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+--- Thread: Obituaries (/thread-59.html)
Deceased Musicians - pbrower2a - 05-08-2016
Isao Tomita (冨田 勲 Tomita Isao?, 22 April 1932 – 5 May 2016), often known simply as Tomita, was a Japanese music composer, regarded as one of the pioneers of electronic music and space music, and as one of the most famous producers of analog synthesizer arrangements. In addition to creating note-by-note realizations, Tomita made extensive use of the sound design capabilities of his instrument, using synthesizers to create new sounds to accompany and enhance his electronic realizations of acoustic instruments. He also made effective use of analog music sequencers and the Mellotron and featured futuristic science fiction themes, while laying the foundations for synth-pop music and trance-like rhythms. Many of his albums are electronic versions and adaptations of famous classical music pieces and he received four Grammy Award nominations for his 1974 album Snowflakes Are Dancing.
By the late 1960s, Isao turned to electronic music with the impetus of Wendy Carlos and Robert Moog's work with synthesizers. Isao acquired a Moog III synthesizer and began building his home studio. He eventually realized that synthesizers could be used to create entirely new sounds in addition to mimicking other instruments. His first electronic album was Electric Samurai: Switched on Rock, released in Japan in 1972 and in the United States in 1974. The album featured electronic renditions of contemporary rock and pop songs, while utilizing speech synthesis in place of a human voice. He then started arranging Claude Debussy's impressionist pieces for synthesizer and, in 1974, the album Snowflakes are Dancing was released; it became a worldwide success and was responsible for popularizing several aspects of synthesizer programming. The album's contents included ambience, realistic string simulations; an early attempt to synthesize the sound of a symphony orchestra; whistles, and abstract bell-like sounds, as well as a number of processing effects including: reverberation, phase shifting, flanging, and ring modulation. Quadrophonic versions of the album provided a spatial audio effect using four speakers. A particularly significant achievement was its polyphonic sound, created prior to the era of polyphonic synthesizers. Tomita created the album's polyphony as Carlos had done before him, with the use of multitrack recording, recording each voice of a piece one at a time, on a separate tape track, and then mixing the result to stereo or quad. It took 14 months to produce the album. In his early albums, he also made effective use of analog music sequencers, which he used for repeated pitch, filter or effects changes. Tomita's modular human whistle sounds would also be copied in the presets of later electronic instruments. His version of "Arabesque No. 1" was later used as the theme to the astronomy television series Jack Horkheimer: Star Gazer (originally titled Star Hustler) seen on most PBS stations; in Japan, parts of his version of "Rêverie" were used for the opening and closing of Fuji TV's transmissions; in Spain, "Arabesque No. 1" was also used for the intro and the outro for the children TV program "Planeta Imaginario" (imaginary planet).
Following the success of Snowflakes Are Dancing, Tomita released a number of "classically" themed albums, including arrangements of: Igor Stravinsky's The Firebird, Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, and Gustav Holst's The Planets. Holst: The Planets introduced a science fiction "space theme" This album sparked controversy on its release, as Imogen Holst, daughter of Gustav Holst, refused permission for her father's work to be interpreted in this way. The album was withdrawn, and is, consequently, rare in its original vinyl form.
While working on his classical synthesizer albums, Tomita also composed numerous scores for Japanese television and films, including the Zatoichi television series, two Zatoichi feature films, the Oshi Samurai (Mute Samurai) television series and the Toho science fiction disaster film, Catastrophe 1999, The Prophesies of Nostradamus (U.S. title: Last Days of Planet Earth) in 1974. The latter blends synthesizer performances with pop-rock and orchestral instruments. It and a few other partial and complete scores of the period have been released on LP and later CD over the years in Japan. While not bootlegs, at least some of these releases were issued by film and television production companies without Tomita's artistic approval.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isao_Tomita
Deceased Political Figures abroad - pbrower2a - 05-08-2016
Ding! Dong! Die Hexe ist tot!
Margot Honecker (née Feist; 17 April 1927 – 6 May 2016) was an East German politician, who was an influentual member of the East German communist party and the East German regime until 1989. From 1963 until 1989, she was "Minister of People's Education" (Ministerin für Volksbildung) of the GDR. She was married to Erich Honecker, the dictator of East Germany from 1971 until 1989.
Honecker was widely known as the "Purple Witch" for her tinted hair and hardline stalinist views, and was "hated and feared" in East Germany. Former Bundestag president Wolfgang Thierse has described her as "the most hated person" in East Germany next to Stasi chief Erich Mielke. She was responsible for the enactment of the "Uniform Socialist Education System" in 1965 and mandatory military training in schools. Margot Honecker was also responsible for the regime's kidnapping and forced adoption of children of jailed dissidents or people who attempted to flee the communist dictatorship, and she is considered to have "left a cruel legacy of separated families." She was one of the few spouses of ruling Communist leaders who held significant power in her own right, though her prominence in the regime predated her husband's ascension to the leadership of the SED.
Following the downfall of the communist regime in 1989, Honecker fled to the Soviet Union with her husband to avoid criminal charges from the Government of Germany. Fearing extradition to Germany, they took refuge in the Chilean embassy in Moscow in 1991, but in 1992 her husband was nevertheless extradited to Germany by Yeltsin's Russian government to face criminal trial, and was incarcerated in the Moabit prison. Margot Honecker then escaped directly from Moscow to Chile to avoid a similar fate. At the time of her death, she lived in Chile with her daughter Sonja. She left the East German communist party in 1990, after her husband had been expelled by the party, and later became a member of the small fringe party Communist Party of Germany (1990), which is considered extremist by German authorities and which is openly stalinist, which condemns the De-Stalinization in the Soviet Union as "revisionist" and which supports the North Korean regime. In a 2012 interview she branded Mikhail Gorbachev a "traitor" for his reforms and called the victims of the East German regime "criminals." The private property of Honecker and her husband was confiscated by the German government, and she lost a lawsuit she filed against the German government from abroad in 1999.
Honecker was born Margot Feist in Halle on 17 April 1927, the daughter of a shoemaker and a factory worker. After graduating from elementary school, she was a member of the Nazi Party's girls' organisation Bund Deutscher Mädel from 1938 to 1945. Her mother died in 1940 when Margot was 13 years old.
Honecker's brother, Manfred Feist, was the department leader for foreign information within the central committee of the East German Communist Party.
