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As Larry Harmon called it: "Bozo is a combination of the wonderful wisdom of the adult and the childlike ways in all of us"

From the Guardian

Just finished reading August 1914. I'm going through Gulag Archipelago again. This year I read A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and Cancer Ward.

[ 09 August 2008: Message edited by: al-Qa'bong ]

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Identity Card:

Put it on record.
.....I am an Arab.
And the number of my card is fifty thousand.
I have eight children
And the ninth is due after summer.
What's there to be angry about?

...

Put it on record.
.....I am an Arab.
You stole my forefather's vineyards
.....and land I used to till,
.....I and all my children,
.....and you left us and all my grandchildren
.....nothing but these rocks.
.....Will your government be taking them too
As is being said?

...

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Actor and comedian Bernie Mac has died in a Chicago-area hospital from complications due to pneumonia. He was 50.

The Emmy and Golden Globe-nominated performer had suffered from sarcoidosis, which is an inflammatory lung disease that produces tiny lumps of cells in the organs of afflicted persons.

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I come from there and I have memories
Born as mortals are, I have a mother
And a house with many windows,
I have brothers, friends,
And a prison cell with a cold window.
Mine is the wave, snatched by sea-gulls,
I have my own view,
And an extra blade of grass.
Mine is the moon at the far edge of the words,
And the bounty of birds,
And the immortal olive tree.
I walked this land before the swords
Turned its living body into a laden table.

I come from there. I render the sky unto her mother
When the sky weeps for her mother.
And I weep to make myself known
To a returning cloud.
I learnt all the words worthy of the court of blood
So that I could break the rule.
I learnt all the words and broke them up
To make a single word: Homeland.....

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In the early 1970s, Hayes laid the groundwork for disco, for what became known as urban-contemporary music and for romantic crooners like Barry White. And he was rapping before there was rap.

His career hit another high in 1997 when he became the voice of Chef, the sensible school cook and devoted ladies man on the animated TV show "South Park."

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[ 10 August 2008: Message edited by: Jingles ]

March 14, 2006: Soldiers opened fire on a motorized rickshaw, killing the driver. They said he drove through a checkpoint to within a metre of a Canadian vehicle.

August, 2006: Soldiers shot and killed an Afghan police officer, saying his unmarked truck sped toward a checkpoint.

Aug. 22, 2006: A 10-year-old boy riding as a passenger on a motorcycle was shot and killed after the motorcycle is said to have sped through an Afghan checkpoint and toward a Canadian cordon around a previous blast.

Dec. 12, 2006: A soldier shot and killed a motorcyclist, saying he'd failed to stop when ordered to do so as he approached a security cordon around the building where a meeting between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the Canadian ambassador was under way.

Feb. 17, 2007: Soldiers say they gave verbal and hand signs for a man to stop, and fired two warning shots before shooting a third time and killing him when he continued toward them. An assortment of wires were found around his waist, but not a bomb.

Feb. 27, 2007: Soldiers fired at a car that failed to stop at a security cordon around a broken Canadian vehicle. The driver was killed, and the passenger wounded.

Oct. 2, 2007: A motorcyclist was killed and his 12-year-old brother injured when soldiers opened fire as they passed a Canadian convoy. The incident remains under investigation.

November, 2007: An Afghan civilian was killed and a second seriously injured in Kandahar when Canadian troops fired on a taxi that ignored visual warning signs to stop, military officials said Friday.

July 25, 2008: British troops opened fire on a vehicle north of Sangin town centre in Helmand Province, after it failed to stop at a "checkpoint". Four civilians were killed and three others injured.

Here he is singing "Nora"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HADrur85Eg

Somewhere, Ronnie and Luke Kelly are singing now.

[ 16 August 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

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Let's use this thread to memorialize all the civilians killed in the War on Afghanistan

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Aitmatov bridged the generations who wrote in Kirghiz and those who did not have their own written language, other than Arabic or Russian, to write in. He was a virtual founder of Kirghiz literature and could remember those who took the first steps in their own written language.

Aitmatov made use of folklore and "synthesize[d] oral tales in the context of contemporary life". He made use of our "little brothers" or animals in his many stories, such as in his masterwork, Farewell, Gulsary!, to great effect, and he also championed strong and independent women as heroes of his stories. These strong and independent women mirrored the women in his own life, like his mother and grandmother, who raised him after his father disappeared in a Stalinist purge.

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Aitmatov corner: Chingiz Aitmatov's paternal grandmother was his closest friend as well. To teach him about Kyrgyz culture, she took the boy to traditional jailus (field festivities), weddings, and funeral repasts (osh).3 Aitmatov also accompanied her to meetings with storytellers, bards, and akin singers. Today, he draws regularly on those rare experiences as his writing weaves a masterful tapestry of Kyrgyz traditions and legends embellished by new Soviet colors.

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His novella, Jamila, was described by French writer Louis Aragon as the most beautiful love story in the world.

