THE ONION PUBLISHED a "joke" article saying that Cindy Sheehan's son Tyler had drowned in New Orleans, and that her third son was marooned on an ice floe in Antarctica.

I assume the purpose of this piece is to mock Cindy Sheehan's decision to make her grief public and use it to try to end the war that killed her son. I imagine that The Onion is asking us to laugh at the sheer force and depth of Cindy Sheehan's grief -- the way her grief and anguish for her son has permeated every part of her life.

I'm reminded of some lines from an old Carole King song, called "We Are All In This Together":

...some men cry for mercy
While they deny their brothers' pain
And some men laugh for reasons
They can never quite explain

We are all in this together
And maybe we'll see that one day
When we conquer our fear together
When we finally find a way

And we all need forgiving
For all the damage done
For the things we do, not thinking
For the hurt that we've caused someone

You know what? I'm not laughing.