In 1945 Honecker joined the KPD. A year later, with the coerced merger of the SPD and KPD, she became a member of East Germany's new state party, the SED, working as a shorthand typist with the land board of directors FDGB in Saxony-Anhalt.
In 1946 Honecker became a member of the secretariat for the board of directors of the FDJ in Halle. She then began a meteoric rise through various departments. In 1947 she was the departmental leader of the FDJ's culture and education in the land board of directors and in 1948 secretary of the FDJ's central council as well as chairperson of the Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation.
By 1949/1950 Honecker was a member of the GDR's temporary People's Parliament. In 1950 at the age of 22 she was elected as a representative in the newly founded People's Chamber (German: Volkskammer).
Honecker met her future husband, Erich Honecker, at FDJ meetings when he was the director of the Freie Deutsche Jugend. Honecker was 15 years older and married. When she became pregnant and gave birth to their daughter Sonja in 1952, Honecker divorced his wife Edith and married Margot in 1953.
Education minister
In 1963 Honecker, after a period as acting Education Minister (German: Volksbildungsministerin) became the Minister in her own right. On 25 February 1965 she enacted the law that made "the uniform socialist education system" standard in all schools, colleges and universities throughout East Germany.
In 1978 Honecker introduced, against the opposition of the Church and many parents, military lessons (German: Wehrkunde) for 9th and 10th grade high school students (this included training on weapons such as aerial guns and the KK-MPi). Her tenure lasted until the fall of the GDR in 1989.
Peaceful revolution in 1989
Honecker briefly remained in office after her husband's ouster as leader of the SED in October 1989, but resigned along with most of the cabinet in November. Prime Minister Willi Stoph briefly took over the education minister's office. In hopes of improving its image, the Party of Democratic Socialism, successor of the SED, expelled both her and her husband a month later.
In 1990, charges were made against Honecker as Minister of Education. These included accusations that she had arranged politically motivated arrests, had separated children against their will from their parents and made compulsory adoptions of children from persons deemed unreliable by the state.
Honecker then fled to Moscow with her husband to avoid possible criminal charges in 1991. However, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the new non-Communist leadership in Russia forced her and her husband to leave.
After 1992 Honecker lived in Santiago, Chile with her daughter Sonja Yáñez Betancourt, and her daughter's Chilean husband Leo Yáñez Betancourt and their son Roberto Yáñez. Erich Honecker lived with his wife after being released by German authorities on the grounds of ill health in January 1993. He died of liver cancer at the age of 81 years on 29 May 1994 in Santiago. His body was cremated. Margot Honecker is believed to have kept his ashes.
In 1999, Honecker failed in her legal attempt to sue the German government for €60,300 of property confiscated following reunification. In 2001, her appeal to ECtHR failed. She received a survivor's pension and the old-age pension of the German old age pension insurance federation.
In 2000 Luis Corvalán, the former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Chile, published the book The Other Germany – the GDR. Discussions with Margot Honecker, in which Honecker speaks about the history of the GDR from her perspective.
On 19 July 2008, on the occasion of the 29th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, Honecker received the order for cultural independence "Rubén Dario" from President Daniel Ortega. The award was in recognition of Honecker's untiring support of the national campaign against illiteracy in the 1980s. This honor was Honecker's first public appearance since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Honecker was reported to have said she was grateful for the honor; but publicly no words were spoken. The left-wing heads of state of Paraguay and Venezuela, Fernando Lugo and Hugo Chávez, also took part in the celebrations in Managua.
Honecker continued to defend the GDR and identified herself as a Communist and Stalinist. In October 2009, Honecker celebrated the 60th anniversary of the founding of the GDR with former Chilean exiles who had sought asylum in East Germany. She participated in singing a patriotic East German song and gave a short speech in which she stated that East Germans "had a good life in the GDR" and that many felt that capitalism has made their lives worse. In 2011, author Frank Schuhmann published a book entitled Letzte Aufzeichnungen -- Für Margot (Final Notes -- For Margot in English) based on the 400-page diary kept by Erich Honecker during his stay in Berlin's Moabit prison beginning in July 1992. The diary was given to the author by Margot Honecker.
On 2 April 2012, Honecker gave an interview where she defended the GDR, attacked those who helped to destroy it, and complained about her pension. She felt that there was no need for people to climb over the Berlin Wall and lose their lives. She suggested that the GDR was a perfect country and that the demonstrations were driven by the GDR's enemies. "The GDR also had its foes. That's why we had the Stasi," she said.
RE: Deceased Musicians - Eric the Green - 05-08-2016
Sorry to hear about Tomita.
I think you made good contributions to the obit thread in the old forum, and did many others; perhaps you can revive it here. That's another valuable thread to archive too.
RE: Deceased Musicians - pbrower2a - 05-08-2016
The obituary thread was interesting. I think that we might well be advised to separate categories here. "Arts", "Theater/TV/radio/stage", "Literature", "Academia", "Journalism", and "Religion" may belong in the "Culture and Values" area in the appropriate threads as needed. Politics? I already have one for foreign officials and hangers-on. We will need one fore Americans. Entrepreneurs and business executives go into business and economics. Maybe I could have recognized Ronald Reagan both as a film star and a politician.
Recently I had a dog mentioned as a hero.
Where would I put a sport star, an animal (let us say a winner of a major sporting event), let alone a high-profile criminal (let us say Charles Manson, who can roast in Hell)?
Or maybe we could go back to the original that begins with Johnny Carson. I have no idea of how to load it. I have my own civics lesson on same-sex marriage, and putting it in was tedious.
re Tomita: His synthesizer performances were often derided by musical purists. Tough. Transcription is a stock of trade of performers and even composers. Such composers as Respighi, Schoenberg, and Busoni transcribed works of J S Bach for their own use. Bach did so himself.
If I had the talent for transcribing music, I would have a very different approach to Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition from that of Isao Tomita. I would attempt to catch the spirit of the organ concertos of Georg Friedrich Handel. It is hard to imagine that a period-instrument orchestra would play such an arrangement... but the organ-like sounds would well serve the Promenades and fade into the chamber-like sonorities reminiscent of a period orchestra of Handel's time, with the organ becoming the star of the climactic Great Gate of Kiev. It would be an anachronism -- but if it works -- who cares?
Deceased Scientists, Engineers, and Mathematicians - pbrower2a - 05-09-2016
Tom Mike Apostol (August 20, 1923 – May 8, 2016) was an American analytic number theorist and professor at the California Institute of Technology.
