In the 80's I was sure America was a big mental ward. By accident I'd view Tammy and smiley Jim on T.V. Her mascara ran black streams that coagulated until a black puddle formed.

My grief was that the overly made-up religious who wear clown-makeup have devoted followers that send hard earned money to air-condition dog houses? It is a "Mad Crazy" world. The read was interesting. Unbelievable.

In my imagination I saw teevee watchers on their knees, biting dirty finger nails, ignoring their children, spouses getting out of the house and rushing to the saloon, and streams of weird conscience realization the 80's mental illness was preceding more manifestations of serious emotional sickness.

In the 21st century it will get "WEIDER?" Nature God Love us!

My O day! Is anyone confused, biting toenails, pulling out eyelashes, dazzled, and got jagged thumb nails? Is any female or male out there proud they have enough good garden dirt under the pinkie to grow a few zinnia's?

How did she keep those mother's glasses safe? I buy cheap reading glasses by the crate because I sleep on them, sit, and drop them in the flower phlox row. Looking for them, I'll accidentally stomp on the glasses. I'll get a tear on the spectacles and wipe them with a dirty shirt I'm wearing that scratches the lens.

I've one short question. "How can one save glasses?

I always felt sad for Tammy Faye Messner and I guess I'll forever be confused and messed up kneeling in a lettuce patch or crying when eating a hot storage onion. I find no fault with those who wonder or wander vis life and act strange...

..."If they are the saved who go to a strange Place called heaven, a little hell, pounding a hammer on my finger, and a bit of friendy conversation on Earth is heaven here. That is fine and dandy enough for me. I'll remain here and intentionally smash eye-spectacles, my toes, and be a happy optometrist?

I'll hammer like the blind carpenter who screamed aloud. "I'm saved!" "I once was blind and now I see." The carpenter picked up his hammer and saw. Yippee!

Gads. Was it a dream about the dogs? I heard their dogs had air condition? I need to live right? I don't have air...but...I don't want hair conditioner, either.

I want heaven here with friends with lots of flaws.

A human friend who saves me is a backward dog (god) and humankind's best blessed dear Savior.

Hallelujah. I hope Tammy is happy and kissing Jesus repeatedly on the lips. She wanted to be loved. I saw a 'clip' of her last interview with L. King. Pax.

At last: Tammy Faye Messner can Requiescat in pace.

Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker began their television career in the early '60's. The medium was hardly in its "infancy" at that point, least of all for televangelists, who were among tv's earliest stars.

And Norma Desmond's "It's the pictures that got small" comes at the beginning of "Sunset Boulevard," not the end, and it's more spat than moaned.

The line is near the beginning of Sunset Boulevard, not the end, and the line is hardly "moaned"; that's really a gross mischaracterization and makes me wonder if the authors of this article have ever even seen Sunset Boulevard at all. Also, the line is, "I am big -- it's the pictures that got small" not "I still am big."

I hate to speak ill of the dead. I don't have a tremendous amount of respect for Tammy Faye Bakker. She took people's money and lived well off of their desperation (and poverty). She's the Rexall Drugstore edition of Eva Peron, I guess. Was it moral idiocy that kept her from being mean despite her abuse of millions, that allowed her to think she was a nice woman just trying to do good work? Was she on some level an innocent, caught up in a big trap? But the narcissism wouldn't let her stop. No PTL? Very well, she'd do Politically Incorrect. Did she call King up for that interview (she called him) to make the world aware of cancer, to get one last gasp of fame?

Baily and Barbato play at laying it all on Jerry Falwell (a name worthy of Hawthorne). They clearly don't believe it, or believe it's that black and white. They're taking diggs at Tammy Faye even as they write her obituary. She was a pimp, but they seem to be whores. They'll do it with a smile...for a price.

I think they are as creepy as she is.

. . . what emotion exactly would you say you received from mentioning the "creepiness" of somebody (a "pimp") who recently died? Were you somehow compelled to write this little letter? Are you under orders to issue editorial opinions?

Not meaning to malign the dead, but the only sensible and ADULT response to this emotional bit of sophomoric (that is, elementary school sopomore year) is "Tammy Who ? "

Most adults long ago hoped that Tammy would disappear behind her notoriety.

Fenton and Randy ought to grow up, first, and, second, regard the damage to a great number of people in a fraudulent and excessively greedy pentacostal "ministry" that Tammy and her infamous ex-husband foisted off on their trusting flock. Apparently Tammy backed off stealing people's money, but he's still at it.

If Tammy thinks she will "go to hell" as she has herself asserted, and if there is a God in heaven, her ex-husband most assuredly will join her there when his time comes.

Died a couple years back -- televangelist in Los Angeles. I'm a non-believer but in the 80s watched him religiously.

Tammy was surreal, but Dr. Gene's television show made me feel like I was on drugs.

But I actually liked Tammy Faye, not at first, but when I saw her on the Surreal Life, she was so sweet,and different from the rest of the scum of the christian right. When she was at a book signing, someone asked her what she would tell christian parents that just learned their child was gay, and she said to love and accept them, because you'll miss the best years of both your lives if you don't.

Like most, Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker disgusted me in the 80s, but that was a long time ago, and from what I've seen recently, she seemed like a good person to me. If there is a heaven, I hope she's there, and that it's everything she always imagined it would be.