Good riddance to mad scientist Jack Kevorkian

The mad scientist and murderer Jack Kevorkian, who earned the nickname "Dr. Death" for a ghoulish interest that developed into assisting 130 suicides by his own estimate, died in Royal Oak Michigan early on June 3, 2011 at the age of 83, as reported by Joe Swickard and Pat Anstett in the Detroit Free Press on June 3, 2011. The Detroit Free Press has also published a timeline of Mr. (why was he constantly called "Doctor" years after losing his medical license?) Kevorkian's misspent career. He should be buried face-down so he can see where he's going. While the Lord takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Ezekiel 33:11), that doesn't mean we're not better off without such a man among us.

The long career of "Dr." Kevorkian helps to serve as a barometer of the decline of the influence of biblical standards on medicine and society in the United States (and other western nations, as well). When "Dr. Death" first acquired his nickname, he was rightly regarded as a mad scientist whose views were beyond the pale for the healing profession. Mr. Kevorkian's views never moderated, but the views of society declined to the point that by the 1990s, Mr. Kevorkian was seen as a man of compassion.

Jack Kevorkian was a man of artistic and musical talent, but his paintings were of the sort that would have been appropriate for Rod Serling's Night Gallery; as for his musical ability, Sherlock Holmes, in the movie Pursuit to Algiers, pointed out that the late Professor Moriarty "was a virtuoso on the contra-bassoon." Mr. Holmes' comment on Dr. Grimesby Roylott in The Adventure of the Speckled Band could serve as Jack Kevorkian's epitaph: "When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge."