Obituaries

[TeacherinExile]

Muhammad Ali was one of the few sports figures (Roberto Clemente being another) that I consider a legitimate hero, owing not so much to his iconic status in the ring, but much more so (in my opinion) to his courageous opposition to the Vietnam War.  In the prime of his boxing career, he refused to be drafted into military service.  

An excerpt from The Washington Post today: http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/more-spo...spartanntp

In 1967, after Mr. Ali had been heavyweight champion for three years, he refused to be inducted into the military during the Vietnam War. Despite the seeming contradiction of a boxer advocating nonviolence, he gave up his title in deference to the religious principle of pacifism.

“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam,” Mr. Ali said in 1967, “while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?”

He was supported by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who supported his decision to become a conscientious objector as “a very great act of courage.”

Mr. Ali’s heavyweight title was immediately removed, and he was banned from boxing for more than three years. He was sentenced to five years in prison, but a prolonged appeals process kept him from serving time.

Mr. Ali’s decision outraged the old guard, including many sportswriters and middle Americans, who considered the boxer arrogant and unpatriotic. But as the cultures of youth and black America were surging to the fore in the late 1960s, Mr. Ali was gradually transformed, through his sheer magnetism and sense of moral purpose, into one of the most revered figures of his time.

After the onset of his Parkinson's disease, I realized just how brutal the sport of boxing is, and have not watched it since...

[pbrower2a]

(06-04-2016, 08:40 AM)Odin Wrote: I had a feeling this was coming when I heard that he was hospitalized with respiratory problems. F***  Parkinson's

What a shitty year, so many great people dying, and now we lost The Greatest.

...Having seen it first-hand...

[Marypoza]

RIP to Muhammed Ali, moved like a butterfly stung like a bee

[gabrielle]

Amadeus made a huge impression on me when my parents took me to see it at age 14 back in 1985, and has remained a favorite of mine ever since.  

Peter Shaffer, playwright (1926-2016)

[pbrower2a]

Viktor Lvovich Korchnoi[3] (Russian: Ви́ктор Льво́вич Корчно́й; IPA: [vʲiktər lʲvovʲɪtɕ kɐrtɕˈnoj]; 23 March 1931 – 6 June 2016) was a professional chess grandmaster and author. He is considered one of the strongest players never to have become World Chess Champion.[4]
[/url]
Born in [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Petersburg]Leningrad, Soviet Union, Korchnoi defected to the Netherlands in 1976 and later resided in Switzerland for many years. Korchnoi played three matches against Anatoly Karpov. In 1974, he lost the Candidates final to Karpov, who was declared world champion in 1975 when Bobby Fischer refused to defend his title. He then won two consecutive Candidates cycles to qualify for World Championship matches with Karpov in 1978 and 1981, losing both.

Korchnoi was a candidate for the World Championship on ten occasions (1962, 1968, 1971, 1974, 1977, 1980, 1983, 1985, 1988 and 1991). He was also a four-time USSR chess champion, a five-time member of Soviet teams that won the European championship, and a six-time member of Soviet teams that won the Chess Olympiad. In September 2006, he won the World Senior Chess Championship. One of the variations of the English Opening is called the Korchnoi Variation[5] and a closed variation of the Sicilian Defense is called the Korchnoi Defense.[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Korchnoi

[pbrower2a]

Helen Fabela Chávez (January 21, 1928 – June 6, 2016) was a former labor activist for the United Farm Workers of America (UFWA). Aside from her affiliation with the UFW, she was a first generation Chicana with "a traditional upbringing and limited education".[1]

[pbrower2a]

David Gilkey, an NPR photojournalist who chronicled pain and beauty in war and conflict, was killed in Afghanistan on Sunday along with NPR's Afghan interpreter Zabihullah Tamanna.


David and Zabihullah were on assignment for the network traveling with an Afghan army unit, which came under attack killing David and Zabihullah.

David was 50 and Zabihullah, who for years also worked as a photographer, was 38-years-old.

David was considered one of the best photojournalists in the world — honored with a raft of awards including a George Polk in 2010, an Emmy in 2007 and dozens of distinctions from the White House News Photographers Association.

It is fair to say that David witnessed some of humanity's most challenging moments: He covered wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He covered the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. He covered the end of the apartheid regime in South Africa. He covered the devastating earthquake in Haiti, famine in Somalia and most recently the Ebola epidemic in Liberia.

His images were haunting — amid the rubble, he found beauty; amid war, he found humanity.

Back in 2010, after he covered the earthquake in Haiti, he talked about his craft. The camera, he said, made things easier.

"It's not like you put the camera to your face and therefore it makes what you're seeing OK, but certainly you can put yourself in a zone," David said. "It's hard, but you can't get caught up in it and become part of it. You still need to maintain your state of mind that you are helping tell this story."

His craft, he said, was about more than journalism.

"It's not just reporting. It's not just taking pictures," he said. "It's do those visuals, do the stories, do they change somebody's mind enough to take action?"

In an email to staff, Michael Oreskes, NPR's vice president for news said David died pursuing that commitment.

"As a man and as a photojournalist, David brought out the humanity of all those around him," Michael said. "He let us see the world and each other through his eyes."

Keith Jenkins, the general manager for digital at the National Geographic Society who edited David at NPR, said he and David talked a lot about the dangers of the work David was doing and how much longer he could keep doing it.

