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CRAP!!! Really bummed to hear about Cory Monteith. I was a Glee fan that first season. I feel really bad for his girlfriend (Lea Michele). This sucks. I was really hopeful he was going to make it.
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Beating death of LGBT activist Eric Lembembe in Cameroon
http://76crimes.files.wordpress.com/...o-lembembe.jpg LGBT activist and reporter Eric Ohena Lembembe was beaten to death over the weekend, LGBT activists in Cameroon announced today. Fellow activists said they found his bloody, lifeless body early today at his home in Yaoundé, Cameroon. Investigations by human rights defenders are under way to discover who was responsible for the crime. At his death, he was serving as the local executive director of the Cameroonian Foundation For AIDS (Camfaids), an advocacy group fighting against AIDS and for human rights of LGBT people in Cameroon, which is one of the world’s most violently anti-gay nations. Lembembe, a regular contributor to the Erasing 76 Crimes blog, was the author of one of the blog’s most popular articles, “What traditional African homosexuality learned from the West.” That article is included in the book From Wrongs to Gay Rights, along with his articles about Roger Mbede, who was imprisoned because of an amorous text message to a man; Franky Djome and Jonas Kumie, who were imprisoned because they are a transgender couple; anti-gay blackmailer/extortioner Albert Edward Ekobo Samba; and the homophobic attack on last year’s IDAHO celebration in Yaoundé. He formerly worked as a writer and editor for the monthly Tribune du Citoyen in Cameroon. http://76crimes.com/2013/07/15/beati...e-in-cameroon/ |
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RIP Cory
The adamantly homophobic Westboro Baptist Church has announced plans to picket the funeral of deceased Glee star Cory Monteith.
The church, which often pickets the funerals of those seen to be pro-gay or accepting of LGBT people, tweeted to say that it would picket Monteith’s funeral because he supported openly-gay co-star Chris Colfer. The organisation also went on to suggest that Monteith’s girlfriend Lea Michele – also a Glee actor- should kill herself. The straight star played Finn Hudson in the popular US TV series Glee, and was found dead in a Vancouver hotel room at the weekend, aged 31. “Westboro praises God for his righteous judgments. Hell won’t be gleeful for #CoryMonteith – he taught millions to sin,” the group tweeted, in a string of tweets about the late star. Another tweet read: “Hell won’t be gleeful for Cory Monteith.” Last month the church took umbrage at a pink lemonade stand run by a 5-year-old in the name of an anti-bullying campaign, and told her she would “burn in hell”. The church previously tweeted PinkNews to say that God sent the killers in the suspected terror killing in Woolwich, London, because the equal marriage bill passed its third reading in the House of Commons. It previously thanked God for a lethal tornado that ripped through Moore, Oklahoma, leaving at least 24 people dead, saying it’s because of gay basketball player Jason Collins. http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2013/07/16...cory-monteith/ |
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Sometimes hatred is perpetuated based on inaccuracies and the subsequent reactions to them. Sometimes, we need to take a step back, breathe, wait for the facts to sort themselves out. |
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http://legalpronews.findlaw.com/article/08081dCdlj1jA http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/0...n_3598346.html Yes it is hard to believe, but true. Multiple legitimate sources, including GLADD, have documented Westboro's tweets. I am glad to read that the family averted anything of the sort from occurring by cremation (which may have been his expressed preference previously). |
On a side note...
I just took a look - my first - at the Westboro Baptist Church website. I literally feel sick. Words |
From the New York Times:
Laurie Frink,Trumpeter and Brass Instructor to Many, Dies at 61 By NATE CHINEN Published: July 17, 2013 Laurie Frink, an accomplished trumpeter who became a brass instructor of widespread influence and high regard, died on Saturday at her home in Manhattan. She was 61. The cause was cancer of the bile duct, said the classical violist Lois Martin, her partner of 25 years. Ms. Frink built her trumpet career as a section player, starting when few women were accepted in those ranks. She worked extensively on Broadway and with the Benny Goodman Orchestra, the Mel Lewis Orchestra and Gerry Mulligan’s Concert Jazz Band, often playing lead... http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/18/ar...dayspaper&_r=0 |
Pioneering journalist Helen Thomas dies at 92
By CALVIN WOODWARD Associated Press Published: Saturday, Jul. 20, 2013 - 7:47 am Thomas was at the forefront of women's achievements in journalism. She was one of the first female reporters to break out of the White House "women's beat" — the soft stories about presidents' kids, wives, their teas and their hairdos — and cover the hard news on an equal footing with men. She became the first female White House bureau chief for a wire service when UPI named her to the position in 1974. She was also the first female officer at the National Press Club, where women had once been barred as members and she had to fight for admission into the 1959 luncheon speech where Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev warned: "We will bury you." The belligerent Khrushchev was an unlikely ally in one sense. He had refused to speak at any Washington venue that excluded women, she said. Thomas fought, too, for a more open presidency, resisting all moves by a succession of administrations to restrict press access. "People will never know how hard it is to get information," Thomas told an interviewer, "especially if it's locked up behind official doors where, if politicians had their way, they'd stamp TOP SECRET on the color of the walls." Born in Winchester, Ky., to Lebanese immigrants, Thomas was the seventh of nine children. It was in high school, after working on the student newspaper, that she decided she wanted to become a reporter. Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/07/20/558...#storylink=cpy |
http://media-cache-ak1.pinimg.com/73...127fe73549.jpg I grew up watching Helen Thomas. She was a unique character and well respected by her peers and the politicians she covered. I had a deep respect for her diplomacy, honesty, and way with words when asking leading questions. She was a pioneer and role model for women of my era. |
Influential British comedian Mel Smith dies
http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/20..._mel-smith.jpg LONDON (Reuters) - British comedian Mel Smith, who became a household name for a series of television sketch shows in the 1970s and 80s which colleagues said had inspired a generation of comics, has died of a heart attack, his agent said on Saturday. Smith, who died on Friday aged 60, found fame starring in hugely popular shows "Not The Nine O'clock News" and "Alas Smith and Jones" and went on to direct the films "Bean" and "The Tall Guy". "I still can't believe this has happened," said Griff Rhys Jones, his comedy partner in his best-known TV shows. "To everybody who ever met him, Mel was a force for life. He was a gentleman and a scholar, a gambler and a wit." Together, they formed Talkback, a highly successful independent TV production house that spawned many hit British comedies including the "Ali G" series, which gave Sacha Baron Cohen his first big television break. Talkback was sold to Pearson TV in 2000 for 62 million pounds ($95 million). "Mel Smith's contribution to British comedy cannot be overstated," said Tony Hall, the Director General of the BBC. "On screen he helped to define a new style of comedy from the late 1970s that continues to influence people to this day." He played The Albino in The Princess Bride. |
Dennis Farina, star of 'Law & Order,' dead at 69
http://ts3.mm.bing.net/th?id=H.47542...05414&pid=15.1 NEW YORK (AP) — Dennis Farina, a onetime Chicago cop who as a popular actor played a cop on "Law & Order," has died. Farina died Monday morning in a Scottsdale, Ariz., hospital after suffering a blood clot in his lung, according to his publicist, Lori De Waal. He was 69. For three decades, Farina was a character actor who displayed remarkable dexterity, charm and, when called for, toughness, making effective use of his craggy face, steel-gray hair, ivory smile and ample mustache. Farina appeared in films including "Get Shorty," ''Saving Private Ryan," ''Midnight Run" and "Out Of Sight." Among his many TV portrayals was Detective Joe Fontana on "Law & Order" during the 2004-06 seasons. He starred in the 1980s cult favorite "Crime Story" and was a regular in the 2011-12 HBO drama "Luck." He recently completed shooting a comedy, "Lucky Stiff." A veteran of the Chicago theater, Farina appeared in Joseph Mantegna's "Bleacher Bums" and "Streamers," directed by Terry Kinney, among other productions. Born Feb. 29, 1944, in Chicago, he was a city detective before he found his way into the acting profession as he neared his forties. His first film was the 1981 action drama "Thief," directed by Michael Mann, whom he had met through a mutual friend while still working for the Chicago Police Department. "I remember going to the set that day and being intrigued by the whole thing," Farina recalled in a 2004 interview with The Associated Press. "I liked it. And everybody was extremely nice to me. If the people were rude and didn't treat me right, things could have gone the other way." http://news.yahoo.com/dennis-farina-...172640962.html |
Virginia Johnson (of Masters and Johnson)
Virginia Johnson, part of the husband-wife research team that transformed the study of sex in the 1960s and wrote two best-selling books on sexuality, has died in St. Louis. She was 88.
