The philosopher and spiritualist Thomas Merton had strong connections to my hometown of Louisville. In 1958, he had a life-changing epiphany downtown where an historic marker now stands, and he spent 27 years as a Trappist monk in a nearby abbey called Gethsemane. Among many things, Merton was an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War.
One night in Bangkok, at only 53 years old, he stepped out of a shower and tried to move a large floor fan with an allegedly faulty cord, and he was electrocuted to death. Speculative controversy followed this incident, ranging from a CIA conspiracy to natural cardiac arrest.
I don’t mean to be too heavy; this article is not about martyrdom or conspiracy theories. But it got me thinking: What if Merton’s death was simply a freak accident, preventable by safer technology?…