~DEAN BARNETT, 41, CONSERVATIVE BLOGGER, WRITER FOR THE WEEKLY STANDARD
In many ways, Dean BARNETT's love of Republican politics and Boston sports went hand in glove. But while both appeal to the emotions of devotees, Mr. BARNETT applied a rigorous analysis to his passions and along the way upended the stereotypes many might hold about a guy who grew up in Newton, hardly a hotbed of political conservatism.
"Quite frankly, I'm the very picture of the Chinese Foodeating secular Jew who drives some of my more devout coreligionists batty," he wrote in the Globe last year about his opposition to abortion. "But I'm prolife, and adamantly so. Unlike the often erroneous stereotype of the prolife citizen, I didn't arrive at my position as a matter of religious faith. Rather, my conclusions flow strictly from logical inquiry."
Turning to writing and blogging a few years ago as his health declined, his voice soon resonated nationally as he wrote for The Weekly Standard and filled in as guest host for Hugh Hewitt's syndicated conservative radio talk show. Mr. BARNETT died Monday in Brigham and Women's Hospital of complications of cystic fibrosis. He was 41 and lived in Belmont.
"Courage is a severe virtue, and those who have courage are usually serious, often stern," William Kristol, founder and editor of The Weekly Standard, wrote yesterday on the magazine's website. "Dean, though, was effervescently witty and high spirited. He had a most unusual combination of strength of character and lightness of heart. And generosity of spirit."
Former governor Mitt Romney was running for the US Senate in 1994 when he met Mr. BARNETT.
"He had a knowing smile -- like he hadn't caught the canary yet, but he had it locked in a room," Romney wrote yesterday on The Weekly Standard website. "Over the campaign and over the years that followed, I got to know Dean very well. And I learned why he was smiling -- Dean was 'wicked smart,' as they say around here. He had extraordinary perspective and insight. He brought a lot more to our friendship than I ever could have imagined."
On his website, Hewitt wrote that "Dean's combination of sparking intelligence and enormous good humor made him one of the most memorable of friends. What too few people know, though, is what a kind, extraordinarily giving and compassionate man he was."
Mr. BARNETT's sense of humor endeared him to those who didn't share his beliefs, Kirstan Brooks BARNETT said of her husband. And he always listened attentively to other opinions during spirited discussions, a habit Mr. BARNETT adopted while growing up in largely liberal Newton, where he nonetheless developed conservative political views.
"It's one thing to hold a view when you live in an echo chamber and everyone around you holds the same view," his wife said. "It's a tiny act of courage when you grow up where everyone you know and love holds one view and you adopt another view. And Dean didn't hold his views to be rebellious, because he's not rebellious at all. He's too analytical for that."
Mr. BARNETT was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis when he was a few weeks old. He was in middle school when Senator Edward M. Kennedy ran for president in 1980, and he hoped that the Massachusetts Democrat would win, said his brother, Keith of Westwood. Fourteen years later, Mr. BARNETT's politics were firmly conservative, and he occasionally was a driver for Romney when Romney sought Kennedy's Senate seat.
In the intervening years, Mr. BARNETT went from Newton to Harvard to Boston University, and "he always used to say that Newton South was a heck of a lot tougher academically that Harvard," his wife said.
Mr. BARNETT graduated from Newton South High School in 1985, from Harvard in 1989 with a bachelor's degree in government, and from Boston University School of Law in 1992.
As a Republican, he unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the state House of Representatives in 1992. And then he started a business recruiting lawyers from across the country, particularly Silicon Valley and Wall Street, to work at Boston firms during the high-tech boom.
He met Kirstan BROOKS on the phone while trying to persuade her to leave a Wall Street law firm. Six years of phone calls later, she moved to Boston, and they soon became a couple, marrying in January 2001.
"I don't know of anyone who was more happily married than we were," she said.
A few years ago, as his health declined, Mr. BARNETT looked for a way to work from home. Under a pseudonym, he wrote a blog about baseball, other sports, and politics with such flair that it caught Hewitt's eye. He asked Mr. BARNETT to write for his website and then to be a guest host of "The Hugh Hewitt Show."
From there, Mr. BARNETT's writing drew an invitation to write for The Weekly Standard, where he became a staff writer.
"He loved writing, and I thing he found it to be his true professional calling," his brother said.
"He loved being in the debate, and he loved feeling like he was able to love some people's opinions and engage people and put good reasoning together."
