Death in Context II

From a New Yorker article reviewing a book about Mao Tse Tung.

A great many premature deaths also occurred in newly independent nations not ruled by erratic tyrants. Amartya Sen has argued that “despite the gigantic size of excess mortality in the Chinese famine, the extra mortality in India from regular deprivation in normal times vastly overshadows the former.” Describing China’s early lead over India in health care, literacy, and life expectancy, Sen wrote that “India seems to manage to fill its cupboard with more skeletons every eight years than China put there in its years of shame.”

Reading another article in the New Yorker about the BP oil spill. One of the people interviewed pointed out how the images of the pelicans and fish covered with oil and sludge seem to be a rallying point against the evil corporations who are willfully destroying our environment. Yet, over four hundred thousand birds are killed each year by wind turbines...