Martin Bosworth, 35

"From the dawn of time he came, moving silently throughout the ages . . . no one has ever known he was among you . . . until now . . ." -- Sean Connery, "Highlander"
"Technical skill is mastery of complexity, while creativity is mastery of simplicity." -- Erik Christopher Zeeman

-- the answer to "Who am I?"
in Martin Bosworth's Boztopia blog bio

by Ken

It doesn't get much awfuler than this:

ConsumerAffairs.com's Martin Bosworth Dies

Web site's managing editor was 35; fierce voice for consumers is stilled

By Truman Lewis 
ConsumerAffairs.com
February 18, 2010


Martin H. Bosworth, ConsumerAffairs.com's managing editor, died at his home in Los Angeles yesterday. He was 35 and had been ill for several months.

"We're heart-broken," said James R. Hood, the Web site's president. "Martin had a quick wit and an incisive, curious mind. He was monumentally devoted to fighting for the rights of everyday consumers. No day was dull when Martin was around."

Bosworth, a graduate of Boston University, joined ConsumerAffairs.com as a free lance reporter in Washington, D.C., in 2005, later becoming a full-time staff member. He was named Managing Editor in 2008 and in 2009 led the transfer of the Web site's editorial operations to Los Angeles.

Earlier stops along the way included communications and Web editing posts at the Department of the Army, Walter Reed Hospital and the District of Columbia municipal government.

At ConsumerAffairs.com, Bosworth specialized in stories about privacy, consumer credit and new media, and held strong opinions on each.

"Lets face it -- radio stinks," he wrote in June 2007 in a typically spicy story about the future of radio.

"Martin brought passion to his work. He was a fierce advocate for consumers and sometimes chafed at the restraints that go with being an editor instead of a reporter," Hood said. "He had the drive, the intelligence and the talent to make a big difference in the world and I'm sure he would have done so had he been given more time."

Bosworth is survived by his parents, a sister and a nephew. His funeral will be held Monday, Feb. 22, at noon at Eden Memorial Park in Mission Hills, Calif. A later memorial service is being planned for Washington, D.C.

I never met Martin, I'm sorry to say. I got to know his writing and thinking principally via a listserv to which he contributed along with a large number of other voluble, strongly opinionated folks. Coming in late, I had the experience of "getting to know" folks just by attending to their contributions over time. It doesn't take long to begin sorting out the people who sometimes, or usually, or almost always have something valuable to say. I don't suppose I have to tell you which category I soon enough assigned Martin to. But there was something else about him -- a kindness? a fairness? a genuine attentiveness? -- that I'm seeing reflected in the outpouring of horror- and grief-stricken expressions of loss today, including a flood on a Facebook memorial page. (It takes a lot to get me to venture into the swamp of Facebook. This did it.)

Martin rarely ventured an opinion on a subject he hadn't used his full and remarkable analytical tools to grasp, and he had something like a genius for expressing himself not just clearly and passionately (he was a terrific writer) but usually with the gentlest good humor and always with respect. For one thing, he actually listened to what people said -- or perhaps I should say "actually read what people wrote" -- and took in into account in responding. This is a rarer quality than some people realize.

I'm jealous of the people who are able to remember Martin as a friend, like Katherine who wrote on Facebook: "Everytime something funny or amusing happened I would think of Martin's laugh and him saying, 'That's awesome!' The world is less awesome without him in it." Like a lot of people who've been writing about him today, the only direct contact I had with him was a few e-mail exchanges, but even they were special. He made you feel better just for the contact. He had, I think, a basic respect for people (about as far as you can get from the no-longer-disguised contempt that underlies right-wing authoritarianism).

Sam Smith has a tribute to "one of our original scrogues" on Scholars & Rogues. Jason Rosenbaum has a fine remembrance on The Seminal, focusing on Jason's own recent area of specialization, with his work at HCAN: health care. Elana Levin has a great DailyKos diary, which includes a list of some of her favorites of Martin's posts, and she invites readers to contribute theirs. I'm sure a host of other worthwhile remembrances have turned up, and will continue to, all over the Net.

