Within hours of Michael Kennedy's senseless death on a vertical football field in Aspen, Colo., the cliches--of "vigah" and hubris, crossed stars and a genetic predisposition to take stupid risks--had piled up so high, it was hard to dig through to the sad story beneath.
Michael's friends mourned him as a smart, hardworking, bighearted man who, had he died a little sooner or a little later, might have been remembered as a hero. He founded a university in Angola, gave loans to women-owned businesses in Ecuador and ran a company that supplies heat to 147 homeless shelters in Boston. He spent...