Johnson, who grew up in rural Missouri near the small town of Golden City, was a twice-divorced mother in her 30s when she went job-hunting at Washington University in St. Louis in the late 1950s. She was trying to support her young family while she pursued a college degree. She soon became an assistant to obstetrician-gynecologist William Masters, and later his lover and co-collaborator on a large-scale human sexuality experiments. Johnson recruited graduate students, nurses, faculty wives and other participants for what was described as the "biggest sex experiment in U.S. histor y." The after-hours research, first on the medical school campus at Washington University and later at a nearby building, shattered basic perceptions about female sexuality, including Freud's concept that vaginal - rather than clitoral - orgasm was the more mature sexual response for women. She took the case studies - and asked the uncomfortable questions. Hundreds of couples, not all of them married, would participate in the observed research, later discussed in their 1966 book, "Human Sexual Response." That book and their second, 1970's "Human Sexual Inadequacy," were both best-sellers. For the next 20 years, Masters and Johnson were celebrities, the topic of late-night talk show hosts and on the cover of news magazines. "The family feeling was they changed the study of sex with the landmark publishing of their books," Scott Johnson said. Masters and Johnson married in 1971 and divorced after 20 years. The Masters and Johnson Institute in St. Louis closed in 1994. Masters died in 2001. |
Lindy Boggs, congresswoman and civil rights crusader, dies at 97
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lindy Boggs, who took over her husband's congressional seat to become a crusader for women's equality and civil rights, died Saturday at 97. Her death was confirmed by ABC News, where Boggs' daughter, Cokie Roberts, is a journalist. The matriarch of a powerful Washington family, Boggs served in the U.S. House of Representatives as a Louisiana Democrat for 18 years, beginning in 1973, when she become the first woman elected to Congress from her state. She was a permanent chairwoman of the 1976 Democratic National Convention and also served as U.S. ambassador to the Vatican from 1997 to 2001. The Boggs children came to prominence in politics, law and the media. In addition to Roberts, an author and journalist at National Public Radio as well as ABC TV, Boggs' son Thomas Hale Boggs Jr. is an influential Washington lawyer. Another daughter, Barbara Boggs Sigmund, died of cancer in 1990 while she was mayor of Princeton, New Jersey. Boggs won a special election to Congress six months after the death of her husband, House Majority Leader Thomas Hale Boggs. He was presumed to have died in a plane crash in a remote part of Alaska, although his body was never found. In Congress, Mrs. Boggs was elected to her first full term in 1974 and re-elected seven times after that, always by wide margins, and four times unopposed in a district that after the 1980 census was redrawn to include an African American majority. Born Marie Corinne Morrison Claiborne in Brunswick Plantation in Pointe Coupee Parish, Boggs attended Sophie Newcomb College at Tulane University, a premier institution of higher education for young Louisiana women. With a political family pedigree that stretched back to George Washington's day and included governors of Louisiana and Mississippi, Boggs came to Washington at 24 with her newly elected husband to exert behind-the-scenes influence until she herself was elected to office. In her 1994 memoir, "Washington Through a Purple Veil," Boggs described her attempt to enter the 1941 House of Representatives to hear her husband deliver a speech. She was so simply dressed that the guard kept her out until she returned, draped in a purple veil. She recalled that a friend had told her that "the most sophisticated and becoming thing a woman could wear was a purple veil." She worked for the Civil Rights Acts of 1965 and 1968, Head Start and other programs to help minorities, the poor and women. Boggs used her seat on the House Appropriations Committee to steer money to New Orleans and the rest of Louisiana, and on the House Banking and Currency Committee managed to include women in the Equal Credit and Opportunity Act of 1974. A strong Southern "steel magnolia" before that term entered the vernacular, Boggs recalled how she managed to include women in the credit act by writing in that the law should help people regardless of "sex and marital status" on the bill and making a copy for all of the committee's members. "Knowing the members composing this committee as well as I do, I'm sure it was just an oversight that we didn't have 'sex' or 'marital status' included," she said she told her congressional colleagues. "I've taken care of that, and I trust it meets with the committee's approval." After her political and ambassadorial service, Boggs returned to New Orleans, where her Bourbon Street home was damaged in Hurricane Katrina in 2005. She later moved to Chevy Chase, Maryland |
Eileen Brennan Dies at 80
Eileen Brennan, who went from musical comedy on Broadway to wringing laughs out of memorable movie characters, died Sunday in Burbank, Calif. She was 80. Brennan got her first big role on the New York stage in Little Mary Sunshine, a musical comedy that won her the 1960 Obie award for best actress. Along with her "excellent singing voice," her performance was "radiant and comic," said a New York Times review. She went on to win fans for her sharp-tongued roles on television and in movies, including gruff Army Capt. Doreen Lewis in 1980's Private Benjamin, aloof Mrs. Peacock in 1985's Clue, and mean orphanage superintendent Miss Bannister in 1988's The New Adventures of Pippi Longstocking. Private Benjamin brought her a Best Supporting Actress nomination for an Oscar. She won an Emmy for repeating her Private Benjamin role in the TV version, and was nominated six other times for guest roles on such shows as Newhart, thirtysomething, Taxi and Will & Grace. |
Adam Sandler
Actor Adam Sandler is reported to have died shortly after a snowboard accident earlier today - August 9, 2013.
