Pino Angelica painting

Pino Angelica painting
Pablo Picasso Le Moulin de la Galette painting
If we look at large families, we can sometimes find more death, disease and tragedy than is generally expected. Socioeconomic factors — poverty primarily — increase the likelihood of untimely deaths, as do psychological ones — such as a propensity for risk-taking. Few people invoke curses to explain a disastrous string of deaths in an extended family living in a blighted neighborhood with a high crime rate, or among a circus family of high-wire performers. Combine automobile accidents, cancers and other calamities with all the cousins, aunts and uncles, grandchildren and assorted spouses, and my guess is that a tiny minority — but considerably more than a few families — would suffer from losses of the Kennedys’ magnitude over a comparable time. But we don't hear or read about these losses, and those families' personal tragedies usually have no social echo. Outsized AttentionThe effect of the news media cannot be underestimated.