Talk about loss — a loss of someone who was beloved as a human being, a generation loss (exactly how many changes could he have nudged along if he had lived?), and a cyberspace loss. Websites are filled with remembrances of Aaron Swartz, who we learned committed suicide weeks before going on trial in what is considered a highly controversial case that Swartz’s friends and relatives believe was overkilled — and killed him.
Many websites are now running this video of Swartz, which reminds us of the kind of person we’ve lost. It’s title on You Tube: “F2C2012: Aaron Swartz keynote – “How we stopped SOPA”
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.