Mr. BARNETT's pieces for The Weekly Standard and its website ranged from the price of parking near Fenway Park to the political cost of the recent economic meltdown.
Cystic fibrosis, meanwhile, led him to write "The Plucky Smart Kid With the Fatal Disease" for The New Pamphleteer, an Internet-based publishing company.
"As I grew sicker, I had what for me was an extremely comforting insight," he wrote last year. "I came to view serious and progressive illness as an ever-constricting circle with oneself at the center."
"At the innermost point of the circle are the things that really matter: family, faith, love. These things stay with you until the day you die. At the very end, because the circle has shrunk down to its center, they're all you have left. But as we approach that end, we finally realize that all along, they were what mattered most. As a consequence, life often remains beautiful and worthwhile right up until the end."
In addition to his wife and brother, Mr. BARNETT leaves his father, Richard of Natick, and his mother, Karen (Daniels) of Boston.
A Memorial Service will be held at 1:00 p.m. today at Congregation Kehillath Israel in Brookline. Burial will be in Sharon Memorial Park.
(Published in The Boston Globe (MA), Wednesday, October 29, 2008.)
~
In many ways, Dean BARNETT's love of Republican politics and Boston sports went hand in glove. But while both appeal to the emotions of devotees, Mr. BARNETT applied a rigorous analysis to his passions and along the way upended the stereotypes many might hold about a guy who grew up in Newton, hardly a hotbed of political conservatism.
"Quite frankly, I'm the very picture of the Chinese Foodeating secular Jew who drives some of my more devout coreligionists batty," he wrote in the Globe last year about his opposition to abortion. "But I'm prolife, and adamantly so. Unlike the often erroneous stereotype of the prolife citizen, I didn't arrive at my position as a matter of religious faith. Rather, my conclusions flow strictly from logical inquiry."
Turning to writing and blogging a few years ago as his health declined, his voice soon resonated nationally as he wrote for The Weekly Standard and filled in as guest host for Hugh Hewitt's syndicated conservative radio talk show. Mr. BARNETT died Monday in Brigham and Women's Hospital of complications of cystic fibrosis. He was 41 and lived in Belmont.
"Courage is a severe virtue, and those who have courage are usually serious, often stern," William Kristol, founder and editor of The Weekly Standard, wrote yesterday on the magazine's website. "Dean, though, was effervescently witty and high spirited. He had a most unusual combination of strength of character and lightness of heart. And generosity of spirit."
Former governor Mitt Romney was running for the US Senate in 1994 when he met Mr. BARNETT.
"He had a knowing smile -- like he hadn't caught the canary yet, but he had it locked in a room," Romney wrote yesterday on The Weekly Standard website. "Over the campaign and over the years that followed, I got to know Dean very well. And I learned why he was smiling -- Dean was 'wicked smart,' as they say around here. He had extraordinary perspective and insight. He brought a lot more to our friendship than I ever could have imagined."
On his website, Hewitt wrote that "Dean's combination of sparking intelligence and enormous good humor made him one of the most memorable of friends. What too few people know, though, is what a kind, extraordinarily giving and compassionate man he was."
Mr. BARNETT's sense of humor endeared him to those who didn't share his beliefs, Kirstan Brooks BARNETT said of her husband. And he always listened attentively to other opinions during spirited discussions, a habit Mr. BARNETT adopted while growing up in largely liberal Newton, where he nonetheless developed conservative political views.
"It's one thing to hold a view when you live in an echo chamber and everyone around you holds the same view," his wife said. "It's a tiny act of courage when you grow up where everyone you know and love holds one view and you adopt another view. And Dean didn't hold his views to be rebellious, because he's not rebellious at all. He's too analytical for that."
Mr. BARNETT was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis when he was a few weeks old. He was in middle school when Senator Edward M. Kennedy ran for president in 1980, and he hoped that the Massachusetts Democrat would win, said his brother, Keith of Westwood. Fourteen years later, Mr. BARNETT's politics were firmly conservative, and he occasionally was a driver for Romney when Romney sought Kennedy's Senate seat.
In the intervening years, Mr. BARNETT went from Newton to Harvard to Boston University, and "he always used to say that Newton South was a heck of a lot tougher academically that Harvard," his wife said.
Mr. BARNETT graduated from Newton South High School in 1985, from Harvard in 1989 with a bachelor's degree in government, and from Boston University School of Law in 1992.
As a Republican, he unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the state House of Representatives in 1992. And then he started a business recruiting lawyers from across the country, particularly Silicon Valley and Wall Street, to work at Boston firms during the high-tech boom.
He met Kirstan BROOKS on the phone while trying to persuade her to leave a Wall Street law firm. Six years of phone calls later, she moved to Boston, and they soon became a couple, marrying in January 2001.
"I don't know of anyone who was more happily married than we were," she said.
A few years ago, as his health declined, Mr. BARNETT looked for a way to work from home. Under a pseudonym, he wrote a blog about baseball, other sports, and politics with such flair that it caught Hewitt's eye. He asked Mr. BARNETT to write for his website and then to be a guest host of "The Hugh Hewitt Show."
From there, Mr. BARNETT's writing drew an invitation to write for The Weekly Standard, where he became a staff writer.
"He loved writing, and I thing he found it to be his true professional calling," his brother said.
"He loved being in the debate, and he loved feeling like he was able to love some people's opinions and engage people and put good reasoning together."
Mr. BARNETT's pieces for The Weekly Standard and its website ranged from the price of parking near Fenway Park to the political cost of the recent economic meltdown.
Cystic fibrosis, meanwhile, led him to write "The Plucky Smart Kid With the Fatal Disease" for The New Pamphleteer, an Internet-based publishing company.
"As I grew sicker, I had what for me was an extremely comforting insight," he wrote last year. "I came to view serious and progressive illness as an ever-constricting circle with oneself at the center."
"At the innermost point of the circle are the things that really matter: family, faith, love. These things stay with you until the day you die. At the very end, because the circle has shrunk down to its center, they're all you have left. But as we approach that end, we finally realize that all along, they were what mattered most. As a consequence, life often remains beautiful and worthwhile right up until the end."
In addition to his wife and brother, Mr. BARNETT leaves his father, Richard of Natick, and his mother, Karen (Daniels) of Boston.
A Memorial Service will be held at 1:00 p.m. today at Congregation Kehillath Israel in Brookline. Burial will be in Sharon Memorial Park.
(Published in The Boston Globe (MA), Wednesday, October 29, 2008.)
~
~DEAN BARNETT, 41, CONSERVATIVE BLOGGER, WRITER FOR THE WEEKLY STANDARD
In many ways, Dean BARNETT's love of Republican politics and Boston sports went hand in glove. But while both appeal to the emotions of devotees, Mr. BARNETT applied a rigorous analysis to his passions and along the way upended the stereotypes many might hold about a guy who grew up in Newton, hardly a hotbed of political conservatism.
"Quite frankly, I'm the very picture of the Chinese Foodeating secular Jew who drives some of my more devout coreligionists batty," he wrote in the Globe last year about his opposition to abortion. "But I'm prolife, and adamantly so. Unlike the often erroneous stereotype of the prolife citizen, I didn't arrive at my position as a matter of religious faith. Rather, my conclusions flow strictly from logical inquiry."
Turning to writing and blogging a few years ago as his health declined, his voice soon resonated nationally as he wrote for The Weekly Standard and filled in as guest host for Hugh Hewitt's syndicated conservative radio talk show. Mr. BARNETT died Monday in Brigham and Women's Hospital of complications of cystic fibrosis. He was 41 and lived in Belmont.
"Courage is a severe virtue, and those who have courage are usually serious, often stern," William Kristol, founder and editor of The Weekly Standard, wrote yesterday on the magazine's website. "Dean, though, was effervescently witty and high spirited. He had a most unusual combination of strength of character and lightness of heart. And generosity of spirit."
Former governor Mitt Romney was running for the US Senate in 1994 when he met Mr. BARNETT.
"He had a knowing smile -- like he hadn't caught the canary yet, but he had it locked in a room," Romney wrote yesterday on The Weekly Standard website. "Over the campaign and over the years that followed, I got to know Dean very well. And I learned why he was smiling -- Dean was 'wicked smart,' as they say around here. He had extraordinary perspective and insight. He brought a lot more to our friendship than I ever could have imagined."
On his website, Hewitt wrote that "Dean's combination of sparking intelligence and enormous good humor made him one of the most memorable of friends. What too few people know, though, is what a kind, extraordinarily giving and compassionate man he was."
