The World Has Lost A Friend: Kurt Vonnegut Entertained, Informed, Inspired, and Made Our World And Our Own Minds So Much Richer

I am speechless at the death of novelist Kurt Vonnegut.

For years and years and years, I reread every Vonnegut novel of the many, many volumes on a regular basis. I just went through "Timequake" again.

But what many don't know about this beautiful man, one of the best of the humanists we are blessed to have, is how much Kurt worked for peace, for justice in a much more important sense than "an eye for an eye" (please don't insist to me that the Biblical "eye" statement is what God wants; it's ONLY what more than 20 centuries of authors, and editors and rewriters, and copiers, and kings and other men NOT of God have told us).

Since Kurt was very badly injured in a fire several years ago, I knew both by his age and the situation we would not have him for long. Yet Kurt continued, leading up to the Iraq War, to write beautifully in alternative publications such as "In These Times."

I will mourn Kurt tonight. But - damn it - it won't be just for one night. Kurt is part of me, as I suspect he is part of many others; helped us look closer than just the immediate sight, helped us question authority and what is "done" by our governments in our names, helped me be a little smarter (and sarcastic).

No, I suspect I will mourn the loss of him for the rest of my life. But the blessing is that I also get to read and reread him, praise and thank him, strive to be a little better for what he (and hey, his brother the scientist was no slouch) made me see, to look above and beyond and under "the facts", and pray that there will be more Vonneguts, just as I know there will never be quite another man exactly like Kurt.

Good night, Kurt. Thank you. Love you.