Romantic crooner Tony Martin dies at 98
 

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Tony Martin, the romantic singer who appeared in movie musicals from the 1930s to the 1950s and sustained a career in records, television and nightclubs from the Depression era into the 21st century, has died. He was 98.

A peer of Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, Martin sang full voice in a warm baritone that carried special appeal for his female audience. Among his hit recordings were "I Get Ideas," ''To Each His Own," ''Begin the Beguine" and "There's No Tomorrow."

Although he never became a full-fledged movie star, he was featured in 25 films, most of them made during the heyday of the Hollywood musicals. A husky 6 feet tall and dashingly handsome, he was often cast as the romantic lead.

He also married two movie musical superstars, Alice Faye and Cyd Charisse, and the latter union lasted 60 years, until her death in 2008.

http://news.yahoo.com/romantic-croon...172647928.html

'Born to Shop' author Suzy Gershman dies at 64
 

DALLAS (AP) -- Suzy Gershman, whose "Born to Shop" travel guides have helped readers find where to browse and buy from Paris to Hong Kong, has died. She was 64.

Gershman died July 25 in San Antonio after being diagnosed about a year ago with brain cancer, said her son, Aaron Gershman, and her co-author, Sarah Lahey.

Since its launch in the mid-1980s, "Born to Shop" series has been translated into a half-dozen languages and sold more than 4 million copies worldwide, Lahey said. Sixteen of the books have been published, and some were revised every other year. Frommer's acquired the rights for the books in 1995.

"They were for people who were as passionate about shopping as Suzy," said Kelly Regan, editorial director for Frommer's Travel Guides.

With a focus on good value and high quality, Gershman was just as comfortable looking for bargains at flea markets as she was at high-end stores like Hermes, said Regan. She said Gershman was also "particularly incisive" on what outlet centers were worth the trip, and could cover all areas of shopping, from clothing to home goods to pet gear.

Lahey, who worked with Gershman for the last eight years, said Gershman liked to focus on the "hidden gems in each city," including markets or boutiques that could offer a shopper something they couldn't get back home. Lahey said that Gershman was a big gift-giver whose "theory was that you should bring back a gift that was unique to the area."

"She loved what she did," Lahey said. "She loved exploring new places."

Her son, 32-year-old Aaron Gershman of Los Angeles, who can remember traveling "everywhere" with his globe-trotting mother, said he always admired that she turned a love of shopping and travel into a career.

"From before I could walk, I remember being in a stroller on the big shopping streets of Paris," he said.

After Gershman's husband, Michael Gershman, died in 2000, she decided to move to Paris. Her book "C'est la Vie," detailed her first year of widowhood.

After about a decade in France, Gershman decided to return to San Antonio, where she had grown up and graduated from high school.

Aaron Gershman said that his mother, who has a large extended family in San Antonio, had started to miss the "little things," including everything from American commercials to "real guacamole."

Gershman was born on April 13, 1948, in Syracuse, N.Y. While attending the University of Texas at Austin, Gershman worked for the San Antonio Express-News. After graduating from UT in 1969, Gershman moved to New York, working in advertising and public relations before beginning a career in magazines as a freelance journalist. Gershman and her husband then moved to Los Angeles, where she became the West Coast style editor in People magazine's Beverly Hills offices.

Her first television job was a stint on the style show "PM Magazine." She later would frequently appear on television programs talking about her shopping expertise and contributed to various magazines.

http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pb...?category=NEWS

Iconoclastic American author Gore Vidal dead at 86
 

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Writer Gore Vidal, who filled his novels and essays with acerbic observations on politics, sex and American culture while carrying on feuds with big-name literary rivals, died on Tuesday at home in Los Angeles of complications from pneumonia, age 86.

Vidal's literary legacy includes a series of historical novels - "Burr," "1876," "Lincoln" and "The Golden Age" among them - as well as the campy transsexual comedy "Myra Breckinridge".

He started writing as a 19-year-old soldier stationed in Alaska, basing "Williwaw" on his World War Two experiences. His third book, "The City and the Pillar," created a sensation in 1948 because it was one of the first open portrayals of a homosexual main character.

He referred to himself as a "gentleman bitch" and was as egotistical and caustic as he was elegant and brilliant.

In addition to rubbing shoulders with the great writers of his time, he banged heads with many of them. Vidal considered Ernest Hemingway a joke and compared Truman Capote to a "filthy animal that has found its way into the house".

