

Death’s Fork in the Road
In a span of a few weeks, I was confronted with two distinct views on death and two distinct ways of dying. In one was the illusion of self-mastery; in the other, the radical surrender of self.
In a span of a few weeks, I was confronted with two distinct views on death and two distinct ways of dying. In one was the illusion of self-mastery; in the other, the radical surrender of self.
Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis said Constantine II had lived an “eventful life” which “marked and was marked” in turn by turbulent moments in Greek history.
An outspoken traditionalist, the Australian cardinal was known to ruffle the feathers of secularists and the Catholic Church’s progressive wing in equal measure.
The Vatican had warned that it would be a “simple” ceremony. The hearts of the many faithful present were heavy after the death of the holy man who, in his silence and retirement, had remained a reference point of faith and wisdom for them.
What started as an allegedly rare and ‘kindly’ way to ease the suffering of the terminally ill has ballooned into a government program offering death as an escape from loneliness, depression, or even poverty and homelessness.
Today, it is all too common to prize self-sufficiency as a virtue—a virtue by nature inaccessible to the sick and to the disabled, to pregnant women and to the elderly, and to children of any age.
Whilst I’m reluctant to trivialise the many mental health illnesses and anxieties that modern people claim, I suspect that much of their emotional confusion is just what everyone normally feels. The difference being, however, that the young modern was told that such feelings had been—or would be with the next cultural revolution—banished by Progress.
The death of Jean-Luc Godard marks the end of an era of filmmaking. Celebrated for his early contributions to the French Nouvelle Vague, his later work stayed true to his political activism and the self-referential Zeitgeist of the 1960s.
Gorbachev distinguished himself from former USSR leaders by his handling of pro-democracy protests in Eastern Europe. Instead of crushing these like previous Kremlin leaders had done—recall the tanks sent into Hungary in 1956 and then into Czechoslovakia in 1968—Gorbachev went a diplomatic route.
A mammoth chunk of the glacier atop Mount Marmolada hurled down the mountain at around 186 mph, killing at least 7 hikers and injuring 8 others.