Message from beyond

A big hat tip goes to Rick Moran at American Thinker for putting up a post about this. As Moran notes:

The blogosphere lost one of its finest on Thursday when Major Andrew Olmsted was killed in action in Iraq.

Olmsted was a great writer who blogged at several sites including his own. His writing was penetrating, incisive, funny, tragic, and heartfelt. He had friends all over the internet who loved him and will miss his presence terribly.

It brings up a lot of questions which have no answers, and reminded me that life is too fragile to spend it arguing over a lot of things that we on the blogosphere locally and across the nation have been fighting over since blogs came about a few years back.

As Olmstead wrote:

The ability to put my thoughts on (virtual) paper and put them where people can read and respond to them has been marvelous, even if most people who have read my writings haven’t agreed with them. If there is any hope for the long term success of democracy, it will be if people agree to listen to and try to understand their political opponents rather than simply seeking to crush them. While the blogosphere has its share of partisans, there are some awfully smart people making excellent arguments out there as well, and I know I have learned quite a bit since I began blogging.

In other words, it’s the Golden Rule. I have no idea if Major Olmstead even read my site, but I’m hoping that if he did this one was an example of the awfully smart people making excellent arguments. In a political sense, it’s why I do links to both sides of the aisle as a bid to inform.

Rest in peace, Major Olmstead.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.