Hallinan on Alex Cockburn…
I was looking for a photo of Cockburn that approximates the man I saw in Coilorado two years ago.
“His words fell like rain on the dry desert plain, precious and so quickly gone”
– Kate Wolf, Eyes of a Painter.
Conn `Ringo’ Hallinan writing about Alex Cockburn. If I remember correctly, Ringo knew Alex rather well.
This is a beautiful and accurate tribute.
Alexander Cockburn 6/6/41-7/20/12
Aug. 3, 201Alexander Cockburn June 6, 1941-July 20, 2012
For Chaos heard his voice: him all his Traine
Follow’d in the bright procession to behold
Creation, and the wonders of his might.
–Paradise Lost, John Milton
It was fitting that writer and critic Alexander Cockburn’s funeral should include a passage from Milton. For more than 50 years, Cockburn combined polished, erudite writing with fierce political insight in the tradition of the great 17thcentury English polemicist. Cockburn died July 20 in Germany at age 71, following a two-year struggle with cancer. He was buried July 28 in his beloved Petrolia, Ca.
It is hard to sum up his career because it was catholic in true meaning of that word: all embracing. He wrote for newspapers in England, New York’s Village Voice, the Wall Street Journal, and the Nation, and, along with Jeffery St. Clair, founded the investigative publication, CounterPunch. For more than 50 years, Cockburn was a relentless critic of U.S. foreign policy, opposing the Yugoslav War, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the recent war in Libya. (for the whole piece, click here)
View from the Left Bank: Rob Prince's Blog 