For the record, since this discussion began, perhaps as many as 100,000 souls have perished as a result from the Myanmar catastrophe, and the lives and cultures of perhaps another million or two have been changed forever. Add to that the tolls from yesterday's earthquake (10,000 or more declared dead already) and we might be inclined to feel that the end of the world might really be drawing toward us (at least, if the victims had been native English-speakers), and yet this argument, continues unabated.

By what miracle it is sustained, in the face of catastrophe, in the face of disaster, in the face of overwhelming and incomprehensible human misery, we can only guess, as it no longer even has a discernable subject--