People seem astonished by the number of famous people who died this year, but it seems to me they better get used to it. When you live in a country with a celebrity culture, thousands of people - entertainers, entrepreneurs, politicians, billionaires, athletes, TV news people, even a few writers - are elevated to the status of celebrity, and their every move, including that to the next world, gets reported. What's surprising is not how many famous people died this year, but how many of the deceased this year were famous.
