Friday, January 04, 2008

They Don't Just Make This Shit Up

I'm sure that Maclean's delights in the deaths of the obscure and unknown. What other explanation can there be for its obituaries column? Far from offering a tribute to Everyman/woman, it seems to revel in finding the most ironic or depressing story available. Take this obituary from its December 3rd issue: A bloke named Allison Koch marries a woman called Betty Ann Kuntz, gets a job at a fertilizer manufacturer, contracts cancer, survives it but then his daughter gets it, overturns his truck after storming out the house because his team is playing shite on TV. Sure, it's tempting to laugh, but the hypocrisy lies in the magazine's apparently reverential treatment of hard-luck stories, no doubt the only way they'd get permission to publish.

Give me the Telegraph obits every time. I'd much rather read about rich people dying.

2 comments:

J.J said...

When I did my history degree I studied the Dutch Republic. I remember nothing of it save that William of Orange had a little white pug dog called Kuntz.

And I am NOT making that up!

John said...

Kuh! The Dutch, eh?