A reporter writes his own obituary.

Lasantha Wickramatunga knew he was going to die. There'd been several assassination attempts on his life in the last months, and a whole slew of other Sri Lankan reporters who have also been executed. Yet to the very end he continued to be undaunted, and in his own, self-written obituary he explained why.

I've heard the poem by Niemöller quoted in a lot of petty and absurd situations. LJ's strikethrough insanity being one. Sometimes we lose perspective about what is truly important, and what is truly wrong, and what battles are fought for pleasure rather than need. But this is the one time I think it is quoted both correctly and appropriately.

I feel terribly sorry for his children, who won't have him as a father, and his wife, who lost her other half. But there is something noble about facing an insurmountable enemy and refusing to yield. I hope Wickramatunga's final words stick in his murderer's craw, and finally lay the seeds of doubt and introspection in the man who was once his friend.