The actor & novice snowboarder was vacationing at the Zermatt ski resort in Zermatt, Switzerland with family and friends. Witnesses indicate that Adam Sandler lost control of his snowboard and struck a tree at a high rate of speed. Adam Sandler was air lifted by ski patrol teams to a local hospital, however, it is believed that the actor died instantly from the impact of the crash. The actor was wearing a helmet at the time of the accident and drugs and alcohol do not appear to have played any part in his death. |
The Adam Sandler snow boarding thing is actually a hoax. There are "reports" of it dating back into early 2012. It is unfounded and he is not dead.
Same goes for Mickey Roarke, George Clooney, and Jim Carey. Please see: Snopes.com: Snowboard Death Hoax Adam Sandler is NOT Dead - 98FM Article Adam Sandler Fake Snowboarding Death Story Returns, Actor Not Dead - LaLateNews Article |
Karen Black
Karen Black, the prolific actress who appeared in more than 100 movies and was featured in such counterculture favorites as "Easy Rider," ''Five Easy Pieces" and "Nashville," has died. She was 74. Known for her full lips and thick, wavy hair that seemed to change color from film to film, Black often portrayed women who were quirky, troubled or threatened. She was a prostitute who takes LSD with Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda in 1969's "Easy Rider," a breakthrough that helped get her the role as a waitress who dates an upper-class dropout played by Jack Nicholson in 1970's "Five Easy Pieces." Black won an Oscar nomination and Golden Globe Award for that performance. Cited by The New York Times as a "pathetically appealing vulgarian," Black's performance won her an Oscar nomination and Golden Globe Award. She would recall that playing Rayette really was acting: The well-read, cerebral Black, raised in a comfortable Chicago suburb, had little in common with her relatively simple-minded character. "If you look through the eyes of Rayette, it looks nice, really beautiful, light, not heavy, not serious. A very affectionate woman who would look upon things with love, and longing," Black told Venice Magazine in 2007. "A completely uncritical person, and in that sense, a beautiful person. When (director) Bob Rafelson called me to his office to discuss the part he said, 'Karen, I'm worried you can't play this role because you're too smart.' I said 'Bob, when you call "action," I will stop thinking,' because that's how Rayette is.'" In 1971, Black starred with Nicholson again in "Drive, He Said," which Nicholson also directed. Over the next few years, she worked with such top actors and directors as Richard Benjamin ("Portnoy's Complaint"), Robert Redford and Mia Farrow ("The Great Gatsby") and Charlton Heston ("Airport 1975"). She was nominated for a Grammy Award after writing and performing songs for "Nashville," in which she played a country singer in Robert Altman's 1975 ensemble epic. Black also starred as a jewel thief in Alfred Hitchcock's last movie, "Family Plot," released in 1976. "We used to read each other poems and limericks and tried to catch me on my vocabulary," she later said of Hitchcock. "He once said, 'You seem very perspicacious today, Miss Black.' I said, 'Oh, you mean "keenly perceptive?" 'Yes.' So I got him this huge, gold-embossed dictionary that said 'Diction-Harry,' at the end of the shoot." The actress would claim that her career as an A-list actress was ruined by "The Day of the Locust," a troubled 1975 production of the Nathanael West novel that brought her a Golden Globe nomination but left Black struggling to find quality roles. By the end of the '70s, she was appearing in television and in low-budget productions. Black received strong reviews in 1982 as a transsexual in Altman's "Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean." But despite working constantly over the next 30 years, she was more a cult idol than a major Hollywood star. Her credits included guest appearances on such TV series as "Law & Order" and "Party of Five" and enough horror movies, notably "Trilogy of Terror," that a punk band named itself "The Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black." Black was also a screenwriter and a playwright whose credits included the musical "Missouri Waltz" and "A View of the Heart," a one-woman show in which she starred. |
oh man...I verified it with two seperate articles before I posted this. Hahahah..they got me! But I am SO glad he is alive!!!
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Eydie Gorme
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Eydie Gorme, a popular nightclub and television singer as a solo act and as a team with her husband, Steve Lawrence, has died. She was 84. Gorme, who also had a huge solo hit in 1963 with "Blame it on the Bossa Nova," died Saturday. Gorme was a successful band singer and nightclub entertainer when she was invited to join the cast of Steve Allen's local New York television show in 1953. She sang solos and also did duets and comedy skits with Lawrence, a rising young singer who had joined the show a year earlier. When the program became NBC's "Tonight Show" in 1954, the young couple went with it. They married in Las Vegas in 1957 and later performed for audiences there. "Eydie has been my partner on stage and in life for more than 55 years," Lawrence said in a statement. "I fell in love with her the moment I saw her and even more the first time I heard her sing. While my personal loss is unimaginable, the world has lost one of the greatest pop vocalists of all time." Although usually recognized for her musical partnership with Lawrence, Gorme broke through on her own with the Grammy-nominated "Blame it on the Bossa Nova." The bouncy tune about a dance craze of the time was written by the Tin Pan Alley songwriting team of Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. Her husband had had an equally huge solo hit in 1962 with "Go Away Little Girl," written by the songwriting team of Gerry Goffin and Carole King. Gorme would score another solo hit in 1964, but this time for a Spanish-language recording. Gorme, who was born in New York City to Sephardic Jewish parents, grew up speaking both English and Spanish. When she and her husband were at the height of their career as a team in 1964, Columbia Records President Goddard Lieberson suggested she put that Spanish to use in the recording studio. The result was "Amor," recorded with the Mexican combo Trio Los Panchos. The song became a hit throughout Latin America, which resulted in more recordings for the Latino market, and Lawrence and Gorme performed as a duo throughout Latin America. "Our Spanish stuff outsells our English recordings," Lawrence said in 2004. "She's like a diva to the Spanish world." Gorme and Lawrence, meanwhile, had an impressive, long-lasting career in English-language music as well, encompassing recordings and appearances on TV, in nightclubs and in concert halls. Throughout it, they stuck for the most part with the music of classic composers like Berlin, Kern, Gershwin, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein, and other giants of Broadway and Hollywood musicals. They eschewed rock 'n' roll and made no apologies for it. Soon after their marriage, the pair had landed their own TV program, "The Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme Show," which was a summer replacement for Allen. Not long after that, however, Lawrence entered the Army, and Gorme went on the nightclub circuit as a soloist until his return to civilian life two years later. After his discharge, Lawrence and Gorme quickly reteamed, and their careers took off. They appeared at leading nightclubs in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Las Vegas, combining music with the comedy bits they had learned during their apprenticeship on Allen's show. With nightclubs