His most famous literary enemies were conservative pundit William F. Buckley Jr. and writer Norman Mailer, who Vidal once likened to cult killer Charles Manson.

Mailer head-butted Vidal before a television appearance and on another occasion knocked him to the ground.

Vidal and Buckley took their feud to live national television while serving as commentators at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Vidal accused Buckley of being a "pro-crypto-Nazi" while Buckley called Vidal a "queer" and threatened to punch him.

Vidal seemed to make no effort to curb his abundant ego.

In a 2008 interview with Esquire magazine Vidal said people always seemed impressed that he had met so many famous people, such as Jacqueline Kennedy and William Burroughs.

"People always put that sentence the wrong way around," he said. "I mean, why not put it the true way - that these people got to meet me, and wanted to?"

NEPHEW OF SENATOR

Eugene Luther Vidal Jr. was born on October 3, 1925 in West Point, New York, and eventually took his mother's surname as his first name. He grew up in Washington, D.C., where his grandfather, Democratic U.S. Sen. Thomas Gore of Oklahoma, had a strong influence on the boy.

The young Vidal developed an interest in politics as he read to the blind senator and led him about town. A distant cousin is former U.S. Vice President Al Gore.

He went to exclusive private secondary schools but did not attend college.

After his parents divorced, Vidal's mother married Hugh Auchincloss, who later also became the stepfather of Jacqueline Kennedy. That connection gave Vidal access to the Kennedy White House before a falling out with the family.

After early success, his literary career stalled - perhaps because of the controversy of "The City and the Pillar" - and he concentrated on television and movie scripts.

Vidal got back on track in the 1960s with "Julian," about a Roman emperor; "Washington, D.C.," the tale of a political family; and "Myra Breckenridge."

Bigger success followed with recreations of historical U.S. figures - such as Aaron Burr and Abraham Lincoln - that analyze where Vidal thought the United States fell from grace.

Vidal also was known for his sharp essays on society, sex, literature and politics. He was fervent about politics and what he considered to be the death of "the American Empire".

"The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept a majority of the people from ever questioning the inequity of a system where most people drudge along, paying heavy taxes for which they get nothing in return," he once said.

In 1960 Vidal ran unsuccessfully for a congressional seat in New York and in 1982 failed in a bid for a California Senate seat.

He once described the United States as "the land of the dull and the home of the literal" and starting in the 1960s lived much of the time in a seaside Italian villa. He moved back permanently in 2003, shortly before Howard Austen, his companion of more than 50 years, died of cancer

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/american-au...043207888.html

Composer Marvin Hamlisch dies at 68
 

Marvin Hamlisch, who composed or arranged the scores for dozens of movies including "The Sting" and the Broadway smash "A Chorus Line," has died in Los Angeles.

Hamlisch's career included composing, conducting and arranging music from Broadway to Hollywood, from symphonies to R&B hits. He won every major award in his career, including three Academy Awards, four Emmys, four Grammys, a Tony and three Golden Globes.

His music colored some of Hollywood and Broadway's most important works.

Hamlisch composed more than 40 film scores, including "Sophie's Choice," ''Ordinary People," ''The Way We Were" and "Take the Money and Run." He won his third Oscar for his adaptation of Scott Joplin's music for "The Sting." His latest work came for Steven Soderbergh's "The Informant!"

On Broadway, Hamlisch received both a Tony and the Pulitzer Prize in 1975 for the long-running favorite "A Chorus Line" and wrote the music for "The Goodbye Girl" and "Sweet Smell of Success." He was scheduled to fly to Nashville, Tenn., this week to see a production of his musical "The Nutty Professor," according to his publicist.

He even reached into the pop world, writing the No. 1 R&B hit "Break It to Me Gently" with Carole Bayer Sager for Aretha Franklin. He won the 1974 Grammys for best new artist and song of the year, "The Way We Were," performed by Barbra Streisand.

Although he was one of the youngest students ever at the Juilliard School of Music, he never studied conducting. "I remember somebody told me, 'Earn while you learn,' " he told The Associated Press in 1996.

"The Way We Were" exemplified Hamlisch's old-fashioned appeal — it was a big, sentimental movie ballad that brought huge success in the rock era. He was extremely versatile, able to write for stage and screen, for soundtracks ranging from Woody Allen comedies to a somber drama like "Ordinary People."

