Obits. The July 8 Canadian Medical Association Journal has an interesting piece about the firestorm that erupted after the British Medical Journal published a critical obit of a recently deceased doc. Apart from the question whether the dead doc actually will turn out to be the greatest snakeoil salesman of his time, there is the somewhat interesting question whether obits should merely celebrate the highlights and impassively report on the lowlights of a life, or should they jump into the fray with full-throated opinions. I vote for the latter . . . . it's a lot more interesting than the bland stuff that most papers and especially professional journals pass off as obituaries.