RIP

[Rocket]

RIP Robin Gibb
I couldn't be a fan of Donna Summer after the way she treated the gay community, which had been her biggest following. Read- http://www.donna-tribute.com/articles/80/advocate2.htm

[musicman]

I had the honor of briefly working with Donna, her sweet husband Bruce and his writing partner Nathan.

Sweet lady will surly be missed. It's been a bad year of losing some great artists.

[Wolfsong]

I am so completely bummed today. Saturday Night Fever is one of my guilty pleasures

[SnackTime]

Rest In Peace

Robin Gibb

[firegal]

Wow cancer claims 2 more.... crap

Donna Summer and Robin Gibb.... very talented artists that so many of us danced to.....and maybe did a lil bit of fooling around to.......

Their incredible songs! RIP

[DapperButch]

Inventor of the remote control dies:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...6pLid%3D163177

[Kobi]

NEW YORK—Ellen Levine, a prolific and highly regarded author and activist whose children's books told stories of slaves, immigrants and the fight for social justice, has died. She was 73.

Levine died May 26 in New York after being diagnosed with lung cancer 19 months earlier, according to Scholastic Inc. Her beloved spouse and partner of 40 years, Anne Koedt, whom she married last fall, was at her side.

She was the author of fiction and non-fiction for children, young readers and adults that focused on important social issues and historical periods. Her rigorous research and devotion to accuracy made her stories compelling.

Her books included "Henry's Freedom Box," the true story of a slave who mailed himself to freedom; "Darkness Over Denmark" details the rescue of Jews by the Danes in World War II; "A Fence Away from Freedom" details the internment of Japanese Americans in the 1940s; "Freedom's Children, a profile of young black civil rights activists in the 1960s; "I Hate English," about a Chinese girl struggling to learn English, has become a resource for ESL teachers. Her most recent novel, "In Trouble," the story of two pregnant girls in the l950's, reflects her profound belief that the right to choose abortion is an individual choice, and that whatever one's ultimate decision, it must be viewed with compassion and respect.

She also worked on documentaries for CBS television. A native of New York, she was an undergraduate at Brandeis University and received a law degree from New York University.

[Kobi]

Herb Reed, the last surviving original member of 1950s vocal group the Platters who sang on hits like "Only You" and "The Great Pretender," has died. He was 83.

Reed sang bass on the group's four No. 1 hits, including "The Great Pretender," ''My Prayer," ''Twilight Time" and "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes."

The Platters were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 and the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1998. Their recordings are in the Grammy Hall of Fame.

The group's popularity reached across racial lines and genres, "achieving success in a crooning, middle-of-the-road style that put a soulful coat of uptown polish on pop-oriented, harmony-rich material," according to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's website.

Reed was the only member of the group to appear on all of their nearly 400 recordings. He continued touring, performing up to 200 shows per year, until last year, often performing with younger singers under the name Herb Reed and the Platters or Herb Reed's Platters.

[Kobi]

Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, and other beloved science fiction novels, died Tuesday night at the age of 91.

Bradbury sold eight million copies of his books in 36 languages, according to The New York Times' obit.

He attributed his success as a writer to never having gone to college--instead, he read and wrote voraciously. "When I graduated from high school in 1938, I began going to the library three nights a week," he said in an interview with The Paris Review. "I did this every week for almost ten years and finally, in 1947, around the time I got married, I figured I was done. So I graduated from the library when I was twenty-seven. I discovered that the library is the real school."

His best known book, Fahrenheit 451, was a dystopian tale set in the future about a society where books were banned and firefighters spent all day burning them. "Bradbury's novel anticipated iPods, interactive television, electronic surveillance and live, sensational media events, including televised police pursuits," the Associated Press writes.

[Apocalipstic]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, and other beloved science fiction novels, died Tuesday night at the age of 91.

Bradbury sold eight million copies of his books in 36 languages, according to The New York Times' obit.

He attributed his success as a writer to never having gone to college--instead, he read and wrote voraciously. "When I graduated from high school in 1938, I began going to the library three nights a week," he said in an interview with The Paris Review. "I did this every week for almost ten years and finally, in 1947, around the time I got married, I figured I was done. So I graduated from the library when I was twenty-seven. I discovered that the library is the real school."

His best known book, Fahrenheit 451, was a dystopian tale set in the future about a society where books were banned and firefighters spent all day burning them. "Bradbury's novel anticipated iPods, interactive television, electronic surveillance and live, sensational media events, including televised police pursuits," the Associated Press writes.

RIP, re was one of my favorites! "There Will Come Soft Rains" and "Something Wicked This Way Comes".

[Kobi]

Bob Welch, a singer-guitarist who left Fleetwood Mac for a successful solo career with such 1970s hits as "Ebony Eyes" and "Sentimental Lady," was found dead in his Nashville home of an apparent suicide on Thursday. He was 65.