He was perhaps even better known for his work adapting Joplin on "The Sting." In the mid-'70s, it seemed everybody with a piano had the sheet music to "The Entertainer," the movie's theme song. To this day, it's blasted by ice cream trucks.

Hamlisch's place in popular culture reached beyond his music. Known for his nerdy look, complete with thick eyeglasses, that image was sealed on NBC's "Saturday Night Live" during Gilda Radner's "Nerd" sketches. Radner, playing Lisa Loopner, would swoon over Hamlisch.

Hamlisch was principal pops conductor for symphony orchestras in Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Dallas, Pasadena, Seattle and San Diego at the time of his death. He was to be announced to the same position with the Philadelphia Orchestra and also was due to lead the New York Philharmonic during its upcoming New Year's Eve concert.

He was working on a new musical, "Gotta Dance," at the time of his death and was scheduled to write the score for a new film on Liberace, "Behind the Candelabra."

He leaves behind a legacy in film and music that transcended notes on the page. As illustrative as the scenes playing out in front of the music, his scores helped define some of Hollywood's most iconic works.

http://news.yahoo.com/composer-marvi...131751829.html

Judith Crist - American film critic
 

Judith Crist (born Judith Klein; May 22, 1922 – August 7, 2012) was an American film critic. She appeared regularly on the Today show from 1964 to 1973 and was the first full-time female critic for a major American newspaper, The New York Herald Tribune.

She was the founding film critic at New York Magazine and become known to most Americans as a critic at TV Guide. She appeared in one film, Woody Allen's Stardust Memories, and was the author of The Private Eye, The Cowboy and the Very Naked Girl; Judith Crist's TV Guide to the Movies and Take 22: Moviemakers on Moviemaking.

Al Freeman, Jr.
 

Albert Cornelius "Al" Freeman, Jr. (March 21, 1934 – August 9, 2012) was an American actor and director. Freeman has made appearances in many films, such as My Sweet Charlie, Finian's Rainbow, and Malcolm X, and television series such as The Cosby Show, Law & Order, Homicide: Life on the Street, Hot L. Baltimore, and The Edge of Night.

He is mostly recognized for his portrayal of Police Captain Ed Hall on the ABC soap opera, One Life to Live, a role he played from 1972 through 1987, with recurring roles in 1988 and 2000. He won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor for that role in 1979, the first actor from the show as well as the first African American actor to earn the award. He was also a director of One Life to Live, and was one of the first African Americans to direct a soap opera.

After leaving One Life to Live, Freeman appeared in the motion picture Down in the Delta. His Broadway theatre credits include Look to the Lilies, Blues for Mister Charlie, and Medea. His portrayal of NOI leader Elijah Muhammad in the motion picture Malcolm X earned him the 1995 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture. Coincidently, he had previously played Malcolm X in the 1979 miniseries, Roots: The Next Generations.

Freeman taught acting at Howard University in Washington, D.C..

Helen Gurley Brown, Iconic Editor of Cosmopolitan, Died at Age 90
 

Helen Gurley Brown, the groundbreaking editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan magazine and the bestselling author of Sex and the Single Girl, died Monday in New York. She was 90.

An outspoken advocate of women's sexual freedom, Brown clashed with both feminists and conservatives as she helped usher in the sexual revolution of the 1960s with her monthly magazine that became the bible for "fun, fearless females."

"Helen Gurley Brown was an icon. Her formula for honest and straightforward advice about relationships, career and beauty revolutionized the magazine industry," said Frank A. Bennack, Jr., CEO of Hearst Corporation.

"She lived every day of her life to the fullest and will always be remembered as the quintessential 'Cosmo girl.' She will be greatly missed."

Brown died at McKeen Pavilion at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia after a brief hospitalization, according to the Hearst Corp.

Sex and the Single Girl, published in 1962 and spent more than a year on the bestseller lists, encouraged women to take pleasure in sex and enjoy their work and relationships even if they weren't married.

She headed Cosmo from 1965 to 1997, delivering a magazine known for its risqué cleavage-baring cover photos and blunt and sassy headlines about "how to find a man, keep a man and be sexually fulfilled along the way."

http://www.people.com/people/article...ntent=My+Yahoo

Red Sox legend Johnny Pesky dies at age 92
 

Johnny Pesky, a member of the Red Sox as a player, manager, coach, broadcaster and beloved team ambassador, has passed away at the age of 92.

Pesky played for the Sox from 1942-52, missing three seasons serving in the military during World War II. He managed the team from 1963-64 and briefly again in 1980.

This season Pesky’s 61st season with the club in some capacity and 44th in a row.

Born John Michael Paveskovich in Portland, Ore., Pesky was signed by the Red Sox in 1940 and made his major league debut in 1942, hitting .331 and finishing third in the MVP voting.

Pesky was a career .313 hitter with the Red Sox before playing for the Tigers and Senators. In all, he played in 1,270 major league games and hit .307 with a .394 on-base percentage. He was an All-Star in 1946.

A left-handed hitter who threw right-handed, Pesky was a tough man for pitchers to strike out. He was the first AL player to score 6 runs in a 9 inning game. As a hitter, he specialized in getting on base, leading the American League in base hits three times - his first three seasons in the majors, in which he collected over 200 hits each year — and was among the top ten in on base percentage six times while batting .307 in 4,745 at bats as a Major Leaguer. He was also an excellent bunter who led the league in sacrifice hits in 1942.

Pesky has his No. 6 retired by the Red Sox in 2008. He appeared regularly at team events, including the 100th anniversary of Fenway Parks opening in April.

Pesky was a close friend of Bobby Doerr, Dom DiMaggio and Ted Williams. A statue of those four men called “Teammates” is outside of Fenway Park’s Gate B.

---------------------------------------


Wont be the same without you dude. Thanks for the memories.

RIP Horshack ... class dismissed.
 

Harry Harrison March 12, 1925 – August 15, 2012 American science fiction author
 

Harrison started in the science fiction field as an illustrator, notably with EC Comics' two science fiction comic books, Weird Fantasy and Weird Science. He has used house names such as Wade Kaempfert and Philip St. John to edit magazines, and has published other fictions under the names Felix Boyd, Leslie Charteris, and Hank Dempsey. Harrison also wrote for syndicated comic strips, creating the Rick Random character. Harrison is now much better known for his writing, particularly his humorous and satirical science fiction, such as the Stainless Steel Rat series and the novel Bill, the Galactic Hero (which satirises Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers).

During the 1950s and 1960s, he was the main writer of the Flash Gordon newspaper strip. One of his Flash Gordon scripts was serialized in Comics Revue magazine. Harrison drew sketches to help the artist be more scientifically accurate, which the artist largely ignored.

Not all of Harrison's writing was comic, though. He has written many stories on serious themes, of which by far the best known is the novel about overpopulation and consumption of the world's resources Make Room! Make Room! which was used as a basis for the science fiction film Soylent Green (though the film changed the plot and theme).

Harrison for a time was closely associated with Brian Aldiss. The pair collaborated on a series of anthology projects. Harrison and Aldiss did much in the 1970s to raise the standards of criticism in the field.[citation needed] In particular, the two edited nine volumes of The Year's Best Science Fiction anthology series as well as three volumes of the Decade series, collecting science fiction of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s respectively.

In 1990, Harrison was professional Guest of Honour at ConFiction, the 48th World SF Convention, in The Hague, Netherlands, together with Joe Haldeman and Wolfgang Jeschke.

Harrison was a writer of fairly liberal worldview. Harrison's work often hinges around the contrast between the thinking man and the man of force, although the "Thinking Man" often needs ultimately to employ force himself.

Harrison was selected by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America as the 2009 recipient of their Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award.[3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Harrison

Goodbye my TV friend.

My childhood was much more enjoyable because of you.



http://i187.photobucket.com/albums/x...6/Horshack.jpg

Tony Scott, director
 

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Tony Scott, director of such Hollywood hits as "Top Gun," ''Days of Thunder" and "Beverly Hills Cop II," died Sunday after jumping from a Los Angeles County bridge, authorities said.

The British-born Scott was known for hyper-kinetic action and editing on such films as his most recent, the runaway train thriller "Unstoppable," starring regular collaborator Denzel Washington.

Besides "Unstoppable," Scott worked with Washington on four other movies: "Crimson Tide," ''Man on Fire," Deja Vu" and "The Taking of Pelham 123."

Other Scott films include "True Romance," written by Quentin Tarantino, "The Fan," with Robert De Niro, and "Enemy of the State," starring Will Smith, and 1983's supernatural romance "The Hunger," with David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve.

