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+--- Thread: Obituaries (/thread-59.html)
RE: Obituaries - pbrower2a - 01-04-2019
I'm surprised that I have never flown on his airline. Maybe you have (Southwest Airlines):
Herbert David Kelleher (March 12, 1931 – January 3, 2019) was an American businessman. He was the co-founder, CEO, and Chairman Emeritus of Southwest Airlines.
The Kellehers moved to Texas intending to start a law firm or a business. Kelleher and one of his law clients, Texas businessman Rollin King, created the concept with banker John Parker that later became Southwest Airlines. An often retold founding myth states that the business plan was written out on a cocktail napkin in a San Antonio restaurant,[8] though Kelleher and King have both stated that there was no literal cocktail napkin.[9][10] Despite not being drawn on a napkin, they originally devised a very simple plan of connecting the Texas Triangle with low-cost air service, patterned largely on California's Pacific Southwest Airlines.[9][8]
After incorporating the company initially as "Air Southwest Co." in 1967, Kelleher and King faced four years of setbacks and legal challenges from competitors that culminated in winning key cases before the Supreme Court of the United States in December 1970 and the Supreme Court of Texas in June 1971.[9][8] The first flights finally took off on June 18, 1971.[10] Reflecting back on that time Kelleher said, "I think my greatest moment in business was when the first Southwest airplane arrived after four years of litigation and I walked up to it and I kissed that baby on the lips and I cried."[11] Kelleher's early involvement in the company was helping the company navigate legal concerns and as an advisor to the operation. Lamar Muse was hired as CEO, but after struggles between Muse and King escalated over the next several years, Muse resigned in 1978. Kelleher was installed as Chairman of the Board in March of that year and the board appointed him as temporary CEO.[9] In 1981 he was appointed the full-time CEO, a position he held for 20 years.[10]
Under Kelleher's leadership, Southwest succeeded by a strategy of offering low fares to its passengers, eliminating unnecessary services, using a single aircraft type (the Boeing 737), avoiding the hub-and-spoke scheduling system used by other airlines in favor of building point-to-point traffic, and focusing on secondary airports such as Chicago-Midway (instead of Chicago-O'Hare) and Orange County.[4] The company he founded and built has consistently been named among the most admired companies in America in Fortune magazine's annual poll.[12] Fortune has also called him perhaps the best CEO in America.[4]
Your employees come first. And if you treat your employees right, guess what? Your customers come back, and that makes your shareholders happy. Start with employees and the rest follows from that.
Herb Kelleher[13]
Kelleher's colorful personality created a corporate culture which made Southwest employees well known for taking themselves lightly but their jobs seriously.[14] His culture-leadership was well-demonstrated in an arm-wrestling event in March 1992. Shortly after Southwest started using the "Just Plane Smart" motto, Stevens Aviation, who had been using "Plane Smart" for their motto, threatened a trademark lawsuit, which was resolved between Herb Kelleher and Stevens Aviation CEO Kurt Herwald in an arm-wrestling match, now known as "Malice in Dallas".[15][16][8]
In March 2001, Kelleher stepped down as CEO and President of Southwest. He passed the CEO role onto James Parker and the President role to Colleen Barrett, though he remained Chairman of the Board.[6] On July 19, 2007, Southwest Airlines announced that Kelleher would step down from the role of Chairman and resign from the board of directors in May 2008. The retirement of Barrett as President was announced at the same time, though the two would remain full-time employees for another five years.[17] Kelleher ultimately stepped down as chairman on May 21, 2008. Immediately following, Southwest Airlines filled both the Chairman and President positions with then-current CEO, Gary C. Kelly, who had taken over the CEO position from Parker three years earlier.[18] Kelleher was given the title of Chairman Emeritus with an office at Southwest Airlines Headquarters and he remained connected to the company until his death in 2019.[19]
In July 2010 Kelleher was appointed Chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas board of directors for 2011.[20] Kelleher's term expired in 2013. Previously, he had served as Deputy Chair.[21][22]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herb_Kelleher
RE: Obituaries - pbrower2a - 01-06-2019
Harold Brown (September 19, 1927 – January 4, 2019) was an American nuclear physicist who served as U.S. Secretary of Defense from 1977 to 1981, under President Jimmy Carter. Previously, in the John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson administrations, he held the posts of Director of Defense Research and Engineering (1961–1965) and Secretary of the Air Force (1965–1969).[1]
A child prodigy, Brown graduated from the Bronx High School of Science at age 15, and earned a Ph.D. in physics from Columbia University at age 21.[2] As Secretary of Defense, he set the groundwork for the Camp David Accords, took part in strategic arms negotiations with the Soviet Union and supported, unsuccessfully, ratification of the SALT II treaty.
Brown was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Abraham, a lawyer who had fought in World War I, and Gertrude (Cohen) Brown, a diamond merchant’s bookkeeper.[3] His parents were secular Jews and strong supporters of Franklin D. Roosevelt.[2] From a very young age Brown was drawn to mathematics and physics; he enrolled as a student at the Bronx High School of Science, from which he graduated at age 15 with a grade average of 99.5.[2] He then immediately entered Columbia University, earning an A.B. summa cum laude at 17 years of age, as well as the Green Memorial Prize for the best academic record. He continued as a graduate student at Columbia, and was awarded a Ph.D. in physics in 1949, when he was 21.[2][4]
After a short period of teaching and postdoctoral research, Brown became a research scientist at the Radiation Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. In 1952 he joined the staff of the University of California Radiation Laboratory at Livermore and became its director in 1960. At Livermore, Brown led a team of six other physicists (all older than he was) who used some of the first computers, along with mathematics and engineering, to reduce the size of thermonuclear warheads for strategic military use. Brown and his team helped make Livermore’s reputation by designing nuclear warheads small and light enough to be placed on the Navy’s nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs).[2] During the 1950s he served as a member of, or consultant to, several federal scientific bodies and as senior science adviser at the 1958-59 Conference on the Discontinuance of Nuclear Tests.[citation needed]
Brown worked under Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara as Director of Defense Research and Engineering from 1961-65, and then as Secretary of the Air Force from October 1965 to January 1969, first under McNamara and then under Clark Clifford. From 1969-77, he was President of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).[citation needed]
Much more at Wikipedia.
RE: Obituaries - pbrower2a - 01-13-2019
Marketing maven who changed the way many of us buy stuff,
Lester Wunderman (June 22, 1920 – January 9, 2019) was an advertising executive widely considered the creator of modern-day direct marketing. His innovations included the magazine subscription card, the toll-free 1-800 number, loyalty rewards programs, and many more. He identified, named, and defined the term "direct marketing" in a 1967 speech at MIT, and was inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame in 1998.
............................
In 1947, he was hired as a copywriter at Maxwell Sackheim & Co. While there, he noted that their "mail order" accounts had the potential to be built into a broader line of business. He introduced a "direct marketing" approach to service them, using the medium of clients’ mailboxes as a way to develop a more personal connection with potential customers than general advertising had previously found possible.
To expand the direct marketing approach, Wunderman and his brother Irving, along with two colleagues, Ed Ricotta and Harry Kline, met on August 20, 1958, in Wunderman's "office" - a $30-a-night room at the Hotel Winslow in New York City - and with combined assets of $60,000 founded their own agency, Wunderman, Ricotta & Kline. In 1958, the firm opened its doors in New York City with a staff of seven. There were no clients. Nevertheless, WR&K attracted more than $2 million in billings during its first year. WR&K (later acquired by Young & Rubicam and eventually called Wunderman) was responsible for developing and/or promoting the Columbia Record Club, the 1-800 toll-free number for businesses (developed for a Toyota campaign), the magazine subscription card, and the postal ZIP code system. A long-time relationship with American Express also led to the first customer rewards program—a breakthrough means of keeping customers loyal to a brand that has since transformed the travel and retail industries as well.
