What The Tut-Tutters Fail To Understand

A smidge of Hank Stuever on a Sunday morning: As the details of Anna Nicole Smith's death (you may have heard about it already) were being orgiastically reported in print and on TV, I was spending time at a spiritual retreat house in New Mexico that is staffed by nuns, one of whom, for reasons I'll never have enough space to explain, is my 73-year-old mother. Over dinner one night, the sisters asked me who, exactly, Anna Nicole was, and why everyone was so interested in her. I did my best to explain …