Apostol was born in Helper, Utah. His parents, Emmanouil Apostolopoulos and Efrosini Papathanasopoulos, were Greek immigrants.[1] Mr. Apostolopoulos's name was shortened to Mike Apostol when he obtained his United States citizenship, and Tom Apostol inherited this Americanized surname.[1]
Apostol received his Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering in 1944, Master's degree in mathematics from the University of Washington in 1946, and a PhD in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1948.[2] Apostol has since been a faculty member at UC Berkeley, MIT, and Caltech. He is the author of several influential graduate and undergraduate level textbooks.
Apostol is the creator and project director for Project MATHEMATICS! producing videos which explore basic topics in high school mathematics. He has helped popularize the visual calculus devised by Mamikon Mnatsakanian with whom he has also written a number of papers, many of which appeared in the American Mathematical Monthly. Apostol also provided academic content for an acclaimed video lecture series on introductory physics, The Mechanical Universe.
In 2001, Apostol was elected in the Academy of Athens.[3] He received a Lester R. Ford Award in 2005,[4][5][6] in 2008,[7] and in 2010.[8] In 2012 he became a fellow of the American Mathematical Society.[9]
Apostol died May 8, 2016.[10]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_M._Apostol
Deceased athletes - pbrower2a - 05-10-2016
Obituaries for high-profile athletes (including race horses and rescue dogs)
Comply Or Die was a British-trained Thoroughbred racehorse, owned by David Johnson. Ridden by Timmy Murphy and trained by David Pipe he was the winner of the £450,640[2] 2008 John Smith's Grand National at Aintree Racecourse, run on Saturday 5 April 2008.[3] It pushed ahead at the last fence[4] to win from the grey King John's Castle .
Bookmakers William Hill conceded that his victory had cost the chain 7 million GBP.[5]
In the John Smith's Grand National on 4 April 2009, Comply Or Die finished 2nd place at odds of 14-1. He carried approximately one extra stone of weight than in his previous Grand National and lost to Mon Mome.
Comply Or Die participated in 2 additional Grand Nationals in the coming two years. He respectively finished 12th in 2010 and was pulled up before 3rd last fence in 2011. After that, Comply Or Die was immediately retired.
Comply or Die was cremated on Monday 9 May 2016 after having died over the weekend.[6] David Pipe stated that Comply or Die had been involved in dressage events since his retirement, and was "greatly saddened to hear of his loss."[6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comply_or_Die
RE: Deceased Scientists, Engineers, and Mathematicians - pbrower2a - 05-11-2016
Karl Maramorosch (January 16, 1915 – May 9, 2016[1]) was an Austrian-born American virologist, entomologist and plant pathologist. A centenarian and polyglot, he conducted research on viruses, mycoplasmas, rickettsiae and other micro-organisms; and their transmission to plants through insect vectors in many parts of the world. He is the co-author of a textbook on techniques in virology and is the author of numerous papers on the biology and ecology of plant viruses, their hosts and vectors. He received the Wolf Prize in Agriculture in 1980 for his contribution to the study of crop pathogens.
Maramorosch was born in Vienna, where his family had escaped to from Soroki during the war. His Polish father was a graduate of the Vienna Agricultural University. His mother was from Croatia and she was a gifted pianist who could speak German, Italian, French, Serbo-Croat and English. Along with his siblings he spoke to his father in Polish and in German with his mother. He grew up in Kolomyja, Poland (now Ukraine) where he attended primary and secondary schools (Gimnazjum Kazimierza Jagiellonczyka) and from age of seven took piano lessons for twelve years, graduating from the Moniuszko Conservatory in Stanislawow (Ivano-Frankivsk) in 1934. He received his Agricultural Engineer degree from the Warsaw Agricultural University (SGGW) in 1938. At age thirteen he became inspired to become a research virologist, hearing about the work of Professor Rudolf Weigl in Lwow (Lviv) from his older brother, who was Weigl’s student at the Medical School. Weigl worked on Rickettsia prowazekii and by inoculating lice and maintaining them on volunteers, he had developed a vaccine against tick typhus.[2]
In 1939, after the Nazi invasion of Poland, Maramorosch and his Warsaw-born wife Irene (née Ludwinowska) fled to Romania, where both were interned in Polish refugee camps for the following four years. After the liberation of Romania by the Soviet army Maramorosch continued his graduate studies at the Bucharest Polytechnic, choosing plant pathology as his major. In 1947 Karl and Irene emigrated to the United States, where Irene became a librarian in the New York Public Library, where she worked for the following 30 years. In 1949 Karl obtained his doctoral degree (Ph.D.) at Columbia University. The same year their daughter, Lydia Ann, was born in New York.[2]
Maramorosch's scientific career began at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in 1947, followed by twelve years as faculty member at the Rockefeller University in New York. He modified Weigl’s procedure of lice inoculation, adopting it to micro-injection of plant pathogenic viruses and phytoplasmas into leafhopper vectors. This permitted Maramorosch to obtain the first evidence that certain plant pathogens multiply not only in plants but also in specific invertebrate animal vectors.[2]
Since 1956, when Maramorosch first cultured insect cells for use in the study of viruses, he has been an active contributor to the field of invertebrate pathology and to the study of plant and animal viruses, viroids and phytoplasmas. His research in invertebrate tissue cultures have laid a foundation for the growing, diverse and increasingly important uses of invertebrate-based in vitro expression systems. These systems are used in applications that range from basic research to industrial use, and in fields that range from agriculture to medicine, pharmaceutical drug discovery, and mammalian cell gene delivery.[2] The Mitsuhashi-Maramorosch insect culture medium for culturing insect cells is widely used.[3]
In 1960 Maramorosch worked for six months as consultant for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in the Philippines where he studied the devastating cadang-cadang coconut palm disease. From 1961 until 1973, as Program Director of Virology at the Boyce Thompson Institute in Yonkers, New York, he and his postdoctoral associates used electron microscopy to detect and characterize viruses and phytoplasmas in cells of diseased plants and insect vectors. In 1974 Maramorosch accepted the invitation from the Board of Governors of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, to join the faculty at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology as tenured Distinguished Professor. There, in 1983, he was nominated the Robert L. Starkey Professor of Microbiology. In 1980 Maramorosch was awarded the Wolf Prize in Agriculture, often called the Agriculture Nobel Prize, for his work on interactions between insect vectors and plant pathogens. Numerous further awards followed, including the Jurzykowski Foundation Award, the AIBS Award, and two Fulbright awards.[2]
Maramorosch traveled extensively to lecture and teach as visiting professor in Argentina, Armenia, China, Egypt, Germany, India, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Mexico, Netherlands, Nigeria, Poland, Russia, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan and Yugoslavia. His major research interests include comparative virology, invertebrate cell culture, parasitology, emerging diseases caused by viroids, viruses, phytoplasmas and spiroplasmas, biotechnology, and international scientific cooperation.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Maramorosch
Deceased personalities of stage and screen - pbrower2a - 05-12-2016
William Joseph Schallert[1] (July 6, 1922 – May 8, 2016) was an American character actor who appeared in many films and in such television series as Perry Mason; The Smurfs; Jefferson Drum; Philip Marlowe; The Rat Patrol; Gunsmoke; Star Trek; The Patty Duke Show; 87th Precinct; The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis; The Waltons; Hawaii Five-O, Quincy, M.E.; The Partridge Family; Bonanza; Wanted: Dead or Alive; Leave It to Beaver; The Dick Van Dyke Show; Love, American Style; Get Smart; Lawman; Combat!; The Wild Wild West; and in later years, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine; Medium and True Blood.