Tony was producer and director Ridley Scott's younger brother. The two brothers ran Scott Free Productions and were working jointly on a film called "Killing Lincoln," based on the best seller by Bill O'Reilly. Along with countless commercials, their company produced the CBS dramas "NUMB3RS" and "The Good Wife" as well as a 2011 documentary about the Battle of Gettysburg for the History Channel.

http://movies.yahoo.com/news/top-gun...041553449.html

2 killed 2 wounded in Louisiana
 

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Deputy Michael Scott Boyington was shot and wounded while directing traffic early Thursday.

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/ass...story-body.jpg
Deputy Brandon Nielsen, 34, died in a shooting Thursday. He is survived by a wife and five children.

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/dam/ass...story-body.jpg
Sheriff's Deputy Jeremy Triche, 28, is survived by his wife and 2-year-old son.


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Deputy Jason Triche was wounded in the ambush that left Nielsen and Jeremy Triche dead.










(CNN) -- Four men and three women have been arrested in connection with shootings that left two Louisiana sheriff's deputies dead and two others wounded, police said Friday.
Their arrests, and the preliminary charges they are facing, follow a pair of allegedly linked shootings early Thursday in LaPlace, a community of about 30,000 people located roughly 25 miles west of New Orleans.
Five of those arrested are now in jail, while the two others remain hospitalized for treatment of gunshot wounds, Louisiana State Police spokesman Melissa Matey said Friday.
St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff Michael Tregre called the slain and wounded deputies "heroes" and described those arrested as "some very violent individuals."
"The people that (the deputies) lost their lives for, that we have in custody, I believe are some of the most violent, evil people on the planet," Tregre said Friday.
All the charges levied against the suspects, thus far, apply to the first shooting that occurred around 5 a.m. in a parking lot near the Bayou Steel plant in LaPlace, according to police.

Deputy Michael Scott Boyington was shot and wounded while directing traffic early Thursday.

Deputy Brandon Nielsen, 34, died in a shooting Thursday. He is survived by a wife and five children.

Sheriff's Deputy Jeremy Triche, 28, is survived by his wife and 2-year-old son.

Deputy Jason Triche was wounded in the ambush that left Nielsen and Jeremy Triche dead.
A man there shot Deputy Michael Boyington from the St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff's Office -- who was directing traffic at the time -- several times, Tregre said Thursday. Despite his injuries, Boyington told dispatchers about the suspect. His description, along with a civilian report of a speeding car, led responding officers to a nearby trailer park, the sheriff said.
Col. Michael Edmonson, superintendent of the Louisiana State Police, said Friday that investigators have determined that five of those under arrest were in the car that sped from the scene.
Boyington is at University Hospital in New Orleans, where Tregre said he had visited him and found him to be "very good, upbeat, very positive, very strong." A law enforcement source who was not authorized to speak on the record said Thursday that the deputy had been shot in the shoulder and is expected to survive.
"He just wanted me to tell everyone that he'll be back to work Monday," Tregre said Friday.
Brian Lyn Smith, 24, will be charged with attempted first-degree murder of a police officer tied to Boyington's shooting, police said.
Four others -- 44-year-old Terry Smith, 22-year-old Derrick Smith, 28-year-old Kyle David Joekel and 21-year-old Teniecha Bright -- each face charges of being a principal to attempted first-degree murder of a police officer. Chanel Skains, 37, and Brittney Keith, 23, have been charged with being an accessory after the fact to attempted first-degree murder of a police officer, authorities said.
Brian Smith and Joekel will be formally charged after their release from the hospital, according to information released Friday by the parish sheriff's office.
"Once ... the hospital says, they're OK and they can leave the hospital, believe me, they're going straight to jail," Edmonson said of the two hospitalized suspects.
All those facing charges lived in one of three nearby addresses on the same street in LaPlace. And they could face additional charges tied to the second shooting later Thursday at a trailer park in that same city.
In that incident, deputies who had gone there to investigate the initial shooting were questioning two people when a man ambushed them, Tregre said.
Multiple weapons were used and at least 20 shots were fired in this shooting, according to Edmonson.
St. John the Baptist Sheriff's Deputies Brandon Nielsen, 34, and Jeremy Triche, 28, were killed in the gunfire. Nielsen was married with five children and Triche had a wife and a 2-year-old son, Tregre told reporters.
Deputy Jason Triche -- who is not related to Jeremy Triche -- was wounded in that shooting, according to Louisiana State Trooper Evan Harrell.
Jason Triche is "recovering very, very well" at LaPlace's River Parishes Hospital, where Tregre visited him and said he believes that he was taken off a ventilator Friday and "couldn't really speak, but he could write."
As to the overall investigation, the state police superintendent stressed Friday that "there are a lot of things that we don't know and that we will find out," vowing that authorities will "very tediously, very delicately" compile evidence and interview witnesses.
"We'll build our case on what we know now, (including about) the individuals in the car. And now we are going to work our way back to the scene where those two deputies were killed," Edmonson said. "It's going to take us a while to do that."
The slain and wounded sheriff's deputies will be honored Friday at a candlelight vigil, which starts at 8 p.m. (9 p.m. ET) in front of the Percy Hebert Building in LaPlace, Tregre said.
In addition, the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans will be lit in blue Friday night and there will be a moment of silence to remember Nielsen and Jeremy Triche before the New Orleans Saints take on the Jacksonville Jaguars in an NFL pre-season game, according to the sheriff.

