RIP

[Kätzchen]

[homoe]

~
Even tho he starred in many roles it's his performance as Max Cherry in Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, that will always remain my very favorite!

[cathexis]

Drummer of the early rock group "Cream" which included Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood, and Lenny Bruce.

Ginger Baker has long been considered the best rock drummer in the history of rock.
The second best rock drummer is the late John Bonham of "Led Zeppelin."

The most well known song of "Cream" is "The White Room."
"Cream" was active from 1966-1969, with single concerts in 2005 and 2006 for charity causes.

Mr. Baker was inducted into The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 1993.

He was raised in London, England. Began his musical career in 1956.

Ginger Baker will be sadly missed by Rock enthusiasts

[Orema]

Elijah E. Cummings, Powerful Democrat Who Investigated Trump, Dies at 68

A son of sharecroppers, he fought tirelessly for his hometown of Baltimore and became a key figure in the impeachment investigation of President Trump.

photo uploader for website

By David Stout and Sheryl Gay Stolberg
Oct. 17, 2019
Updated 6:23 a.m. ET

Representative Elijah E. Cummings, a son of sharecroppers who rose to become one of the most powerful Democrats in Congress and a key figure in the impeachment investigation of President Trump, died on Thursday in Baltimore, his spokeswoman said. He was 68.

His death resulted from “complications concerning longstanding health challenges,” the spokeswoman, Trudy Perkins, said in a statement, without elaborating on the cause.

As chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Mr. Cummings, of Maryland, had sweeping power to investigate Mr. Trump and his administration — and he used it.

A critical ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Mr. Cummings spent his final months in Congress sparring with the president, calling Mr. Trump’s effort to block congressional lines of inquiry “far worse than Watergate.” He was sued by Mr. Trump as the president tried to keep his business records secret.

With his booming voice and a speaking cadence with hints of the pulpit, Mr. Cummings was a compelling figure on Capitol Hill. For more than two decades, he represented a section of Baltimore with more than its share of social problems. He campaigned tirelessly for stricter gun control laws and help for those addicted to drugs.

He grabbed the national spotlight in 2015 when he took to the streets of Baltimore, where, bullhorn in hand, he pleaded for calm after riots erupted in his neighborhood after the funeral of Freddie Gray, a young black man who died in police custody. Hours earlier, Mr. Cummings had delivered Mr. Gray’s eulogy.

In July, after Mr. Cummings attacked President Trump for the conditions seen in immigrant detention centers on the southern border, Mr. Trump struck back, calling the congressman’s district a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess” where “no human being would want to live.” Mr. Cummings vociferously defended his hometown.

Mr. Cummings had been ailing recently, and was sometimes seen using a wheelchair and an oxygen tank. He was away from Congress for nearly three months following heart surgery in the fall of 2017. Soon afterward, he was admitted to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for what his office described as a bacterial infection in his knee.

A hulking, bear-like man, Mr. Cummings had served in Congress since winning a special election in 1996 to fill the seat vacated by Kweisi Mfume, who resigned to become president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Mr. Cummings’s Seventh District includes most of West Baltimore and suburbs west of the city, as well as Howard County.

Since his initial victory in 1996, Mr. Cummings had not been seriously challenged in either a primary or general election, according to The Almanac of American Politics. In 2003 and 2004, he was chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. He was an early supporter of Barack Obama for president and was co-chairman of Mr. Obama’s campaign in Maryland in 2008.

Elijah Eugene Cummings, the son of sharecroppers from South Carolina who moved north to improve prospects for themselves and their children, who would eventually number seven, was born in Baltimore on Jan. 18, 1951, and grew up in the city.

He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Howard University in Washington, where he was student government president, with a degree in political science. He earned a law degree from the University of Maryland and was a practicing attorney while serving for 14 years in the Maryland House of Delegates, where he was the first African-American in the state’s history to be named speaker pro-tem.



https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/17/u...gtype=Homepage

[~ocean]

RIP Don Imus age 79 ~ a very controversial radio & television personality ~ someone I used to listen and watch with my mom.

[C0LLETTE]

Inuit pop singer-songwriter Kelly Fraser, suicide at age 26

Inuit pop singer-songwriter Kelly Fraser, who garnered worldwide attention with her Inuktitut cover of Rihanna’s Diamonds, had been seeking help for post-traumatic stress disorder before dying by suicide last week, according to her family.

Ms. Fraser’s mother, Theresa Angoo, and six siblings issued a joint statement on Monday saying she had taken her own life on Christmas Eve at the age of 26.

“Kelly suffered from PTSD for many years as a result of childhood traumas, racism and persistent cyber-bullying,” the statement said. “She was actively seeking help and spoke openly about her personal challenges online and through her journey."

On social media, Ms. Fraser proudly showed off clothing and jewellery by Inuit designers, and promoted other Inuit musicians and artists. She posted excitedly about traditional foods: caribou, seal eyeballs, mattak (whale skin and blubber), oatmeal with aqpik berries. But amid the cheery posts were also signs that she felt the weight of criticism.

“I face a ton of lateral violence and criticism and hate,” she wrote in a Dec. 15 Facebook post. “I need a strong support system. ... Just because I am well known doesn’t mean I deserve it.”

Charlie Angus, NDP MP for Timmins-James Bay, said Ms. Fraser’s death underscores the need for a national suicide prevention strategy.

“We lose so many young people in my region to suicide and they are treated as tragedies,” Mr. Angus said in an interview on Monday. “A tragedy is when someone gets hit by a bus crossing the street. When you see patterns that are preventable, where steps can be taken, that’s not a tragedy, that’s systemic negligence – the failure to act on the indicators of suicide, the need to put resources in place.”

Ms. Fraser was born in Sanikiluaq, Nunavut, and was living in Winnipeg. She released her debut album, Isuma, in 2014; her 2017 sophomore effort, Sedna, was nominated for best Indigenous music album at the 2018 Juno Awards.

She sang and rapped in both English and Inuktitut and blended her cultural influences with those of contemporary pop. Most recently, she had been crowdfunding for her third album, Decolonize.

“Kelly was an incredibly kind person who gave so much of herself to help others. She was fiercely open with her fans in the hopes that sharing her struggles might help them know that they were not alone," her family said in Monday’s statement.

According to a biography posted on her website, Ms. Fraser experienced numerous personal struggles, including substance use and the loss of her father to suicide.

Inuit have among the highest suicide rates in the world; in 2017, the rate was 106 for every 100,000 people.

[C0LLETTE]

Terry Jones, one of the co-creators and star of British comedy Monty Python, has died aged 77 after suffering from a rare form of dementia.......

Sephen Fry:" Farewell, Terry Jones. The great foot has come down to stamp on you. My god what pleasure you gave, what untrammelled joy and delight. What a wonderful talent, heart and mind"