As with many other character actors with long careers, Schallert's face was more recognizable than his name.[2]
William "Bill" Schallert was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Edwin Francis Schallert, a longtime drama critic for the Los Angeles Times, and Elza Emily Schallert (née Baumgarten), a magazine writer and radio host.[1] He began acting while a student at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles and, in 1946, helped found the Circle Theatre with Sydney Chaplin and several fellow students. In 1948, Schallert was directed by Sydney's father, Charlie Chaplin, in a staging of Somerset Maugham's Rain.[3]
Schallert appeared in supporting roles on numerous television programs since the early 1950s, including four episodes (and three different characters) in Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theatre between 1958 and 1961. He was in Gunsmoke (season 3, episode 16 "Twelfth Night") in 1957 and (season 4, episode 16 "Gypsum Hills Feud") in 1958 and The Partridge Family, as a very humble folk-singing guitar player with "Stage Fright", in 1971. He appeared three times as Major Karl Richmond on NBC's Steve Canyon, starring Dean Fredericks in the title role.
Schallert also appeared in several movies. One of his early cinematic roles was a brief uncredited performance as a police detective in The Reckless Moment (1949) with Joan Bennett and James Mason. He had roles in The Man from Planet X (1951) with Robert Clarke, The Tarnished Angels (1958) with Robert Stack, Blue Denim (1959) with Brandon deWilde, Pillow Talk (1959) with Doris Day and Rock Hudson, Speedway (1968) with Elvis Presley, The Jerk (1979) with Steve Martin, Teachers (1984) with Nick Nolte, and Innerspace (1987), in which he played Martin Short's doctor. Schallert also played (uncredited) an ambulance attendant in the early minutes of the 1950s sci-fi classic, Them! (1954). He was a founding member of the Circle Players at The Circle Theatre, started in 1946, now known as El centro theatre.
Schallert starred in Philbert, an innovative 1964 TV pilot for ABC, which combined live action camera work and animation. Created by Warner Brothers animator Friz Freleng and directed by Richard Donner, ABC backed out of the series shortly before full production was to begin, though the completed pilot was released in theaters by Warner Brothers as a short subject.
Schallert was probably best known as Martin Lane on The Patty Duke Show. He also appeared as a wise teacher, Mr. Leander Pomfritt, on The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, and as The Admiral on Get Smart. On the two former shows he worked opposite actress Jean Byron. Schallert made three guest appearances on CBS's Perry Mason between 1957–1962, including the role of Donald Graves in the series' fifth episode, "The Case of the Sulky Girl", and Dr. Bradbury in the 1961 episode, "The Case of the Misguided Missile". He played the role of Nilz Baris in the Star Trek episode "The Trouble With Tribbles", and much later in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Sanctuary", in which he played Varani, a Bajoran musician.
Schallert played the role of Carson Drew in the television series The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries (1977–1979), featuring Pamela Sue Martin as Nancy Drew.
In addition to his onscreen performances, Schallert did voiceover work for numerous television and radio commercials over the years. Among these were a recurring role as "Milton the Toaster" in animated commercials for Kellogg's Pop-Tarts.[4]
Schallert had the rare distinction of appearing in both the original movie version of In the Heat of the Night (1967) and the later NBC TV version in 1992. In 2004, TV Guide recognized Schallert's portrayal of Martin Lane on The Patty Duke Show as No. 39 on its list of "50 Greatest TV Dads."[5]
Schallert served as president of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) from 1979 to 1981, and afterwards remained active in SAG projects, including serving as a Trustee of the SAG Pension and Health Plans since 1983, and of the Motion Picture and Television Fund since 1977. (His former co-star and television daughter, Patty Duke, also served as SAG president from 1985 to 1988.) During Schallert's tenure as SAG President, he founded the Committee for Performers with Disabilities, and in 1993, he was awarded the Ralph Morgan Award for service to the Guild.
Schallert continued to work steadily as an actor in later life, appearing in a 2008 episode of How I Met Your Mother, the HBO television movie Recount (2008) as U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens, the HBO series True Blood and his distinctive voice continues to bring him work for commercial and animation voiceovers. 2009 appearances included a guest role on Desperate Housewives on March 15, 2009, in which he played the role of a small newspaper editor, and he also appeared in an episode of According to Jim. More recently, he appeared in the January 21, 2010 pilot episode of The Deep End on ABC as a retiring CEO with Alzheimer's Disease. He also made an appearance on Medium on the February 5, 2010 episode and a cameo on the June 26, 2011 season premiere of True Blood as the Mayor of Bon Temps. He played Max Devore, a secondary antagonist, in the A&E adaptation of Bag of Bones.
In 2010, Schallert made a series of Public Service Announcement videos with Patty Duke and other castmates from The Patty Duke Show for the Social Security Administration, which can be found at http://www.ssa.gov.[6] His last television appearance came in 2014 on an episode of the sitcom 2 Broke Girls.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Schallert
RE: Deceased Musicians - pbrower2a - 05-12-2016
Joe Temperley (Lochgelly, Scotland, 20 September 1929 – 11 May 2016) was a Scottish saxophonist. He has performed on various instruments but is most associated with the baritone saxophone and bass clarinet.