dwindling in popularity in the 1980s, they moved their act to large theaters and auditoriums, drawing not only older audiences but also the Baby Boomers who had grown up on rock 'n' roll. Gorme, who was born Aug. 16, 1928, began to seriously consider a music career while still a student at William Taft High School in New York City's borough of the Bronx, where she had been voted the "Prettiest, Peppiest Cheerleader." After graduation, she worked as a Spanish interpreter for a time but also sang on weekends with the band of Ken Greenglass, who encouraged her and eventually became her manager. Her first big break came when she landed a tour with the Tommy Tucker band, and she followed that up with gigs with Tex Beneke, Ray Eberle and on radio and television. Among her radio appearances was one on a Spanish language show, "Cita Con Eydie ("A Date with Eydie"), which was beamed to Latin America by Voice of America. Early in her career, Gorme considered changing her name, but her mother protested. "It's bad enough that you're in show business. How will the neighbors know if you're ever a success?" she told her, so Gorme decided to keep the family name but changed her given name from Edith to Edie. Later, having grown tired of people mistaking it for Eddie, she changed the spelling to Eydie. |
Lee Thompson Young
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Lee Thompson Young, a former Disney Channel star who appeared on "Rizzoli & Isles," was found dead this morning at the age of 29. Police confirmed that the versatile young actor died in an apparent suicide of a gunshot wound. TMZ reports that Young’s landlord found him when he did not report to the set of the TNT drama this morning. When officers arrived to his apartment at the 5000 block of Tujunga Avenue, they pronounced him dead at the scene. There is no word on whether Young left a note, and the coroner is taking over the case. "It is with great sadness that I announce that Lee Thompson Young tragically took his own life this morning," said Young's long-time manager Jonathan Baruch in a statement. "Lee was more than just a brilliant young actor, he was a wonderful and gentle soul who will be truly missed. We ask that you please respect the privacy of his family and friends as this very difficult time." |
OH no! That's heartbreaking. I loved his character on Rizzoli and Isles. He was a good actor. He did a lot with a small but regular part. So appealing as an actor. I just hate to hear that.
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Marian McPartland, Jazz Pianist and NPR Radio Staple, Dies at 95 http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...leLarge-v2.jpg By PETER KEEPNEWS Published: August 21, 2013 Marian McPartland, the genteel Englishwoman who became a fixture of the American jazz scene as a pianist and, later in life, hosted the internationally syndicated and immensely popular public radio show “Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz,” died on Tuesday at her home in Port Washington, N.Y. She was 95. Ms. McPartland was a gifted musician but an unlikely candidate for jazz stardom. She recalled in a 1998 interview for National Public Radio that shortly after she arrived in the United States in 1946, the influential jazz critic Leonard Feather, who himself was born in England and who began his career as a pianist, said, “Oh, she’ll never make it: she’s English, white and a woman.” Mr. Feather, she added, “always used to tell me it was a joke, but I don’t think he meant it as a joke.” The odds against any woman finding success as a jazz musician in the late 1940s and early ’50s were formidable, but Ms. McPartland overcame them with grace. Listeners were charmed by her Old World stage presence and captivated by her elegant, harmonically lush improvisations, which reflected both her classical training and her fascination with modern jazz. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...icleInline.jpg By 1958 she was well enough known to be included in Art Kane’s famous Esquire magazine group photograph of jazz musicians, the subject of Jean Bach’s 1994 documentary, “A Great Day in Harlem.” One of the few women in the picture, she stood next to her friend and fellow pianist Mary Lou Williams. Ms. McPartland’s contributions to jazz were not limited to her piano playing. An enthusiastic and articulate spokeswoman for the music, she lectured at schools and colleges and wrote for Down Beat, Melody Maker and other publications. (A collection of her essays, “All in Good Time,” was published in 1987 and reissued in 2003.) Most notably, for more than 30 years her “Piano Jazz” was one of the most popular jazz shows ever on the radio. The show, produced by South Carolina’s public radio network, made its debut on NPR in 1978. The format was simple: an informal interview interspersed with extemporaneous duets. “I didn’t have any idea I’d be good at something like this,” Ms. McPartland told The Associated Press in 2000. “I certainly never thought people would know me because of my voice.” But she proved a natural. As its title suggests, “Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz” was originally a show about piano players. But the guest list came to include vocalists, among them Mel Tormé, Tony Bennett and even Willie Nelson and Elvis Costello, as well as trumpeters, saxophonists and other instrumentalists. Jazz pianists remained the focus, however, and over the years Ms. McPartland played host to some of the most famous, from the ragtime pioneer Eubie Blake to the uncompromising avant-gardist Cecil Taylor. She gamely played duets with all of them, even Mr. Taylor, whose aggressively dissonant approach was far removed from Ms. McPartland’s refined melodicism. “I just did the kind of thing he does,” she said. “Or else I went in the opposite direction, and that sounded fairly interesting too.” “Piano Jazz” was heard on more than 200 radio stations all over the world. It received a Peabody Award in 1983. Ms. McPartland recorded her last show in September 2010, although she did not officially step down as host until November 2011; “Piano Jazz” has continued with reruns and guest hosts. Marian McPartland was born Margaret Marian Turner in Windsor, England, on March 20, 1918. She began picking out melodies on the family piano when she was 3, and at 17 she entered the Guildhall School of Music in London. In 1938, over her parents’ strong objections, she left school to go on tour with a four-piano vaudeville act. “My mother said, ‘Oh, you’ll come to no good, you’ll marry a musician and live in an attic,’ ” she recalled in 1998. “Of course, that did happen.” While on a U.S.O. tour in 1944 she met the American jazz cornetist Jimmy McPartland in Belgium; they married in early 1946, and she moved with him to Chicago later that year. Ms. McPartland worked for a while in her husband’s group, but he was a tradition-loving Dixieland musician and she was more interested in the harmonically sophisticated new sounds coming from New York City, where the McPartlands moved in 1949. Encouraged by her husband, she formed a trio and found work at the Embers, an East Side nightclub, in 1950. Two years later she began what was supposed to be a brief engagement at the Hickory House, one of the last surviving jazz rooms on the city’s once-thriving 52nd Street nightclub row. That booking turned into an eight-year residency. The McPartlands’ marriage ended after two decades, but they remained close friends and continued to work together occasionally. The divorce, she was fond of saying, did not take. She helped care for him when he had lung cancer, and they remarried shortly before he died in 1991. Her survivors include two grandchildren. Ms. McPartland recorded for Savoy, Capitol and other labels in the 1950s and ’60s, but in 1969, disenchanted with the business, she formed her own record company, Halcyon. “It was quite a job,” she told one interviewer. “I used to actually go to a record store like Sam Goody and tell them, ‘I need that money you owe me.’ ” Halcyon released 18 albums in 10 years and had a roster that included her fellow pianists Teddy Wilson and Earl Hines as well as Ms. McPartland herself, but her career as an executive ended when she signed with Concord Jazz in 1979. She remained a Concord artist until she stopped recording, just a few years before her death. The bare-bones accompaniment of bass and drums was always Ms. McPartland’s preferred format, but she also appeared in concert with symphony orchestras, and in 1996 she recorded an album of her own compositions, “Silent Pool,” on which she was accompanied by a string orchestra. That album provided a rare showcase for an underappreciated aspect of her talent: although she told The New York Times in 1998 that she “never had all that much faith in myself as a composer,” she was a prolific songwriter whose work was recorded by Peggy Lee, Mr. Bennett, Sarah Vaughan and others. She performed her symphonic work “A Portrait of Rachel Carson” with the University of South Carolina Symphony Orchestra in 2007. In her last years Ms. McPartland received numerous honors. She was named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 2000, given a lifetime achievement Grammy Award in 2004, inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2007 and named a member of the Order of the British Empire in 2010. And she continued playing almost to the end. Reviewing her appearance at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola in Manhattan the night before her 90th birthday in 2008, Nate Chinen wrote in The Times, “Ms. McPartland still has her pellucid touch and her careful yet comfortable style.” Unlike some jazz musicians of her generation, Ms. McPartland never became set in her ways; her playing grew denser and more complex with time, and even late in life she was experimenting with new harmonic ideas. “I’ve become a bit more — reckless, maybe,” she said in 1998. “I’m getting to the point where I can smash down a chord and not know what it’s going to be, and make it work.” |
Tony-winning actress Julie Harris dies at 87
Julie Harris, 87, one of the great stage actresses of the last half-century who amassed five Tony awards and was also renowned for her film work, died Aug. 24 at her home in West Chatham, Mass. In a career of durability, longevity and versatility, time and her own gifts transmuted her roles from troubled tomboy to appealing ingénue to scheming older woman. Presidential wife Mary Todd Lincoln, poet Emily Dickinson and Shakespeare’s Ophelia were all portrayed with panache and verve by Julie Harris. She was the wistful, lonesome pre-adolescent Frankie in Carson McCullers’s “The Member of the Wedding” on Broadway and in Hollywood. The film performance more than 60 years ago earned her an Academy Award nomination. The year the movie came out, 1952, she created the devil-may-care Sally Bowles on Broadway in “I Am a Camera,” winning the first of her Tony awards. Broadway appearances also included “The Lark” in 1955, in which she played Joan of Arc and appeared as Joan on the cover of Time magazine. She was in “Forty Carats” in 1968 and “The Last of Mrs. Lincoln” in 1972. She played Mrs. Lincoln in the stage and film versions. In the movies, her work on “East of Eden” with James Dean was credited by director Elia Kazan with bringing out the best in her often difficult co-star. She was in “Requiem for a Heavyweight,” and she and Paul Newman acted in “Harper,” a private-eye drama. She was also known for “Reflections in a Golden Eye.” A Tony recognized her portrayal of the reclusive New England poet Emily Dickinson in “The Belle of Amherst.” An audio recording of that role won her a Grammy Award for best spoken-word recording. She was a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2005. At a ceremony in the White House, President George W. Bush said: “It’s hard to imagine the American stage without the face, the voice and the limitless talent of Julie Harris. She has found happiness in her life’s work, and we thank her for sharing that happiness with the whole world.” That work also included many television appearances, most notably in “Knots Landing,” in which she was a scheming Southern belle. Known for her sensitivity, she was quoted as saying that “God comes to us in theater in the way we communicate with each other. . . . It’s a way of expressing our humanity.” She was also a gritty survivor of surgery after a backstage fall, of at least one stroke, and of breast cancer. Chemotherapy continued while she played in the long-running “Knots Landing.” In the Ken Burns series “The Civil War,” she gave voice to diarist Mary Boykin Chesnut. Julia Ann Harris was born in the prosperous Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe, Mich., on Dec. 2, 1925. Her father, William Pickett Harris, was an investment banker. Her mother, Elsie, was a nurse. She was impressed by plays they saw in Detroit, and in her teens , unwilling to remain at home and do what was expected of a young woman of her background, she enrolled in the Yale School of Drama. In 1945 she left in mid-semester for a role in a Broadway show, which flopped, sending her back to New Haven. She made her home on Cape Cod. Reference works indicated that three marriages ended in divorce. She had one son. |
Muriel Siebert, a Determined Trailblazer for Women on Wall Street, Dies at 80
Muriel Siebert, who became a legend on Wall Street as the first woman to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange and the first woman to head one of the exchange’s member firms, died on Saturday in Manhattan. She was 80. Ms. Siebert, known to all as Mickie, cultivated the same brash attitude that characterized Wall Street’s most successful men. She bought her seat on the exchange in 1967, but to her immense anger, she remained the only woman admitted to membership for almost a decade. She was one of the pioneers in the discount brokerage field, as she transformed Muriel Siebert & Company (now a subsidiary of Siebert Financial) into a discount brokerage in 1975, on the first day that Big Board members were allowed to negotiate commissions. She also was the first woman to be superintendent of banking for New York State, appointed by Gov. Hugh Carey in 1977. She served five years during a rocky time when banks were tottering and interest rates were skyrocketing. Ms. Siebert was known, to her delight, as a scrapper who refused to acknowledge defeat. She donated millions of dollars from her brokerage and securities underwriting business to help other women get their start in business and finance. When she was honored for her efforts in 1992, Ms. Siebert used the luncheon celebration to warn that it was still too soon for women to declare victory in the battle for equality on Wall Street. “Firms are doing what they have to do, legally,” she said. “But women are coming into Wall Street in large numbers — and they still are not making partner and are not getting into the positions that lead to the executive suites. There’s still an old-boy network. You just have to keep fighting.” She continued fighting the old-boy network all her life. She was one of the first women, in the early 1970s, to fight to end the sexist practices then prevalent in Manhattan social clubs, spurred by an experience she had at the Union League Club. She had arrived there for a board luncheon meeting of the Sales Executive Club and was not allowed in the elevator. “I had to go through the kitchen and walk up the back stairs,” she recalled. She was so angry during the meeting that her male colleagues asked what was wrong. When the lunch was finished, they tried to take her down in the elevator with them. When she was again rebuffed, they joined her in walking down