Martin's writing appeared in a lot of places, but the place where he knew he could always have his say his own way was his own blog, Boztopia. The last entry, from this past Monday (Feb. 15), is a long and predictably thoughtful piece called "The Creative Class War," addressing the large and thorny question of what's to become of people who write -- or make music or movies -- in a world that seems to be saying their labors aren't worth compensating, or should be compensated only according to the wishes of powerful corporations in a position to set compensation rates in a way that works best for them.

If we're to have any sense of Martin, I think we need to hear his own voice, and I think this piece will do fine. After a great deal of thoughtful exploration of this whole subject of "free" (in the various senses) expression, he arrives at this tentative conclusion:

Whether you’re a part-time blogger, full-time blogger, part-time journalist, full-time journalist, or whatever, if you’re good –- IF you’re good –- you deserve to get paid for your work. And we need to build a model that supports it.

In the meantime, what are some things we can do to prevent the freefall of the creative class into a widening gyre of eternal indebtedness, resentment from fans (or readers), and demands to constantly reduce the potential profit one can make from their work?

He proceeds to four suggestions of "meantime" things we can do, each described in a long paragraph -- of which I'm including only the last two in full. I'm also making no attempt to reproduce the on-site links, except for two: the Marvel Comics reference, which needs to be explained for those who aren't up on the matter, and the one to the Public Domain Manifesto.

* Recognize the difference between "content creation" & "information synthesis. [Followed by explanation and description]

* Find a price model that is truly set by all involved parties, not just one. [Followed by explanation and description]

* Not everyone who creates is a creator, and not every creator creates well. This is probably the hardest thing to disseminate, because it forces people to face the idea that they aren’t the center of the universe, nor are they entitled to the same level of respect, just because they have freedom of expression. In a true marketplace of ideas, the best one should win, not the loudest. Unfortunately, we too easily conflate “loudest” with “best,” and that’s how you end up with spoiled-brat Tea Partiers forcing Marvel to apologize. Simply having freedom of expression does not automatically connote value in your expression. If someone else creates a work of art and you didn’t, whose fault is that? Theirs for having the commitment and talent you don’t have? Or yours for not finding a way to creatively express yourself? If you really value music, movies, books, or even news, you’ll support those efforts as you deem fit. What we have now is the worst of all possible scenarios — a world where so-called fans will pirate material, distribute it freely, and then spend endless days on blogs or forums bashing it for not being good. The creators lose money, and the “fans” get to indulge their resentment of them for their work. If you like something, buy it. If you don’t, leave it alone and find something else to do with your time.

* Reform copyright law to enable freer content creation and ensure works are available to all. For this one I’ll just refer you to the excellent Public Domain Manifesto, which summarizes the need for reform and wholesale reimagining better than I could.

He winds up, characteristically, with a "sprinkling" of irony: that the book that had played an important role in provoking him to think about the subject, K. W. Jeter's Noir, had actually been given to him as a gift -- and by a friend "who didn't like it all that much."

Unfortunately the conclusion includes a nastier irony:

This went on longer than I intended, so I’ll save my thoughts on what cities can do for the creative class and journalism for another time. For now, I’ll just say this — creators and fans should not be at war with each other, especially when the real culprits are the bean-counters, the middle managers, and the corporate structures that siphon away as much profit from the creator as possible while ensuring maximum value return for their work. ASCAP (a futuristic version of which employs people like McNihil in “Noir”) is in business of collecting money for itself, and the MPAA/RIAA axis of evil isn’t suing people like Jammie Thomas to ensure that money gets in the artists’ pockets. Remember that the next time you blame an author or musician for wanting to get paid for their work.

Even here he isn't done -- he still has that sprinkling of irony to add on top. But we're left with the irony that there won't be "another time" for those further thoughts Martin promised. And, as so many mourners have pointed out, only 35. In that too-short time he already accomplished a lot, not least in carving out one role model for activists. But he had so much yet to do. Just from our e-mail exchanges, I know how eager he was to get on with it.

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