Valentine’s Day - Anna Nicole Smith

Valentine’s Day
after the style of Anna Nicole Smith

Today the famed (or infamous, depending on one’s perspective), made the news again today. Today she is in all the news for her final act in this world. In today’s Wichita Eagle the headline reads Billionaire's widow, Playmate dies at 39.


Anna leaves her little girl behind with no mother and with more than one man claiming to be the father. At least one paternity suit has already surfaced. Of course this is motivated by love. Sadly the question that surfaces is whether the love is for little Dannielynn or for the money she stands to inherit. Happy Valentine’s Day!

The Eagle’s update has the following quote: "I think she had too many drugs, just like Danny (Smith's late son)," Smith's mother, Vergie Arthur, told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Friday. "I tried to warn her about drugs and the people that she hung around with. She didn't listen."

How sad for Anna’s mother and Dannielynn.

Even more, how sad for the many other young ladies who believe that this is an honorable way to live and to advance themselves in this world. How sad that our society treats women as less than human, as objects to be lusted after and tempted with monetary reward for allowing themselves to be exploited.

On Tuesday the Eagle also promoted the following article: 'COLLEGE GIRLS' EDITIONWSU senior poses for Playboy

The article begins, saying:

Wichita State University senior Marty Spence said posing in Playboy was among her life's ambitions.

WSU senior Marty Spence, left, shows a Playboy page featuring her picture to her boyfriend, WSU alumnus Jon Shaffer.

Spence's uncle, Randall Spence of Rose Hill, said he was proud of his niece, who is listed as a marketing major in the magazine.

"My niece is trying to make something of herself, and everything, and she just looks for the best in just about everything she does," Randall Spence said. "I didn't go to college, and she's going to make more of herself than I did."

Even so, he said, there will be some who criticize Spence for posing.

"A lot of people are prudish, and they can't see that a young girl nowadays is looking for a way to get ahead for the future," he said. "If they've got to do what they've got to do, more power to them. I've got an open mind."

An open mind. I suppose that this is the prevailing mentality that led to today’s headlines regarding Anna’s unhappy departure from the world, leaving her little daughter to live without her mommy. Will Marty follow Anna’s footsteps and end up as she did?

Actually, Marty has already followed Anna up the steps to the Playboy mansion, or at least to the camera studio. She already has accepted that this is an acceptable way to be viewed not only by others, but by herself. She has already labeled herself as a woman who wants to promote herself and to gain money and fame by tempting men to look upon her in ways that are neither noble nor healthy.

Will she be glad for this when she is a mommy? Will she want her daughter to follow her footsteps to the cameras? Will she want her son to look upon women with the hungry eyes of testosterone driven lust? Will she be proud to hear of the next pornography related victim of rape?

I guess these are not really important questions. We really should all approach this and all other matters of morality and decency with Open Minds and extreme tolerance.

Do I sound sarcastic? Oh for shame! Happy Valentine’s Day Anna, Marty, and all.

Yet I dare not presume to be above such things myself. Nor dare anyone else. We all yield to unholy and unhealthy desires. We all prostitute ourselves in many ways. We may not sell our bodies or pictures of our bodies, but we sell our standards and our integrity in many ways. Lust of the flesh is more than sexual lust, though I don’t know anyone who is free of that either.

Valentine’s Day stands in contrast to such things, calling us to remember the true source of Love and to live in that love. Wikipedia gives an account of Saint Valentine in the section In the Golden Legend saying that St Valentine refused to deny Christ before the "Emperor Claudius" in the year 280. Before his head was cut off, this Valentine restored sight and hearing to the daughter of his jailer.

What a wonderful account to consider in view of what we have seen in the life and death of Anna Nicole Smith. Perhaps Valentine’s Day will serve to restore sight and hearing to some of us as well, so that we are restored to see and hear what Love really has to say and to show us.