"Ultimately, he felt it was really important to tell those stories and to tell them to a society that can very often forget that we have people in harms way on a daily basis," Keith said.

David also understood those risks.

"It's a very hard thing to put into words, the peace you sort of make with what you're gonna be doing," David said. "I'm not saying you walk into these situations and you're fatalistic about it but you also are preparing and making decisions based on the sort of level of threat that is there."

Zabihullah, who was known as Zabi, worked as a photojournalist for the Chinese news agency Xinhua. More recently, he wrote for Turkey's Anadolu News Agency. Zabihullah kept a tick-tock on the country. He wrote the big news — when a new Afghani president was sworn in — but also covered the daily attacks and drone strikes that killed militants and civilians.

NPR's Philip Reeves recruited Zabihullah to NPR. He called him a "great colleague."

"He was a lovely man, with a great eye for a story and deep wisdom about his country," Philip said. "He clearly loved his family."

Secretary of State John Kerry released the following statement:

I was saddened to learn today of the death of an NPR photographer, ‎David Gilkey, and his colleague Zabihulla Tamanna, who were part of a crew reporting on Afghan forces in the southern part of the country.

This attack is a grim reminder of the danger that continues to face the Afghan people, the dedication of Afghan national defense and security forces to securing their country, and of the courage of intrepid journalists — and their interpreters — who are trying to convey that important story to the rest of the world.

David Gilkey certainly never shied away from conveying those stories, whether there in Afghanistan or Somalia, Haiti, Gaza, Iraq and dozens of other places around the world. He was ‎more than a gifted photographer. He was a gifted story‎teller, who understood the power of imagery to enhancing the power of understanding. He will be sorely missed.

Teresa and I send our t‎houghts and prayers for these courageous individuals to their colleagues, friends and families.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2...fghanistan

[Bronco80]

So I was out of town when Muhammad Ali died, and I was catching up on other things before I could comment on this sad news here.  I'll briefly add that it's tough to find a cusper Artist/Prophet that fit that archetype better.  As someone on the exact opposite of the archetype cycle as him, I've had plenty to learn by studying him more.  He will be missed.

[pbrower2a]

Theresa Saldana (August 20, 1954 – June 6, 2016) was an American actress and author. She is known for her role as Rachel Scali, the wife of Police Commissioner Tony Scali, in the 1990s television series The Commish, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role, in 1994. Major film roles include the part of 'Lenore La Motta', the wife of Joe Pesci's character, in the 1980 feature film Raging Bull and Robert Zemeckis's Beatlemania ensemble I Wanna Hold Your Hand. She was also known for raising public awareness of the crime of stalking, after surviving a murder attempt by an obsessed fan in 1982.

On March 15, 1982, Saldana was the stalking victim of Arthur Richard Jackson, a 46-year-old drifter from Aberdeen. Jackson became attracted to Saldana after seeing her in the 1980 films Defiance and Raging Bull.[5][6] He obtained Saldana's address by hiring a private investigator to obtain the unlisted phone number of Saldana's mother. Jackson then called Saldana's mother and posed as Martin Scorsese's assistant, saying he needed Saldana's residential address in order to contact her for replacing an actress in a film role in Europe.

Jackson approached Saldana in front of her West Hollywood residence in broad daylight and stabbed her in the torso 10 times with a 5½-inch (14 cm) knife, nearly killing her. His attack was so fierce that the blade bent. Although there were many nearby onlookers,[6] the attack was only interrupted when delivery man Jeff Fenn intervened after hearing her cries, rushed from the second floor of an apartment building, and subdued Jackson. Saldana recovered after four hours of surgery and a four-month hospital stay at the Motion Picture Hospital. She relived the incident in the made-for-TV movie Victims for Victims: The Theresa Saldana Story and again in an episode of Hunter.
Jackson served almost 14 years in prison for the assault and making subsequent threats against Saldana and her rescuer while in prison. He was then extradited to the United Kingdom in 1996 to be tried for a 1966 robbery and murder. Jackson (who once saw himself as "the benevolent angel of death") was found not guilty by diminished responsibility in 1997 and committed to a British psychiatric hospital, where he died of heart failure in 2004 at age 68.
Jackson's method to find and approach Saldana inspired stalker Robert John Bardo to hire a private investigator to contact Rebecca Schaeffer, a young actress whom he subsequently murdered, also in West Hollywood, in 1989.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theresa_Saldana

[pbrower2a]

(CNN)When it was time to say goodbye, she was given a hero's farewell.

Firefighters and rescue workers lined the sidewalk as her body, draped in an American flag, was carried out. Tears streaked down some faces. Bretagne, believed to be the last surviving 9/11 Ground Zero search dog, was euthanized Monday.

The golden retriever was 16. Old age had slowed her down, and it was time to put her to sleep.

So, the firefighters at the Cy-Fair Fire Department in Harris County, Texas, lined the path up to the Fairfield Animal Hospital, as her owner, Denise Corliss, walked her in to be put to sleep.

Deployed to disaster

Back in 2001, Bretagne (pronounced, "Brittany") and Corliss were fresh graduates of Disaster City when they were deployed to New York shortly after the World Trade Center attacks.

Corliss joined hundreds of other search and rescue teams sent from around the world to find survivors at Ground Zero, working 12 hours a day for two weeks straight.

We know now there were very few survivors found in the rubble of the twin towers, and Bretagne, like so many other searchers, worked hard -- only to find none.