The Los Angeles-born son of a movie producer, Welch joined Fleetwood Mac in 1971 and performed on several albums and tours until leaving in 1974. He was replaced by Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.

As a solo artist, Welch garnered huge success in 1977 with a revamped version of "Sentimental Lady," which he first recorded with Fleetwood Mac, with new backing vocals by the group's Christine McVie and Buckingham, and the hit singles "Ebony Eyes" and "Hot Love, Cold World."

[Kobi]

Feel like my childhood has been flashing before my eyes the last few weeks.


Frank Cady (September 8, 1915 – June 8, 2012) was an American actor best known for his recurring and popular role as storekeeper Sam Drucker in three American television series during the 1960s — Petticoat Junction, Green Acres, and The Beverly Hillbillies.

[theoddz]

Anne Rutherford, who played Scarlett O'Hara's sister, Careen, in the classic movie "Gone With The Wind", has died at age 94 (some sources say she was 91).

Rest in peace, Ms. Rutherford, and thank you for your part in bringing such a wonderful movie...one that I have so much enjoyed over the years, to the silver screen. Now THAT was great movie-making!!!



http://todayentertainment.today.msnb...ford-dies?lite

~Theo~

[QueenofSmirks]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, and other beloved science fiction novels, died Tuesday night at the age of 91.....

I still have an old, beat up copy of The Illustrated Man. I love so many of his works, it would be tough to choose a favorite.

[Parker]

[Kobi]

Erica Kennedy, an author and blogger best known for popular novels Feminista and Bling, has died. She resided in Miami Beach and was 42 years old at the time of her death, according to a family member.

A former fashion publicist, Kennedy started her writing career as a special correspondent for the New York Daily News. She went on to write about fashion and entertainment for magazines such as Vibe, In Style, Paper and Elle UK, according to her website.

In 2004 she published a satire on the high stakes world of hip-hop with her debut novel, Bling, which went on to become a New York Times best-seller. Five years later she released her second novel, Feminista, a story about smart, modern women.

[Kobi]

NEW YORK (AP) — LeRoy Neiman, the painter and sketch artist best known for evoking the kinetic energy of the world's biggest sporting and leisure events with bright quick strokes, died Wednesday at age 91.

Neiman was a media-savvy artist who knew how to enthrall audiences with his instant renditions of what he observed. In 1972, he sketched the world chess tournament between Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer in Reykjavik, Iceland, for a live television audience.

He also produced live drawings of the Olympics for TV and was the official computer artist of the Super Bowl for CBS.

Neiman's paintings, many executed in household enamel paints that allowed the artist his fast-moving strokes, are an explosion in reds, blues, pinks, greens and yellows of pure kinetic energy.

http://news.yahoo.com/leroy-neiman-a...3688--spt.html

[Kobi]

Composer and lyricist Richard Adler, who won Tony Awardsfor co-writing the songs for such hit musicals as "The Pajama Game" and "Damn Yankees," has died. He was 90.

His family says he died Thursday at his home in Southampton, New York.

Some of Adler's biggest songs are "You Gotta Have Heart," ''Hey, There," ''Hernando's Hideaway," ''Whatever Lola Wants," ''Steam Heat," ''Rags to Riches" and "Everybody Loves a Lover."

Adler staged and produced several shows for U.S. presidents, including the unforgettable birthday celebration for President John F. Kennedy featuring Marilyn Monroe singing "Happy Birthday."

[Kobi]

When Harry Met Sally," "Sleepless in Seattle" and "Silkwood" screenwriter Nora Ephron has died, according to the Washington Post and CBS News. She was 71 years old and was said to be suffering from leukemia.

Known as a prolific writer spanning film, stage, novels, works of journalism and blogs, Ephron was also an accomplished filmmaker, having both written anddirected "Julie & Julia" (2009), "Bewitched" (2005), "You've Got Mail" (1998), "Michael" (1996), "Mixed Nuts" (1994), "Sleepless in Seattle" (1993) and "This Is My Life" (1992). She was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

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

Nora Ephron passed away today. Not only did we lose an amazing writer, thinker, journalist, storyteller, and director; we lost the world’s funniest feminist.

Ephron came up in the 1960s, working first as an intern in John F. Kennedy's White House (“…it has become horribly clear to me that I am probably the only young woman who ever worked in the Kennedy White House whom the president did not make a pass at,” she wrote in The New York Times), and then the New York Post (she got that job by satirizing Post columnists and being a little too good at it). From there she started writing essays for Esquire like “A Few Words About Breasts,” which combined her penchant for personal history mixed with incredible humor.