Mr. BARNETT's sense of humor endeared him to those who didn't share his beliefs, Kirstan Brooks BARNETT said of her husband. And he always listened attentively to other opinions during spirited discussions, a habit Mr. BARNETT adopted while growing up in largely liberal Newton, where he nonetheless developed conservative political views.
"It's one thing to hold a view when you live in an echo chamber and everyone around you holds the same view," his wife said. "It's a tiny act of courage when you grow up where everyone you know and love holds one view and you adopt another view. And Dean didn't hold his views to be rebellious, because he's not rebellious at all. He's too analytical for that."
Mr. BARNETT was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis when he was a few weeks old. He was in middle school when Senator Edward M. Kennedy ran for president in 1980, and he hoped that the Massachusetts Democrat would win, said his brother, Keith of Westwood. Fourteen years later, Mr. BARNETT's politics were firmly conservative, and he occasionally was a driver for Romney when Romney sought Kennedy's Senate seat.
In the intervening years, Mr. BARNETT went from Newton to Harvard to Boston University, and "he always used to say that Newton South was a heck of a lot tougher academically that Harvard," his wife said.
Mr. BARNETT graduated from Newton South High School in 1985, from Harvard in 1989 with a bachelor's degree in government, and from Boston University School of Law in 1992.
As a Republican, he unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the state House of Representatives in 1992. And then he started a business recruiting lawyers from across the country, particularly Silicon Valley and Wall Street, to work at Boston firms during the high-tech boom.
He met Kirstan BROOKS on the phone while trying to persuade her to leave a Wall Street law firm. Six years of phone calls later, she moved to Boston, and they soon became a couple, marrying in January 2001.
"I don't know of anyone who was more happily married than we were," she said.
A few years ago, as his health declined, Mr. BARNETT looked for a way to work from home. Under a pseudonym, he wrote a blog about baseball, other sports, and politics with such flair that it caught Hewitt's eye. He asked Mr. BARNETT to write for his website and then to be a guest host of "The Hugh Hewitt Show."
From there, Mr. BARNETT's writing drew an invitation to write for The Weekly Standard, where he became a staff writer.
"He loved writing, and I thing he found it to be his true professional calling," his brother said.
"He loved being in the debate, and he loved feeling like he was able to love some people's opinions and engage people and put good reasoning together."
Mr. BARNETT's pieces for The Weekly Standard and its website ranged from the price of parking near Fenway Park to the political cost of the recent economic meltdown.
Cystic fibrosis, meanwhile, led him to write "The Plucky Smart Kid With the Fatal Disease" for The New Pamphleteer, an Internet-based publishing company.
"As I grew sicker, I had what for me was an extremely comforting insight," he wrote last year. "I came to view serious and progressive illness as an ever-constricting circle with oneself at the center."
"At the innermost point of the circle are the things that really matter: family, faith, love. These things stay with you until the day you die. At the very end, because the circle has shrunk down to its center, they're all you have left. But as we approach that end, we finally realize that all along, they were what mattered most. As a consequence, life often remains beautiful and worthwhile right up until the end."
In addition to his wife and brother, Mr. BARNETT leaves his father, Richard of Natick, and his mother, Karen (Daniels) of Boston.
A Memorial Service will be held at 1:00 p.m. today at Congregation Kehillath Israel in Brookline. Burial will be in Sharon Memorial Park.
(Published in The Boston Globe (MA), Wednesday, October 29, 2008.)
~
In many ways, Dean BARNETT's love of Republican politics and Boston sports went hand in glove. But while both appeal to the emotions of devotees, Mr. BARNETT applied a rigorous analysis to his passions and along the way upended the stereotypes many might hold about a guy who grew up in Newton, hardly a hotbed of political conservatism.
"Quite frankly, I'm the very picture of the Chinese Foodeating secular Jew who drives some of my more devout coreligionists batty," he wrote in the Globe last year about his opposition to abortion. "But I'm prolife, and adamantly so. Unlike the often erroneous stereotype of the prolife citizen, I didn't arrive at my position as a matter of religious faith. Rather, my conclusions flow strictly from logical inquiry."
Turning to writing and blogging a few years ago as his health declined, his voice soon resonated nationally as he wrote for The Weekly Standard and filled in as guest host for Hugh Hewitt's syndicated conservative radio talk show. Mr. BARNETT died Monday in Brigham and Women's Hospital of complications of cystic fibrosis. He was 41 and lived in Belmont.