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SovLit.com: A major theme in Aitmatov's work is the inequality among men and women in traditional central Asian society. He also criticizes bias, the mullahs, lack of access to education for women, treatment of women as commodities, and polygamy. A good example of this is the tale Jamila (1958). The title character, a married village woman, falls in love with another man while her husband (who treats her more as an object of ownership than an object of love) is off at the front. In the end, the lovers run off together, abandoning their village and the traditional conventions. (See also Jaidar in Farewell, Gyulsary!, and Altynai, in Duishen - N.Beltov.)

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"Aitmatov has received numerous foreign awards, including the Gold Olive Branch of the Mediterranean Culture Research Center (1988), the Academy Award of the Japanese Institute of Oriental Philosophy (1988) and the Austrian State Prize for European Literature (1994)."

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Reuters: The Ataturk Culture, Language and History High Agency of Turkey set up a special committee earlier this year to nominate Aitmatov, of Turkic descent, for the Nobel prize in literature.

His native Kyrgyzstan had declared 2008 "The Year of Aitmatov."

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Aitmatov corner - Iraj Bashiri

[ 24 August 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

Or so I was told ten years ago, after playing Tim-Tayshun by "Cinderella C. Stump" on my radio show and asking if anyone could identify the singer.

After I played a Jo Stafford record on the show tonight, a listener called in to tell me that she died a few weeks ago. I hadn't heard the news.

While I was putting the record in the CD player I was thinking how Miss Stafford is one of the last big band singers still alive.

Doris Day and Patty Andrews are left...I think.

[ 24 August 2008: Message edited by: al-Qa'bong ]

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Originally posted by al-Qa'bong:
Doris Day and Patty Andrews are left...I think.

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Lesbian activist who fought for marriage rights dies

(I know it is CNN, but I noticed it as I was watching some live Dem Convention coverage.)

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He volunteered as a pilot in Israel's war of independence in 1948; but he became disillusioned with the Israeli government.

In 1966 he flew his private plane to Egypt, in a push for peace.

He also founded the Voice of Peace radio station, which mixed pop songs and peace messages, and became popular with young people.

He served two prison sentences, the most recent in 1989 when he was gaoled for 122 days for meeting Yasser Arafat, the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

In 1996, he met Mahmoud Zahhar of the Hamas Islamist movement.

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Phil Hill, who has died aged 81, became the first American racing driver to win the Formula One World Championship, with Ferrari in 1961.

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Phil Hill (1927-2008)

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Phillip Toll Hill Jr was born into a middle-class family in Miami, Florida, on April 20 1927, one of three children. His first sentence was "Gran'ma's car in garage".

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[ 29 August 2008: Message edited by: Boom Boom ]

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Two children of two of Cuba's most famous revolutionaries have died in a Havana traffic accident.

The Communist Party daily Granma reports that Celia and Abel Hart Santamaria were in a car that hit a tree in the Miramar neighborhood on Sunday. Celia Hart was 45 and Abel 48.

They were the offspring of Armando Hart and Haydée Santamaria, who were key figures in the revolution led by Fidel Castro.

Hart is a former student leader who went on to head Cuba's ministries of education and culture. Santamaria accompanied Castro in his 1953 assault on the Moncada military barracks in Santiago. That nearly suicidal attack paved the way for the revolution that triumphed six years later. She died in 1980. - AP

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Haydée Santamaria, Celia Hart, and Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra mountains during the revolution. Haydée was the mother of Celia and Abel, who died on Sunday.

[ 08 September 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]

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Founding director of College of Piping, Scott MacAulay, dies at 51

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David Foster Wallace, author of Infinite Jest (1996)

Harper's has catalogued his many articles for the magazine: In Memoriam

[ 16 September 2008: Message edited by: Catchfire ]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/Music/09/17/obit.whitfield.ap/index.html

Whitfield also co-wrote the political soul classics "War" by Edwin Starr and "Ball of Confusion(That's What The World Is Today)by the Temptations.

[ 17 September 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

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“Ronnie was one of the greatest football players and even more important, one of the greatest human beings I have had the privilege to know,”

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Was just coming to see if someone posted this sad news, thank you for the link Al'Q.

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Originally posted by josh:
Paul Newman

So many great roles.

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Aw sad. I love Paul Newman

I just found out that jazz musician and writer,
Richard Sudhalter has also died after a long illness.

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Robert Friedland ('s)...public investments have fallen far below the $1-billion level, totalling just $440-million as of Tuesday's close.

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The Thomson family, ...has seen its stake in Thomson Reuters Corp. lose $3.2-billion in value since June

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Atco Ltd. owner Ronald Southern and Paramount Resources Ltd. chairman Clayton Riddell, who have both seen their public company holdings fall below the $1-billion mark since June.

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*sniff*

[ 17 October 2008: Message edited by: quelar ]

[ 17 October 2008: Message edited by: oldgoat ]

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He was a school dropout from Montreal who took bodybuilding out of sweat-soaked gyms and helped usher in the modern-day fitness boom – and rubbed shoulders with the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ronald Reagan and Saddam Hussein in the process. ...

Mr. Weider saw bodybuilding as a way to bridge divides. At a bodybuilding meet in apartheid-era South Africa in 1975, he threatened to cancel the competition if black and white athletes were not allowed to stay in the same accommodations.