Life
He first achieved prominence in the United Kingdom as a member of Humphrey Lyttelton's band from 1958-1965. In 1965, he moved to New York City where he performed and/or recorded with Woody Herman, Buddy Rich, Joe Henderson, Duke Pearson, the Jazz Composer's Orchestra, The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra and Clark Terry, among many others. In October 1974, he toured and recorded with the Duke Ellington Orchestra as a replacement for Harry Carney.[1]
Temperley played in the Broadway show Sophisticated Ladies in the 1980s, and his film soundtrack credits include Cotton Club, Biloxi Blues, Brighton Beach Memoirs, When Harry Met Sally, and Tune In Tomorrow, composed by Wynton Marsalis.
He was a guest mentor of the Fife Youth Jazz Orchestra also known as FYJO[2] program in Scotland, co-founded by Richard Michael and Dr Colin Thompson, which now enrolls 30 young musicians ages 7–18.
Temperley released several albums as a leader, including Nightingale (1991) with Brian Lemon, Sunbeam and Thundercloud with pianist Dave McKenna (1996), With Every Breath (1998) and Double Duke (1999) with several fellow Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra members. He was an original member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, and served on the faculty of the Juilliard School for Jazz Studies.[3]
Temperley died in Edinburgh, Scotland on 11 May 2016, aged 86.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Temperley
Deceased attorneys and political figures in the USA - pbrower2a - 05-13-2016
Mark Lane (February 24, 1927 – May 10, 2016) was an American attorney and former New York state legislator, civil rights activist, and Vietnam war-crimes investigator. He is best known as a leading researcher, author, and conspiracy theorist[2] on the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy. From his 1966 number-one bestselling critique of the Warren Commission, Rush to Judgment,[3] to Last Word: My Indictment of the CIA in the Murder of JFK, published in 2011, Lane wrote at least four major works on the JFK assassination and no fewer than ten books overall.
Much more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Lane_%28author%29
RE: Deceased Political Figures abroad - pbrower2a - 05-14-2016
Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia (Aleksandar Pavlov Karađorđević; 13 August 1924 – 12 May 2016) was the elder son of Prince Paul, who served as Regent of Yugoslavia in the 1930s, and his wife, Princess Olga of Greece and Denmark.
Biography
Alexander was born at White Lodge, Richmond Park, United Kingdom, and was approximately 1374th in the Line of succession to the British throne. As a nephew of Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent (née of Greece and Denmark), he was a first cousin of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, Prince Michael of Kent, and Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy; he was also a first cousin once removed of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
On 12 February 1955, Alexander married Princess Maria Pia of Savoy, daughter of King Umberto II of Italy and of his wife, Princess Marie-José of Belgium.[1] The marriage took place at Cascais in Portugal where the bride's father was living in exile. The couple had met on 22 August 1954 during the royal cruise of the Agamemnon, hosted by King Paul and Queen Frederika of the Hellenes.
Alexander and Maria Pia have twin sons born in 1958, a second pair of twins being born during the marriage five years later:
- Prince Dimitri Umberto Anton Peter Maria of Yugoslavia (b. 1958)
- Prince Michael Nicolas Paul George Maria of Yugoslavia (b. 1958)
- Prince Sergius Wladimir Emanuel Marie of Yugoslavia (born 12 March 1963)
- Princess Helene Olga Lydia Tamara Maria of Yugoslavia (born 12 March 1963), married Thierry Gaubert (born 14 May 1951 in Paris) on 12 January 1988 and had issue:
- Milena Maria-Pia Angelique Armaule Gaubert (born 8 July 1988)
- Nastasia Marie-José Tania Vanessa Isabelle Gaubert (born 22 February 1991)
- Leopold Umberto Armand Michel Gaubert (born 19 July 1997)
- Milena Maria-Pia Angelique Armaule Gaubert (born 8 July 1988)
On 2 November 1973, Alexander married in a civil ceremony in Paris Princess Barbara of Liechtenstein (b. 9 July 1942), a cousin of Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein and also a first cousin of his consort, Princess Marie.They have one son:
- Prince Dušan Paul of Yugoslavia (born 25 September 1977)
On 17 February 2008, Alexander issued a statement condemning the declaration of independence by Kosovo.[4]
![[Image: 170px-Coat_of_Arms_of_Aleksandar_Pavlov_...djevic.png]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Coat_of_Arms_of_Aleksandar_Pavlov_Karadjordjevic.png)
Alexander's coat of arms
On the occasion of Prince Alexander's 90th birthday on 13 August 2014, a celebration of his life in words and pictures appeared in that month's UK magazine 'Majesty'.
Prince Alexander died on 12 May 2016 in Paris,[5] where he and his wife had lived for many years
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Alexander_of_Yugoslavia_%28born_1924%29
RE: Deceased Scientists, Engineers, and Mathematicians - pbrower2a - 05-16-2016
John Imbrie (July 4, 1925–May 13, 2016) was an American paleoceanographer best known for his work on the theory of ice ages. He was the grandson of William Imbrie, an American missionary to Japan.
After serving with the 10th Mountain Division in Italy during World War II, Imbrie earned his bachelor's degree from Princeton University. He then went on to receive a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1951. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1978 and was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship in 1981. He was awarded the Maurice Ewing Medal in 1986 by the AGU and the William H. Twenhofel Medal by the Society for Sedimentary Geology in 1991, the only time the Society has awarded it to a non-member. Imbrie was on the faculty of the Geological Sciences Department at Brown University from 1967,[1] where he held the Henry L. Doherty chair of Oceanography. He later served as Professor Emeritus at Brown.[2]
Imbrie is probably best known as a co-author of the paper in Science in 1976, 'Variations in the Earth's orbit: Pacemaker of the ice ages'.[3] Using ocean sediment cores, the Science paper verified the theories of Milutin Milanković that oscillations in climate over the past few million years are correlated with Earth's orbital variations of eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession around the Sun. These changes are now called the Milankovitch cycles.
John Imbrie was featured in the video documentary The Last Ridge: The Uphill Battles of the 10th Mountain Division.
He died in Providence, Rhode Island, in 2016 at the age of 90.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Imbrie
RE: Deceased Musicians - Dan '82 - 05-17-2016
Guy Clark dead at 74
http://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2016/05/17/guy-clark-dead-74/80932338/
Quote:Guy Charles Clark, the gravel-voiced troubadour who crafted a vast catalog of emotionally charged, intricately detailed works that illuminated and expanded the literary possibilities of popular song, died in Nashville Tuesday morning after a long illness.