"Courage is a severe virtue, and those who have courage are usually serious, often stern," William Kristol, founder and editor of The Weekly Standard, wrote yesterday on the magazine's website. "Dean, though, was effervescently witty and high spirited. He had a most unusual combination of strength of character and lightness of heart. And generosity of spirit."
Former governor Mitt Romney was running for the US Senate in 1994 when he met Mr. BARNETT.
"He had a knowing smile -- like he hadn't caught the canary yet, but he had it locked in a room," Romney wrote yesterday on The Weekly Standard website. "Over the campaign and over the years that followed, I got to know Dean very well. And I learned why he was smiling -- Dean was 'wicked smart,' as they say around here. He had extraordinary perspective and insight. He brought a lot more to our friendship than I ever could have imagined."
On his website, Hewitt wrote that "Dean's combination of sparking intelligence and enormous good humor made him one of the most memorable of friends. What too few people know, though, is what a kind, extraordinarily giving and compassionate man he was."
Mr. BARNETT's sense of humor endeared him to those who didn't share his beliefs, Kirstan Brooks BARNETT said of her husband. And he always listened attentively to other opinions during spirited discussions, a habit Mr. BARNETT adopted while growing up in largely liberal Newton, where he nonetheless developed conservative political views.
"It's one thing to hold a view when you live in an echo chamber and everyone around you holds the same view," his wife said. "It's a tiny act of courage when you grow up where everyone you know and love holds one view and you adopt another view. And Dean didn't hold his views to be rebellious, because he's not rebellious at all. He's too analytical for that."
Mr. BARNETT was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis when he was a few weeks old. He was in middle school when Senator Edward M. Kennedy ran for president in 1980, and he hoped that the Massachusetts Democrat would win, said his brother, Keith of Westwood. Fourteen years later, Mr. BARNETT's politics were firmly conservative, and he occasionally was a driver for Romney when Romney sought Kennedy's Senate seat.
In the intervening years, Mr. BARNETT went from Newton to Harvard to Boston University, and "he always used to say that Newton South was a heck of a lot tougher academically that Harvard," his wife said.
Mr. BARNETT graduated from Newton South High School in 1985, from Harvard in 1989 with a bachelor's degree in government, and from Boston University School of Law in 1992.
As a Republican, he unsuccessfully ran for a seat in the state House of Representatives in 1992. And then he started a business recruiting lawyers from across the country, particularly Silicon Valley and Wall Street, to work at Boston firms during the high-tech boom.
He met Kirstan BROOKS on the phone while trying to persuade her to leave a Wall Street law firm. Six years of phone calls later, she moved to Boston, and they soon became a couple, marrying in January 2001.
"I don't know of anyone who was more happily married than we were," she said.
A few years ago, as his health declined, Mr. BARNETT looked for a way to work from home. Under a pseudonym, he wrote a blog about baseball, other sports, and politics with such flair that it caught Hewitt's eye. He asked Mr. BARNETT to write for his website and then to be a guest host of "The Hugh Hewitt Show."
From there, Mr. BARNETT's writing drew an invitation to write for The Weekly Standard, where he became a staff writer.
"He loved writing, and I thing he found it to be his true professional calling," his brother said.
"He loved being in the debate, and he loved feeling like he was able to love some people's opinions and engage people and put good reasoning together."
Mr. BARNETT's pieces for The Weekly Standard and its website ranged from the price of parking near Fenway Park to the political cost of the recent economic meltdown.
Cystic fibrosis, meanwhile, led him to write "The Plucky Smart Kid With the Fatal Disease" for The New Pamphleteer, an Internet-based publishing company.
"As I grew sicker, I had what for me was an extremely comforting insight," he wrote last year. "I came to view serious and progressive illness as an ever-constricting circle with oneself at the center."
"At the innermost point of the circle are the things that really matter: family, faith, love. These things stay with you until the day you die. At the very end, because the circle has shrunk down to its center, they're all you have left. But as we approach that end, we finally realize that all along, they were what mattered most. As a consequence, life often remains beautiful and worthwhile right up until the end."
In addition to his wife and brother, Mr. BARNETT leaves his father, Richard of Natick, and his mother, Karen (Daniels) of Boston.
A Memorial Service will be held at 1:00 p.m. today at Congregation Kehillath Israel in Brookline. Burial will be in Sharon Memorial Park.
(Published in The Boston Globe (MA), Wednesday, October 29, 2008.)
~
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