Wunderman was elected to the Direct Marketing Hall of Fame in 1983 and the Advertising Hall of Fame in 1998. He received an honorary doctorate from Brooklyn College, City University of New York in 1984.[2] He was named one of twenty “Advertising Legends and Leaders” by AdWeek Magazine in 1998. In the July 23, 2001 issue of Time Magazine, he along with David Ogilvy and Sergio Zyman were heralded as “Great Pitchmen Over the Years.”[3]
Wunderman lectured at a host of schools, including Columbia University, Fordham University, Boston University, and M.I.T. His book Being Direct: Making Advertising Pay was published in January 1997 and republished with new material in 2004. An ebook version, which includes a new introduction from the author, was published in 2011.
An avid art collector, Wunderman donated nearly 300 works of Dogon artifacts to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the balance of his Dogon collection to the Musée de l'Homme in Paris, France. He was an exhibited photographer for many years. He studied photography at the New School for Social Research and then with private instructors. Fifty of his photographs of his Dogon art are part of the permanent collection of New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and thirteen other museums. His work has been represented by galleries in New York and the village of Mougins, France. He, Jacqueline Kennedy, Karl Katz, and Cornell Capa helped found the International Center of Photography in New York. His book of photographs, named "Wunderman", has been published and distributed in 2008 by the global advertising agency that bears his name.
Beginning in 2010, a collection of Wunderman's papers have been housed at the Rubenstein Library at Duke University.[2] He also served as Chairman Emeritus of Wunderman.
RE: Obituaries - pbrower2a - 01-14-2019
Fine New York Yankees' pitcher:
Melvin Leon "Mel" Stottlemyre Sr. (November 13, 1941 – January 13, 2019) was an American professional baseball pitcher and pitching coach. He played for 11 seasons in Major League Baseball for the New York Yankees, and coached for 23 seasons. He was a five-time MLB All-Star and five-time World Series champion, as a coach.
Stottlemyre pitched in American Legion Baseball and attended Mabton High School in Mabton, Washington, and Yakima Valley Community College. A scout for the New York Yankees discovered Stottlemyre pitching for Yakima's baseball team, and signed him to a contract with no signing bonus on June 10, 1961. The Yankees assigned him to the Harlan Smokies of the Rookie-level Appalachian League. After appearing in eight games, the Yankees promoted him to the Auburn Yankees of the Class D New York–Penn League, and he appeared in seven games for Auburn.
Stottlemyre pitched to a 17–9 win–loss record and a 2.50 earned run average (ERA) with the Greensboro Yankees of the Class B Carolina League in 1962, and was promoted to the Richmond Virginians of the Class AAA International League in 1963. He alternated between starting and relieving for Richmond, before Ralph Houk, the Yankees' general manager, insisted that Stottlemyre be used exclusively as a starting pitcher. He recorded a 1.42 ERA in the 1964 season, the best in the International League.[1]
Called up midseason in 1964, Stottlemyre went 9–3 to help the Yankees to their fifth consecutive pennant while being on the cover of The Sporting News. In the 1964 World Series, Stottlemyre faced Bob Gibson of the St. Louis Cardinals three times in the seven-game Series. Stottlemyre bested Gibson in Game 2 to even the series, and got a no-decision in Game 5, but lost the decisive Game 7 as the Cardinals won the Series.[2]
Stottlemyre was named to the American League's (AL) roster for the 1965 Major League Baseball (MLB) All-Star Game, though he did not appear in the game.[3] He won 20 games in the 1965 season,[4] and led the AL with 18 complete games, 291 innings pitched, and 1,188 batters faced.[5] He appeared in the 1966 MLB All-Star Game.[6] He led the league with 20 losses.[7] Stottlemyre won 20 games in the 1968 and 1969 seasons.[4]
Stottlemyre threw 40 shutouts in his 11-season career, the same number as Hall of Fame lefty Sandy Koufax, which ties for 44th best all-time. Eighteen of those shutouts came in a three-season span from 1971-73.[8] The Yankees released Stottlemyre before the 1975 season.[9] Stottlemyre retired with 164 career wins and a 2.97 ERA.[4]
Known as a solid-hitting pitcher, on July 20, 1965, Stottlemyre once hit a rare inside-the-park grand slam. On September 26, 1964, he recorded five base hits in five at bats.[10]
More at Wikipedia
RE: Obituaries - beechnut79 - 01-14-2019
(01-14-2019, 02:43 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Fine New York Yankees' pitcher:But shortly after that the AL took the bats out of the pitchers' hand with the launching of the DH. But pitchers still hit in the NL even though technically MLB is now one organization. Therefore the two leagues didn't merge completely the way they did in the NFL.
Melvin Leon "Mel" Stottlemyre Sr. (November 13, 1941 – January 13, 2019) was an American professional baseball pitcher and pitching coach. He played for 11 seasons in Major League Baseball for the New York Yankees, and coached for 23 seasons. He was a five-time MLB All-Star and five-time World Series champion, as a coach.
Stottlemyre pitched in American Legion Baseball and attended Mabton High School in Mabton, Washington, and Yakima Valley Community College. A scout for the New York Yankees discovered Stottlemyre pitching for Yakima's baseball team, and signed him to a contract with no signing bonus on June 10, 1961. The Yankees assigned him to the Harlan Smokies of the Rookie-level Appalachian League. After appearing in eight games, the Yankees promoted him to the Auburn Yankees of the Class D New York–Penn League, and he appeared in seven games for Auburn.
Stottlemyre pitched to a 17–9 win–loss record and a 2.50 earned run average (ERA) with the Greensboro Yankees of the Class B Carolina League in 1962, and was promoted to the Richmond Virginians of the Class AAA International League in 1963. He alternated between starting and relieving for Richmond, before Ralph Houk, the Yankees' general manager, insisted that Stottlemyre be used exclusively as a starting pitcher. He recorded a 1.42 ERA in the 1964 season, the best in the International League.[1]
Called up midseason in 1964, Stottlemyre went 9–3 to help the Yankees to their fifth consecutive pennant while being on the cover of The Sporting News. In the 1964 World Series, Stottlemyre faced Bob Gibson of the St. Louis Cardinals three times in the seven-game Series. Stottlemyre bested Gibson in Game 2 to even the series, and got a no-decision in Game 5, but lost the decisive Game 7 as the Cardinals won the Series.[2]
Stottlemyre was named to the American League's (AL) roster for the 1965 Major League Baseball (MLB) All-Star Game, though he did not appear in the game.[3] He won 20 games in the 1965 season,[4] and led the AL with 18 complete games, 291 innings pitched, and 1,188 batters faced.[5] He appeared in the 1966 MLB All-Star Game.[6] He led the league with 20 losses.[7] Stottlemyre won 20 games in the 1968 and 1969 seasons.[4]
Stottlemyre threw 40 shutouts in his 11-season career, the same number as Hall of Fame lefty Sandy Koufax, which ties for 44th best all-time. Eighteen of those shutouts came in a three-season span from 1971-73.[8] The Yankees released Stottlemyre before the 1975 season.[9] Stottlemyre retired with 164 career wins and a 2.97 ERA.[4]
Known as a solid-hitting pitcher, on July 20, 1965, Stottlemyre once hit a rare inside-the-park grand slam. On September 26, 1964, he recorded five base hits in five at bats.[10]
More at Wikipedia
RE: Obituaries - pbrower2a - 01-15-2019
Carol Channing, long-time entertainer:
Carol Elaine Channing (January 31, 1921 – January 15, 2019) was an American actress, singer, dancer and comedian. Known for starring in Broadway and film musicals, her characters typically radiated a fervent expressiveness and an easily identifiable voice, whether singing or for comedic effect. Channing also studied acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City.