the stairs and through the kitchen. That experience, and other similar episodes, led her to testify before government bodies about the discriminatory policies of many New York clubs. In time, women were permitted to become members. This was particularly important because of the deal-making and networking done at these clubs. Ms. Siebert also successfully lobbied in 1987 to get a ladies’ room on the seventh floor of the New York Stock Exchange, near the entrance to the luncheon club she frequented. She accomplished this in her typical fashion. She warned the exchange’s chairman that if a ladies’ room was not on the floor by the end of the year, she would arrange for a portable toilet to be delivered. The room was installed, and women no longer had to trek down a flight of stairs. She once explained her strategy for dealing with obstacles: “I put my head down and charge.” Muriel Faye Siebert was born in Cleveland on Sept. 12, 1932, the second of two daughters of Irwin Siebert, a dentist, and his wife, Margaret. She attended Western Reserve University for two years but left in 1952 before graduating because her father became ill. She came to New York in 1954, she once said, “with $500, a Studebaker and a dream.” She was hired as a $65-a-week trainee in the research department at Bache & Company. “The way it worked, everybody who was already there got to give the new kid one of their junk industries,” she told The New York Times in 1992. “I got airlines, I got motion pictures — things nobody wanted in those days.” She changed jobs three times because she said men doing the same work were being paid more than she was. She also discovered when job hunting that when the New York Society of Security Analysts sent out her résumé under the name Muriel Siebert, she received no inquiries, but when the society later distributed it under the name M.F. Siebert, the results were quite different. She eventually decided to strike out on her own and become the first woman to purchase a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. She was turned down by the first nine men she asked to sponsor her application before a 10th agreed. The exchange told her that if she was admitted, her seat would cost $445,000, and in an unprecedented move, the exchange insisted that she get a bank to lend her $300,000 of the total price. The banks, in turn, refused to lend her the money unless the exchange admitted her. “There would be no loan until I was accepted, and I couldn’t be accepted without the loan,” she said. After nearly two years she got the loan, from Chase Manhattan, and she was elected to the New York Stock Exchange on Dec. 28, 1967. It proved to be a historic day but one that was not soon repeated. “For 10 years,” Ms. Siebert said, “it was 1,365 men and me.” She continued to encounter resistance, and not only because she was a woman. Ms. Siebert also encountered anti-Semitism, which at the time, she said, was not uncommon in the trust departments she dealt with. In 1969, she founded Muriel Siebert & Company, becoming the first woman to own and operate a brokerage firm that was a member of the New York Stock Exchange. On May 1, 1975, after the federal government did away with fixed commissions for brokers, Ms. Siebert declared her company a discount brokerage firm. Two years later she put her company in a blind trust and accepted Governor Carey’s appointment as state superintendent of banking. Her five-year term was controversial, as she took the lead in engineering mergers and acquisitions. But in the end she liked to say that no New York bank failed during her tenure. In addition to the Albany post, she directed New York City’s Municipal Credit Union, its Urban Development Corporation and its Job Development Authority. In 1983, Ms. Siebert returned to Muriel Siebert & Company after losing a bid for the Republican nomination for the United States Senate; she was beaten by Assemblywoman Florence M. Sullivan, who was then defeated by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the Democratic candidate. In 1996, she took her firm public through an unorthodox merger with J. Michaels, a Brooklyn chain of furniture stores. As part of the arrangement, she liquidated the assets of J. Michaels and named the holding company the Siebert Financial Corporation, of which she owned a 97.5 percent share; the remaining 2.5 percent was former J. Michaels stock and was publicly held. Ms. Siebert, who never married or had children, is survived by a sister, Elaine Siebert. Ms. Siebert, who was often sought out for pungent quotes as a market pundit and occasional critic of Wall Street practices, produced an autobiography in 2002, “Changing the Rules: Adventures of a Wall Street Maverick.” In 2007, she celebrated the 40th anniversary of buying a seat on the New York Stock Exchange by ringing the closing bell. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/26/bu...ewanted=2&_r=0 |
Darren Manzella, gay soldier who challenged 'don't ask, don't tell,' killed in NY car accident
Darren Manzella, a gay combat medic discharged from the Army after criticizing the military's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy in a 2007 television interview, has died in a traffic accident in western New York. He was 36.
The Monroe County Sheriff's Office said Manzella was driving on Interstate 490 in suburban Rochester about 8:30 p.m. Thursday when his vehicle sideswiped a car. Deputies said he stopped his vehicle, got out and began pushing the car from behind. He was then hit by an SUV, pinning him between the two vehicles. Manzella's appearance on "60 Minutes" from the combat zone in Iraq was followed by his discharge in 2008 for violating the since-rescinded policy prohibiting service members from openly acknowledging they're gay. After the television appearance and his return from Iraq, Manzella did media interviews, each a potential violation of the policy. "This is who I am. This is my life," Manzella said at a Washington news conference before his discharge. "It has never affected my job performance before. I don't think it will make a difference now. And to be honest since then, I don't see a difference because of my homosexuality." Manzella said he first told a military supervisor about his sexual orientation in August 2006, while working in a division headquarters at Fort Hood, Texas. Three weeks later, his battalion commander told him an investigation had been closed without finding "proof of homosexuality." A month later, he was sent to Iraq. His supporters said the overseas assignment demonstrated how the military was arbitrarily enforcing the "don't ask, don't tell" policy during the war. Manzella enlisted in the Army in 2002. He was awarded the Combat Medical Badge for service in Iraq. When he was discharged, he was a sergeant serving at Fort Hood with the 1st Cavalry Division. Manzella lived in the Chautauqua County town of Portland; he and his partner were married in July. |
David Frost, known for Nixon interview, dies
