Thursday, January 04, 2007

Observations on death

Having missed (oh darn) the trio of high-profile deaths while I was away on vacation, I also missed out on putting together papers containing the news of the demises of James Brown, Gerald Ford and Saddam Insane. Too bad.

It seems to me that only the Godfather will be remembered for his lasting influence.

Maybe Ford was the guiding force to carry the nation out of the stained Nixon years, but I hadn't heard anyone say so until he died. He just seemed like a dude who was president for a while, then played a lot of golf. Nothing wrong with that, but all the fanfare of his funerals would make an outsider think a king had died.

Saddam? Well, his demise speaks volumes about the new Iraq, and none of what it says is good. A hurried killing and the lack of a truth-and-reconciliation process leave me pessimistic, as though I wasn't already - about the future of that part of Mespotamia. Still, sic semper tyrannis.

But James Brown kicked ass for half a century! You know you're doing something right if you can be an icon and an iconoclast at the same time :)

If only he'd received the ink.

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