A few deaths, here and there

The humble statistic regulates both the private and public accounting of death and risk; and an ideological and rhetorical accounting attempts to make death orderly (in its disorder), and predictable (in its randomness). Using Jane Smiley's novella The age of grief and the colloquial metaphysics of the essays of Annie Dillard, the author here examines such rhetorical accounting strategies and their duty to the dead, personal and collective.