A Blow to the Well Read

How sad that I learned of Kurt Vonnegut's death through a listserve email:
"so kurt vonnegut dies and gets a thirty second blurb while "the
people" are still listening to find out when anna nicole tits will
rise from the grave and ascend to sit at the right hand of god the
father almighty? sheesh."

The sad thing is that the content of my neighbors rant seems to paint such a sad portrait of our society today -- That a little/no talent sex symbol's death two months ago would overshadow that of a great author who died today -- Today!. Where is the logic in that? I give you that paternity is now conclusive, but Kurt deserves much more than that! He supplied us with pages and pages of thought provoking verse which if nothing else, gave us another way to view the world. Anna Nicole gave us....a very scary reality show, another celebrity figure named Howard Stern, images for prepubescent boys to ogle after...?? As a Mom, I have moments of surreal paranoia - That the society I'm raising my son in is a vacuous, desensitized and apathetic and that somehow I'm going to have to fight against all that to instill in him the antithesis of those and hopefully promote love of literature such as that written by Mr. Vonnegut. Yikes, I have my work cut out for me!

On other days, I'm sure I'm much more optimistic. It's just a very sad day when one of my very favorite authors passes away.
RIP Kurt Vonnegut