But Corliss discovered something unexpected: rescuers and firefighters would approach Bretagne and pet her. Soon they'd be sharing their personal stories with Corliss, describing the missing friends, loved ones and colleagues they were searching for. Bretagne had become a kind of therapy dog. "Dogs can be so comforting, so it makes sense to me now," she says. "I just didn't anticipate that, then."

Other calls to action

9/11 was only the first of many national disasters that called Bretagne and Corliss into action.
Deployments followed for Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and other storms. Once Corliss watched Bretagne risk her own safety when the dog found herself standing on the end of a dangling staircase.

"She walked to the edge of it and she stopped -- turned -- and she came back down," Corliss recalled to CNN in 2014. "She did exactly what she was supposed to do, but it scared me a bit."

Despite all that training, Corliss admits "there were still times when I held my breath and said, 'I hope she does this right. I hope she's OK.' "

Pushy puppy

It's no coincidence that search and rescue dogs such as Bretagne succeed while working under such dangerous conditions.

From the time they're puppies, dogs must survive a rigid screening process before they can do this kind of work.
When Corliss spotted Bretagne, she had a feeling this dog might be right. The puppy was pushy.
Sharing a plastic kennel with eight other puppies, Bretagne buffaloed her way through the pack from back to front, to greet Corliss.

"That kind of pushy behavior helped her be the persistent don't-give-up-style of working dog that I needed later," says Corliss.
Later years

Bretagne left Texas Task Force 1 in 2009 to focus on her work as a local fire department search and rescue dog. Then after a couple more years, it was time for her to retire altogether. But that didn't mean the end of Bretagne's public service.

In her later years, Bretagne spent time once a week teaching kids how to read. Really.

She visited elementary school classrooms, where children, who "may be intimidated or uncomfortable reading out loud to their classmates, have an opportunity to develop reading skills by reading to her," Corliss said.

[pbrower2a]

Gordon "Gordie" Howe, OC (March 31, 1928 – June 10, 2016) was a Canadian professional ice hockey player. From 1946 to 1980, Howe played twenty-six seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) and six seasons in the World Hockey Association (WHA); his first 25 seasons were spent with the Detroit Red Wings. Nicknamed "Mr. Hockey", Howe is considered one of the greatest hockey players of all time.[2] A 23-time NHL All-Star, Howe held many of the sport's scoring records until they were broken in the 1990s by Wayne Gretzky. Howe continues to hold NHL records for most games and seasons played.

Howe was recruited by the Red Wings and made his NHL debut in 1946. Howe led the league in scoring each year from 1950 to 1954, then again in 1957 and 1963. He ranked among the top ten in league scoring for 21 consecutive years, and set a league record for points in a season (95) in 1953. Howe won the Stanley Cup with the Red Wings four times, won six Hart Trophies as the league's most valuable player, and won six Art Ross Trophies as the leading scorer.

Howe retired in 1971 and was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame the next year. However, he came back two years later to join his sons Mark and Marty on the Houston Aeros of the WHA. Although in his mid-40s, Howe scored over 100 points twice in six years. He made a brief return to the NHL in 1979–80, playing one season with the Hartford Whalers, then retired at the age of 52.

Howe was most famous for his scoring prowess, physical strength, and career longevity. He is the only player to have competed in the NHL in five different decades (1940s through 1980s). Although he only achieved the feat twice in his own career, Howe became the namesake of the "Gordie Howe hat trick": a goal, an assist, and a fight in the same game. He was the inaugural recipient of the NHL Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008.

Howe was born to Ab and Katherine Howe in a farmhouse in Floral, Saskatchewan; he was one of nine siblings.[3] When Gordie was nine days old, the Howes moved to Saskatoon,[4] where his father worked as a labourer during the Depression. In the summers, Howe would work construction with his father.[3]

He was mildly dyslexic growing up, but was physically beyond his years at an early age. Already six feet tall in his mid-teens, doctors feared a calcium deficiency and encouraged him to strengthen his spine with chin-ups. He began playing organized hockey at eight years old.[3] Howe quit school during the Depression to work in construction, then left Saskatoon at sixteen to pursue his hockey career.[4]

Howe was an ambidextrous player, one of just a few skaters able to use the straight sticks of his era to shoot either left- or right-handed.[5] As a young teen Howe played bantam hockey with the King George Athletic Club in his hometown of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, winning his first championship with them in the 1942 Saskatchewan Provincial Bantam Hockey Finals. He received his first taste of professional hockey at age 15 in 1943 when he was invited by the New York Rangers to their training camp held at "The Amphitheatre" in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He played well enough there that the Rangers wanted Howe to sign a "C" form which would have given that club his NHL rights and to play that year at Notre Dame, a Catholic school in Wilcox, Saskatchewan, that was known for turning out good hockey players. Howe did not feel that was a good fit for him and wanted to go back home to play hockey with his friends so declined the Rangers' offer and returned to Saskatoon.[6]



Gordie Howe (2nd from left, back row) on the 1945-46 Omaha Knights (USHL)

