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Involves politics, but not really political

centaur 0

Andrew Breitbart is dead at 43. He was apparently a conservative commentator; I wasn’t too familiar with him except for some of the scandals he broke.

But the point, as John Scalzi said, is that he was 43. I’m used to hearing about accomplished people who are much younger than I am … Larry Page, Britney Spears, Christopher Paolini, that last born when I entered high school.

Occasionally people in that age bracket die. It’s a damn shame, everyone says, they died so young. But when Andrew Breitbart died, while it was clear that he died young – to the point of spawning (what at first appear to be ridiculous) conspiracy theories – no-one is too surprised.

Because a male’s chance of dying of a heart attack triples when you move up to 35-44 year age bracket, and triples again when you roll over into 45-54. I’d enter some snark about white males like myself being worse off, but it doesn’t seem to be the case.

So Andrew’s about the right age where people should start worrying about dying of a heart attack. So am I.

God speed, Andrew. And may God be with us all.

-the Centaur
Pictured: a memento mori featuring my cat, Caesar, curling up in the lap of luxury next to the skull of one of his less evolutionarily successful distant relatives. Looks like Caesar had an easier time taking down that giraffe than his buddy there.