She began as a Broadway musical actress, starring in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes in 1949 and Hello, Dolly! in 1964, when she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical. She revived both roles several times throughout her career, most recently playing Dolly in 1995. Channing was nominated for her first Tony Award in 1956 for The Vamp followed by a nomination in 1961 for Show Girl. She received her fourth Tony Award nomination for the musical Lorelei in 1974.
As a film actress, she won the Golden Globe Award and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Muzzy in Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). Her other film appearances include The First Traveling Saleslady (1956) and Skidoo (1968). On television, she appeared as an entertainer on variety shows, from The Ed Sullivan Show in the 1950s to Hollywood Squares. She had a standout performance as The White Queen in the TV production of Alice in Wonderland (1985), and had the first of many TV specials in 1966, An Evening with Carol Channing.[2]
Channing was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981 and received a Lifetime Achievement Tony Award in 1995. She continued to perform and make appearances well into her 90s, singing songs from her repertoire and sharing stories with fans, cabaret style. She released an autobiography, Just Lucky I Guess, in 2002, and Larger Than Life, a documentary film about her career, was released in 2012.[3]
Much more at Wikipedia.
RE: Obituaries - pbrower2a - 01-20-2019
sociologist Nathan Glazer
Nathan Glazer (February 25, 1923 – January 19, 2019) was an American sociologist who taught at the University of California, Berkeley and for several decades at Harvard University.[1][2][3] He was a co-editor of the now-defunct policy journal The Public Interest.[4][5]
Known for books such as Beyond the Melting Pot, which deal with race and ethnicity, Glazer was critical of some of the Great Society programs of the mid-1960s.
He was often considered neoconservative in his thinking on domestic policy,[6][7][8] but remained a Democrat.[2] He described himself as "indifferent" to the neoconservative label with which he is most associated and remarked that it was an appellation not of his choosing.[3][8]
Much more at Wikipedia
RE: Obituaries - pbrower2a - 01-27-2019
Comedienne Kaye Ballard
Ballard established herself as a musical comedian in the 1940s, joining the Spike Jones touring revue of entertainers. Capable of playing broad physical comedy as well as stand-up dialogue routines, she became familiar in television and stage productions. A phrase her mother had used when Kaye was a child, "Good luck with your MOUTH!", became her catchphrase in her sketches and on television. Ballard made her television debut on Henry Morgan's Great Talent Hunt, a short-lived NBC program hosted by Henry Morgan which first aired January 26, 1951. In 1954, she was the first person to record the song "Fly Me to the Moon".[citation needed]
In 1957, she and Alice Ghostley played the two wicked stepsisters in the live telecast of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, starring Julie Andrews in the title role. During the 1961–1963 television seasons, Ballard was a regular on NBC's The Perry Como Show, as part of the Kraft Music Hall Players, along with Don Adams, Paul Lynde and Sandy Stewart. In 1962, she released an LP record, [[Peanuts (album}|Peanuts]], on which she played Lucy van Pelt from the comic strip namesake of the album (with Arthur Siegel playing Charlie Brown), and dramatizing a series of vignettes drawn from the strip's archive. In 1964 she had a guest role on The Patty Duke Show, playing a teacher for would-be models. From 1967 to 1969, she co-starred as Kaye Buell, a woman whose son marries her next door neighbor's daughter, in the NBC sitcom The Mothers-in-Law, with Eve Arden playing her neighbor. From 1970 to 1972, she also appeared as a regular on The Doris Day Show, playing restaurant owner Angie Pallucci . She made appearances on the American television game show Match Game. In 1977, she was a guest star on The Muppet Show. She also appeared on the television series Alice, in which she played a kleptomaniac phony medium, as well as Daddy Dearest, where she guest-starred opposite Richard Lewis and Don Rickles as a DMV clerk.[1]
Ballard starred on Broadway as Helen in The Golden Apple (1954) introducing the song "Lazy Afternoon". She portrayed Ruth in Joseph Papp's The Pirates of Penzance, Rosalie in Carnival! and the title role in Molly, an unsuccessful musical adaptation of the popular radio serial The Goldbergs. She created the role of the Countess and closed out-of-town in Marc Blitzstein's Reuben, Reuben, and played Ruth Sherwood in Wonderful Town at New York City Center in 1963.
In Long Beach, California, she played Mama Morton in Chicago and fought with a vacuum cleaner as Pauline in No, No, Nanette. In 1998, she played Hattie Walker in the Paper Mill Playhouse's acclaimed 1998 revival of Stephen Sondheim's Follies.[2] In 2005, she appeared in a road-company production of Nunsense, written by Dan Goggin. The following year, she completed her autobiography, How I Lost 10 Pounds in 53 Years.[2]
In 1995, she was awarded a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs Walk of Stars.[3]
She appeared in The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! as "Madam A-Go-Go," a mysterious fortune teller who appears in the episode "Fortune Teller". She also performed with The Fabulous Palm Springs Follies at the Plaza Theatre in Palm Springs, California.[4]
In December 2010, she, Donna McKechnie and Liliane Montevecchi starred in a Santa Fe production of From Broadway with Love, staged at the Lensic Theater.[5] Ballard was in the 2012 cabaret show Doin' It for Love, which premiered in Austin, Texas, at the historic Paramount Theatre. Starring Ballard and Montevecchi, the cast included Broadway dancer Lee Roy Reams. (The Austin performance benefited the Texas Humane Legislation Network.[6]) The show then went on to play in Los Angeles on March 8th and 10th of 2012. Ballard announced her official retirement in 2015 at the age of 89.[citation needed]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaye_Ballard
Russell Wayne Baker (August 14, 1925 – January 21, 2019) was an American journalist, narrator, writer of Pulitzer Prize-winning satirical commentary and self-critical prose, and author of Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiography Growing Up (1982).[1] He was a columnist for The New York Times from 1962 to 1998, and hosted the PBS show Masterpiece Theatre from 1992 to 2004. The Forbes Media Guide Five Hundred, 1994 stated: "Baker, thanks to his singular gift of treating serious, even tragic events and trends with gentle humor, has become an American institution."[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Baker
Organist Jean Guillou, who had an eclectic repertory:
Guillou was born in Angers. Following his first studies in piano and organ, he became organist at the church St. Serge in Angers at the age of 12. He studied then at the Paris Conservatoire under Marcel Dupré, Maurice Duruflé and Olivier Messiaen. In 1955, he accepted a position as professor of organ and composition at the Institute of Sacred Music in Lisbon. In 1958 he moved to Berlin, where he lived for the following five years, during which he composed and premiered his first works. In 1963 he returned to Paris, having been appointed Titular Organist at Saint Eustache church in succession to André Marchal. Appointed Organiste Titulaire Emerite at St. Eustache in September 2014, Guillou completed 52 years as organist of that church in March 2015, when he was succeeded by two co-titulaires.[1]
He has a worldwide reputation as a concert organist and improviser. Additionally, he often performrd as a pianist; for example, he gave the English and French premieres of Julius Reubke's neglected piano Sonata in B-flat minor.
Guillou's engagement in organ building led to collaborations with several organ builders and the construction of new instruments in l'Alpe d'Huez( F) (1978, Kleuker), in the Chant d'Oiseau church in Brussels (1981, Kleuker), in the Zürich's Tonhalle (1988, Kleuker-Steinmeyer) in the Conservatory of Naples (2006, Tamburini-Zanin) in the Auditorio de Tenerife (2005, Blancafort) and most recently in the San Antonio dei Portoghesi church in Rome (2008, Mascioni) and in the Cathedral of Leon in Spain (2013, Klais).
