The Patrick Swayze Death Watch is finally over. The 57-year-old actor of Dirty Dancing fame, who “succumbed to cancer,” as so many news outlets like to say, died yesterday, which means I won’t have to look at National Enquirer covers in the grocery store check-out line anymore showing him gaunter and gaunter and closer to death each week (This morning’s nationalenquirer.com headline: “Swayze is Dead. Brave Patrick Swayze succumbs after long battle to cancer.” Don’t miss their coverage.)

Now, at along last, he can get some peace. But us: What about us? We need someone else’s illness to exploit!

In other news, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-Ude) has a big day ahead, as House Democrats prepare to reprimand him for yelling at the president of the United States the other day something that wasn’t at all rooted in racism. You probably haven’t heard about it, because there hasn’t been that much press, but Wilson yelled “You lie!” to Barack Obama during his recent address to a joint session of Congress. The decision to hold a vote on a formal sanction, the Washington Post earnestly notes, “risks escalating the partisan warfare that has erupted since Wilson’s outburst.” Ya think? For the record, Democrats are so bad at passively exploiting things. They always, always ruin it.

In still other news, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has written to Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine about renting a prison building near Troutville, which is being closed because of budget cuts, to turn it into America’s first chicken empathy museum. I have no idea what this means, but Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, apparently already turned down a similar offer, and if it’s not good enough for Bobby Jindal, it’s certainly not good enough for Virginia.