Lay down your burdens

Ken Lay has died. Immediate reaction was cynical. One person thought the CIA had something to do with it -- kill off Ken Lay to protect the George Bushes, both of whom had a business relationship with Enron's founder. Another person thought Lay had faked his death and was probably sitting on a private island in Barbados, sipping margaritas and being fanned by grass-skirt wearing beauties. And yet another person combined all of the theories, warning that the coroner better take DNA tests and do a thorough autopsy and provide pictures of the poor man's body to the press so we can all see that yes, Ken Lay is dead. Me, I was crass enough to wonder how he *still* had a vacation home in Aspen when so many others were left penniless when Enron went under.

Very little sympathy for Ken Lay in Sweat Sock City, that's for sure.

That he died of a heart attack was not at all surprising. He's been under tremendous stress, and with what amounted to a life sentence coming his way in October, it was probably more than his 64-year old body could handle. Ken Lay should have been that story we all aspire to -- a man with humble beginnings, but tremendous intellect, but somehow, he let greed and personal gain motivate his actions, and in the end, it's not so much his philanthropy that people are remembering today, but rather that their 401(k)s were decimated.