He composed over 90 works - for organ, chamber and orchestral music - as well as numerous transcriptions for organ, mainly published by Schott-Music. In addition, he has issued more than 100 recordings (Philips, Dorian, Festivo, Decca, Augure among others) including the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach, César Franck, Robert Schumann, numerous historical improvisations (e.g., Visions Cosmiques - 1969, or Jeux d'orgue - 1970, both re-edited in 2010 by Universal-Decca), as well as most of his own organ compositions on a series of 7 CDs (2010) for the Universal - Decca label.[1]
From 1970-2005, Guillou taught organ performance and improvisation at the annual Züricher International Meisterkurse. Since 2007, these masterclasses have been held at St. Eustache in Paris, France. Among his former pupils : Bernhard Haas, Francesco Filidei, Yanka Hekimova, Livia Mazzanti, Leonid Karev and Zsuzsa Elekes, and Jean-Baptiste Monnot. In July 2015 he was appointed Professor honoris causa at the Saar's Hochschule für Musik. He died in Paris on 26th January 2019.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Guillou#Life
Michel LeGrand, tune-smith:
Michel Legrand (French pronunciation: [miʃɛl ləɡʁɑ̃]; 24 February 1932 – 26 January 2019) was a French musical composer, arranger, conductor, and jazz pianist.[1] Legrand was a prolific composer, having written over 200 film and television scores, in addition to many songs.[2] His scores for the films of French New Wave director Jacques Demy, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), earned Legrand his first Academy Award nominations. Legrand won his first Oscar for the song "The Windmills of Your Mind" from The Thomas Crown Affair (1968).[3]
Legrand was born in Paris[4]. His father, Raymond Legrand, was a conductor and composer[5] and his mother was Marcelle Ter-Mikaëlian, sister of conductor Jacques Hélian.[6]. They married in 1929[6]. He is of Armenian descent.[7].
Legrand composed more than two hundred film and television scores.[8] He won three Oscars[9] and five Grammys[10]. He studied music at the Paris Conservatoire from age 11, working with, among others, Nadia Boulanger[11]. Legrand graduated with top honors as both a composer and a pianist.[8] His sister Christiane Legrand was a member of the Swingle Singers and his niece Victoria Legrand is a member of the indie rock duo Beach House.[12]
Legrand composed music for Jacques Demy's films The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and The Young Girls of Rochefort (1966), and appeared and performed in Agnès Varda's Cleo from 5 to 7 (1961). He also composed music for The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) (which features "The Windmills of Your Mind"), The Lady in the Car with Glasses and a Gun (1970), The Go-Between (1971), Summer of '42 (1971), Orson Welles's last-completed film F for Fake (1974) and would later compose the score for Welles's posthumously-released movie The Other Side of the Wind (2018). He also composed the score for Yentl (1983), as well as the film score for Louis Malle's film Atlantic City (1980). His instrumental version of the theme from Brian's Song charted 56th in 1972 on the Billboard's pop chart.[13]
He died in Paris on 26 January 2019 at the age of 86, a month shy of his 87th birthday.[14] He remained active until his death and had concerts scheduled to take place in the spring.[15]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Legrand
RE: Obituaries - pbrower2a - 02-03-2019
Quarterback Wade Wilson
Charles Wade Wilson (February 1, 1959 – February 1, 2019) was an American football coach and previously a quarterback who played for the Minnesota Vikings, Atlanta Falcons, New Orleans Saints, Dallas Cowboys and the Oakland Raiders in a seventeen-year career from 1981 to 1998 in the National Football League (NFL). He was quarterbacks coach for the Dallas Cowboys from 2000 to 2002 and from 2007 to 2017 and the Chicago Bears from 2004 to 2006.[1] He played college football for Texas A&M University-Commerce (formerly East Texas State University), where he was an NAIA All-American Quarterback and led the Lions to the NAIA national semifinals during the 1980 season.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wade_Wilson_(American_football)
RE: Obituaries - pbrower2a - 02-08-2019
Baseball great Frank Robinson
Frank Robinson (August 31, 1935 – February 7, 2019) was an American outfielder and manager in Major League Baseball (MLB) who played for five teams from 1956 to 1976, and became the only player to be named the Most Valuable Player of both the National League and American League.[1] He was named the NL MVP with the Cincinnati Reds in 1961 after leading the team to the pennant with a .323 batting average, and won the AL MVP in 1966 in his first season with the Baltimore Orioles after winning the Triple Crown. Robinson helped lead the Orioles to World Series titles in 1966 and 1970. A 14-time All-Star, Robinson's 586 career home runs ranked fourth in major league history at the time of his retirement, and he ranked sixth in total bases (5,373) and tenth in runs scored (1,829).[2] Robinson was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 1982.
In 1975, Robinson became the first black manager in major league history.[3] He managed the Cleveland Indians during the last two years of his playing career, compiling a 186–189 record. He went on to manage the San Francisco Giants, the Baltimore Orioles, and the Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals. For most of the last two decades of his life, Robinson served in various executive positions for Major League Baseball, concluding as honorary President of the American League.[4]
Much more at Wikipedia
![[Image: 95px-Indians20_FrankRobinson.png]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/82/Indians20_FrankRobinson.png/95px-Indians20_FrankRobinson.png)
![[Image: 95px-CincinnatiReds20.png]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bd/CincinnatiReds20.png/95px-CincinnatiReds20.png)
![[Image: 95px-FrankRobinson20.png]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/29/FrankRobinson20.png/95px-FrankRobinson20.png)
![[Image: Robinson_Frank_Plaque_NBL.png?itok=zCfBjma3]](https://baseballhall.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/Robinson_Frank_Plaque_NBL.png?itok=zCfBjma3)
[url=https://baseballhall.org/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/Robinson_Frank_Plaque_NBL.png?itok=zCfBjma3][/url]Frank Robinson had the ability and intensity on the diamond that few possess. Robinson would crowd the plate like he owned it. “Pitchers did me a favor when they knocked me down,” he said. “It made me more determined. I wouldn’t let that pitcher get me out. They say you can’t hit if you’re on your back, but I didn’t hit on my back. I got up.”
He was recognized as one of the most feared baserunners of his era and showed reckless abandon on the base paths. “The baselines belongs to the runner, and whenever I was running the bases, I always slid hard. I wanted infielders to have that instant’s hesitation about coming across the bag at second or about standing in there awaiting a throw to make a tag. There are only 27 outs in a ballgame, and it was my job to save one for my team every time I possibly could.”
Robinson broke into the National League as a 20-year-old in 1956 and tied a rookie record with 38 home runs en route to NL Rookie of the Year honors. Over the next decade and a half, Robinson was one of the most feared hitters in the game. He won the Triple Crown in 1966 and was the first player in major league history to win the MVP Award in both leagues. A 12-time All-Star, he also took home World Series MVP honors in 1966 and the All-Star Game MVP Award in 1971.
When asked by a fan how he would pitch to Frank Robinson, All-Star pitcher Jim Bouton replied, “Reluctantly.” In 1975, as his playing days wound down with the Cleveland Indians, he was named the club’s player-manager. He was the first African-American to manage a major league club. He also managed the Giants, Orioles, Expos and Nationals and was named American League Manager of the Year in 1989.
Former Expos and Nationals GM Jim Bowden commented, “I have a lot of respect for Frank Robinson. He has respect for the game of baseball and the way it should be played. I was pleased because he is a man of his word. He said he was going to do something, and he follows up and he does it.”
https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/robinson-frank
As a fan of the Detroit Tigers in the late 1960s and early 1970s I considered him Menace #1.
RE: Obituaries - pbrower2a - 02-08-2019
Former Congressional Representative John Dingell (D-MI):
John David Dingell Jr. (July 8, 1926 – February 7, 2019) was an American politician who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from December 13, 1955, until January 3, 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, he holds the record for longest-ever serving Congressperson in American history, representing Michigan for over 59 years. He most recently served as the representative for Michigan's 12th congressional district.
