By BRAD WEISMANN
Here’s the thing. The end of the calendar year has come. As
a culture, we want to encapsulate and evaluate the experiences of the year, summarizing
them in neat lists that give us a sense of closure.
This is a ticklish procedure when it comes to deaths of the
well-known, however. We want to memorialize those who meant something to us,
who made contributions to the world. The entire premise of my ongoing Obit
Patrol is to highlight a broad spectrum of worthies, many obscure, from across
the world. This year, I managed to post about 2,500 entries. Hopefully, this
work has broadened people’s knowledge of and appreciation for some unique
representatives of the human race.
Part of my mission is to serve as a corrective to the routine
commemoration of the merely celebrated, the notorious, and those who will
automatically be lauded due to their status as politician, warrior, athlete, businessperson,
and other such mainstream success stories. So, when all the “those we lost” lists
come out at the end of the year, it’s interesting to leaf through them and
wonder about the criteria of selection.
Who we choose to remember forms an index of our values. Why
else would the Oscar broadcast obit reel unleash an annual mudslide of rancor
and ill feeling? Because to be omitted from remembrance is to be erased. Choosing
a list of the departed can be based on the sheer metrics of popularity, or more
nuanced. Here are some examples. This survey is not comprehensive; if you know
of other worthy lists please share them!