In 1944, Howe was noticed by Detroit Red Wings scout Fred Pinkney and was invited to their camp in Windsor, Ontario. He was signed by the Red Wings to a "C" form and assigned to their junior team, the Galt Red Wings. However, due to a maximum amount of Western players allowed by the league and the Red Wings' preference to develop older players, Howe's playing time with the team was initially limited. In 1945, however, he was promoted to the Omaha Knights of the minor professional United States Hockey League (USHL), where he scored 48 points in 51 games as a seventeen-year-old. While playing in Omaha, Frank Selke of the Toronto Maple Leafs organization noticed that Howe was not properly listed as Red Wings property. Having a good relationship with Detroit coach Jack Adams, he notified Adams of the clerical error and Howe was quickly put on the team's protected list.[3]


Howe made his NHL debut on October 16, 1946, playing right wing for the Detroit Red Wings, scoring in his first game at the age of 18.[7] He wore #17 as a rookie. However, when Roy Conacher moved on to the Chicago Black Hawks after the 1946–47 season, Howe was offered Conacher's #9, which he would wear for the rest of his career; although he had not requested the change, Howe accepted it when he was informed that "9" would entitle him to a lower Pullman berth on road trips. He quickly established himself as a great goalscorer and a gifted playmaker with a willingness to fight. Howe fought so often in his rookie season that coach Jack Adams told him, "I know you can fight. Now can you show me you can play hockey?"[3] The term "Gordie Howe hat trick" (consisting of a goal, an assist, and a fight) was coined in reference to his penchant for fighting; however, Howe himself only recorded two such hat tricks in his career,[8] on October 10, 1953, and March 21, 1954.[9] Using his great physical strength, he was able to dominate the opposition in a career that spanned six decades (including one game with the Detroit Vipers of the IHL in 1997). In a feat unsurpassed by any hockey player, he finished in the top five in scoring for 20 straight seasons.[10] Howe also scored 20 or more goals in 22 consecutive seasons between 1949 and 1971, an NHL record.


Although famous as #9 during his long career, 18-year-old Gordon Howe actually wore #17 throughout his rookie season with the Detroit Red Wings in 1946–47.

Howe led Detroit to four Stanley Cup championships and to first place in regular season play for seven consecutive years (1948–49 to 1955–56), a feat never equaled in NHL history. During this time, Howe and his linemates, Sid Abel and Ted Lindsay, were known collectively as "The Production Line", both for their scoring and as an allusion to Detroit auto factories. The trio dominated the league in such a fashion that in 1949–50, they finished one-two-three in league scoring.[11] Howe had been in his prime during a defensive era, the 1940s and 1950s, when scoring was difficult and checking was tight.

As his career just started going, however, Howe sustained the worst injury of his career, fracturing his skull after an attempt to check Toronto Maple Leafs captain Ted Kennedy into the boards went awry during the 1950 playoffs. The severity of the fracture was such that he was taken to the hospital for emergency surgery in order to relieve building pressure on his brain.[3] The next season, he returned to record 86 points, winning the scoring title by 20 points.

As Howe emerged as one of the game's superstars, he was frequently compared to the Montreal Canadiens' Maurice "Rocket" Richard. Both were right wingers who wore the number 9, were frequently contenders for the league scoring title, and could also play rough if needed. During their first encounter in the Montreal Forum, when Howe was a rookie, he knocked Richard out cold with a punch after being shoved.[10] The Red Wings and Canadiens faced off in four Stanley Cup finals during the 1950s. When Richard retired in 1960, he paid tribute to Howe, saying "Gordie could do everything."[12]

The Red Wings were consistent contenders throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, but began to slump in the late 1960s. When Howe turned 40 in 1967–68, the league expanded from six to 12 teams and the number of scoring opportunities grew as the game schedule increased. Howe played the 1968–69 season on a line with Alex Delvecchio and Frank Mahovlich. Mahovlich was big, fast, and skilled, and Delvecchio was a gifted playmaker. The three were dubbed "The Production Line 3" and at 40 years old, Howe reached new scoring heights, topping 100 points for the only time of his NHL career with 44 goals and a career-high 59 assists.[2]

Following his personal best 103-point season, however, conflict with the Red Wings organization arose after Howe discovered he was just the third-highest paid player on the team with a $45,000 salary. Furthermore, while owner Bruce Norris increased Howe's salary to $100,000, he blamed Howe's wife, Colleen, for the demand.[3] Howe remained with the Red Wings for two more seasons, but after 25 years, a chronic wrist problem forced him to retire after the 1970–71 season and he took a job in the Red Wings front office. At the beginning of 1972, he was offered the job as first head coach of the New York Islanders, but turned it down.[13]

Howe's name and nickname, "Mr. Hockey", as well as his late wife's nickname as "Mrs. Hockey", are registered trademarks.[16] Howe was also referred to during his career as Power,[17] Mr. Everything, Mr. All-Star, The Most, The Great Gordie, The King of Hockey, The Legend, The Man, No. 9,[18] and "Mr. Elbows" (for his tough physical play). Over the years Howe became good friends with Gretzky, who had idolized Howe as a young player, and who would later break many of Howe's scoring records and milestones.[2]
Another milestone in a remarkable career was reached in 1997 when Howe played professional hockey in a sixth decade. He was signed to a one-game contract by the Detroit Vipers of the IHL and, almost 70 years old, made a return to the ice for one shift.[3] In doing so, he became the only player in hockey history to compete in six different decades at the professional level, having played in the NHL, WHA and IHL from the 1940s to 1990s.


