Category: Obituaries

Margaret Thatcher, Dead at 87

No Comments

She was 87.

There is an argument that one should not speak ill of the dead, but Margaret Thatcher was a public figure, and her supporters are using this as an opportunity to shape her legacy, so I feel that speaking the truth is essential at this juncture in any public forum except for her funeral or wake.

In my case, I will start with a list of positive things about her:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
That is all.

Hugo Chavez is Dead

No Comments

Certainly, he was never a friend of the United States, and this was exacerbated by the US tacit (and likely covert explicit) support of 2002 coup attempt against him.

As to how he was as the chief executive (and pretty much everything else) in Venezuela, I would not give him high marks, unless I were grading on the curve.

If I were grading on the curve though, he would get high marks against the previous ruling elites in Venezuela.

It is truly a shame that, when compared to the political elites who seemed primarily concerned with who got the loot, he was arguably a better leader.

Murder by Prosecutor

No Comments

Aaron Swartz, age 26, suicide.

We cannot know all the reasons behind this, but his harassment by prosecutors was likely a contributing factor.

He was probably targeted because of his high profile opposition to SOPA (see vid). (To its shame, the New York Times does not mention this in the obit)

We have developed a regime where anyone can be harassed, and likely convicted, basically for being “troublesome.”

The term I used a while back, “Live in Obedient Fear, Citizen,” describes this phenomenon.

An Addition to My “Piss on Their Grave” List.

No Comments

Art Model, the team owner who knifed Cleveland Football fans in the back when he moved the Browns to Baltimore has died.

It should be noted what is a decade prior to moving the Browns, he knifed to Baltimore fans in the back by blocking another teen being located in the city.

As someone who was 100 miles from Cleveland when he moved the Browns,  I am not mourning his passing.

Posted via mobile.

Dieing Well

No Comments

Music impresario Kathi Goldmark:

Kathi Kamen Goldmark, a beloved San Francisco literary impresario and country-rock singer, died May 24 after a long battle with breast cancer. She was 63.

Ms. Goldmark died at UCSF Medical Center surrounded by family and friends, including authors Amy Tan, Dave Barry and Maya Angelou. In her last hours, musician Roger McGuinn of the Byrds sang an Irish hymn to her over the phone, and Judy Collins called to sing “Amazing Grace.” As the end drew near, Ms. Goldmark mouthed something toward those around her. It was “Rosebud,” the famous last line from “Citizen Kane.” And she smiled as she whispered it.

“She had a sense of humor right until the end,” said Barry, the humorist. “There has never been a funnier lady.”

I hope I do half as well when my time comes.

Read the rest.

I wish that I had known of her before reading her obituary.

Damn

No Comments

Children’s book author Maurice Sendak has died at 83:

Maurice Sendak, widely considered the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century, who wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche, died on Tuesday in Danbury, Conn. He was 83.

The cause was complications of a recent stroke, said Michael di Capua, his longtime editor. Mr. Sendak, who died at Danbury Hospital, lived nearby in Ridgefield, Conn.

Roundly praised, intermittently censored and occasionally eaten, Mr. Sendak’s books were essential ingredients of childhood for the generation born after 1960 or thereabouts, and in turn for their children. He was known in particular for more than a dozen picture books he wrote and illustrated himself, most famously “Where the Wild Things Are,” which was simultaneously genre-breaking and career-making when it was published by Harper & Row in 1963.

Only Sy Hersh

No Comments

He wrote an appreciation of the late Mike Wallace, where he describes how Wallace stole his scoop:

You’ve got to remember that it was a Saturday night in New York City. Mike had seen or been tipped off about my scheduled Times piece quoting Radford, made some calls, found Radford’s wife, and somehow persuaded her that she had to give her husband the message to call him immediately at CBS. When Radford did, Wallace interviewed him from the Denver airport. He immediately splashed the interview all over CBS radio. Wallace had scooped me by interviewing Radford while I was flying with him in tow. I was more embarrassed than angry. The Old Man had shown me his moves, and taken my candy away.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Mike Wallace would be more pleased about stories like this than all the puff obituaries I’ve heard today.

Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers

No Comments

Peter Bergman, the founder of Firesign Theater, has died at the age of 72.

I’ve enjoyed their albums, but I always found it odd that while I had about a dozen friends with the album, not one of them bought it new.

I always had this sneaking suspicion that they had a marketing strategy which involved taking the albums out of their shrink wrap, and distributing them through used record stores and garage sales.

Makes Matt Taibbi Look Like a Wimp

No Comments

“If you sit quietly at the edge of a river, eventually you will see the bodies of your enemies float by.”

—Mark “Chopper” Read

Matt Taibbi called Breitbart a Douche, but his former partner at the Russian newspaper The Exile, Mark Ames has a truly evocative take-down of said douche:

Last autumn, Andrew Breitbart picked a fight with me. Breitbart bragged to the world about how he was going to destroy me. Breitbart went after me on behalf of the Koch oligarchy, who’d launched a multimillion-dollar PR counter-offensive to smear journalists who investigated them, including Jane Mayer of the New Yorker. Breitbart got the contract on me, and he had no doubt in his little pea brained mind he was going to destroy me. Breitbart was so sure he was going to ruin me, he bragged about it to everyone. He even told a journalist to tell Taibbi, “Breitbart is about to destroy your former eXile partner Mark Ames.” He was gloating in-advance. Then the very morning he attacked me, I hit back. And he tucked tail and fled like a bitch.

Now Andrew Breitbart is dead. Gee, whod’ya think won that little war?

Tough question: Maybe we should ask Breitbart what he thinks. Oh shit, dang, turns out I can’t ask Breitbart. He’s, well—he’s not doing well, dealing with those “natural causes” and all.

And that’s just the first 3 ‘graphs.

Alpha Mike Foxtrot

2 Comments

H/t JR at the Stellar Parthenon BBS  for the pic

Andrew Breitbart is dead. It appears to be natural causes.

Normally, this would be the place where I take the high road, and when someone has died, if you don’t have anything nice to say, then don’t say anything, followed by a couple of inches of white space.

But I remember what he said when Edward Kennedy died:

Andrew Breitbart, a Washington Times columnist who oversees Breitbart.com and BigHollywood.com, tapped into the anti-Kennedy vein in the hours after the senator’s death was announced, posting a series of Twitter messages in which he called Kennedy a “villain,” a “duplicitous bastard” and a “prick.”

“I’m more than willing to go off decorum to ensure THIS MAN is not beatified,” Breitbart wrote. “Sorry, he destroyed lives. And he knew it.”

So, I will follow his example, and note that the only thing that he ever did to make the world a better place was to leave it.

I hope Shirley Sharrod continues her suit, and manages to get his damn fillings.