Things that make you go....Clueless

I have no idea if the header and little wall in between the living room and kitchen can come down. I am not a structural engineer, in case you didn't realize, but I do have a more than basic understanding of home building, structural support and plain old physics. But none of these "skills" are helping me to determine if that wall can be attacked by a sawzall.

On Sunday morning I went into the attic to take pictures of the area above the kitchen and found this.

Left: View from the attic access toward east end of house. The double beam in the picture is above the wall between the kitchen and living room.

Right: This is a close up view of the far end. The end of that beam sits directly above the kitchen door. Those 2 x 4 's going up from that beam don't actually attach to the roof rafters and some of them don't even reach the roof sheeting. What does that beam do exactly?

Any structural engineers in the audience? This gal as mentioned before is clueless.