Howe's #9 banner hanging in Joe Louis Arena.
His most productive seasons came during an era when scoring was difficult and checking was tight, and he never scored 50 goals in a single season, yet Howe ranks fourth in NHL history with 1,850 total points, including 801 goals and 1,049 assists. When career regular season goals from both the NHL and the WHA are combined, he ranks first in goals with 975.
At the time of his retirement, Howe's professional totals, including playoffs, for the NHL and WHA combined, were first. He finished with 2,421 games played, 1,071 goals, 1,518 assists, and 2,589 points. Later on, however, Wayne Gretzky would pass him in goals (1,072), assists (2,297), and points (3,369), but not in games played or games played with one team.
Howe played internationally on one occasion, at the 1974 Summit Series.
In May 2015, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder announced that a new international bridge spanning the Detroit River would be named in honour of Howe. The Gordie Howe International Bridge is set to open in 2020.[19]

More, including his incredible statistics, here.

I thought he was the greatest athlete of the 20th century.

Two of the ten greatest athletes ever, gone within a month of each other.

[pbrower2a]

Good riddance, and ROAST IN HELL!

Alex Tamba Brima (also known as Gullit) (23 November 1971 – 9 June 2016) was a Sierra Leonean military commander. He was one of a group of seventeen soldiers in the Sierra Leone Armed Forces who called themselves Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) that succefully staged a coup that ousted president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah in May 1997. On 19 July 2007 he was convicted and sentenced to 50 years in prison for committing war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Sierra Leone Civil War.

Brima was born in the village of Yaryah, Kono District, Sierra Leone, to parents from the Kono ethnic group. In April 1985, he joined the Sierra Leone Army, where he was promoted to the rank of Staff Sergeant.[1] In 1998, Brima was invited by Johnny Paul Koroma to join the AFRC Supreme Council.[1] In this capacity, Brima was a commander of the AFRC and Revolutionary United Front forces that attacked civilians in the north, east and centre of Sierra Leone in 1998 and in Freetown in January 1999.[1]

Brima was indicted on 7 March 2003, arrested on 10 March 2003 and his trial before the Special Court for Sierra Leone began on 7 March 2005.[1] He was tried with Brima Bazzy Kamara and Santigie Borbor Kanu. Brima was found guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes on 20 June 2007, including counts of murder, rape, forced labour and the use of child soldiers.[1][2] He and his codefendants' convictions were the first convictions for the Special Court for Sierra Leone and were also the first time anyone had been convicted of the international crime of using child soldiers.[2] On 19 July 2007, Brima was sentenced to 50 years' imprisonment;[1][3] he was imprisoned in Rwanda.

Brima's death at the King Faisel Hospital in Kigali, Rwanda, was announced on 9 June 2016.[4] He was 44.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Tamba_Brima

from the BBC in 2007:

First S Leone war crime sentences

Rebel forces raped and mutilated defenceless innocent civilians
Sierra Leone's UN-backed war crimes court has sentenced three leaders of a militia for war crimes including murder, rape and mutilating civilians.
Alex Tamba Brima and Santigie Borbor Kanu were jailed for 50 years each and Brima Kamara for 45 years.
All three were senior members of the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council that toppled the government in 1997.
They are the first sentences given by the court, following the end of Sierra Leone's civil war five years ago.
They are also the first people convicted by an international court of recruiting child soldiers.
'Slavery'
The three defendants have the right to appeal.
If they lose, they are likely to serve their prison sentences in Europe rather than Sierra Leone because of security concerns, court officials said.


Some say the UN-backed court has been too slow
The charges linked them to fighters, who raped women, burned villages, conscripted thousands of child soldiers and forced others to work as labourers in diamond mines.
"The three accused persons have committed violations of human rights in which civilians were mutilated, [and] other civilians were killed and burnt in their houses," Judge Julia Sebutinde said, passing sentence in the capital Freetown.
"They also were participants in abducting children for slavery and as child soldiers," she said.
After seizing power, the AFRC joined forces with the rebel Revolutionary United Front, before being driven out of the capital, Freetown by the West African peacekeeping force, Ecomog, in 1998.
The court has indicted a total of 12 people in connection with the war, including the former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who is accused of backing the rebels.
Mr Taylor is on trial in The Hague because of fears that trying him in West Africa could jeopardise the new-found peace of Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Critics say the UN-backed court has been too slow in delivering justice to the people of Sierra Leone.
Three of those indicted, including RUF leader Foday Sankoh, died before their verdicts were delivered.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6906702.stm

[pbrower2a]

J. Reilly Lewis (1944 – June 9, 2016) was the founding conductor of the Washington Bach Consort and the music director of the Cathedral Choral Society. As a keyboard artist he specialised in baroque music, particularly the music of J. S. Bach.