Dingell began his congressional career representing Michigan's 16th district by succeeding his father, John Dingell Sr., who had held the seat for 22 years. Having served for over 59 years,[1] he has the longest Congressional tenure in U.S. history. He was also the longest-serving Dean of the U.S. House of Representatives and Dean of the Michigan congressional delegation. Dingell was one of the final two World War II veterans to have served in Congress; the other is Texas Representative Ralph Hall, who also left Congress in 2015.[2] Dingell was a longtime member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and chaired the committee for multiple terms.
Dingell announced on February 24, 2014, that he would not seek reelection to a 31st term in Congress.[3] His wife, Debbie Dingell, ran to succeed her husband and defeated Republican Terry Bowman in the general election on November 4, 2014.[4][5] He was the last member of Congress who had served in the 1950s and during the presidencies of Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2014.[6]
Much more at Wikipedia.
RE: Obituaries - pbrower2a - 02-08-2019
British stage and screen actor Albert Finney:
Albert Finney (9 May 1936 – 7 February 2019) was an English actor. He attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and began to work in the theatre as a Shakespearean actor before switching to film. Finney quickly attained prominence on screen in the early 1960s, debuting with The Entertainer (1960), directed by Tony Richardson, who had previously directed him in plays. He maintained a successful career in theatre, film and television.
He is known for his roles in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (also 1960), Tom Jones (1963), Two for the Road (1967), Scrooge (1970), Annie (1982), The Dresser (1983), Miller's Crossing (1990), A Man of No Imprtance (1994), Erin Brockovich (2000), Big Fish (2003), The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007), The Bourne Legacy (2012), and the James Bond film Skyfall (2012).
A recipient of BAFTA, Golden Globe, Emmy and Screen Actors Guild Awards, Finney was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor four times, for Tom Jones (1963), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The Dresser (1983), and Under the Volcano (1984); he was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Erin Brockovich (2000). His performance as Winston Churchill in the BBC–HBO television biographical film The Gathering Storm (2002) saw him receive a number of accolades.
More at Wikipedia.
RE: Obituaries - pbrower2a - 02-08-2019
Long-time tap-dancer Mabel Lee
Mable Lee (August 2, 1921-February 7, 2019) was an American jazz tap dancer, singer, and entertainer. She had been performing since the age of four, appearing on Broadway, at the Apollo Theater, and in numerous other shows.[1]
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, to Rosella Moore and Alton Lee, Mable Lee was a child prodigy who began performing when she was four years old, at nine years of age was performing in local clubs with a big band and as a 12-year-old was appearing at the Top Hat nightclub in Georgia.[1] She moved to New York City in 1940 to pursue a career as a singer and dancer, and soon joined the chorus of the Apollo Theater in Harlem. She subsequently worked at various nightclubs, before going to London, where she spent 18 months and performed at the Palladium.[1]
During World War II, she toured with the USO as a member of their first all-black unit. Known as the "Queen of the Soundies" for her dancing in the short musical films, Lee was featured on the cover of Ebony magazine for March 1947.[2] She also has appeared on Broadway in multiple productions, including the 1952 revival of the musical Shuffle Along.[3]
Lee was the 2004 winner of the Flo-Bert Award that honors "outstanding figures in the field of tap dance",[4] and a 2008 Inductee into the Tap Dance Hall of Fame.[1]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mable_Lee
RE: Obituaries - pbrower2a - 02-09-2019
oceanographer of the Greatest Generation
Walter Heinrich Munk (October 19, 1917 – February 8, 2019) was an American physical oceanographer.[1] He was a professor of geophysics emeritus and held the Secretary of the Navy/Chief of Naval Operations Oceanography Chair at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California.
Munk was born in 1917 in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, to a Jewish family.[2] He was sent to a boys' preparatory school in upper New York state in 1932.[3][4] The family selected New York because they envisioned a career in finance for Munk in a New York bank with connections to the family business. His father, Dr. Hans Munk, and his mother, Rega Brunner, divorced when Munk was a child. His maternal grandfather was a prominent banker and Austrian politician, Lucian Brunner (1850–1914). His stepfather, Dr. Rudolf Engelsberg, was briefly a member of the Austrian government of President Engelbert Dollfuss.[5]
Munk worked at the firm for three years and studied at Columbia University. He hated banking, and left the firm to attend the California Institute of Technology, where he earned a B.S. (1939) in physics. He applied for a summer job at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California.[5] The next year the director of Scripps, the distinguished Norwegian oceanographer Harald Ulrik Sverdrup, accepted him as a doctoral student, but told Munk that he did "not know of a single job in oceanography which would become available in the next decade".
Munk completed an M.S. in geophysics at the California Institute of Technology [6] in 1940 and a PhD in oceanography from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1947. After graduation, Scripps hired him as an assistant professor of geophysics. He became a full professor there in 1954.
In 1968 Munk became a member of JASON, a panel of scientists who advise the U.S. government.
On June 20, 1953, Munk married Judith Horton. She was an active participant at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography for decades, where she made major contributions to architecture, campus planning, and the renovation and reuse of historical buildings. She and Walter were frequent traveling companions. Judith Munk died on May 19, 2006. Munk married La Jolla community leader Mary Coakley in June 2011. He turned 100 in October 2017.[7]
Munk applied for American citizenship in 1939 after the Anschluss and enlisted in the ski troops of the U.S. Army as a private. This was unusual as all the other young men at Scripps joined the U.S. Naval Reserve. Munk was eventually excused from military service to undertake defense-related research at Scripps. He joined several of his colleagues from Scripps at the U.S. Navy Radio and Sound Laboratory, where they developed methods related to amphibious warfare. Their methods were used successfully to predict surf conditions for Allied landings in North Africa, the Pacific theater of war, and on D-Day during the Normandy invasion.[5][8] Munk commented in 2009, "The Normandy landing is famous because weather conditions were very poor and you may not realize it was postponed by General Eisenhower for 24 hours because of the prevailing wave conditions. And then he did decide, in spite of the fact that conditions were not favorable, it would be better to go in than lose the surprise element, which would have been lost if they waited for the next tidal cycle [in] two weeks."[9]
Returning to Scripps from a sabbatical at Cambridge University in England, in 1956 Munk developed plans for a La Jolla branch of the Institute of Geophysics, then a part of the University of California, Los Angeles. With the new branch of IGP, an institution of the wider University of California system, to be focused on planetary physics with an emphasis on the Earth-Moon system, IGP changed its name to the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, IGPP. IGPP at La Jolla was built between 1959–1963 with funding from the University of California, the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the National Science Foundation, and private foundations, [10] [11] The redwood building was designed by architect Lloyd Ruocco, in close consultation with Judith and Walter Munk. The IGPP buildings have become the center of the Scripps campus. Among the early faculty appointments were Carl Eckart, George Backus, Freeman Gilbert and John Miles. The eminent geophysicist Sir Edward "Teddy" Bullard was a regular visitor to IGPP. In 1971 an endowment of $600,000 was established by Cecil Green to support visiting scholars, now known as Green Scholars. Munk served as director of IGPP/LJ from 1963–1982.
In the late 1980s, plans for an expansion of IGPP were developed by Judith and Walter Munk, and Sharyn and John Orcutt, in consultation with a local architect, Fred Liebhardt. The Revelle Laboratory was completed in 1993. At this time the original IGPP building was renamed the Walter and Judith Munk Laboratory for Geophysics. In 1994 the Scripps branch of IGPP was renamed the Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics.
Munk was the first to show rigorously why one side of the Moon always faces the Earth (Munk and McDonald, 1960; and later papers up to 1975), a phenomenon known as tidal locking. Lord Kelvin had also considered this question, and had fashioned a non-quantitative answer being roughly correct. The Moon does not have a molten liquid core, so cannot rotate through the egg-shaped distortion caused by the Earth's gravitational pull. Rotation through this shape requires internal shearing, and only fluids are capable of such rotation with small frictional losses. Thus, the pointy end of the "egg" is gravitationally locked to always point directly towards the Earth, with some small librations, or wobbles. Large objects may strike the Moon from time to time, causing it to rotate about some axis, but it will quickly stop rotating. All frictional effects from such events will also cause the Moon to regress further away from the Earth.