Mr. Clark, a Nashville Songwriters Hall of Famer, had been in declining health for years, including a lengthy cancer battle. He was 74 years old, and the author of 13 compelling studio albums...
http://www.tennessean.com/story/entertainment/music/2016/05/17/guy-clark-dead-74/80932338/
RE: Deceased Musicians - pbrower2a - 05-17-2016
Huguette Dreyfus, harpsichordist
Huguette Dreyfus began taking piano lessons at the age of four years. In 1946, she began working with renowned piano teacher Lazare Lévy. In 1950, having learned that music historian Norbert Dufourcq was to give special classes on the music of Johann Sebastian Bach (in recognition of the bicentennial of Bach's death) at the Conservatoire de Paris, she entered into the class and remained there for four years. In addition to her piano class, she also studied the harpsichord at the Académie Chigiana de Siena under Ruggero Gerlin, who was a student of harpsichord-reviver Wanda Landowska. In 1958, Dreyfus won the Geneva international harpsichord competition, becoming a prominent figure of ancient Renaissance and Baroque music and of the revival of the harpsichord in France.
Her favorite instrument was a harpsichord from Johann Heinrich Hemsch, a German harpsichord maker. His best instruments were made in Paris in the 18th century and are often comparable to those made by Blanchet, another celebrated harpsichord maker.
Dreyfus taught at the Schola Cantorum, at the Sorbonne in Paris, and at the National Conservatory of Music and Dance of Lyon(CNSMD de Lyon). She taught as well at the International Academy of Organ and old music of Saint-Maxima-la-Sainte-Baume, and at the Villecroze Academie de Musique. In this regard, the quality and the significant number of harpsichordists who identify with her teaching, such as Christophe Rousset, Olivier Baumont, Yannick Le Gaillard, Noëlle Spieth, and Jory Vinikour speaks for itself. She was part of the jury of the International Harpsichord Competition of Paris.
Her numerous concerts, master classes and recordings led her to work with numerous musical personalities: Eduard Melkus, Luciano Sgrizzi, Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini, Pierre Boulez, Paul Kuentz, Lionel Rogg, Alfred Planyavsky, Jean-Pierre Rampal, and more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huguette_Dreyfus
RE: Deceased Musicians - pbrower2a - 05-18-2016
Jane Little was a musician who played double bass for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra from age 16 until the day she died at age 87. According to Guinness World Records, she held the world record for longest tenure with an orchestra. She made her debut on February 4, 1945. Little set the record on February 1, 2016. The previous record holder was Frances Darger, who played violin for 70 years for the Utah Symphony until his retirement in 2012.
She was married to Warren Little, the principal flutist of the ASO, for 41 years before his death.
Little collapsed on stage while performing There's No Business Like Show Business on May 15, 2016 and died later that day. She was undergoing treatment for myeloma at the time.[1][2][3][4]
Deceased journalists - pbrower2a - 05-19-2016
Broadcast, print, and Internet. First one that we will largely miss:
Safer was born to an Austrian-Jewish family in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Anna (née Cohn) and Max Safer, an upholsterer.[3] He attended Harbord Collegiate Institute and Bloor Collegiate, Clinton Street Public school located at 460 Manning Ave, Toronto, Ontario,[4] and briefly attended University of Western Ontario.[5]
Safer began his journalism career as a reporter for various newspapers in Canada (Woodstock Sentinel-Review, London Free Press, and Toronto Telegram) and England (Reuters and Oxford Mail). Later, he joined the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a correspondent and producer.
In 1964 Safer joined CBS News as a London-based correspondent. In 1965, he opened the CBS News bureau in Saigon. That year he followed a group of United States Marines to the village of Cam Ne, for what was described as a "search and destroy" mission. When the Marines arrived, they gave orders in English to the inhabitants to evacuate the village. When the homes were cleared, the Marines burned their thatched roofs with flamethrowers and Zippo lighters. Safer's report on this event was broadcast on CBS News on August 5, 1965, and was among the first reports to paint a bleak picture of the Vietnam War. President Lyndon Baines Johnson reacted to this report angrily, calling CBS's president and accusing Safer and his colleagues of having "shat on the American flag." Certain that Safer was a communist, Johnson also ordered a security check; upon being told that Safer "wasn't a communist, just a Canadian", he responded: "Well, I knew he wasn't an American."[6]
In 1967 Safer was named the London bureau chief, a post he held for three years. Safer was also a CBS reporter during the Nigerian Civil War.[7] In 1970, he left London to replace Harry Reasoner on 60 Minutes, after Reasoner left to anchor the ABC Evening News (although Reasoner would return to 60 Minutes in 1978, alongside Safer). Safer would go on to set the record for the show's longest-serving correspondent, retiring in 2016 after 46 years.
Safer was also the author of the bestselling book, Flashbacks: On Returning to Vietnam. It describes his 1989 return to Vietnam and features his interviews with known and less-well-known Vietnamese people, most of them veterans of the war. These included general Vo Nguyen Giap, Duong Quynh Hoa, Pham Xuan An, major Nguyen Be, and others. He also visited the Caravelle Hotel, the Marble Mountains (Vietnam) & air field, China Beach, Huế, Quảng Trị City, a Cham museum, an old wrecking yard full of American artifacts, and several other locations. The book also contains reflections on Bill Moyers (regarding the Cam Ne affair), Barry Goldwater, and General William Westmoreland.[8] His trip was the basis of a 60 Minutes show in 1989, which Safer said got a reaction of annoyance from some veterans, and a positive reaction from others.[9]
He and his wife, Jane Fearer, lived in New York City. They had a daughter, Sarah Alice Anne Safer, who is a 1992 graduate of Brown University[10] and freelance journalist. Safer maintains dual (Canadian/American) citizenship.[11]
Safer died on May 19, 2016, just one week after announcing his retirement from 60 Minutes after 46 seasons with the show.[12] CBS aired a special 60 Minutes episode covering Safer's 61-year news journalism career immediately after the regular May 15, 2016, show.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morley_Safer
RE: Deceased personalities of stage and screen - pbrower2a - 05-20-2016
Comic actor Alan Young, best known as the sole person who could hear a talking horse (Mr. Ed)
Young had his own comedy radio series on Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. In 1944, he moved to American radio with The Alan Young Show, NBC's summer replacement for Eddie Cantor's show. He switched to ABC two years later, then returned to NBC.