Born in 1944 in Washington, D.C., he received his bachelor's degree from the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music and his master's and doctoral degrees from The Juilliard School.[1] A Fulbright Fellowship enabled him to spend a year in Germany doing specialized study in conducting, organ and harpsichord at the Hochschule für Musik in Frankfurt am Main. Several years later, he spent a summer in France studying with the composition teacher, Nadia Boulanger.
Career
Lewis was organist and choirmaster at Clarendon United Methodist Church in Arlington, Virginia since 1971, where he led the adult choir, as well as choral and instrumental youth music programs. He led semi-annual singalong presentations of Handel's Messiah (Handel) during Advent and Easter, featuring guest soloists accompanied by full orchestra. This was the first and the longest-running series of performances of Messiah presenting the complete oratorio in the Washington, D.C. area[citation needed].
In November 2005, he performed Samuel Barber's Toccata Festiva for the second time in the Washington National Cathedral with Leonard Slatkin conducting.[2] He also performed the complete Bach Goldberg Variations in recital on multiple occasions and was a featured organ soloist with the National Symphony Orchestra.
His performing and conducting career included appearances with the Minnesota Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Handel Festival, Halle, the Bachfest Leipzig, the Aspen Music Festival, the Cologne New Music Festival and the Mozart Festival in New York and Washington. During a Chinese/American Festival in Taipei's main concert hall, he played the organ and later conducted the orchestra and chorus in various 20th century works including a world premiere by the Chinese composer Gordon Shi-Wen Chin. He made his National Symphony Orchestra debut in December 2002, guest conducting Handel's Messiah at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Honors and awards
Lewis received the Paul Hume Award from the Levine School of Music, for "outstanding commitment to enriching the cultural life of Washington".[citation needed] His work with children and youth includes the education and outreach programs of both the Cathedral Choral Society and the Washington Bach Consort. In April 2004, he received the Distinguished Washingtonian Award from the University Club of Washington, DC in honor of its centennial.[citation needed] In January 2006, the Washingtonian magazine named Lewis as a 2005 "Washingtonian of the Year".[3][page needed] In 2010, Lewis was inducted in Washington, D.C. as a National Patron of Delta Omicron, an international, professional music fraternity.[4]
Death
Lewis died on June 9, 2016 of a massive heart attack at his home in Arlington, Virginia. He is survived by his wife, Beth.[5][6]

from Wiki.

[pbrower2a]

Christina Victoria Grimmie
(March 12, 1994 – June 11, 2016)[1] was an American singer and songwriter, best known for participating in The Voice and for her covers of hit songs by contemporary pop musicians. In June 2011, she released her debut EP, Find Me. In June 2012, she told a reporter that she wanted to stop doing covers and start writing only original music.[2]
In 2014, Grimmie participated in Season 6 of NBC's singing competition The Voice and finished in third place. Adam Levine, her coach on the show, announced in the finale that regardless of the results, he would sign her to his label, 222 Records. Justin Bieber and Lil Wayne also supported her on the show and Lil Wayne offered to sign her to his label, Young Money Entertainment.[3] She signed to Island Records for a short time before being dropped.[4][5]
On June 11, 2016, Grimmie was shot and killed in Orlando, Florida.[6]


Early life


Grimmie grew up in Marlton, New Jersey where she attended Baptist Regional Elementary School and Cherokee High School.[7][8] She was of Italian and Romanian descent.[9] Her father noticed her talent for singing when she was six years old [10] and she started playing the piano at age ten.[11] Despite having received piano lessons, she said she played by ear.[10] In a number of her videos and interviews, Grimmie identified herself as a Christian.[12] Grimmie was homeschooled for her junior year in 2010.[13]

Career

2009–10: YouTube recognition and discovery

Grimmie began posting videos to her YouTube channel in 2009, at age 15. The first video she uploaded was a cover of Hannah Montana's, "Don't Wanna Be Torn."[8] She first reached YouTube stardom early on with her cover of Miley Cyrus's "Party in the U.S.A." in August 2009.[14] She became known for her cover with fellow YouTuber Sam Tsui of Nelly's "Just a Dream", which has had more than 128 million views between the three official versions of the video as of February 9, 2016.[15][16] Since uploading her videos, she has had over 375 million views and over 2 million subscribers on her channel as of April 28, 2013, which has made her the 4th most subscribed musician on YouTube.[17] She also placed at number 2 at the top 5 of the MyYouTube competition, behind Selena Gomez, and in front of Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, and Justin Bieber.[18] As her popularity grew on YouTube, Grimmie was discovered by Gomez's stepfather, Brian Teefey, who met with her in May 2010 and became her manager.[19][20]

2011: Find Me

Grimmie performed in the UNICEF charity concert,[21][22] and also performed backup vocals for Selena Gomez & the Scene, and was on the first ever DigiTour in 2011, specially designed for YouTube artists. Gomez became her mentor. She appeared on the Billboard Social 50.[23] She also opened for Selena Gomez & the Scene, Allstar Weekend and the Jonas Brothers during the Concert of Hope. She toured for six weeks with Selena Gomez & the Scene opening for them in the We Own the Night Tour.[20]
She released an EP entitled Find Me, on June 14, 2011.[20] Her debut single 'Advice' was released to Radio Disney on June 11,[24] with the music video, directed by Sean Babas, being released on July 19 on her YouTube channel. She appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show performing with fellow YouTuber, Tyler Ward, a cover to Lil Wayne's "How to Love" that aired on October 10, 2011.[25] On November 20, 2011, Grimmie performed at the 39th American Music Awards of 2011 Pre-show alongside Taio Cruz to a special rendition of "Higher". She also performed her song 'Not Fragile' at the American Music Awards of 2011 Coca-Cola Red Carpet Show along with Selena Gomez & the Scene. Grimmie was the special musical guest performing her hit song 'Advice' on Disney Channel's So Random! which premiered on December 11, 2011.[26]

2012–13: With Love

In January 2012, Grimmie moved to Los Angeles to pursue her singing career. Grimmie was signed to Creative Artists Agency who have signed the likes of Chris Brown and Christina Aguilera in early April 2012 after moving to LA. On Disney.com, she starred in the web show 'Power Up: with Christina Grimmie, which ran from March 29, 2012 until June 5, 2012. She also revealed that she would be working with a new feature band, to be named Rising Tide, a teen group originally from her hometown area in New Jersey.[27] She then opened for Gomez on her North American dates of her Stars Dance Tour,[28] performing songs from her second album With Love, which was released on August 6, 2013. On October 3, 2013, her music video for "Tell My Mama" had its Exclusive Video Premiere on Billboard.com. The video is "about a guy that I start liking in school, and he's sort of a dangerous kid, and I am the type of girl that tells my mom about everything," said Grimmie.

