The passage of time

Alive a month ago. Dead today.

Two U.S. soldiers whose signatures appeared on an op-ed piece in The New York Times critical of the war in Iraq were among seven Americans killed in a truck accident outside of Baghdad this week.

Alive 10 days ago. Dead today.

A bomb killed sheikh Sattar Abu Reesha near his home in Anbar's capital Ramadi. The attack came just hours before US President George W. Bush, who shook the sheikh's hand during a surprise trip to Iraq 10 days ago, was due to make a televised address defending his handling of the war.

And certainly not to make light of the above two unfortunate deaths...

but, RIP, Alex - the braniac 31-year-old African gray parrot, who knew more than 100 words and could count and recognize colors and shapes! (You think that's frivolous? Think you'll have a foundation named after you when you die?)

Confession: Occasionally, like some people read obituaries, I do the analogous in today's e-world - I go through the wikipedia list of deaths in 2007 to see who has passed on. It is an interesting pastime because despite hours of surfing, one suffers from information-overload and misses so much. Many of the names in these lists are people I had never heard of but occasionally one reads about some notable one has heard about but didn't read about their death.

For example, just read that Jane Wyman, first wife of Ronald Reagan (1940-1948), died on Monday. And in reading about her, I learned something I did not know - conservative talk-show host, Michael Reagan (rabid, I say...based on 3 minutes of hearing him on AM radio some years ago!) is the adopted son of Jane Wyman and Ronnie.

This I knew -- Jane Wyman had the unique distinction of being the only ex-wife of an American President. (This may not be so unique if Giuliani or some of the others in the fray for 2008 win their primaries and then the final election! *shudder*.... that's at the thought of Giuliani as the next President! *phew*...that's thinking we somehow survived 8 years of Bush - so we probably can survive anything. *sigh*....but 3000+ Americans didn't survive. And with that we come back to the beginning. The passage of time. Cyclical life.