And Now Fidel

I find myself writing this post, extending it, on a regular basis.

Osama bin Laden
Muamaar Qaddafi
Antonin Scalia

The Reviled.  The villains.  The evildoers.  

Scalia's different, of course, because there were also those who (and I'm speaking metaphorically here, but still) worshipped him.  Oh, wait.  That doesn't make him different at all - except that the metaphorical worshippers are here, in the USA, wandering among us unashamed, unafraid to show their faces (except in the communities where they are).  For the others, for bin Laden and Qaddafi, the worshipers were elsewhere - or if here, were incognito.  A distinction without a difference, as they say.*

So maybe Ted Bundy.  I've written this a few times:

When Ted Bundy was killed, Time reported that

some 200 bloodthirsty revelers gathered outside the penitentiary in Starke, Fla., for a ghoulish celebration. They lit sparklers, cheered and waved signs reading BURN, BUNDY, BURN and ROAST IN PEACE.

Hard to think that many folks worshipped/honored him - though he had, by all accounts, some mighty charisma.

Anyway, now it's Castro.  And while the reports of mourning in Cuba and rejoicing in Miami may be overblown, the principle is ultimately the same.  

A man is dead.  Think of what he did and its effects (positive, negative, chocolate, vanilla, rare or well done) and praise or condemn him.  But he's dead.  

Maybe the world is, in some sense, better off without him.  But really, not.  Without his consequence, pershaps.  But him?  He was just a man.  Who did things - good, bad, indifferent.  He liked baseball. He advanced literacy.  He crushed dissent.  He gave speeches that were way too long.  Sigh.

And now he's dead.  And I'm really sorry but that's nothing to cheer about.

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* Yes, I understand that Scalia wasn't killed (give it up, conspiracy theoriest), which is another difference.