It appears that Fred Reed has put down the columnizer after so many excellent decades.

Unlike many in our ashen trade, I have been fortunate in not having an editor to tell me what to write and not being constrained to specialize. “Fred on Everything” may sound pompous but it is not restrictive. Thus i could write about anything from the military-industrial complex to being a barefoot-and-BB gun-toting Tom Sawyer simulacrum in small-town Alabama to robots and the realities of Mexico. This has been fun for me and, apparently, for a certain kind of reader.

But not to most. What most readers want is to be told over and over what they already believe, preferably in combative prose. Most columnists and websites do exactly this. I could never do it, perhaps because of some psychic defect. Or maybe I am just bull-headed. The result has been that readers have been few by internet standards but, at least in my judgement, a superior and versatile sort who can disagree without huffing-and-deleting. I regard them–you– as fellow conspirators against the expected, the tedious, and the ordinary. It has been fun. I thank you for the years.

Ciao,

Fred

These interwebs won’t be the same without him. Thanks for everything, Fred!