Just because I haven't posted in the past couple of days doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about you. On the contrary; I'm working on some things, but I keep getting sidetracked from the things I really want to write about. A few days ago, for instance, I was going to write about the Bureau of Labor Stats desire to stop requiring employers to provide gender data in their monthly payroll reports. But as I was transferring thoughts from brain to fingertip that morning, I heard about the commuter train wreck in Glendale, California, and then my stream of consciousness took me in unexpected directions, mostly related to irony and death. Don't worry, though; I haven't been a totally glum chum.

I started mentally tracking railway accidents in 2002, when three items were seared into my psyche that year:

February 20, near Ayyat, Egypt: 361 people on a passenger train were killed in a fire that erupted when a gas tank used for cooking exploded.

May 25, Muamba, Mozambique: 192 people died and hundreds were injured when some passenger cars became disconnected from the rest of the train as it ascended mountainous terrain. They hurtled backwards for several miles at top speed before crashing into freight cars disconnected from the same train.

June 24, near Msagali, Tanzania: A runaway passenger train collided with a freight train on same track, leaving 200 dead, 400 injured.

I'm not trying to be a bummer, nor am I discouraging train travel. It's just that those incidents of 2002 struck me particularly hard because two occurred in places where I have family and which happen to be amongst the poorest countries in the world. What kind of rescue efforts do you think took place there? I remember reading that in the Tanzanian effort, would be rescuers wore layers of socks on their hands because they had nothing else with which to protect themselves from the sharp metal, glass, or even blood. Out of latex gloves, the doctors wore socks, too.

This is not to diminish what happened in L.A. In fact, the southern Cal story is even worse to me than what happened in 1995, when a speeding passenger train in India rammed another train that stalled after hitting a cow, injuring more than 400 people, killing more than 300, and ensuring the death of the cow. What could be worse than numbers such as these? That the L.A. accident was caused by someone who had wanted to kill himself and changed his mind at the last minute--a decision that led to the deaths of 11 and injuries to more than 200. And now he'll be tried for murder and eligible for the death penalty. While I was riding the BART train last night, I overheard an elderly man and a teen discussing the matter; it was the man who said of the suspect, "He should have stayed in the car." Is that harsh or humanitarian?