I’m preempting my usual “Friday Fun” column, because this past week was a crappy week, crappy enough to justify a little mourning.

Tuesday afternoon, as you know, a catastrophic earthquake hit Haiti, killing tens of thousands—maybe even 100,000. That number represents one out of every 95-or-so people in that small country.

Shortly thereafter, we received news of the passing of my mother-in-law.

Shorty after that, a friend received news of the passing of his grandfather.

(This series of events also explains why I haven’t been blogging this week.)

So instead of my usual humorous, lighthearted Friday sketch, today I’d like to talk about some of the thoughts that have occurred to me this week.