Studs Terkel, 1912 - 2008

Studs Terkel, another of my all-time great heroes, author of the ground-breaking oral history book Working and Hard Times, passed away on October 31 at the age of 96. If you didn't know the great man, you could do worse than to read "Why Studs Terkey Mattered" from his hometown paper, the Chicago Tribune. Or, here's a little sample, from a radio interview:

With Enron and corporate scandals in the news, Studs recalled the 1930s depression: “Things don’t repeat themselves exactly. But we’ve learned nothing from it. Unregulated, free, untrammeled, what’s it called, ‘free market,’ fell on its ass again, as it did then. We’ve learned nothing.”