Homage to Max

I have not asked the permission of Max of Maxspeak to post this, but I think there is a matter of public record that needs to be stated officially.  So, the issue is that from time to time, here and there (sorry, no links), I have complained in the econoblogosphere about how one cannot access the old files of the old MaxSpeak. In its heyday the old MaxSpeak was a borderline top ten econoblog, mostly due to Max's regular, witty, and insightful posts.  I was kind of the second player, with Sandwichman of this blog and others from time to time on board, including Gar Lipow, and even briefly Jason Furman, currently the Chair of the CEA, our brief nod to establishmentarianism, not to mention that even good old Dean Baker was on board for awhile before he started Beat the Press.

Those were the good old days, but Max shut the show down and this blog, Econospeak, became its successor, which was 40-70 on the old Gongol rankings, which I miss, and I do not know what has replaced that. Anyway, after Max shut down the shop I complained from time to time that one could not access the old MaxSpeak files.  There were a few posts of mine, with followups, that I particularly was unhappy about not being able to access or link to, and I kvetched here and there. The one that I most regretted the loss of was my post about the problems of some Kurds in Harrisonburg, VA where I live, who were being persecuted by the FBI, and due to my post on MaxSpeak, at least partly, we (a lot of other people besides me were involved with this), we managed to help save some of these guys from jail.  I shoot off my mouth a lot, but saving somebody from jail is one of those few things that I can say that I am unequivocally proud of.  Given the disappearance of the original posts, the only public record of any of this is at Juan Cole's site, where I provided a guest post discussing the matter (I just tried to link to the post at Informed Comment, but it did not work, but if you google, "Juan Cole Rosser Kurds," you will get it as the top hit).  It is there, really.

So, what happened? Max's wife had cancer, suffered, and died.  This prettty much explains it.  Her illness was why he shut down the old MaxSpeak. Recently he sent me an email explaining what happened to the old files of the old MaxSpeak.  They existed ultimately as physical discs, and he finally told me that what happened is that he has simply lost them in all the confusion of his life assoicated with what I mentioned above. I hope that he finds them, but in the meantime, I can only say that I am sorry and sympathize.

So, MaxSpeak was great, and Max is a great guy.  I must say that I underatand and appreciate what has happened.  I wish him the best.  This is life.


Barkley Rosser