In a thread at the top, Mike Beane made reference to "Raise a glass to Tom Piper ..." and I immediately fired off an email to see if Mike had heard something - this really is devastating.
He was certainly in many ways larger than life. I will never forget a February in Toledo, we were about to go out for dinner - and Tom showed up in the lobby in his Harvard sweatshirt, shorts and no shoes.
He was warm and interesting and could be very funny. When I could get him to be serious I was often struck by just how sharp his mind was. Moreover, he was a generous spirit.
I'll miss him.
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
