Thursday, April 3, 2008

You Pick: Which Death is The Most Significant?

Rate them 1 through 4

April is usually depicted as a time of life's renewal, but the date of April 4th is partiularly noticeable for deaths:


The assasination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
by James Earl Ray
The stabbing of mobster Johnny Stampanato
by Lana Turner's daughter, Cheryl Crane
The deaths of 20,000 people in India during a massive earthquake (1905)
The death of Casey Sheehan in Iraq, causing his mother,
Cindy Sheehan, to tackle President Bush and press for answers.


And they're all so very very different: at least you can't combine them in any given category.

How would you rank them?


Most Americans might go with 1. MLK, 2. Sheehan, 3. India, 4. Stampanato. But...

People in India might put the earthquake as #1
Cheryl Crane would remember her incident as #1
Protesters to the War in Iraq might even go with Sheehan as #1


Of course, it might be easier to say that all of these fatal episodes are relative and that they can't be ranked at all. But then, you'd be labled as a "relativist" which, to many people of "faith," is a terrible thing to be.