Young's film debut was Margie (1946), and he was featured in Chicken Every Sunday (1949).[3]
In 1950, the television version of The Alan Young Show began. By 1951, the series had garnered not only praise but also several Primetime Emmy awards, including "Outstanding Lead Actor" for Alan Young.[4]
After its cancellation, Young continued acting in films, among which Androcles and the Lion (1952) and Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955), and two George Pal films, tom thumb (1958) and The Time Machine (1960).
He is best known, however, for Mister Ed (1961–66), a CBS television show, in which he starred as Wilbur Post, the owner of Mr. Ed, a talking horse that would talk to no one but him, thus causing hilarious situations for Wilbur Post with his wife, neighbours and acquaintances.
He also starred as Stanley Beamish in the unaired 1966 pilot episode of Mr. Terrific, but apparently declined to appear in the broadcast series in 1967 that followed.
He appeared in the episode "Thin Ice" of the NBC espionage drama Five Fingers, starring David Hedison. Young's television guest roles include Gibbsville, The Love Boat, Murder, She Wrote, St. Elsewhere, Coach, Party of Five, The Wayans Bros., USA High, Hang Time, ER, Maybe It's Me and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch where he played Zelda's love interest in the episode "Sweet Charity".
In the late 1960s, he retired from acting for several years. During that time, he founded a broadcast division for the Christian Science Church.
After 1974, he voiced Scrooge McDuck in numerous Disney films and in the popular series DuckTales (1987-1990). In Mickey's Christmas Carol, he portrayed the character's miserly namesake. He also played Scrooge in video games such as the Kingdom Hearts series, DuckTales: Remastered in 2013, and the Mickey Mouse cartoon "Goofy's First Love" released in 2015.
During the 1980s, Young became active in voice acting. Apart from Scrooge McDuck, his other prominent roles were Farmer Smurf on The Smurfs, 7-Zark-7 and Keyop in Battle of the Planets and Hiram Flaversham in The Great Mouse Detective. He also guest starred on The Incredible Hulk, The New Scooby and Scrappy-Doo Show and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends.
In 1991, Alan Young returned to the stage, starring as Cap'n Andy Hawkes in The California Music Theatre's adaptation of Show Boat. He had been called for the role after Van Johnson, who was initially cast in the part, was hospitalised.[5] He had also appeared in the plays A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and The Girl With the Freudian Slip.
In 1993, he recreated his role as Filby for the mini-sequel to George Pal's The Time Machine, reuniting him with Rod Taylor, who had played George, the Time Traveller. It was called Time Machine: The Journey Back, directed by Clyde Lucas. In 2002, he had a cameo as the flower store worker in Simon Wells' remake of The Time Machine and in 2010, he read H.G. Wells's original novel for 7th Voyage Productions, Inc.
In 1994, Young co-starred in the Eddie Murphy film Beverly Hills Cop III. He played the role of Uncle Dave Thornton, the Walt Disney-esque founder of the fictional California theme park Wonderworld, and in that same year, Young played the role of Charlie in the television movie, Hart to Hart: Home Is Where the Hart Is.
After 1994, he played at least eight characters, most notably antique dealer Jack Allen on the popular radio drama Adventures in Odyssey. In 1997, he did the voice of Haggis McMutton in the PC game The Curse of Monkey Island. His later guest roles in animated series included Megas XLR, Static Shock, House of Mouse, The Ren & Stimpy Show, Duckman, Batman: The Animated Series and TaleSpin.[6]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Young
RE: Deceased Political Figures abroad - pbrower2a - 05-23-2016
Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansoor (Pashto: اختر محمد منصور Akhtar Muḥammad Manṣūr; pronounced /ɑːktɑː mɑːnsjʊər/ or /æktɑː mænsjʊər/; born probably 1968, although possibly 1963 or 1965; also spelled Mansur[7] and Mansour;[8] also, Akhtar Mohammad Mansour Khan Muhammad, and possibly, Naib Imam[9]) was the Emir (leader) of the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist political movement in Afghanistan also known as Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (recently adopted name).[10]
On 21 May 2016, it was reported by a United States Department of Defense official that Mansour had been killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan.[11] The official, who was not sanctioned to speak publicly about the attack, said Mansour and a second militant were believed killed when a drone hit a vehicle in which they were riding. The strike was approved by U.S. President Barack Obama who said he hoped Mansour's removal would lead to the Taliban joining a peace process [12][13]. The Afghan government and members of Taliban later confirmed his death.[14]
During 1985 he joined the jihadi war against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and this included, or at sometime also, he joined the Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi group, during the same Soviet–Afghan War. Mohammad Omar was then a commander of one of the groups of Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi. Mansoor participated in the war ( jihad ) against the Russians in Maiwand, Sang-e-Hessar, Zangawat and other parts of the city, and the Pashmul area of the Panjwai district, under the command of Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhond, apparently commanded by him at least while fighting at the last location. During 1987 he was apparently injured (sustaining 13 separate wounds according to the I.E.A. source), while stationed at Sanzary area of Panjwai district in Kandahar. Known as one of the prominent warriors, Mansoor joined the Maulvi Obaidullah Ishaqzai group in 1987 but later Ishaqzai surrendered to Nur ul-Haq Ulumi, now the interior minister. Soon afterwards, he migrated to Quetta.[5][10]
After the war, Mansoor resumed his religious education in different seminaries and later shifted to Peshawar where he joined Jamia Mohammadia at the Jalozai Refugee camp. He was a student at Darul Uloom Haqqania madrassa, which is where Mohammed Omar also studied. He was apparently a popular student, during his time at the madrassa from 1994 to 1995, located within the Jalozai refugee camp for Afghans near Peshawar, Pakistan, according to Afghan journalist Sami Yousafzai, who met him during that time.[4][5][19]
After the capture of Kandahar airport he was appointed as director general, or otherwise termed, security officer in charge, of the Kandahar airport, a role which encompassed both the air-force and air-defence systems of Kandahar. After the taking of Kabul during the 1996 he was made director of Ariana airlines, and additionally Minister of the Emirate for aviation and tourism, by Mohammed Omar, within the Talebani Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, together with his overseeing the Emirates' air-force and air-defence systems, from his additional appointment as head of these within the ministry of defence. Notably, while minister, Mullah Mansoor organized a 24-hour flights services within Afghanistan, there-by organizing the provision of facilities for muslims to go to Mecca as Hajj via air-flight. During 1996 the Mullah appointed the individual Farid Ahmed to station manager of Ariana airlines.[9][10][21][22][23][24]
