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First, there were the headline puns.

The latest tell-tale sign that Lisa Nowak's story will go down as an official, classic American media frenzy – bidding for Nowak paraphernalia on eBay is getting higher.

The Houston Chronicle spoke to one seller, Joachim Horvitz, whose autographed picture of Nowak's NASA publicity still, "one of thousands NASA hands out each year to promote the space agency," was fetching $1,825.50 late yesterday. Sisters Marci Halverson and Natasha Newman saw their "package of Nowak memorabilia, which included signed copies of the Houston Chronicle on the day of the crew's return," fetching bids of $152.50.

Said psychiatrist Carole Lieberman of the tendency for newsmakers to generate such sales: "It' s a really tragic trend. People aren't seeing newsmakers as people anymore. ... They become cardboard people."

People making fun of the headlines that have been unleashed to tell the story of astronaut Lisa Nowak has now reached critical mass. We, of course, are as guilty as all of these people.

This is, after all, a story with many bizarre and salacious threads – most of which are clearly difficult to overlook.

But predictably, the very ingredients that made for a hot storyline have led to a backlash.

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