Scott MacKensie, singer of "San Francisco"
 

It's the song that drew thousands of hippie kids to a chilly San Francisco summer 45 years ago, when an unpopular war was raging in Vietnam and our city by the Bay was the primary mecca of LSD fans, music fans, and gentle people with flowers in their hair. It's the song they played to summarize the Summer of Love, 1967, in the 20th Century music montage known as Forrest Gump. It's the song that helped defined the late sixties two full years before Woodstock. And the man who originally sang it is now dead.

Scott MacKenzie was a friend of John Phillips, the man who went on to form The Mamas and the Papas, and MacKenzie turned down an offer to become an original member of the group, opting instead to be a solo artist. The song that made him famous, and remains the song that defines him as an artist, "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)," was written by Phillips, as was MacKenzie's second hit, "Like an Old Time Movie." And later in life, MacKenzie toured with a new version of The Mamas and the Papas with Terry Melcher, Mike Love (of the Beach Boys), and Phillips, and MacKenzie helped write the Cocktail theme song that made a hit for the Beach Boys in the 80s, "Kokomo." He stopped touring with Phillips in 1998.

MacKenzie was born Philip Wallach Blondheim in 1939, and later changed his name to Scott MacKenzie after Warhol superstar Jackie Curtis told him he looked like a Scottie dog, and because other people at parties in New York told him they couldn't understand his name.

In the last two years, MacKenzie suffered from Guillain-Barre Syndrome. He died in his home in Los Angeles.



http://sfist.com/2012/08/19/san_fran...er_scott_m.php

Death Penalty Opponent and Philosopher Hugo Bedau Dies

excerpt from obit: ' Professor Bedau (pronounced beh-DOUGH) took up the issue as well in “The Case Against the Death Penalty,” a pamphlet distributed widely for many years by the American Civil Liberties Union. Written with the help of Henry Schwarzschild, a former director of the group’s Capital Punishment Project, the publication brought together a number of arguments against the death penalty: that it failed to deter crime (using supporting data); that it was fraught with racial bias, wrongful convictions and excessive financial costs; and that it was ultimately an act of “barbarity.”

“The history of capital punishment in American society clearly shows the desire to mitigate the harshness of this penalty by narrowing its scope,” the pamphlet said in a section titled “Unfairness.” “Discretion, whether authorized by statutes or by their silence, has been the main vehicle to this end. But when discretion is used, as it always has been, to mark for death the poor, the friendless, the uneducated, the members of racial minorities and the despised, then discretion becomes injustice. Thoughtful citizens, who in contemplating capital punishment in the abstract might support it, must condemn it in actual practice". '

Humorist Phyllis Diller dies at 95
 

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Phyllis Diller, the housewife turned humorist who aimed some of her sharpest barbs at herself, punctuating her jokes with her trademark cackle, died Monday morning in her Los Angeles home at age 95.

She was a staple of nightclubs and television from the 1950s — when female comics were rare indeed — until her retirement in 2002. Diller built her stand-up act around the persona of the corner-cutting housewife ("I bury a lot of my ironing in the back yard") with bizarre looks, a wardrobe to match (by "Omar of Omaha") and a husband named "Fang."

She didn't get into comedy until she was nearly 40, after her first husband, Sherwood Diller, prodded her for two years to give up a successful career as an advertising and radio writer. Through it all, she was also a busy mother.

She also appeared in movies, including "Boy, Did I Get a Wrong Number" and "Eight on the Lam" with Bob Hope.

In 1966-67, she was the star of an ABC sitcom about a society family trying to stave off bankruptcy, "The Pruitts of Southampton." Gypsy Rose Lee played a nosy neighbor. In 1968, she was host of a short-lived variety series, "The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show."

