19:24, I'd say she reached her potential. Her career had peaked and was over. There are reasons to morn if you knew her, and we (the public) did not. People are not morning "a celebrity or an icon who broke through images that many young women and many families needed." Please. What image? The image of a black crack whore? We needed that? Her shining (clean) moment was very, very brief. That image was fleeting. To put her in the same category as Rosa Parks is, frankly, insulting.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All the soldiers who gave their lives so we can all come to post trivial shit on this board, did/do we celebrate them this way?

Why do we honor police officers, firefighters, and paramedics but not soldiers? Good question.

Have you been to a pro sports event? We honor a living soldier at every single one of them. Every soldier gets a burial with honor guard at a military cemetery. We have not one but two holidays dedicated to them, ie we shut down the country twice a year in their memory.

That song where she yells the whole time. Oh, it drives my crazy. It's like a cat in heat.

Anonymous wrote:Enough America! She was a cracked out, over-rated singer, a neglectful mother, and a correct me if I'm wrong but a royal bitch and an entitled diva. And here we are, a nation in mourning. So weird. I thought the Superbowl chatter was annoying. This is worse.

Dear, is that you?

Wasn't she in the wire?

Anonymous wrote:http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/story/2012-02-18/whitney-houston-funeral-new-jersey/53140578/1

Excessive.

I read the article -- thanks for the link -- and the essay another poster mentioned in "Steroscopic Magic." I learned from both, and I think others might, too. Is the funeral excessive because of its length and the number of speakers -- or is it perhaps part of a home going (as the article says) that includes particular traditions? Is what people are mourning a celebrity or an icon who broke through images that many young women and many families needed in an era where media stereotypes reigned (as the second article suggests)?

I don't want to start a messy dialogue, here, but I find it telling and related that Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis's nominations for The Help represent the first time in Oscar history that two African-American women are both on the slate for the same film (and the irony of the film's subject can't be lost on any of us). African-American women continue to suffer under a whole, whole bunch of misperceptions and stereotypes. The ceiling that's still got some glass for all women has even more of it, I think, for black women. Sadly (tragically) Houston's fall into a life of addiction and different kinds of excess kept her from becoming a positive role model for black (and white) women. If the words these days are elegiac, so be it: a lot of potential is and was gone, and there are reasons to mourn.

You are despicable OP

Anonymous wrote:Enough America! She was a cracked out, over-rated singer, a neglectful mother, and a correct me if I'm wrong but a royal bitch and an entitled diva. And here we are, a nation in mourning. So weird. I thought the Superbowl chatter was annoying. This is worse.

You're just jealous that when you die, two people will show up to your funeral.

the talk about her "suffering" cracks me up. she was PARTYING! not lying on the corner with a needle in her arm. she liked to drink and she liked to get high. you know why? because it is FUN and she had zero responsibilities.

zero sympathy from me.

This is why "we" are still talking about Whitney Houston: http://caille.tumblr.com/post/17551409907/on-whitney-houston-black-middle-class-girls-and-the

(The comments are first on the page, I don't know why, but the essay is worth reading.)

OP you are only contributing to the excessive coverage by posting on this board. Just go on with your lives you do have a choice in this.

Anonymous wrote:All the soldiers who gave their lives so we can all come to post trivial shit on this board, did/do we celebrate them this way?

Why do we honor police officers, firefighters, and paramedics but not soldiers? Good question.

Who is forcing OP and other posters to consume the coverage? Ignore it, people!

All the soldiers who gave their lives so we can all come to post trivial shit on this board, did/do we celebrate them this way?

You know what I find funny is that all these people that are rending their garments over Whitney Houston's death, including posters on this board, are the same ones who made fun of her when she was alive and acting a fool. She was your pathetic spectacle then but now in death, she's a saint? Shame on all of you!, shame on you America. You are the same vultures you who built her up, tore her down and are now building her up again in death.

Same shit you all pulled with Michael Jackson, fuckers!