R.I.P, Mr. Vonnegut

I don't find it surprising that little has been said in the media regarding Kurt Vonnegut's recent death. We are living in a place and at a time diseased by a virus of anti-intellectualism. The problem is that the masses have yet to realize that they have contracted the virus. Hence, we will concern ourselves for a month with the death of a woman who became famous by way of her fake tits and playboy body - and yet only a few will recognize the death of a pivotal american who inspired lives by way of his words. In his latest collection of essays A Man Without a Country, he concluded the poem Requiem with the following:

When the last living thing

has died on account of us,

how poetical it would be

if Earth could say,

in a voice floating up

perhaps

from the floor

of the Grand Canyon,

"It is done."

People did not like it here.

Vonnegut tried to kill himself years ago. He joked that he was angry at the tobacco companies because they were liars - on the packages of their cigarettes they had promised to kill him, and they had failed. Well, in the end he didn't kill himself and he didn't die of lung cancer - he fell and hit his head. And...So it goes.