Sorry to hear it (and glad you got your chance to catch up with him last month), but I don't understand being upset by the use of technology to transmit the news. Only since the 1930s were telephones available; such urgent news previously had to be conveyed by a very expensive telegram, and you'd have to send one to each person you wanted to notify. Then came phones and while it was more efficient and somewhat cheaper (until the late 1980s), you still had to call each person. E-Mail and SMS are just more efficient ways of notifying everyone, allowing the person dealing with the whole thing to spend that much less time on one of many unpleasant tasks.

woof.

OMG WE'RE FUCKED! -- duxup ?