Kurt Vonnegut dead. So it goes.

[Ramo]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/11/books/11cnd-vonnegut.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

[Drake Tungsten]

First Hunter S. Thompson, now Kurt Vonnegut. And people doubt there's a god...

[Ramo]

Don't be an ass.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I dunno... if he lived forever, I think less people would doubt a divine presence .

[SlowwHand]

The defining moment of Mr. Vonnegut’s life was the firebombing of Dresden, Germany, by Allied forces in 1945, an event he witnessed firsthand as a young prisoner of war. Thousands of civilians were killed in the raids, many of them burned to death or asphyxiated. “The firebombing of Dresden,” Mr. Vonnegut wrote, “was a work of art.” It was, he added, “a tower of smoke and flame to commemorate the rage and heartbreak of so many who had had their lives warped or ruined by the indescribable greed and vanity and cruelty of Germany.”

His experience in Dresden was the basis of “Slaughterhouse-Five,” which was published in 1969 against the backdrop of war in Vietnam, racial unrest and cultural and social upheaval. The novel, wrote the critic Jerome Klinkowitz, “so perfectly caught America’s transformative mood that its story and structure became best-selling metaphors for the new age.”

To Mr. Vonnegut, the only possible redemption for the madness and apparent meaninglessness of existence was human kindness. The title character in his 1965 novel, “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater,” summed up his philosophy:

“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.’ ”

Slaughterhouse-Five was very popular.

[Drake Tungsten]

Don't be an ass.

I'm just saying. Thompson and Vonnegut, dead. Wolfe and O'Rourke, still alive. Surely you see the pattern?

[Ramo]

That you write douchey things?

[KrazyHorse]

Talents die younger than hacks?

[SlowwHand]

Speaking of young talents dying early, a movement is underway to get Jim Morrison's on-stage fondeling removed from his criminal records, in order to try and insure he's remembered as an artist, not a lewd conduct perpetrator.

[KrazyHorse]

What's funny is that I didn't even know of that event until I read the news story today.

Do his relatives really think that Jim ****ing Morrison is doomed to be remembered as a sex offender unless they do something?

[ZEE]

R.I.P. Kurt Vonnegut...

[SlowwHand]

I have it on a video clip. Morrison, not Kurt.

[Drake Tungsten]

Speaking of young talents dying early... Jim Morrison

[Ben Kenobi]

You having fun tonight Drake?

[-Jrabbit]

I remain a fan. Vonnegut was quite creative and often inspired.

R.I.P.