A prolific blogger is dead.He wroter diaries on the progressive blog, The Daily Kos. Here’s the beginning of the post written by a friend in his spot on the site, under his byline:
My name is Rebecca Schuler. I am a friend of Matthew, who I think you knew as kwickkick. He asked me to post something here for him. He died on Saturday from cancer. He said that some of you wanted to know about his trip to Europe. I went with him and he was the happiest I have ever seen him. He only managed to go to London, Sheffield, Milan and Zurich. The plan was to take him several more places, but his health didn’t hold up. We came home and not too long afterwards he went into hospice. He was in a great deal of pain on Friday and they began using a fair amount of morphine. We were told he would probably die over the weekend. Several friends and family members were there with him until the end. His death was very peaceful. On Thursday, he asked me to record something he wanted to tell you and asked me to post it this week.
Go to the link to read it. Yes, he left a political message (the importance of helping Barack Obama succeed), but it’s the underlying message that goes beyond politics that most resonates.
His death is a reminder in these contentious times that these little letters we all read on our computers making up words and concepts were put there by breathing, living human beings. Yes, blogs and the Internet are important for several reasons. But a blog post will not change the course of history, or of the nation. What we write and read on computers is conceptual. There are things beyond that and we all should treat people whose stuff we read, comment on, or link to online with respect. They’re on a journey that has a limited timeframe — so are we. And — regardless of what we advocate — when we write and read on the Internet it’s because we’re interested in finding the best way to make the journey better for all.
P.S. I hadn’t read a lot of his stuff (I surf a lot of sites). But I had seen one of his last posts …because I saw he now had a bigger message.
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.