Wednesday, July 05, 2006

No.

I'm usually of the opinion that Mark Evanier is right about most things, but...
Enron überthief Kenneth Lay died this morning. Matt Drudge, with his usual flair for accuracy, briefly had it up as a suicide, then switched to a heart attack.

Obviously, anyone's death is a tragedy.


No. Maybe I'd feel differently if I hadn't read Pipe Dreams, Robert Bryce's book about the fall of Enron, recently, but I can't see the death of someone who was greedy on a scale beyond your imagination as a tragedy.

To be fair, Mark's next sentence is
Obviously also, it's hard to get too emotional about Mr. Lay, who swindled so many people out of their retirement funds, health insurance and old age money.

I guess I'm just saying that he's willing to be more generous, in a human condition, we-are-all-part-of-one-big-family way, than I am. Probably makes him a better person.

2 comments:

Tom Hilton said...

I try not to derive joy from anybody's death (except in extreme cases--see Milosevic)...but I'll bet Grandma Millie is laughing her ass off.

Ben Varkentine said...

I didn't mean to say I derive joy from it...just that it's not a tragedy.