered by one person or one million persons, it does not take away from the sadness of one's death.

Celebrities are noticed because they are so public, because they are always in the public eye. We share in their existence as a whole. What they say and do is noticed, even if it is minor. We are all human, and we all do stupid things. If we're lucky, no one sees it and we move on with our lives. If not, then it gets to be the talk of the town. A celebrity usually has no such luxury, and their mistakes are amplified to an absurd degree, and so when they pay for those mistakes, the ridicule and disregard for their loss is amplified to an absurd degree. The more famous the celebrity, the more callous and absurd the response from the peanut gallery.

Death is tragic. By it's very nature it is the cessation of life. You can't learn your lesson from it, you can't come back from it, and you can't avoid it. To pile scorn and mockery on top of it is to use one's tongue like a fool, berating the dead for being dead, and berating the living for being mournful. Yet every time a celebrity dies, such people will continue to spout how much they don't care, or hate that others are sad at the loss of a person not intimately associated with them.

They'll cite examples like dying children in Africa or that "people die every day". It doesn't occur to them that perhaps, just perhaps, the decedent has touched that person's life in some way, that physical or familial contact is not required when mourning the death of another human being, and that no human being can mourn every life that succumbs to death. It is simply not possible. But that point rarely reaches them, and it's likely it never will, because for them, at some point, a celebrity stops being a human being. Maybe it's the wealth and privilege, maybe it's the spotlight and attention, but they stop being seen as people susceptible to human frailty, or to allow compassion for that frailty.

Still, when I see people say "who cares" or cite some reason why people shouldn't mourn, all I can think of is seeing someone I love has passed on, they've died, and some jackass in the background is grumbling about why anyone should give a damn. Some people are just blissfully unaware of how cold and inhuman they sound. Yet if they were in the same position, many would wonder why someone could be so cruel as to denigrate the death of their loved one. It's just foolish behavior.

 

[Orac Zen]

So your goal is to be the equivalent of the Westboro Baptist Church of the thread?

Not at all. You want to teach your kids that she led a great life and made smart choices, more power to you.

Where in this thread has anyone said anything of the sort? Where has anyone said they're going to tell their children Whitney Houston "made smart choices"? Regretting or mourning the premature death of a very talented individual hardly equates to endorsing or celebrating her "choices" (not that anyone in this thread has done so, but no matter), and as several people have mentioned it isn't even certain as yet that those choices were related to her death.

I'm simply stating my opinion on a squandered life and how I plan to use it as a lesson for my kids.

That's your choice, and good for you. But patronising the people in this thread and putting words into their mouths isn't a particularly useful choice on your part, nor is it an accurate depiction of what those people have been saying.

 

[datagal]

J-, you have not lost your ministry touch.
Well said.