LONDON (AP) — Veteran British journalist and broadcaster David Frost, who won fame around the world for his TV interviews with former President Richard Nixon, has died, his family told the BBC. He was 74. Frost died of a suspected heart attack on Saturday night aboard the Queen Elizabeth cruise ship, where he was due to give a speech, the family said. Known both for an amiable personality and incisive interviews with leading public figures, Frost's career in television news and entertainment spanned almost half a century. He was the only person to have interviewed all six British prime ministers serving between 1964 and 2007 and the seven U.S. presidents in office between 1969 and 2008. Outside world affairs, his roster ranged from Orson Welles to Muhammad Ali to Clint Eastwood. Frost began television hosting while still a student at Cambridge University. He went on to host the BBC's satirical news show "The Week That Was" in the early 1960s, and, later, a sketch show called "The Frost Report" and a long-running BBC Sunday show, "Breakfast with Frost." His signature, "Hello, good evening and welcome" was often mimicked. While popular in Britain and beginning to launch a career on U.S. television, Frost did not become internationally known until 1977, when he secured a series of television interviews with Nixon. The dramatic face-to-face was make-or-break both for him and for the ex-president, who was trying to salvage his reputation after resigning from the White House in disgrace following the Watergate scandal three years earlier. At the time, it was the most widely watched news interview in the history of TV. The interviewer and his subject sparred through the first part of the interview, but Frost later said he realized he didn't have what he wanted as it wound down. Nixon had acknowledged mistakes, but Frost pressed him on whether that was enough. Americans, he said, wanted to hear him own up to wrongdoing and acknowledge abuse of power — and "unless you say it, you're going to be haunted for the rest of your life." "That was totally off-the-cuff," Frost later said. "That was totally ad-lib. In fact, I threw my clipboard down just to indicate that it was not prepared in any way ... I just knew at that moment that Richard Nixon was more vulnerable than he'd ever be in his life. And I knew I had to get it right." After more pressing, Nixon relented. "I let the American people down and I have to carry that burden with me for the rest of my life," he said. The dramatic face-off went on to spawn a hit play. And in 2008, a new generation was introduced to Frost's work with the Oscar-nominated movie "Frost/Nixon," starring Michael Sheen as Frost and Frank Langella as Nixon. Frost was born on Apr. 7, 1939, the son of a Methodist preacher. Besides hosting, he set up his own company, which gave birth to many more popular British programs. "Breakfast with Frost" ran on the BBC for 12 years until 2005, and the game show "Through the Keyhole" from 1987 to 2008. He had recently been working for Al Jazeera International. ---- Deliberately used an old pic of him cuz this is how I remember him. |
Seamus Heaney, acclaimed by many as the best Irish poet since WB Yeats, has died aged 74. http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/...Heaney+sh3.png Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots. Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills We trekked and picked until the cans were full Until the tinkling bottom had been covered With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's. We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre. But when the bath was filled we found a fur, A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache. The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour. I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot. Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not. |
Jessie Lopez De La Cruz, a longtime leader in the national farmworker movement
FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- Jessie Lopez De La Cruz, a longtime leader in the national farmworker movement, has died. She was 93.
The United Farmworkers of America says De La Cruz died in Kingsburg, Calif., on Labor Day. She was one of the union's first female members and organizers in the Fresno area. De La Cruz organized workers in the fields, participated in grape boycotts and testified on outlawing the short-handled hoe, which required workers to bend over at the waist for the entire day. She also worked with the UFW in campaigns across the state and with the union Cesar Chavez at his office at La Paz in Keene. She also became a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. Born in Anaheim, Calif., she became part of the UFW in her 40s, after Chavez visited her Parlier home to speak with farmworkers about forming a union and invited her to join. In addition to her work as a union organizer, De La Cruz taught English to migrant workers and served on the executive board of the California Rural Legal Assistance, which provides legal services. Friends and family say De La Cruz was known for her humility and devotion to improving the lives of farmworkers. Even in her 90's, De La Cruz would often ask to be taken to political rallies. Her life has been documented in books, news articles and in a 1998 miniseries titled, "A Will of Their Own." "Jessie De La Cruz was an icon of the farm worker movement," the UFW said in a statement. She "embodied Cesar Chavez's conviction that ordinary people have within them the ability to do extraordinary things." |
Judith Glassman Daniels
UNION, Maine (AP) — Judith Glassman Daniels, who blazed a trail for women in the publishing world and became the first woman to serve as top editor of Life magazine, has died at the age of 74. Daniels served in senior editing positions at The Village Voice, New York magazine, Time Inc. and Conde Naste over a career that spanned 35 years in New York before she retired with her husband to Maine in 2004. During her career, Daniels oversaw creation of a magazine for executive women called Savvy at a time when magazines catered to stay-at-home moms, and she helped to found the Women's Media Group in New York. At Life, she oversaw the publication's 50th anniversary. Her husband called her "a real pioneer." "She really was one of the women who broke the glass ceiling that allowed women to rise high in the publishing world," Webb said from their home on Tuesday. Daniels was born in Cambridge, Mass., and was raised in Brookline, Mass. She set off for New York after getting her English degree from Smith College, rising through the ranks in magazines. Patricia O'Toole, who worked for Daniels as a writer and editor at Savvy, said Daniels was naturally curious and loved writing and editing. And writers loved to work for her, she said. "Everybody wanted to please Judy," said O'Toole, a biographer and professor in New York. "Sometimes when there's a boss like that it's because they have to please them because otherwise there's going to be hell to pay. But Judy wasn't like that at all. You wanted to please her because she was such a good coach. She had very high editorial standards, and she'd help you measure up." John MacMillan, editorial director at Smith College, where Daniels was a longtime member of the Smith Alumnae Council, called Daniels a "change-maker" who was helped the next generation of women get ahead. "She was thinking about the issues facing successful professional women long before they were trendy, like work-life balance and the pressure that women face to get ideas heard," he said. "She was thinking about those way back in the 1970s and '80s." Daniels and Webb had ties to Maine before moving to the state permanently. Daniels became active in the Maine Women's Policy Center, the Women's Lobby and the Maine Humanities Council. She also served as chairwoman of Center for Maine Contemporary Art in Rockport. |
Tom Clancy
NEW YORK (AP) - Tom Clancy, whose high-tech, Cold War thrillers such as "The Hunt for Red October" and "Patriot Games" made him the most widely read and influential military novelist of his time, has died. He was 66. Clancy arrived on best-seller lists in 1984 with "The Hunt for Red October." He sold the manuscript to the first publisher he tried, the Naval Institute Press, which had never bought original fiction. A string of other best-sellers soon followed, including "Red Storm Rising," ''Patriot Games," ''The Cardinal of the Kremlin," ''Clear and Present Danger," ''The Sum of All Fears," and "Without Remorse." |
RIP Chuck Smith
RIP Chuck Smith ..pastor of Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa..Author,Speaker,father,grandfather.pastor..he moved from an old tent to a mansion today.