But standup comedy was her first love, and when she broke into the business in 1956 it was a field she had largely to herself because female comics weren't widely accepted then.

After retiring from standup, Diller continued to take occasional small parts in movies and TV shows ("Family Guy") and pursued painting as a serious hobby. She published her autobiography, "Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse," in 2005. The 2006 film "Goodnight, We Love You" documented her career.

Her other books included "Phyllis Diller's Housekeeping Hints" and "Phyllis Diller's Marriage Manual."

http://news.yahoo.com/humorist-phyll...192854743.html

William Windom - emmy winning tv actor
 

LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - William Windom, a 1970 Emmy Award winner for his show "My World and Welcome to It," died on Thursday at home in Woodacre, Calif. He was 88.

He may have been at least as well known for his numerous guest appearances on several TV shows, including "Star Trek," "The Twilight Zone" and "Night Gallery." He co-starred with Inger Stevens from 1963-1966 on "The Farmer's Daughter."

But it was a recurring role that began in 1998 and lasted for a decade on the CBS mystery "Murder, She Wrote" that may have brought him the most fame.

He played a doctor, Seth Hazlitt, n the imaginary town of Cabot Cove, Me., who was best friends with Jessica Fletcher, the show's star played by Angela Lansbury.

While Windom made his mark in TV, he played the prosecutor in 1962's Academy Award-winning film "To Kill a Mockingbird," and in 1968 starred in "The Detective" with Frank Sinatra.Sci-fi fans would remember Windom as Commodore Decker in the "Star Trek" TV episode "The Doomsday Machine." He reprised the role four decades later for "Star Trek New Voyages."

http://news.yahoo.com/william-windom...174633851.html

Tuskegee airman George Hickman
 

SEATTLE (AP) — George Hickman, one of the original Tuskegee airmen and a longtime usher at University of Washington and Seattle Seahawks games, has died at age 88.

Hickman was one of the country's first black military pilots and ground crew members who fought in World War II.

In 2007, he and other Tuskegee airmen traveled to Washington, D.C., to receive the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor that Congress can give. In 2009, he attended President Barack Obama's inauguration as a special guest.

Hickman was a beloved figure at Seattle sporting events. Hickman worked a number of posts, including usher and press box attendant, at Huskies games for several decades. He also served as a press box greeter at Seahawks games. He raised the 12th Man flag before the Seahawks game against the Baltimore Ravens last

The grandson of slaves, Hickman nurtured an interest in aviation as a curious boy gazing up at the sky above St. Louis.

That passion evolved from buying model airplanes to joining the segregated pilot training program in Tuskegee, Ala., and later to a nearly three-decade long career at Boeing in Seattle where he was a B-52 engineering training instructor and executive in the aerospace division.

He served in the Army Air Corps from 1943-45, which trained African Americans to fly and maintain combat aircraft, and was part of the graduating class of 1944, according to a 2012 Army profile.

He was initially eliminated from pilot training in 1943. As a cadet captain, he was effectively blocked from flying when he called out white superior officers for the mistreatment of a fellow black cadet. "I felt like I had really been mistreated," he told the AP in 2009. But undeterred, he graduated from the program as a crewman.

http://news.yahoo.com/tuskegee-airma...pageNumber%3D1

Jerry Nelson, Voice of The Count on Sesame Street
 

Jerry Nelson, the puppeteer known for playing the instructional Count von Count on Sesame Street, died Thursday. He was 78.

Besides the non-threatening vampire, Nelson, a Tulsa native who grew up in Washington, D.C., also performed Gobo Fraggle on Fraggle Rock and The Muppet Show's Sgt. Floyd Pepper of the Electric Mayhem band; "Pigs in Space" stalwart Dr. Julius Strangepork; Kermit the Frog's nephew Robin; and Gonzo's girlfriend Camilla the Chicken, among other roles, says the site.

He first trained with American puppeteer Bil Baird, who was responsible for the lively "Lonely Goatherd" marionette sequence in the 1965 movie blockbuster The Sound of Music, starring Julie Andrews.

That same year, Nelson worked with Muppet creator Jim Henson on TV's The Jimmy Dean Show, a variety program on which Kermit and the gang first became popular with American audiences.

Nelson's Sesame Street stint began in the '70s, and he continued to be the Count until his retirement in 2004.

http://www.people.com/people/article...ntent=My+Yahoo