2014: The Voice

Grimmie auditioned for Season 6 of NBC's singing competition, The Voice, as revealed on her Facebook page.[29] During the Blind Auditions, she performed Miley Cyrus' hit song "Wrecking Ball". All four coaches, Adam Levine, Usher, Shakira, and Blake Shelton, turned their chairs for her, and she opted for Adam Levine.[30] She finished in 3rd place, behind winner Josh Kaufman and runner-up Jake Worthington.





2014–16: Post-The Voice; major label debut

During the competition, Grimmie's coach Adam expressed intentions to sign her to his record deal, 222 Records, with Lil Wayne also showing interest in signing her to his record deal, Young Money Entertainment. She ultimately chose to sign with Island Records.[4] She toured with the previous contestants of The Voice including season 5 winner Tessanne Chin, runner-up Jacquie Lee, Will Champlin, season 1 runner-up Dia Frampton and fellow season 6 finalists Kristen Merlin and Jake Barker. The Voice Summer tour started on June 21, 2014 in San Antonio, Texas. She is currently writing and recording music for her sophomore album, her third major release, and first release being signed to a label. The lead single was expected to be released in July 2014, with the album following later in the year.[31] Grimmie announced via Facebook that filming for the lyric video for the single started on July 6, 2014.[32] On July 11 she announced that her new single would be called "Must Be Love."[33] On July 15, 2014 she announced via a live stream that the song would be released on July 31, 2014.[34] "Must Be Love" was produced by Elof Loelv and recorded at ZAC Recording in Atlanta, Georgia.[35]

On March 4, 2015, Grimmie announced that she had been dropped from Island Records and that she is working on a new album which is set to be released late 2015.[36] The new single from her upcoming album, "Cliché," was released on March 16, 2015. On April 27, 2015 Christina released her second single, "Stay With Me" a collaboration with Diamond Eyes, which climbed to #5 on the iTunes Electronic Charts.[37] The song also made it on to 2015 UFK Dubstep, an album showcasing the top dubstep songs of the year.[38] She was also a contestant in the iHeartRadio/Macy's Rising Star Contest. On May 27, 2015, Grimmie was revealed as the winner of the Rising Star Contest, securing her spot to open the 2015 iHeartRadio Music Festival in September.[39] On July 2, 2015, she released her third single, "Shrug".

On February 21, 2016, Grimmie released her second EP, titled "Side A", which consisted of four songs. Grimmie stated that the simple title "Side A" would mean that a "Side B" is likely to follow. In February and March 2016, she also opened for Rachel Platten on her Wildfire Tour, where Grimmie performed many of the songs from her new EP live for the first time.[citation needed]

Influences

Grimmie grew up listening to contemporary Christian artist Stacie Orrico: "She has a really awesome voice and I was so drawn to it. I think the reason I do have a soul voice is because I grew up listening to her and she was my huge, huge influence. I wanted to sound just like her, I wrote songs that kinda sounded like something she would do."[40] Grimmie cited Christina Aguilera as her main influence vocally.[40] She also said she admired Beyoncé for her vocals.[40] She said she liked dubstep and DJ music, as well as rock 'n roll and heavy metal, listening to Metallica, Pantera, Iron Maiden, and Tool.[41]

Death

On June 10, 2016, Grimmie was shot three times while signing autographs after a performance at The Plaza Live in Orlando, Florida. The unidentified gunman then fatally shot himself after being tackled by her brother. Grimmie was taken to a hospital in critical condition; her death was confirmed on June 11.[6]
Responding to the news on Twitter, The Voice wrote, "There are no words. We lost a beautiful soul with an amazing voice."[42] Her coach, Adam Levine, wrote on Instagram, "I'm sad, shocked and confused [by the shooting]. We love you so much Grimmie."[43]

[beechnut79]

(06-06-2016, 11:43 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Helen Fabela Chávez (January 21, 1928 – June 6, 2016) was a former labor activist for the United Farm Workers of America (UFWA). Aside from her affiliation with the UFW, she was a first generation Chicana with "a traditional upbringing and limited education".[1]

Was she the widow of Cesar?

[Eric the Green]

(06-11-2016, 10:35 AM)beechnut79 Wrote:

(06-06-2016, 11:43 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Helen Fabela Chávez (January 21, 1928 – June 6, 2016) was a former labor activist for the United Farm Workers of America (UFWA). Aside from her affiliation with the UFW, she was a first generation Chicana with "a traditional upbringing and limited education".[1]

Was she the widow of Cesar?

Yes indeed.

[pbrower2a]

George Victor Voinovich (July 15, 1936 – June 12, 2016) was an American politician from the state of Ohio. Voinovich, a member of the Republican Party, served as a United States Senator from 1999 to 2011, as the 65th Governor of Ohio from 1991 to 1998 and as the 54th Mayor of Cleveland from 1980 to 1989, becoming the last Republican to serve in that office.

