The Tragic Death of…
MacOS X link of the day: iTerm, a cross between Chimera (sorry, Camino) and the Terminal app
I’ve seen this bit of writing advices a few times recently: one should not call it a tragic death because all death is tragic. The phrase is, presumably, redundant. Of course I disagree.
First of all, it’s a misuse of the word tragic. Tragedy refers to the fall of great men through a tragic flaw or an unstoppable force, or calamities more generally. The death of a 90-year-old man in his sleep can hardly be described as tragic. If a policeman guns down an escaping axe-murderer, perhaps the angels weep but we don’t.
Perhaps death is always sad, but it isn’t always unexpected enough to make it tragic. Sometimes it’s simply unfortunate. I don’t think of the Columbia accident as a tragedy - though it could turn out to be an instance of culpable negligence, it hasn’t yet. Someone who was against the space program in general might consider it proof of NASA’s hubris - a traditional tragic flaw - but I’m not against the space program.
NASA and its astronauts take a calculated risk. No one is forced into the profession by any means - they want to be up there despite the danger. The disaster, if there is one, is in the consequences. None of the Columbia’s crew would have wanted their deaths to bring a halt to the ISS program. They would have wanted us to go right back up there, even though sometimes the atmosphere wins.