A teenager in the US state of Florida has committed suicide in front of a live internet audience. Abraham Biggs, 19, from Pembroke Pines, near Miami, killed himself hours after announcing his intention to do so on his blog.
A former police chief in Argentina, wanted for alleged crimes against human rights, has shot himself dead in front of television cameras. Mario Ferreyra was giving an interview on top of a water tank at his home in the northern province of Tucuman… pulled a pistol from his boot and shot himself behind the ear. The Cronica television cameras were still rolling, transmitting live, as the distraught family gathered round.
And there the children of dark Night have their dwellings, Sleep and Death, awful gods. The glowing Sun never looks upon them with his beams, neither as he goes up into heaven, nor as he comes down from heaven. And the former of them roams peacefully over the earth and the sea’s broad back and is kindly to men; but the other has a heart of iron, and his spirit within him is pitiless as bronze: whomsoever of men he has once seized he holds fast: and he is hateful even to the deathless gods.
Some argue that communications technology has been driven by Eros, but surely Thanatos must have his turn?