John Leonard

Alas, the great, smart, funny, liberal critic John Leonard has died today. Gawker has the obit.

I know Michael Crichton also passed this week, but I didn't post anything. Partly because with all the election euphoria, I didn't want to. Partly because I have mixed feelings about Crichton. Granted, I loved him when I was younger. I remember the film version of "The Andromeda Strain" scaring the pants off me (though, a few years ago when I rented it, it had aged very badly). But in recent years, he'd gotten weird and cranky. We're all entitled to some extent, but writing an anti-global-warming novel? When you're a scientist?

Leave it at this, I'm sorry for his family. And I'm really going to miss John Leonard.