During 1997, when the Taliban tried unsuccessfully to capture the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, Mansoor was captured by an Uzbek warlord. For two months he remained there as a prisoner of war before Mohammed Omar traded him out.[25]
During 1998, the Mullah visited amongst other places within the area, Frankfurt, and Prague of the Czech Republic, for a period of 25 days, as part of his visit to the unofficial envoy to Europe at the time, Mullah Nek Muhammad:[1]
Quote:He came to Germany to purchase airport equipment, parts for airliners and military choppers for the Taliban air forceAfter the conclusion of the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814, Akther Masour is reported, by Anand Arni, a former officer with the Indian organisation Research & Analysis Wing, as being seen embracing Maulana Masood Azhar, the then leader of Jaish-e-Mohammed.[26][27]
— Mullah Nek Muhammad, as reported by S. Yousafzai
In 2001, he surrendered to the Afghan President Hamid Karzai to ask for amnesty. He was forgiven after which he returned to his home district. American forces however refusing to believe he and other senior Taliban commanders had given up fighting, conducted a series of night raids to capture him after which he fled to Pakistan, where he helped to shape the Taliban as an insurgent organisation.[18]
Mullah Mansour was appointed as shadow governor[disambiguation needed] of Kandahar, from sometime after 2001, until May 2007.[21][28][29]
In a previously secret state communication of the U.S. government in 2006, Akhtar Mansoor was listed as the 23rd member of the Taliban (with the late Mohammed Omar as the first member).[30]
The council of the Taliban appointed him as deputy to the newly appointed Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar during 2007, the Indian Express reported Akthar Mansour as appointed to the Taliban's Quetta Shura (council for political and military matters and affairs), sometime during 2007, while within Quetta. One source gives Mansoor as being appointed deputy to Mohammed Omar during 2010; another source states him to have been "by some accounts" the second most senior member of the Taliban behind Mohammed Omar, during 2010. A contradictory report states his appointment occurred during 2013 after Abdul Ghani Baradar, the then deputy, was jailed. A source claims to know of Akther Mansour having a "direct influence" over military units operating within Khost, Paktia and Paktika, at a time after his appointment to the Council of the Taliban.[21][22][26][26][32][33][34]
Wahid Muzhda is quoted as saying, in reference to Akther Mansoor:[34][35]
Quote:"in 2013 he convinced other Taliban leaders to open the group's political office in Qatar to initiate negotiations with the West."a fact which is corroborated by an additional report, which states the office was within Doha, Qatar.[32]
According to a 2014 report, Akther Mansoor, together with Abdul Qayum Zakir and Gul Agha Ishakzai, were stated to be involved in fighting over control of a major opium-producing area (land of Maiwand District) against a co-founder of the Taliban movement, Abdul Ghani Baradar.[36][37]
An article, published 12 March 2015, stated Mullah Mansour and Abdul Qayum Zakir, who were long-term rivals, had met together in order to find an agreement and at the meeting had slaughtered sheep for the purposes of a feast. The article stated Mansour was in favour of initiating so-called talks with Afghani government officials at the time, but was unable to make any progress in his own direction due to Zakir being opposed to the opening of a dialogue with the Afghan government.[38]
According to one report, dated 17 March 2015, Mullah Masoor was at that time deputy amir ul-momenin, military leader and head of the shura of Quetta.[39]
Mansour wrote a letter to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, on behalf of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, released on June 16, 2015, in order to express his concerns of the potential for a negative influence of ISIS upon Afghan Talibans' progress, since ISIS activities might pose a risk of causing "multiplicity" within forces of the jihad of Afghanistan. The letter, appealing to the unity of "religious brotherhood", requests al-Baghdadi might extend "goodwill" to the Taliban, which "doesn't want to see interference in its affairs". The letter was written in the Pashto language, and released within the Voice of Jihad site, including the statement:[28][40][41]
Additionally, the letter shows Mansour considered the late (Sheikhs) Abdullah Azzam and Osama bin Laden, the late Abu Musab al Zarqawi and Ibn al-Khattab, to be heroes. In addition the letter expresses recognition of the support to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, of "famous religious scholars", of these he provides (Sheikh) Hamud bin Uqla al Shuaybi as an example.[28]
RE: Deceased military, intelligence, and defense figures - pbrower2a - 05-25-2016
FAWCETT, Jane Carolin (née Hughes) on 21st May 2016, aged 95, died peacefully at home surrounded by her family. Wife of Edward Fawcett (decd). Veteran of Bletchley Park, Secretary of the Victorian Society, founder Diploma of Conservation Arch. Assn., worked with ICOMOS and Dales National Park. MBE, Hon FRIBA. Private family funeral, memorial service to follow.
http://announcements.telegraph.co.uk/deaths/203027/fawcett
Bletchley Park was where the British decoded the military and diplomatic communications of Nazi Germany, to devastating effect upon the German Navy in WWII.
RE: Deceased personalities of stage and screen - pbrower2a - 05-27-2016
Nancy Dow, an actress, former model, and the mother of actress Jennifer Aniston, died May 25 in Los Angeles, according to multiple news sources. She was 79.
'It is with great sadness that my brother John and I announce the passing of our Mother Nancy Dow,' Aniston told People magazine in a statement Wednesday. Aniston added that her mother died “peacefully surrounded by family and friends after enduring a long illness.”
Dow, a former model, appeared on 1960s television shows including “The Beverly Hillbillies” and “The Wild Wild West.” She also appeared in two films, “The Ice House” (1969) and “Pure” (2004).
Dow had a health setback in 2011, when she had a series of strokes. She was hospitalized May 23 and died two days later.
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Dow was born July 22, 1936, in Connecticut. She married twice, and both unions ended in divorce. She married musician John Melick in 1956, and they divorced in 1961. They had a son, John Melick.
In 1965, Dow married actor John Aniston; they divorced in 1980. Jennifer Aniston, their daughter, played Rachel Green on the hit TV sitcom “Friends,” which aired from 1994 to 2004.
Dow and her daughter were estranged after Dow wrote a book about their relationship, “From Mother and Daughter to Friends: A Memoir” (1999). The two reconciled several years later. - See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/thedailyreporter/obituary.aspx?n=nancy-dow&pid=180121628#sthash.SRZwsCTl.dpuf