Ephron graduated from Wellesley at a time when six girls in her class were expelled for lesbianism. “We weren't meant to have futures, we were meant to marry them,” she told the college's class of 1996. “We weren't' meant to have politics, or careers that mattered, or opinions, or lives; we were meant to marry them. If you wanted to be an architect, you married an architect.”

Naturally she had something to say about that. Her work in the late 1960s and 1970s focused on women, sex and the feminist movement, which was eventually compiled into the books Crazy Salad: Some Things About Women and Scribble Scribble. She used her greatest gift to cut to the core of inequality and misogyny so prevalent at the time:

“Men dominate the conversations in Washington and therefore, as far as I am concerned, the conversations are far less interesting than those in New York.”

“I am continually fascinated at the difficulty intelligent people have in distinguishing what is controversial from what is merely offensive.”

“I am still amazed at the amount of Christian charity [Wellesley] stuck us all with, a kind of glazed politeness in the face of boredom and stupidity. Tolerance, in the worst sense of the word.… How marvelous it would have been to go to a women's college that encouraged impoliteness, that rewarded aggression, that encouraged argument.”

Forget the never-ending “women aren’t funny” line that spews from every male comedian who has been or will be on the Celebrity Apprentice. The debate Ephron tackled was sexual politics itself and she did it with humor, with words both powerful and resonant. She understood that aphorisms aren’t just throw-aways that cheapen over time but can be piercing retorts in the right woman’s mouth. As Entertainment Weekly wrote about Crazy Salad, “Gloria Steinem was never this much fun,” which is both a little catty and deeply true — Steinem’s weapon of choice was never humor.

Of course, Ephron also made fun of the women’s movement when she found things frustrating or ridiculous. You are more likely to be heard if you’re a member of a choir you’re preaching to after all. When Crazy Salad was published, the AP wrote, “A dedicated feminist, Miss Ephron nevertheless pokes affectionate fun at her consciousness-raising group and sexual politics (‘We have lived through the era when happiness was a warm puppy…and a dry martini and now we have come to the era when happiness is ‘knowing what your uterus looks like.’)” (Notice that the AP called her “Miss” and not “Ms.”)

Ephron took on Betty Friedan, Phyllis Chesler and Jan Morris in her essays, always poking holes where she saw hypocrisy, cliché or narcissism, and at the same time outwardly struggling with how to be a good reporter and a good feminist. I would (with admitted bias) argue that even if you don’t agree with what she wrote the courage and talent behind it was great for women.

As her career grew, she extended her voice from journalism to film, writing Silkwood, When Harry Met Sally, and directing Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail and many more. She said she “[tried] to write parts for women that are as complicated and interesting as women actually are.” Considering the number of Oscar nominations and the number of roles Meryl Streep took in her films, I think she exceeded expectations.

In 1996, two years before You’ve Got Mail would premiere, she gave the commencement address at her alma mater. After some warm-up jokes about dated hairstyles and tuition prices, Ephron, in no uncertain terms, challenged the graduating class to bring it or go home:

What I'm saying is, don't delude yourself that the powerful cultural values that wrecked the lives of so many of my classmates have vanished from the earth. Don't let The New York Times article about the brilliant success of Wellesley graduates in the business world fool you — there's still a glass ceiling. … Don't underestimate how much antagonism there is toward women and how many people wish we could turn the clock back. One of the things people always say to you if you get upset is, don't take it personally, but listen hard to what's going on and, please, I beg you, take it personally. Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim. Because you don’t have the alibi my class had.

When her book I Feel Bad About My Neck came out, she again found herself at odds with some women of her generation who saw it as demeaning to negatively portray the process of aging. If that were what the book was about, I’d agree with them, but it was so much more than that. It was about family and politics, food and parenting, and yes, a look at those little embarrassing moments that come with time and all the little injustices your body inflicts without your consent. As she’s said in many ways over the years, “When you slip on a banana peel, people laugh at you. But when you tell people you slipped on a banana peel, it’s your laugh.” I dare you to argue that’s not empowerment.

Nora Ephron will be remembered for many things — that she loved her family, that she helped change the voice of journalism, that she was one of the first great female directors — but I will always remember her for what she did for women be they her friends, women she mentored, women she advised, women she employed or women who read/heard/saw her work. Thanks, Nora, from all of us.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/enter...minist/53954/#

[Arwen]

Molly Judith Olgin, 19.

She wasn't famous but she wasn't given a chance to become who she might have been. Her 18 year old girlfriend,Mary Kristene Chapa , is fighting for her life.

They were shot in Corpus Christi. Police have no suspects. Yet. I call on the Gods to bring swift justice to whomever shot these two young women.

I suspect it is someone who knew them and their hang outs. I think there was more than one person. I think this was a hate crime.

I cry tonight for the one who is dead and for those who are left behind.