The Blog from the Core - Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Core: noun, the most important part of a thing, the essence; from the Latin cor, meaning heart.

		The Weblog at The View from the Core - Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Steven Vincent, RIP

Two weeks ago today, Aug. 2, freelance journalist and blogger and sometime art critic Steven Vincent was abducted and murdered in Basra, Iraq, where he had been living the past three months. His last published article, which may have been the proximate cause of his murder, is here.

He and I had exchanged a couple of e-mails back in January, and I believe that I had left a few comments at his blog now and then. When I heard of his murder, I paused and said a prayer for Steven and his family. Today, I am moved to blog about his death for he has, after a fashion, touched me from beyond the grave.

I was looking over my blog stats today — why, I do not know — and I noticed some hits from In the Red Zone. I was wondering how on earth anybody would arrive at my blog from Steven Vincent's, then it occurred to me that perhaps some folks had come from a link at one or another comment I had left there.

No. All comments have been removed.

To my astonishment, I discovered that, actually, The Blog from the Core is on the blogroll there. I can hardly account for this, but I am honored, as well as amazed, to be associated with him so publicly.

From the comfort of my familiar home, I ponder the life and death of a fellow writer and fellow blogger who forsook the comfortable and familiar and put his life on the line. As a small and brief tribute, allow me to pluck some words from their context and hail him as one who would

.... fear
No petty customs nor appearances;
But think what others only dream'd about;
And say what others did but think; and do
What others dared not do....

Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace. Amen.

Here follows the blogroll from In the Red Zone as of today:

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Tue. 08/16/05 06:48:43 PM
Categorized as Blogosphere Stuff & International & Most Notable.

Cor ad cor loquitur — J. H. Newman — “Heart speaks to heart”