The Whitewash of Death - a thought for the day

How come whenever anyone dies, whether they be a yardie, a drug dealer, a used car salesman or worse, a personal injury lawyer they suddenly become a great person?

I know of many examples of this, theres probably one in your paper today, some chav scumbag carrying a knife gets stabbed in the neck and his parents rush out to claim he "was a lovely happy boy who loved everyone". This is clearly bullshit, so why is this what happens?

As a Taoist, death has no meaning to me really, I certainly don't see why its an excuse for character deformation. They should really say "He was no angel, but we loved him dearly" or words to that effect, what say you people?

and of course;

Here we have an example close to something that once happend to me and some friends at school, this is the sort of thing that makes me feel its all so very hopeless, enjoy..if you can;