In the 1950s, Munk investigated irregularities in the Earth's rotation, such as the Chandler wobble and annual and long-term changes in the length of day (rate of the Earth's rotation), to see how these were related to geophysical processes such as the changes in the atmosphere, ocean, and core, and the energy dissipated by tidal acceleration. He also investigated how western boundary currents, such as the Gulf Stream, dissipated planetary vorticity. His inviscid theory of these currents did not have a time invariant solution; no simple solution to this problem has ever been found.[citation needed]
In 1957, Munk and Harry Hess suggested the idea behind Project Mohole: to drill into the Mohorovicic Discontinuity and obtain a sample of the Earth's mantle. While such a project was not feasible on land, drilling in the open ocean would be more feasible, because the mantle is much closer to the sea floor. Initially led by the informal group of scientists known as the American Miscellaneous Society (AMSOC, including Hess, Maurice Ewing, and Roger Revelle),[4] the project was eventually taken over by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Initial test drillings into the sea floor led by Willard Bascom occurred off Guadalupe Island, Mexico in March and April 1961.[14] The project became mismanaged and increasingly expensive after Brown and Root won the contract to continue the effort, however, and Congress discontinued the project toward the end of 1966.[15] While Project Mohole was not successful, the idea led to projects such as NSF's Deep Sea Drilling Program.[16]
More at Wikipedia.
RE: Obituaries - pbrower2a - 02-13-2019
The definitive pseudo-intellectual crank Lyndon LaRouche.
I have met his cult twice, once being browbeaten for failing to understand that the British royal family was the leading force behind the international trade in illegal drugs. Another time I encountered them mocking Barack Obama by giving him a Hitler haircut and Hitler hairdo.
I enjoy a good argument, but not with these creeps, and not with $cientology.
Ding, dong, the dean of cranks is dead!
From Wikipedia:
Lyndon Hermyle LaRouche Jr. (September 8, 1922 – February 12, 2019)[1] was an American political activist and founder of the LaRouche movement,[2][3] whose main organization was the National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC). He wrote on economic, scientific, and political topics, as well as on history, philosophy, and psychoanalysis. LaRouche was a presidential candidate in each election from 1976 to 2004, running once for his own U.S. Labor Party and seven times for the Democratic Party nomination.
LaRouche's critics have said that he had "fascistic tendencies", took positions on the far right, and created disinformation.[4]
LaRouche attended Northeastern University in Boston and left in 1942. He later wrote that his teachers "lacked the competence to teach me on conditions I was willing to tolerate".[15] As a Quaker, he was a conscientious objector (CO) during World War II and joined a Civilian Public Service camp.[16] In 1944 he joined the United States Army as a non-combatant and served in India and Burma with medical units. He ultimately worked as an ordnance clerk at the end of the war. He described his decision to serve as one of the most important of his life.[17] While in India he developed sympathy for the Indian Independence movement. LaRouche wrote that many GIs feared they would be asked to support British forces in actions against Indian independence forces and characterized that prospect as "revolting to most of us."[18]
He discussed Marxism in the CO camp, and while traveling home on the SS General Bradley in 1946, he met Don Merrill, a fellow soldier, also from Lynn, who converted him to Trotskyism. Back in the U.S., he resumed his education at Northeastern University. He returned to Lynn in 1948 and the next year joined the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), adopting the name "Lyn Marcus" for his political work.[19] He arrived in New York City in 1953, where he worked as a management consultant.[20] In 1954 he married Janice Neuberger, a psychiatrist[citation needed] and member of the SWP. Their son, Daniel, was born in 1956.[21]
By 1961 the LaRouches were living on Central Park West in Manhattan, and LaRouche's activities were mostly focused on his career and not on the SWP. He and his wife separated in 1963, and he moved into a Greenwich Village apartment with another SWP member, Carol Schnitzer, also known as Larrabee.[23] In 1964 he began an association with an SWP faction called the Revolutionary Tendency, a faction which was later expelled from the SWP, and came under the influence of British Trotskyist leader Gerry Healy.[24]
For six months, LaRouche worked with American Healyite leader Tim Wohlforth, who later wrote that LaRouche had a "gargantuan ego", and "a marvelous ability to place any world happening in a larger context, which seemed to give the event additional meaning, but his thinking was schematic, lacking factual detail and depth." Leaving Wohlforth's group, LaRouche briefly joined the rival Spartacist League before announcing his intention to build a new "Fifth International".[22]
In 1967 LaRouche began teaching classes on Marx's dialectical materialism at New York City's Free School,[25] and attracted a group of students from Columbia University and the City College of New York, recommending that they read Das Kapital, as well as Hegel, Kant, and Leibniz. During the 1968 Columbia University protests, he organized his supporters under the name National Caucus of Labor Committees (NCLC).[25] The aim of the NCLC was to win control of the Students for a Democratic Society branch—the university's main activist group—and build a political alliance between students, local residents, organized labor, and the Columbia faculty.[26][27][28][29] By 1973 the NCLC had over 600 members in 25 cities—including West Berlin and Stockholm—and produced what Dennis King called the most literate of the far-left papers, New Solidarity.[30][31] The NCLC's internal activities became highly regimented over the next few years. Members gave up their jobs and devoted themselves to the group and its leader, believing it would soon take control of America's trade unions and overthrow the government.[32][33][34]
Robert J. Alexander writes that LaRouche first established an NCLC "intelligence network" in 1971. Members all over the world would send information to NCLC headquarters, which would distribute the information via briefings and other publications. LaRouche organized the network as a series of news services and magazines, which critics say was done to gain access to government officials under press cover.[35] The publications included Executive Intelligence Review, founded in 1974. Other periodicals included New Solidarity, Fusion Magazine, 21st Century Science and Technology, and Campaigner Magazine. His news services and publishers included American System Publications, Campaigner Publications, New Solidarity International Press Service, and The New Benjamin Franklin House Publishing Company. LaRouche acknowledged in 1980 that his followers impersonated reporters and others, saying it had to be done for his security.[36] In 1982, U.S. News and World Report sued New Solidarity International Press Service and Campaigner Publications for damages, alleging that members were impersonating its reporters in phone calls.[37]
U.S. sources told The Washington Post in 1985 that the LaRouche organization had assembled a worldwide network of government and military contacts, and that his researchers sometimes supplied information to government officials. Bobby Ray Inman, the CIA's deputy director in 1981 and 1982, said LaRouche and his wife had visited him offering information about the West German Green Party, and a CIA spokesman said LaRouche met Deputy Director John McMahon in 1983 to discuss one of LaRouche's trips overseas. An aide to William Clark said when LaRouche's associates discussed technology or economics, they made good sense and seemed to be qualified. Norman Bailey, formerly with the National Security Council, said in 1984 that LaRouche's staff comprised "one of the best private intelligence services in the world. ... They do know a lot of people around the world. They do get to talk to prime ministers and presidents." Several government officials feared a security leak from the government's ties with the movement.[38] According to critics, the supposed behind-the-scenes processes were more often flights of fancy than inside information. Douglas Foster wrote in Mother Jones in 1982 that the briefings consisted of disinformation, "hate-filled" material about enemies, phony letters, intimidation, fake newspaper articles, and dirty tricks campaigns.[39] Opponents were accused of being gay or Nazis, or were linked to murders, which the movement called "psywar techniques."[40][41]
From the 1970s through to the first decade of the 21st century, LaRouche founded several groups and companies. In addition to the National Caucus of Labor Committees, there was the Citizens Electoral Council (Australia), the National Democratic Policy Committee, the Fusion Energy Foundation, and the U.S. Labor Party. In 1984 he founded the Schiller Institute in Germany with his second wife, and three political parties there—the Europäische Arbeiterpartei, Patrioten für Deutschland, and Bürgerrechtsbewegung Solidarität—and in 2000 the Worldwide LaRouche Youth Movement. His printing services included Computron Technologies, Computype, World Composition Services, and PMR Printing Company, Inc, or PMR Associates.[42]
LaRouche wrote in his 1987 autobiography that violent altercations had begun in 1969 between his NCLC members and several New Left groups when Mark Rudd's faction began assaulting LaRouche's faction at Columbia University.[43] Press accounts alleged that between April and September 1973, during what LaRouche called "Operation Mop-Up," NCLC members began physically attacking members of leftist groups that LaRouche classified as "left-protofascists"; an editorial in LaRouche's New Solidarity said of the Communist Party that the movement "must dispose of this stinking corpse."[44][45][46] Armed with chains, bats, and martial-art nunchuk sticks, NCLC members assaulted Communist Party, SWP, and Progressive Labor Party members and Black Power activists, on the streets and during meetings. At least 60 assaults were reported. The operation ended when police arrested several of LaRouche's followers; there were no convictions, and LaRouche maintained they had acted in self-defense. Journalist and LaRouche expert Dennis King writes that the FBI may have tried to aggravate the strife, using measures such as anonymous mailings, to keep the groups at each other's throats.[47][48][49][50][51][52] LaRouche said he met representatives of the Soviet Union at the United Nations in 1974 and 1975 to discuss attacks by the Communist Party USA on the NCLC and to propose a merger, but said he received no assistance from them.[53] One FBI memo, recovered under the Freedom of Information Act, proposes assisting the CPUSA in an investigation "for the purpose of ultimately eliminating him [LaRouche] and the threat of the NCLC." (see image to left)
