Kenneth Lay committed a roman suicide

More secrets, even for those exposed by justice.

When I read the recent news that Kenneth Lay died of a heart attack, the first question that came to mind was whether or not he didn't, in fact, swallow a quart of anti-freeze or eat a bullet. Facing utter humiliation and the very real possibility of dying in prison while his wife would undoubtedly re-marry some other obscenely rich scion on the east coast or Texas oil baron...it would be easy to believe. Even if he got out of prison early, what would he do? Nobody would hire him, and he'd end up flipping burgers at a Jack in the Box somewhere. Let's remember that this is the man who said on the stand, when being cross-examined and asked about the lifestyle he led, uttered the words "you can't just turn it off like a spigot", referring to the life of conspicuous consumption and unfettered greed. This would be, I imagine, in rather stark contrast to prison blues, dinner from a slop bucket and a new sort of wife.

Am I supposed to feel sorry for this man? I must admit I am rather disappointed that the man was able to escape his punishment, and now of course you can't help but sense that the news organs are pushing a subtle agenda of "tragedy" here. What's forgotten is the tragedy of the thousands of his own employees who lives he either damaged or ruined with his ridiculous greed and cowardly disaster-inducing escape attempts by fudging the books like every other cornered Fatwallet in the history of, well, civilization. He and the thousands more of his ilk (most of whom are just as red-handed but haven't been caught, or prosecuted) are guilty of the worst greed and selfishness possible, and yet we are asked to consider this man's downward spiral and subsequent "early" death as a tragedy. I say the only tragic thing here is the failure of justice to exact its rightful pound of flesh.

Now, his wife and family will probably not have to pay one thin dime into the settlement and penalty that was levied upon Mr. Lay (something in neighborhood of 45 million), and the people ruined by their cowardice and chicanery will, like so many other shit-on employees over the centuries, get no justice at all.

So, now he's dead, and we're told he died of a condition that a pre-teen mystery writer would consider to be too mundane to believe. Of course it's absolutely possible that the report is true, a lot of these high-level coporate pirates inflict more stress upon themselves than most anyone in the world. But it's far more likely that he killed himself in the cowardly fashion that defined his life and career, and the money-controlled media establishment is giving the Texas energy-money circle this last favor of reporting yet another lie. Some might argue that it doesn't matter how he died, that's it not our business, and it might be difficult to argue against that, if not for all the other lies and contrivances this man built his life upon, that it feels to me like one last, final insult to all those whose lives he and Skilling ruined.

He was allowed to escape, and that's a shame.