But by far, the most amazing effect that death evokes from the public is its complete forgiveness of all past crimes. Witness the effect murder had on the image of the rapper Christopher Wallace, a.k.a. the Notorious B.I.G:
  Public
Perception
Before
  Event   Public
Perception
After
 
Notorious B.I.G. Little-known
former crack dealer
+ tragic death = Poetic genius
who deserves a
public mourning
on MTV from a
gospel choir


Even the tribute song about Biggie ("I'll Be Missing You") hit number one, and that was a bad knock-off of a Police song about stalking.

Still, we shouldn't be surprised. Death earns forgiveness, as we learned when former, nearly-impeached president President Richard Nixon passed away:
Nearly-
impeached
thug
+ regular death = revered scholar Richard Nixon


And Nixon died in his sleep as an old man! Hardly tragic! But when he died in 1994, Americans forgot about the mob lackeys he hired to steal from his opponents, and kept flags at half-mast for a month. If O.J. had just thought to pull the trigger of the gun in his mouth while riding his Bronco two years ago, we probably would haven named schools after him.
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