I'm sorry to report that DUer Junkdrawer has passed away [View all]

[EarlG]

I received a DU Mail from his wife last week, unfortunately since I was on vacation I only just got around to reading it. Here is the message:

I would like to announce the death of my husband Richard (AKA "Junkdrawer&quot on 13 May 2014. Rich died ostensibly as a result of blunt force trauma to the upper body after a head-on collision. Nobody else was injured. They thought Rich was going to make it--he was able to tell them his name, address, & date of birth. Once en route to the hospital, however, he began experiencing some difficulty. When he arrived at the emergency room, they tried to revive him two or three times. He didn't make it...couldn't even hang on until I got there. This goes to prove that simply because one is driving a Subaru Forester does not mean that one will walk away unscathed.

Rich was a true progressive and a realist--almost to the point of pessimism. He joined DU in 2002 and you all have been a part of our dinnertime discussions until he died. I do not think that many of the DU members know just how smart Junkdrawer was; he was scary-smart. He had been a math/physics major as an undergrad many, many years ago and got into computers in the 1980s. He once told me, "There is no playground greater than the one in my head," but I went ahead & married him anyway!

Richard was very concerned about the direction this country is headed. The watered-down liberal pabulum that has replaced any sort of true activism was distressing to him. Increasingly he found people on DU who were merely posing as liberals (I believe you all call them "Trolls&quot . Often this would anger him. I was fond of saying, "Honey, if you're going to do intellectual battle, do intellectual battle with your equals." Very few people qualified.

So this is his goodbye to the Democratic Underground. He would want you all to remember one of his favorite quotes from Kurt Vonnegut:

"Here's what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey. And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we’re hooked on."

So it goes.