When Michael Jackson died they actually made an announcement on the flight my brother was on, so that got us talking about what other people would warrant a pilot interrupting a flight to tell everyone: the President was the only one we could really decide on for sure. The Queen was a maybe.

On the other end of the spectrum from the widespread mourning after Michael's death was the celebrating after Osama bin Laden was killed. I felt weird about people cheering in the streets about death, but I understand that it was almost therapeutic for a lot of people.