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Marcia Wallace, actress from 'The Simpsons' and 'The Bob Newhart Show', dies at 70
As Edna Krabappel on The Simpsons, Marcia Wallace may be the only 4th-grade teacher to have the same student for 24 years. Before that, she was beloved as Carol Kester, the lovelorn, wisecracking secretary on The Bob Newhart Show. Wallace’s work as the cynical, abused, and sarcastic Mrs. Krabappel won her an Emmy for outstanding voice actress in 1992, and was nominated for outstanding guest actress in a comedy for Murphy Brown, playing the most efficient of the journalist’s constantly changing secretaries — reprising her role as Carol Kester. Adding to the joke, Newhart also made an appearance on that episode. Born and raised in Creston, Iowa, the daughter of a shopkeeper, she moved to New York after college to pursue stage acting. She started her onscreen career making regular appearances on The Merv Griffin Show, and in 1971 had bit parts on Bewitched, Columbo, and The Brady Bunch. A year later, The Bob Newhart Show made her a star. Her flame-haired, feisty, and free-spirited receptionist was a counterpoint to Newhart’s buttoned-down psychiatrist. She played the role of Carol Kester in 139 episodes from 1972-1978. After that, Wallace became a regular on a litany of gameshows such as Match Game, Hollywood Squares, and The $25,000 Pyramid. She guest starred on single episodes of Magnum, P.I., Gimme a Break!, and Murder, She Wrote, among many others, and had a recurring role as Mrs. Caruthers on Full House. She also had a small role in the 1989 film Teen Witch and became a popular voice-over actress in animated shows, playing characters on Darkwing Duck and Captain Planet and the Planeteers. Later, she also co-starred as the housekeeper on the short-lived 2001 Comedy Central spoof of President George W. Bush That’s My Bush! But it was the droll, chain-smoking, semi-defeated Edna Krabappel on The Simpsons that would give Wallace her defining role. Originally set up as a Nurse Ratched-like nemesis of trouble student Bart Simpson, she evolved into one of the richest, and most nuanced characters on the series. The actress was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1985 but fought it back and became a prominent activist and advocate for early detection procedures. In 2007, she won the Gilda Radner Courage Award from Roswell Park Cancer Institute for her decades of work for the cause. She was married for six years to hotel owner Dennis Hawley, until his death in 1992 from pancreatic cancer. The couple had one son, Michael Hawley, and Wallace wrote about her illness, the loss of her husband, and the challenges of motherhood in her 2004 autobiography Don’t Look Back, We’re Not Going That Way. Despite tackling dark issues, readers acclaimed the book for its sense of humor and optimism. The subtitle for the book was “How I overcame a rocky childhood, a nervous breakdown, breast cancer, widowhood, fat, fire and menopausal motherhood and still manage to count my lucky chickens.” ------------------- This woman was one of my early crushes. Sigh. |
RIP Doris Lessing
http://www.theguardian.com/books/201...essing-dies-94
Doris Lessing, the Nobel prize-winning author of The Golden Notebook and The Grass is Singing, among more than 50 other novels ranging from political to science fiction, has died aged 94. Twitter reacted quickly to the news, a shock to many despite her great age. The author and critic Lisa Jardine described it as "a huge loss"; the agent Carole Blake described her as an "amazing writer and woman"; and the writer Lisa Appignanesi wrote: "One of our very greatest writers has left us this past night, RIP." The writer Bidisha tweeted: "Doris Lessing: prolific multi-genre genius dies in sleep after writing world-changing novels and winning Nobel. Not bad at all." Born in Iran, brought up in the African bush in Zimbabwe – where her 1950 first novel, The Grass Is Singing, was set – Lessing had been a London resident for more than half a century. In 2007 she arrived back to West Hampstead, north London, by taxi, carrying heavy bags of shopping, to find the doorstep besieged by reporters and camera crews. "Oh Christ," she said, on learning that their excitement was because at 88 she had just become the oldest author to win the Nobel prize in literature. Only the 11th woman to win the honour, she had beaten that year's favourite, the American author Philip Roth. Pausing rather crossly on her front path, she said "one can get more excited", and went on to observe that since she had already won all the other prizes in Europe, this was "a royal flush". Later she remarked: "I'm 88 years old and they can't give the Nobel to someone who's dead, so I think they were probably thinking they'd probably better give it to me now before I've popped off." The citation from the Swedish Academy called her "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny". Her 1962 novel The Golden Notebook was described as "a feminist bible", and her fellow laureate J M Coetzee called her "one of the great visionary novelists of our time" . |
Psychic Sylvia Browne
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Sylvia Browne, a psychic whose frequent appearances on shows such as "Larry King Live" and "The Montel Williams Show" made her a popular personality, has died at a hospital in San Jose, Calif., hospital officials confirmed on Thursday. She was 77. Browne said she believed in reincarnation and could help people communicate with their dead loved ones as well as see the future. She was a regular on "The Montel Williams Show," where she fielded questions on topics ranging from marriage and careers to ghosts. Browne was criticized after telling the mother of Ohio kidnapping victim Amanda Berry on the show in 2004 that her daughter was dead. Berry and two other women were later found alive. They had been held captive for years. Browne grew up in Kansas City, Mo., where her psychic abilities began to manifest themselves at the age of 3, according to an obituary on her website. She founded two nonprofits, The Nirvana Foundation for Psychic Research and the Society of Novus Spiritus, and was the author of dozens of books, many of which appeared on the New York Times Bestsellers list, according to the obituary. Her 2009 book, "Temples on the Other Side," was intended to help people understand where they go after they die, she told Montel Williams. "So you just don't float around," she said. "You can go to the Hall of Messengers, where you can talk to Jesus ... You can go to the Hall of Reconnection, where you can connect with someone you love." In a statement included in the obituary on Browne's website, Williams called her a friend. "A beacon that shined for so many was extinguished today, but its brightness was relit and will now shine forever for many of us from above," he said. Browne is survived by her husband, Michael Ulery, two sons and a sister, according to the obituary. ------------- I liked watching this woman on Montel. Very colorful personality. |
Nelson Mandela
"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear". http://img3.allvoices.com/thumbs/ima...170-nelson.jpg 1918-2013 |
Madiba
I thought I'd be prepared for this day but I find I'm just not.
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This was once attributed to Mandela, but apparently, it was written by someone else. Either way, when I think of Mandela, I think of this. (I once taught it to a class of 10-11 year olds when I was working as a volunteer teacher at the Waldorf Steiner school in Jerusalem. My son was the only Palestinian student amongst 20 or so Israeli kids, so it's always had a special place in my heart.)
RIP. Our Deepest Fear By Marianne Williamson Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness That most frightens us. We ask ourselves Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small Does not serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking So that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, As children do. We were born to make manifest The glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; It's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, Our presence automatically liberates others. |
Travel peacefully, Nelson Mandela
I am so grateful for the gain, and so sorrowful for the loss. I'm choosing to focus on the gains, with tremendous love, hope and respect.
I don't know how to attach an actual link but this is a beautiful song with its message realized. [nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opUEIVlG1BQ"]Hugh Masekela Bring Back Nelson Mandela - YouTube[/nomedia] |
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