Mourning Joe

OCPA has hosted several interesting people through the years, and I've had the good fortune to talk to many of them and even shuttle them around town. But if you ask me who my favorite is, it's not even close. I loved the author and columnist Joseph Sobran, who died today at the age of 64.

In high-school math class, rather than paying attention to my teacher, I was furtively reading the latest issue of National Review (which, miraculously, was available at the Bartlesville High School library. Hooray for public education!). I would also read Joe's essays in The Human Life Review, many of which were compiled in the 1983 book Single Issues: Essays on the Crucial Social Questions. And his extended NR essay, "Pensees: Notes for the Reactionary of Tomorrow," was and is a masterpiece.

Fast forward 15 years, and I'm driving him around the metro. It was the day after Constitution Day in 1998, and I took him to speak to the students at Edmond Santa Fe High School, and then to the old Applewoods Restaurant south of Reno off Meridian, where some 300 folks heard him discuss "How the Constitution Was Stolen." The photo at right was taken that day. I even asked Joe to write a piece for Perspective, which he did.

There's much more to say, but my heart is heavy and I'm not in the mood. Besides, others will have plenty to say, and I'll start compiling some links below. Joseph Sobran, dead at 64. R.I.P.

"Joe Sobran, R.I.P." by Jack Fowler
"Bard of the Right" by Matthew Scully
"Extraordinary Joe" by Kevin Lynch 
"A Noble Heart" by Robert Royal
"Not Your Average Joe" by Ann Coulter
"Joseph Sobran, RIP" by Lew Rockwell
"Joseph Sobran, R.I.P." by the editors of Chronicles
"Joe Sobran, RIP" by Tim Bayly
"Interregnum -- and a Transition" by Tom Bethell