who's got the best death?

*sigh* Am I the only one tired of people comparing Ronald Reagan to Ray Charles, and trying to claim one's death is more tragic or important than the other's? The only things they have in common are that they died within days of each other and were both well-known. Do people really think if Reagan hadn't selfishly chosen to die five days before Ray Charles, that it would be Charles' face all over the news, complete with day-long coverage of his funeral and procession, and flags at half mast for a month? Those who wish to remember Ray Charles and his music are doing just that; it's not as though people have to pick and choose between two mutually exclusive mournings.

People pulled the same nonsense when John Ritter and Johnny Cash died on the same day, and when Mother Teresa died six days after Princess Diana. Why do people feel the need to make a big deal about this? They want *their* favorite celebrity to get top billing, to steal all the headlines, to make it into Dateline memorial segments, to have their life validated by the press, to be immortalized temporarily on the short attention spans of John and Jane Q. Public.

And it's funny how the person who comes out on top is coincidentally always the one who the crybabies don't want to be recognized. The crybabies will dig up any dirt they can to blemish another person's life and legacy, so that their #1 choice will look better in comparison. Guess what, honey, they both have friends and family mourning, they both touched the lives of many people for better AND for worse (unless you're going to tell me you were there for every single second of both their lives and witnessed both the good and the bad, and not just what biographers choose to publish), and what else -- big shock here -- they were both human, they both died, and they both had people who loved them. That is what really matters, not some nonsensical pissing contest about who deserves to be mourned the most.

Please, people, get over yourselves.