LaRouche's critics such as Dennis King and Antony Lerman allege that in 1973 and with little warning, LaRouche adopted more extreme ideas, a process accompanied by a campaign of violence against his opponents on the left, and the development of conspiracy theories and paranoia about his personal safety.[54] According to these accounts, he began to believe he was under threat of assassination from the Soviet Union, the CIA, Libya, drug dealers, and bankers.[55] He also established a "Biological Holocaust Task Force," which, according to LaRouche, analyzed the public health consequences of International Monetary Fund (IMF) austerity policies toward impoverished nations in Africa, and predicted that epidemics of cholera as well as possibly entirely new diseases would strike Africa in the 1980s.[56][57]
LaRouche founded the U.S. Labor Party in 1973 as the political arm of the NCLC.[58][59] At first the party was "preaching Marxist revolution" but by 1977 they shifted from left-wing to right-wing politics.[60] A two-part article in The New York Times in 1979 by Howard Blum and Paul L. Montgomery alleged that LaRouche had turned the party (at that point with 1,000 members in 37 offices in North America, and 26 in Europe and Latin America) into an extreme-right, antisemitic organization, despite the presence of Jewish members. LaRouche denied the newspaper's charges, and said he had filed a $100 million libel suit; his press secretary said the articles were intended to "set up a credible climate for an assassination hit."[61]
The Times alleged that members had taken courses in how to use knives and rifles; that a farm in upstate New York had been used for guerrilla training; and that several members had undergone a six-day anti-terrorist training course run by Mitchell WerBell III, an arms dealer and former member of the Office of Strategic Services, who said he had ties to the CIA. Journalists and publications the party regarded as unfriendly were harassed, and it published a list of potential assassins it saw as a threat. LaRouche expected members to devote themselves entirely to the party, and place their savings and possessions at its disposal, as well as take out loans on its behalf. Party officials would decide who each member should live with, and if someone left the movement, his remaining partner was expected to live separately from him. LaRouche would question spouses about their partner's sexual habits, the Times said, and in one case reportedly ordered a member to stop having sex with his wife because it was making him "politically impotent."[62][63][64]
LaRouche began writing in 1973 about the use of certain psychological techniques on recruits. In an article called "Beyond Psychoanalysis," he wrote that a worker's persona had to be stripped away to arrive at a state he called "little me," from which it would be possible to "rebuild their personalities around a new socialist identity," according to The Washington Post.[65][66] The New York Times wrote that the first such session—which LaRouche called "ego-stripping"—involved a German member, Konstantin George, in the summer of 1973. LaRouche said that during the session he discovered that a plot to assassinate him had been implanted in George's mind.[67]
He recorded sessions with a 26-year-old British member, Chris White, who had moved to England with LaRouche's former partner, Carol Schnitzer. In December 1973 LaRouche asked the couple to return to the U.S. His followers sent tapes of the subsequent sessions with White to The New York Times as evidence of an assassination plot. According to the Times, "[t]here are sounds of weeping, and vomiting on the tapes, and Mr. White complains of being deprived of sleep, food and cigarettes. At one point someone says 'raise the voltage,' but (LaRouche) says this was associated with the bright lights used in the questioning rather than an electric shock." The Times wrote, "Mr. White complains of a terrible pain in his arm, then LaRouche can be heard saying, 'That's not real. That's in the program'." LaRouche told the newspaper White had been "reduced to an eight-cycle infinite loop with look-up table, with homosexual bestiality." He said White had not been harmed and that a physician—a LaRouche movement member—had been present throughout.[67][68] White ended up telling LaRouche he had been programmed by the CIA and British intelligence to set up LaRouche for assassination by Cuban exile frogmen.[69]
According to The Washington Post, "brainwashing hysteria" took hold of the movement. One activist said he attended meetings where members were writhing on the floor saying they needed de-programming.[15] In two weeks in January 1974, the group issued 41 separate press releases about brainwashing. One activist, Alice Weitzman, expressed skepticism about the claims.[70]
LaRouche established contacts with Willis Carto's Liberty Lobby and elements of the Ku Klux Klan in 1974.[71] Frank Donner and Randall Rothenberg wrote that he made successful overtures to the Liberty Lobby and George Wallace's American Independent Party, adding that the "racist" policies of LaRouche's U.S. Labor Party endeared it to members of the Ku Klux Klan.[72] George Michael, in Willis Carto and the American Far Right, says that LaRouche shared with the Liberty Lobby's Willis Carto an antipathy towards the Rockefeller family.[73] The Liberty Lobby defended its alliance with LaRouche by saying the U.S. Labor Party had been able to "confuse, disorient, and disunify the Left."[73]
Gregory Rose, a former chief of counter-intelligence for LaRouche who became an FBI informant in 1973, said that while the LaRouche movement had extensive links to the Liberty Lobby, there was also copious evidence of a connection to the Soviet Union. George and Wilcox say neither connection amounted to much—they assert that LaRouche was "definitely not a Soviet agent" and state that while the contact with the Liberty Lobby is often used to imply "'links' and 'ties' between LaRouche and the extreme right," it was in fact transient and marked by mutual suspicion. The Liberty Lobby soon pronounced itself disillusioned with LaRouche, citing his movement's adherence to "basic socialist positions" and his softness on "the major Zionist groups" as fundamental points of difference. According to George and Wilcox, American neo-Nazi leaders expressed misgivings over the number of Jews and members of other minority groups in his organization, and did not consider LaRouche an ally.[74] Johnson, in Architects of Fear, similarly states that LaRouche's overtures to far right groups were pragmatic rather than sincere. A 1975 party memo spoke of uniting with these groups only to overthrow the established order, adding that once that goal had been accomplished, "eliminating our right-wing opposition will be comparatively easy."[75]
Howard Blum wrote in The New York Times that, from 1976 onwards, party members sent reports to the FBI and local police on members of left-wing organizations. In 1977, he wrote, commercial reports on U.S. anti-apartheid groups were prepared by LaRouche members for the South African government, student dissidents were reported to the Shah of Iran's Savak secret police, and the anti-nuclear movement was investigated on behalf of power companies. Johnson says the intelligence network was made up of "obnoxious devotees commandeering WATS lines and tricking bureaucrats into giving them information."[76] By the late 1970s, members were exchanging almost daily information with Roy Frankhouser, a government informant and infiltrator of both far right and far left groups who was involved with the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party.[77][78][79][80] The LaRouche organization believed Frankhouser to be a federal agent who had been assigned to infiltrate right-wing and left-wing groups, and that he had evidence that these groups were actually being manipulated or controlled by the FBI and other agencies.[81][82] LaRouche and his associates considered Frankhouser to be a valuable intelligence contact, and took his links to extremist groups to be a cover for his intelligence work.[77][83][84] Frankhouser played into these expectations, misrepresenting himself as a conduit for communications to LaRouche from "Mr. Ed," an alleged CIA contact, who did not exist.[77][85]
Blum wrote, at around this time, that LaRouche's Computron Technologies Corporation included Mobil Oil and Citibank among its clients, that his World Composition Services had one of the most advanced typesetting complexes in the city and had the Ford Foundation among its clients, and that his PMR Associates produced the party's publications and some high school newspapers.[84]
Around the same time, according to Blum, LaRouche was telling his membership several times a year that he was being targeted for assassination, including by the Queen of the United Kingdom, Zionist mobsters, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Justice Department, and the Mossad.[84] LaRouche sued the City of New York in 1974, saying that CIA and British spies had brainwashed his associates into killing him.[86] According to the Patriot-News of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, LaRouche said he had been "threatened by Communists, Zionists, narcotics gangsters, the Rockefellers and international terrorists."[87] LaRouche later said that,
Quote:Since late 1973, I have been repeatedly the target of serious assassination threats and my wife has been three times the target of attempted assassination. ... My enemies are the circles of McGeorge Bundy, Henry Kissinger, Soviet President Yuri Andropov, W. Averell Harriman, certain powerful bankers, and the Socialist and Nazi Internationals, as well as international drug traffickers, Colonel Gadaffi, Ayatollah Khomaini and the Malthusian lobby.[88]
My stomach is getting upset. More at Wikipedia, and it doesn't get better.
