Gilly-Day 2008 -- not really off-topic, here.

firedoglake -- and
many blogs with
smaller audiences than
theirs -- are sporting "Gilly-Day"
posts today. i am definitely on that.

hey, gilly -- peace to your
friends and family. . .

while the Universe is brighter -- for
your return to the
Infinity of it all. . .

we, here, are a little
dimmer, for it. . .

and so, man, i say:

n a m a s t é. . .

sad news concerns steve gilliard. . .

from the blog:

It is with tremendous sadness that we must convey the news that Steve Gilliard, editor and publisher of The News Blog (www.thenewsblog.net), passed away early Saturday morning, June 2nd. He was 41.

To those who have come
to trust The News Blog
and its insightful,
brash and unapologetic
editorial tone, we have
Steve to thank from the
bottom of our hearts. Steve
helped lead many discussions
that mattered to all of
[above photo by lindsay beyerstein] us, and he tackled subjects and interest categories where others feared to tread.

We will post more information as it becomes available to us.

Please keep Steve's friends and family in your thoughts and prayers.

Steve meant so much to us. We will miss him terribly.

- the news blog team

". . .and so, eventually, all
things merge into one, and
a river runs through it. . .

the river was cut by the world's
great flood, and runs over rocks
from the basement of time. on the
rocks are timeless raindrops, and
under the rocks are the words. . ."

and, some of those words
were his -- to all of us. . .

[with sincere apologies to
norman maclean -- and his
angelic work, in green above. . .]

later -- as an update -- i've added a
youtube.com video of our little
neighborhood group, "doin' some
good in tha' [our] hood. . ."

i do think steve would have
appreciated this. . . so, here's
to his life, and to him, then: