You're absolutely right. Her fame is almost incomprehensible to us, at this remove of years. More difficult still for us to understand, I think, is the *iconic influence* she continues to exert over the culture. By many of Mcluhan's definitions, she isn't dead at all. We act as if the Media, as it is today, were the media as it has always been. How quickly we forget things like the sound of ALL AMERICA laughing at the same Norman Lear joke, at the same time.

The question before us is not "What's so special about her?"

The question ought to be "What's so special about her that has permitted her to PERSIST IN EFFECT AND RELEVANCY, and to LEAP from medium to medium?"