Aaron Swartz, R.I.P.

Our lives have meaning, our lives have greater meaning, from the things that they create. So we're here today to remember Aaron - and also to try to learn from the experience. To understand that prosecution should not be persecution.

This morning I reached into the closet, randomly took out this tie [showing necktie], and wore it. And I have a sense that sometimes, things are connected in ways that are not exactly obvious. It happens that this tie is a painting of "Starry Night" by Vincent Van Gogh, someone else whose life ended all too soon.

In a Don McLean song about Vincent Van Gogh, it ends this way: "They would not listen. They're not listening still. Perhaps they never will."

It's time to listen.

"And when no hope was left in sight,
On that starry, starry night,
You took your life, as lovers often do.
But I could have told you, Vincent,
This world was never meant for one
As beautiful as you."
-Don McLean, "Starry, Starry Night" (1971).