His passion took him to places like China and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, as well as Iraq, and once – on the same trip – to Tel Aviv and Ramallah; he dedicated two gyms and managed to meet separately with both Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and the mayor of Tel Aviv.

Today, Mr. Weider may be one of the few Canadians to have received the tributes of the Order of Canada and an honorary degree from Baghdad University.

Overcoming a childhood of poverty and episodes of anti-Semitism, Mr. Weider devoted himself to wide-ranging philanthropy. One of his last acts of giving was a second free gym in September to Palestinians in Ramallah on the West Bank, one of a multitude donated around the world. He also gave discreetly, helping the Catholic Church in Montreal restore its downtown Mary Queen of the World Cathedral.

Despite Mr. Weider's wealth, his favourite restaurant was Montreal's homey Snowdon Deli, where he frequently had a bagel and coffee for breakfast and knew the waitresses by name.

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For a country that views the nun as a national treasure, this self-criticism will be hard to swallow. Soeur Emmanuelle, born Madeleine Cinquin in 1908, has been dubbed the French Mother Theresa for her work among the poor of the third world. Her popularity has not waned with age: this month she was voted France's sixth most popular personality in a newspaper poll, ahead of Carla Bruni, Gérard Depardieu and Thierry Henry.

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Charles Dubin - a legendary lawyer and one-time Chief Justice of Ontario - died this morning.

The Ontario Court of Appeal announced his death in a brief release that was devoid of detail.

Mr. Dubin, 87, was very well known in the legal world for keen intellect and a brusque, no-nonsense manner. However, he was perhaps best known to the public for a high profile commission he headed in the 1980s. Known as the Dubin Inquiry, the commission was spawned by a celebrated incident in which sprinter Ben Johnson lost his gold medal at the 1988 Olympic Games because a banned drug was detected in his urine samples.

In a groundbreaking report, Mr. Dubin exposed doping secrets that had been unknown outside the secretive world of track and field. He recommended a broad range of anti-doping measures.

In 1981, Mr. Dubin held an inquiry into federal inquiry into aviation safety that strongly recommended a more significant role for enforcement of safety measures.

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Things have changed dramatically since Frank was founded 19 years ago. The paper magazine, which publishes every two weeks, had a tough time breaking a story ahead of internet news sites, [publisher Michael Bate] said.

"There was a time when Frank would break stories and print information you just couldn't find anywhere else," Bate said. "Those off-the-record stories and stories that used to be among the media or a small political elite, now …are on the internet."

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Originally posted by Catchfire:
I thought it was weird that this wasn't posted yet.

David Foster Wallace, author of Infinite Jest (1996)

Harper's has catalogued his many articles for the magazine: In Memoriam

[ 16 September 2008: Message edited by: Catchfire ]

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http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/books/10/31/studs.terkel.obit/index.html

[ 31 October 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

His epitaph of choice : "Curiosity did not kill this cat."

[ 31 October 2008: Message edited by: George Victor ]

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Originally posted by unionist:
Frank magazine

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Earlier today I read about the death of Blair MacLean.

I know, she died back on January 18 in the UK. Why is CBC 10 months behind? But there it is.

Judge David Arnot, treaty commissioner for the federal government said Mr. Tootoosis "always spoke about the treaties with this question in mind: 'What will this mean for my children? For my grandchildren and great grandchildren?'

"I always thought that was really important and interesting because that's the same question that Mistawasis and Ahtukukoop (Cree chiefs) used when they were negotiating the original treaties."

Jake Tootoosis, died Aug. 9, 2008, age 42, in Saskatoon, Sask., where he had his office.

(from Globe and Mail in-depth obit today, Nov.3, 2008)

[ 03 November 2008: Message edited by: George Victor ]

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George, I looked all over the G&M for that Obit and could not find it, was it in newsprint?

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Yep. End of the sports section, the usual spot for major obits.

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Also in the G & M today: A piece on Muriel Duckworth, Candian pacifist, who was visited by a horde of people at a birthday set up for her 100th birthday in Halifax, including all the major Nova Scotia politicos.

Muriel was quoted from a "four-year-old article posted at rabble.ca."

[ 03 November 2008: Message edited by: George Victor ]

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iD7DTUzFimRMwuDRS-87eODil4SA

(No, I hadn't known she was still alive 'til now either. And no, she WASN'T really born in Brooklyn or Canada as "Amy Camus".)

[ 03 November 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

Hidden by his mother from Indian agents collecting children for residential school, Oscar was to graduate from Frontier Collegiate Institute in Cranberry Portage, a provincial boarding school, in 1969, at the age of 22.

He was a major force in the NDP government's effort to build the University College of the North. UCN now has 12 regional centres from Churchill to Flin Flon and Norway House.

OCN is also reeling from the death of two children who died in a fire and another youth who died in a hunting accident. It's been a very tough month.

I never met Oscar Lathlin but I know he was well respected within his community and throughout the province.

Premier cuts trade mission short to attend Lathlin funeral on Saturday

[ 07 November 2008: Message edited by: laine lowe ]