RE: Obituaries - pbrower2a - 02-13-2019
A fascist pig... excuse me, hogs do not doll up in KKK robes. They are too smart for that.
Frank Ancona, the outspoken imperial wizard of the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, was found shot to death Saturday near Belgrade, Mo.
The body of the 51-year-old Leadwood, Mo., resident was discovered near the Big River by a family fishing in the area, according to Washington County Sheriff Zach Jacobsen in southeast Missouri.
Washington County coroner Brian DeClue told The Kansas City Star that Ancona died of a gunshot wound to the head.
“It was not self inflicted,” he said. “This is now a homicide investigation.”
Read more here: https://www.kansascity.com/news/state/missouri/article132273414.html#storylink=cpy
RE: Obituaries - pbrower2a - 02-15-2019
Nixon-Ford speechwriter:
Raymond Kissam Price, Jr. (May 6, 1930 – February 14, 2019) was an American writer who was the chief speechwriter for U.S. President Richard Nixon, working on both inaugural addressess, his resignation speech, and Gerald Ford's pardon speech.[1]
Born in New York City, USA, Price graduated from Yale University in 1951, where he was a member of the Conservative Party of the Yale Political Union and Skull and Bones.[2]:173
He wrote a retrospective on the presidency titled With Nixon (New York : Viking Press, 1977. ISBN 0-670-77672-6) and assisted Nixon in the writing of several books.
He was listed by John Dean as one person suspected to be Deep Throat.
He was president of the Economic Club of New York for 19 years.[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Price_(speechwriter)
RE: Obituaries - beechnut79 - 02-15-2019
(02-15-2019, 06:44 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Nixon-Ford speechwriter:
Raymond Kissam Price, Jr. (May 6, 1930 – February 14, 2019) was an American writer who was the chief speechwriter for U.S. President Richard Nixon, working on both inaugural addressess, his resignation speech, and Gerald Ford's pardon speech.[1]
Born in New York City, USA, Price graduated from Yale University in 1951, where he was a member of the Conservative Party of the Yale Political Union and Skull and Bones.[2]:173
He wrote a retrospective on the presidency titled With Nixon (New York : Viking Press, 1977. ISBN 0-670-77672-6) and assisted Nixon in the writing of several books.
He was listed by John Dean as one person suspected to be Deep Throat.
He was president of the Economic Club of New York for 19 years.[3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Price_(speechwriter)
The other Ray Price was a legendary country singer perhaps best known for his crossover smash "For the Good Times". I believe he died toward the end of 2013.
RE: Obituaries - Eric the Green - 02-15-2019
Gee, I didn't think Lyndon LaRouche would ever leave. Another one bites the dust. I would have thought he'd still be running for president.
RE: Obituaries - pbrower2a - 02-16-2019
Gene Littler, golfer.
Gene Alec Littler (July 21, 1930 – February 16, 2019[1]) was an American professional golfer and a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame.[2] Known for a solid temperament and nicknamed "Gene the Machine" for his smooth rhythmical swing,[2] he once said that, "Golf is not a game of great shots. It's a game of the best misses. The people who win make the smallest mistakes."
Littler was born in San Diego, California. He played on the 1953 United States Walker Cup team, and won the U.S. Amateur and the California State Amateur that same year.[2] In 1954, he won a PGA Tour event as an amateur, a rare achievement which was not to be repeated until Doug Sanders won the Canadian Open in 1956.
Littler graduated from San Diego State University, and after that served in the United States Navy from 1951 to 1954. On January 5, 1951, ten days before joining the Navy, Littler married Shirley Warren, his university classmate. They had a son, Curt, born in March 1954 and a daughter, Suzanne, born in October 1957.[3][4]
An early highlight of Littler's professional playing career was a second-place finish at the 1954 U.S. Open. He finished one shot behind Ed Furgol.
In 1955, he won four times on the tour, but fell into a slump in the late 1950s after tinkering with his swing. After taking advice from Paul Runyan and adjusting his grip,[5] he recovered in 1959 to have his best year with five PGA Tour victories. He finished second on the money list that year, which was to remain his career best. Only once from 1954 to 1979 did Littler finish out of the top 60 on the final money list. He was stricken with melanoma cancer found in a lymph node under his left arm in 1972,[2] but came back to win five more times on the PGA Tour. He ended his career with 29 PGA Tour wins, and also won two tournaments in Japan and one in Australia.
One of Littler's 29 PGA Tour wins was unique. When he won the 1975 Bing Crosby National Pro-Am, it marked the first and (so far) only time that a player won that event as a professional after having previously won the pro-amateur portion, which Littler did as a 23-year-old amateur in 1954.[6]
Littler won one major championship – the 1961 U.S. Open. He shot a 68 in the final round to overtake Doug Sanders. He accumulated 17 top-10 finishes in the three U.S.-based majors: seven at the Masters Tournament, five at the PGA Championship, and five at the U.S. Open. In addition to his U.S. Open victory, he had one second-place finish in each of the three U.S. majors, losing playoffs to Billy Casper at the 1970 Masters and to Lanny Wadkins at the 1977 PGA Championship. The latter was the first ever sudden-death playoff in a major. He was a member of the U.S. Ryder Cup teams of 1961, 1963, 1965, 1967, 1969, 1971 and 1975, and had a 14-5-8 win/loss/tie record including five wins and three ties in 10 singles matches.
Littler received the Ben Hogan Award in 1973 for a courageous comeback from injury or illness, after returning to the tour following treatment for malignant melanoma. Also in 1973, he was given the Bob Jones Award, the highest honor given by the United States Golf Association in recognition of distinguished sportsmanship in golf. In the 1980s and 1990s Littler played on the Senior PGA Tour, winning eight times. He was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1990.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Littler