If you can avoid the thought of death for a millisecond, you must already be dead to the world; that is, deceased — literally. Or you’re in the grasp of a coma. Or in a much less dire circumstance, you’re lying in the arms of Morpheus. But, no, you happen to be conscious. You can’t avoid thinking of The Reaper because the Information Age takes cruel delight in assaulting you with torrents of violence, gloom, doom and carnage. That abuse isn’t surprising. Television networks would shrivel without excessively violent programming. As would video game peddlers who glorify savagery and brutality. Ditto the Hollywood sleaze merchants who mass produce violence on a huge scale to conceal their lack of talent and taste, aiming their sewage at puerile audiences all too willing to squander  time and money on bilge. In the real world, everyday, Death has a field day. You hear of young warriors who make the ultimate sacrifice in defense of a nation while, daily, their absentee commander, his family and his political minions squander that nation’s wealth as they wallow in the lap of personal luxury. The Pale Rider doesn’t discriminate and doesn’t miss a trick. He visits you on Sundays as a starring performer in the exercise of theology, liturgy and littany. He stands by indifferently as you witness the final departure of comrades and the grief of close friends. One of those close friends was not Travis Alexander but his murder keeps Death in the spotlight during daily courtroom drama, as his bespectacled murderess stoically, almost clinically, relates that shooting him the face, stabbing him 27 times and slitting his throat was a desperate act of self defense. Since Death never takes a holiday, you were treated to weeks of fulsome blathering when a South American commie dictator, intimately familiar with the death of others, bit the dust himself, ending 15 years of oppression and coercion. Since Death is the prearranged outcome of Life, you should examine the motives behind your morbid fixation. Beyond conventional concerns — or let’s be honest — beyond the utter dread of your own mortality — you struggle primarily with the notion of Justice among “the quick and the dead.” Apparently, through Grace, a murderess and a scum bag have equal opportunity in Paradise. Apparently, Justice doesn’t flinch when an evil dictator enjoys a full life as he commits genocide; while a young mother, wholesome and loving, perishes in the midst of full bloom. If Life has consequences, what are the consequences of death? Ancient superstition says your eternal punishment will be the thing you fear most — a truly terrifying prospect. Under no circumstances can you risk it — an eternity of suffering the ghastly, insipid noise of rap “music.” Or consider an equally wretched outcome — forced to share eternal living quarters with the odious Barney Frank. As undeserving as your life may have been, you must, for the remainder of your days, reject all things malicious and malignant; or most likely there will be Hell to pay. After all, no amount of delicious Sin can justify the agony of being within earshot of Chris Matthews for all time to come. There you have it. Death is either your ally or foe. Your choice. Meanwhile, you would be smart to adopt Scarlett O’Hara’s method of coping with the quandary: “I won’t think about that now. I’ll think about that tomorrow.”