No, I'm not Bartcop . . .

. . . whose death was announced today, in case you were worried  Back when people actually read this blog many people thought I was. (The name I use real life makes the connection, but actually, his name was not Bart, whereas mine is.) However, I did correspond with him, around the time he was first diagnosed with cancer. I also had some correspondence with his friend Marc Perkel.

Bartcop was one of the most important liberal bloggers to emerge early in the reign of Chimpoleon the First, Emperor of Mesopotamia, AKA George Bush II. His palpable anger was always fully justified, his wit was sharp, and his reading immense. Eventually Bartcop faded into the blogosphere as it grew vastly larger, but he was seminal in getting the whole thing started.