We are drowning in it.

These two firefighters had been working on the damaged pipeline that is causing a catastrophic oil spill in China. One fell in to the thick crude and the other jumped in to rescue. One died. The other was pulled to safety.  This photograph was published yesterday in the China Daily.

Apparently Stalin had occasion to suggest that “a single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.” This is only true to the extent that one death can be imagined. Please let’s not fail to imagine this. As, Diane DiPrima, Poet Laureate of San Francisco has written, “the only war that matters is the war against the imagination.”

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