One of the first bloggers to blogroll PSoTD was Melanie at A Bump in the Beltway. She followed my transition to blogging from the original Political Site of the Day, and just added this blog without request.
The past few months I have not been reading other blogs as much as I used to - I think the anguish between the Obama and Clinton camps bothered me so much that I really reduced my blog reading to avoid the finger pointing - and somehow I missed this news earlier this month:
My friend Melanie Mattson died a few weeks ago. One week from today is her birthday and she would have been 54. (I’ll have a piece of cake for you, Mel.)An original Daily Kos regular, she was the publisher of Just A Bump in the Beltway, one of the first wave of political blogs. She was also one of the founders of the FluWiki, a comprehensive resource for those studying pandemic flu, and a contributor at Effect Measure.
Melanie will definitely be missed by many bloggers, myself included. She made a difference, and it was recognizable online, and there will be others that will continue the efforts she started. But it's a sorrow that Melanie won't be there to pursue it as well. If there's an afterlife with Bloglines, I hope she realizes how many bloggers were touched by her.