3.04.2010

rip al weisel, aka jon swift

I was so saddened to hear that a man many of us knew as the blogger "Jon Swift" has passed away.

As a blogger, Jon Swift wrote a hilarious, dead-on, brilliantly satirical, fake conservative blog with the memorable tagline:
I am a reasonable conservative who likes to write about politics and culture. Since the media is biased I get all my news from Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and Jay Leno monologues.

As a person, he was warm, inclusive and unerringly compassionate. Jon Swift was well known for his "Blogroll Amnesty Day," where, in response to some of the more famous blogs jettisoning unknowns from their link lists, Swift would add anyone and everyone to his. Each year, he would invite readers to submit their favourite post from their own blog, and would post a huge round-up of everyone's self-selected best-ofs. Years later, I still get traffic from those posts.

Jon Swift's real name was Al Weisel. He truly will be missed. I offer my heartfelt condolences to his family and friends. They lost Al way too early - and immediately after the death of his own father. Awful.

You can read about Al here.

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