It doesn't make any difference whether you agreed with his politics, George Carlin's commentary on some of the stranger things we all experience in life everyday was truly funny.  I have performed as a standup comedian and I can tell you that what he did and how he did it left most other comics in the dust.  His routine on the seven things you can't say on television not only was classic comedy, it said more about us at the time than I suspect we ever wanted to admit.  And his character of Al Sleet, "The hippie-dippie weatherman with the hippie-dippie weather, man" was right up there with the best ever created by any comic in any generation.

Carlin died yesterday just a week or so after being named to receive the Mark Twain prize, a lifetime achievement award for humorists, by the Kennedy Center.  That's so mainstream that I wonder if he was amused, flattered, and shocked at the same time.