Vonnegut: An Appreciation -- AJC's Phil Kloer

KURT VONNEGUT: AN APPRECIATION: Left-wing icon drew a bead on war | ajc.com: "Kurt Vonnegut, the 'Slaughterhouse-Five' author who spun a horrific event during World War II into an anti-war novel that rallied the Vietnam War generation, was an icon of the counterculture and the political left for almost 40 years. Long before it was fashionable, he worried that human beings were killing the Earth.

In his later decades, Vonnegut, who died Wednesday after suffering brain injuries resulting from a fall at his Manhattan home weeks ago, cultivated a curmudgeonly aura and frequently said that he had 'given up' on humanity. In his Long Island farmhouse, however, he hung a sign that read: 'G— damn it, you got to be kind,' which doesn't sound like someone who's given up."