"The death of one person is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic." Attributed to Josef Stalin.

I think the juxtaposition of the two sad and horrible events is something to wonder at. We had heard of the ship sinking and the loss of unnamed and possibly unknown hundreds of unofficial migrants. Even this is not an isolated incident. There is great misery in the world and has been for some time. Whether trekking through the Darien Gap with plastic gallon jugs of water, or putting to sea at the mercy of vicious smugglers, there doesn't seem to be enough on the reception side of the world to prompt executive action.

Meanwhile, the implosion of the Titan has given us the small scale, individualistic stories of death as first a mystery, then a detective story, and at present a cautionary tale that can enrapture media and techophile alike.

They go together because we can make the connection that everyone on the sunken migrant vessel had an individual story, had relatives, had guides of one kind or another, and not necessarily beneficent. There were men and women who wanted to give themselves a good experience, and make life better for their children. Here explorers and refugess alike experienced disaster at sea. And in both cases the story is not over for the survivors who learn that there was much they didn't know and only now are learning.