Voinovich spent more than 46 years in public service – first as assistant attorney general of Ohio in 1963, and finally as the senior United States Senator representing Ohio. He is the 15th person to have served both as the governor of Ohio and as a U.S. senator and one of only two people to have been the mayor of Cleveland, governor of Ohio and a United States Senator; the other was Frank Lausche, who like Voinovich was of Slovenian descent. George Voinovich has been elected to more public offices than any other Ohioan. He is the only person to have served as both chairman of the National Governors Association and president of the National League of Cities.

In his 2004 re-election to the U.S. Senate, Voinovich garnered more than 3.4 million votes, nearly 64 percent. No other candidate in Ohio’s recorded history has received as many votes as Senator Voinovich did in 2004. Also in 2004, Senator Voinovich won all 88 of Ohio’s counties, a feat accomplished only once before – more than 100 years before.[1]

For the United States presidential election in 2016, Voinovich endorsed fellow Ohio Republican John Kasich, the state's current governor.[2]

[/url]
[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Voinovich]Much more here.

... If we were going to elect a Republican as President of the USA in 2000, why couldn't it have been he, one of the most qualified people ever for the Presidency?

[pbrower2a]

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) - Michu Meszaros, an actor who brought the titular alien in ‘80s sitcom “Alf” to life, has died. He was 76.
Meszaros was reportedly found unresponsive in his Los Angeles home about a week ago by his manager, Dennis Vargas, according to TMZ, which first reported the news. He apparently spent several days in a coma.
A GoFundMe page was recently launched to help Meszaros with medical expenses, as he struggled with health issues up until his death, and funeral costs. The organizer of the page, Richard Leo LaMotte, wrote on his Facebook page that the actor had died.
Meszaros, standing at just 2 feet 9 inches tall, was born in Hungary. He performed in the circus before heading to TV, and he was billed as the “smallest man in the world” as he worked in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in the ‘70s. He performed for the likes of Michael Jackson, who became good friends with Meszaros.

Newsy
Alf and actor who played him, Michu Mescaros.
Meszaros’ biggest claim to fame, however, is “Alf.” The alien, voiced by Paul Fusco, was typically only shown from the waist-up, with puppeteers controlling his movements. For shots that required Alf’s whole body to be shown, though, Meszaros appeared on camera, wearing the full-body costume.
The popular NBC sitcom followed the furry alien who lived with an Earth family after crashing into their garage. The show also starred Anne Schedeen, Max Wright, Benji Gregory and Andrea Elson.
His additional TV credits include episodes of “Dear John” and “H.R. Pufnstuf,” and he also appeared in movies “Looks Who’s Talking” and “Big Top Pee-wee.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mich...ec19ef132d

[pbrower2a]

Associated Press in Chicago
Monday 13 June 2016 15.38 EDT

Margaret Vinci Heldt, who became a hairstyling celebrity after she created the famous beehive hairdo in 1960, has died at age 98.
Ahlgrim Funeral Home in the Chicago suburb of Elmhurst said on Monday that Heldt died on Friday at a senior living community.
The beehive – a tall, conical woman’s hairstyle – became a cultural phenomenon during the 1960s and evolved into a style worn for decades as Hollywood’s starlets walked red carpets. Heldt created it at the request of a hairstyling magazine that published images of it in February 1960 and called it “the beehive” because it resembles the shape of a traditional hive.
[/url]
   
[url=http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/13/margaret-vinci-heldt-dies-age-98-beehive-hairstyle#img-2] Amy Winehouse was known for her beehive hairstyle. Photograph: Kevork Djansezian/AP
“I have lived a charmed life,” Heldt said in a 2011 interview with the Associated Press. “The opportunities opened to me and I said, ‘Now it’s up to me. I have to make it work.’”
Heldt said the inspiration for the hairstyle came from a little black velvet hat, shaped like a small bump and lined inside with red lace. Heldt went downstairs to her family room one night while her family was sleeping. She put on music and started working with hair atop a mannequin head.
The magazine article described the hairdo as a “tall wraparound crown, creating a circular silhouette with high-rise accents”. Over the years, it was worn by cultural icons, including Amy Winehouse, Audrey Hepburn and Marge Simpson.
Heldt grew up in Chicago and loved hair as a child. She won a beauty school scholarship in high school, but her family couldn’t afford to buy her a hair switch – a piece of fabric with long hair attached so students could practice – so she cut her mother’s long hair into a short bob and sewed that on to burlap to use in class. She passed the state board exam in 1935.
Heldt opened her own salon – Margaret Vinci Coiffures – on Michigan Avenue in 1950. She won the National Coiffure Championship in 1954.
Heldt earned accolades during her retirement. The trade group Cosmetologists Chicago named a scholarship for Heldt for creativity in hairdressing.

[pbrower2a]

Helen Joanne "Jo" Cox[1] (22 June 1974 – 16 June 2016) was a Labour Party politician in the United Kingdom. She was the Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency of Batley and Spen having retained the seat for Labour in the 2015 general election.[2]

On 16 June 2016, Cox was shot and stabbed multiple times during her lunch break in Birstall, West Yorkshire, where she had been holding a meeting with her constituents. She was left in a critical condition and subsequently died from her injuries in hospital. A 52-year-old man was arrested in connection with the attack.[3]

More here.