Although it was several days until any of us knew, our friend and the founder of Pop Blog died a year ago today. The world has changed a great deal since then, changes that surely Steven would have had choice words to describe. Undoubtedly, our friend would have much to say about Donald Trump, the continuing Health Care debate and our new Representative in Congress, Mike Pompeo, among other topics.
One of the things I like best about Steven was his dry sense of humor, and his ability to display that sense of humor related to most any nonsense in the news of the world.
It doesn’t get any easier to accept Steven’s passing. He was gone far too soon. Each of us have a story or two to tell, a comment from Steven that we remember vividly or just a bit of his sense of humor that still makes us laugh.
I think of Steven often when I hear the music of Bob Dylan. Like me, Steven was a fan of Dylan and appreciated his lyrics and musicianship.
FOREVER YOUNG
“May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
And may your song always be sung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young.”
Bob Dylan – 1974
For so many of the people who’s lives were touched by him, Steven will remain for us, forever young.
WSC
PrairiePopulistsAndProgressives.net 
I never met Steven in person, but I got to know him through his kindness. He mailed me a book once and would not accept any repayment of the mailing cost. He told me to pass it on if and when I was ready to let it go.
That was the kind of person Steven was – giving, thoughtful and did not expect anything in return.
I’m another who misses Steven, and often I wonder what he would say about this and that, what advice would he offer, what input would he share…
I find words don’t come easily. Right now I’m still struggling with how the world keeps spinning when the death of someone vitally important occurs. We continue to take the same steps as before, pursue the same activities, say the same words…
Stop the world and let me off, please.
RIP Steven. Sheez, that year went way too fast. Thoughts and prayers to his family and a big shout out to all at Prairie P & P for keeping his dream alive.
Thanks, loon (presumptively speaking for us all)!
617, you can speak for me anytime.
I miss Steven so much I can hardly speak. I wish he knew what a profound impact he had on so very many people. I wish he knew how strong his blog has become. I wish he knew how much we all miss him.
And I hope that his family has found some peace, and a way to cope with their loss.
What a guy. It was my lucky day when he came into my life.
I never met Steven but I have had the good fortune to meet some who called him friend,and judging him by those who I now call friend he must have been a helluva guy.
I miss Steven in a different way. I was and remain a night blogger. Steven was too. And in the night he (perhaps after dealing with the social results of destructive capitalism all day) found a…resolve and often fought with a resolve and atypical (for him) in other circumstances a nastiness and cruelty that the left WILL need in dealing with the destructive, greedy, selfish, right.
I celebrate and endeavor to continue the legacy of a man who, while most gentle in nature, saw a need to be a warrior.
You remember him in your way and I will remember him in mine. Either way, he is not dead, as long as we remember him.
Steven was present at the first confrontation between the right and the left of the WE Blog and acquitted himself well. I know because I was there.
Steven met with the insane right wing destroyer of the WEBlog (Kanza, Regular, etc) and bid me not to for fear that the meeting would become violent.
(It would have)
Steven had a faith and a hope that there could be found in the right diplomacy and decency. He was wrong about that. And the fact that his diplomacy was reacted to by his name being co-opted and abused by the same right wing, insane blogger that only he would grant the dignity of a meeting proves that.
My friend believed that there was good on the right. He TRIED to find it. The right has made him wrong.
Actually, TC, I don’t think Steven so much thought there was good on the Right as that humanity could be found within people of that view, and must be cultivated, in order for them to understand the humanity of others.
What were you in 1984, dude? A menace to be destroyed, or someone who’s eyes needed opening? (Yeah, I’ll allow that you were very young, and a quick study).
But the principle is the same, in my view.
P.S. Steven, Thunderchild, XXX and I pretty much started that alternative communications (the email back channel), when speculating about the identity of separate amorphous “Steve”–the single-named mocking presence on WEBlog in early 2006. We clicked, and a community clicked, for a while.
Then it got complicated –and then surreal. And eventually pointless.
While we may value different memories of Steven, I think we all cherish the same person, the same thoughtful soul, eloquent, dignified, slow to anger, but could dish it out when he was ready!
I think the Right must give way to What’s Right, as determined by facts, and some sense of human decency. Mark Warner’s pre-definition of the “center”–as if looking at entitlements should be first onn the agenda–really disturbs.
There is, indeed, a middle ground: One which acknowledges the fiscal challenges facing Social Security and Medicare, in the future, while not falsely implying thta those separately funded trust funds have somehow created the deficit.
Or that cutting programs that decay infrastructure and kill poor people are somehow the product of fiscal responsiibility.