Obituaries

[The Wonkette]

(05-19-2017, 09:23 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Watch  it while you can. I suspect it may get taken down:






Wow, he was vigorous. Hard to imagine this was a man mere hours away from death.

I'm OK for a 50something ... actual, above average ... but he might as well have been 10 or more years younger than 52 biologically.

I understand that he committed suicide, so physically, there was probably nothing wrong with him.

[Marypoza]

RlP Roger Moore the Ssint & 007 #2.

[pbrower2a]

(05-22-2017, 07:43 PM)The Wonkette Wrote:

(05-19-2017, 09:23 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Watch  it while you can. I suspect it may get taken down:






Wow, he was vigorous. Hard to imagine this was a man mere hours away from death.

I'm OK for a 50something ... actual, above average ... but he might as well have been 10 or more years younger than 52 biologically.

I understand that he committed suicide, so physically, there was probably nothing wrong with him.

I have known of people committing suicide as a response to such excruciating, degrading conditions as pancreatic cancer.

[gabrielle]

(05-25-2017, 09:13 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(05-22-2017, 07:43 PM)The Wonkette Wrote:

(05-19-2017, 09:23 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Wow, he was vigorous. Hard to imagine this was a man mere hours away from death.

I'm OK for a 50something ... actual, above average ... but he might as well have been 10 or more years younger than 52 biologically.

I understand that he committed suicide, so physically, there was probably nothing wrong with him.

I have known of people committing suicide as a response to such excruciating, degrading conditions as pancreatic cancer.

I have not heard of Chris Cornell having any debilitating physical illness, just chronic, lifelong depression--it was all in his music.  I think his wife said he was on anti-anxiety medication.  Some people become very good at hiding their mental illnesses and are quite functional, and it becomes a surprise to others when they have a breakdown or end their lives.


Ann Wilson (Heart) remembers Chris Cornell

Apparently the grunge bands used to hang out at her house frequently those days, like she was their den mother.

Quote:It's one thing to look at someone like Beyoncé and Rihanna and to see how beloved and talented they are, and it's another thing to live inside it. During my own struggles with addiction, fame and depression, I [personally] didn't experience thoughts of suicide. I just never got there. Fame put a lot of pressure on me in the Eighties and early Nineties – and I'm glad that I had the kind of makeup where I could come through it alive, keep myself in hand.

Like Chris, I've always been an anxious person. And meditation eventually became the way I tamed those feelings. That, and being around other people who are going through the same thing. All of those Seattle bands – as varied and different in their anger and interests as they were – were idealists. They wanted to fuck the bullshit. And at that time, Nancy and I really had that in common with them. The Eighties were really uncomfortable for us with the low premium on naturalness. So when we'd all hang out; we weren't standing in the doorway, hand-on-hip. We were participating in the debauchery with them.

[gabrielle]

(05-25-2017, 08:08 AM)Marypoza Wrote: RlP Roger Moore the Ssint & 007 #2.

[pbrower2a]

Znigbiew Brzezinski, Polish-American diplomat and national security adviser.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/us/zb....html?_r=0

[Eric the Green]

Zbigniew Brzezinski. I'll miss his generally-wise commentary.

[gabrielle]

Gregg Allman, Influential Force Behind the Allman Brothers Band, Dies at 69

Quote:Gregg Allman, a founding member of the Allman Brothers Band, the incendiary group that inspired and gave shape to both the Southern rock and jam-band movements, died on Saturday at his home in Savannah, Ga. He was 69.

His publicist, Ken Weinstein, said the cause complications of liver cancer.

The band’s lead singer and keyboardist, Mr. Allman was one of the principal architects of a taut, improvisatory fusion of blues, jazz, country and rock that — streamlined by inheritors like Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Marshall Tucker Band — became the Southern rock of the 1970s.

[Galen]

(05-27-2017, 06:49 PM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: Zbigniew Brzezinski. I'll miss his generally-wise commentary.

You do realize that it was his ideas about Afganistan in the wake of the Soviet occupation that led to our current situation with Al-Qaeda and ISIS.  He was as much of a destructive asshole as Kissinger was for pretty much the same reasons.

[pbrower2a]

Jim Bunning -- Hall of Fame pitcher, not-so-great politician.

[pbrower2a]

(05-28-2017, 02:18 AM)Galen Wrote:

(05-27-2017, 06:49 PM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: Zbigniew Brzezinski. I'll miss his generally-wise commentary.

You do realize that it was his ideas about Afghanistan in the wake of the Soviet occupation that led to our current situation with Al-Qaeda and ISIS.  He was as much of a destructive asshole as Kissinger was for pretty much the same reasons.

Unintended consequences can be horrible. Malign intent can do incomparably worse.

If you want to push culpability back, then you can blame the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

[Galen]

(05-28-2017, 07:10 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(05-28-2017, 02:18 AM)Galen Wrote:

(05-27-2017, 06:49 PM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: Zbigniew Brzezinski. I'll miss his generally-wise commentary.

You do realize that it was his ideas about Afghanistan in the wake of the Soviet occupation that led to our current situation with Al-Qaeda and ISIS.  He was as much of a destructive asshole as Kissinger was for pretty much the same reasons.

Unintended consequences can be horrible. Malign intent can do incomparably worse.

If you want to push culpability back, then you can blame the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

It would have been best to leave that one alone since Afghanistan is also known as the "Graveyard of Empires".  Carter screwed up because if he had learned the economics of Mises and Rothbard and understood the history of the region he would have known that Soviet occupation would have brought down the the Soviet Union anyway without the entertaining consequences we face today.

He is still culpable for giving bad advice.

[pbrower2a]

(05-29-2017, 04:18 AM)Galen Wrote:

(05-28-2017, 07:10 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(05-28-2017, 02:18 AM)Galen Wrote:

(05-27-2017, 06:49 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Zbigniew Brzezinski. I'll miss his generally-wise commentary.

You do realize that it was his ideas about Afghanistan in the wake of the Soviet occupation that led to our current situation with Al-Qaeda and ISIS.  He was as much of a destructive asshole as Kissinger was for pretty much the same reasons.

Unintended consequences can be horrible. Malign intent can do incomparably worse.

If you want to push culpability back, then you can blame the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

It would have been best to leave that one alone since Afghanistan is also known as the "Graveyard of Empires".  Carter screwed up because if he had learned the economics of Mises and Rothbard and understood the history of the region he would have known that Soviet occupation would have brought down the the Soviet Union anyway without the entertaining consequences we face today.

He is still culpable for giving bad advice.

Mises and Rothbard are not mainstream figures in the liberal world. Diplomacy does not rely upon economic ideas from fringe groups. People at most pick and choose between libertarian doctrines as fit their agendas. Giving all power to a 'free market' capable of doing anything to anybody because the power of economic elites engenders some vile behavior. Libertarianism would lead quickly to a pure plutocracy in which the rich would be allowed to do what they want because economic inequality and lack of recourse by people who own nothing would put the poor at the cruel whim of people devoid of conscience.

It may be paradoxical, but Brzezinski was one of the first mainstream figures (this was in the early 1980s) to recognize that the Communist order was doomed. I read the book, and it made sense. In reality, trends away from Marxism, rediscovery of religiion, and failures of the official economies doomed Communist rule or Marxist-Leninist economics. What is left of hard-line Communist rule with a highly socialist (Marxist-Leninist) economy is now... North Korea. Even if Communist Parties remain in charge in China, Cuba, and Vietnam the Parties have abandoned Marxism-Leninism if not dictatorial rule. I forget the title.

We all have our values. Economic gain is not worth mass human suffering.

[Galen]

(05-29-2017, 08:32 AM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(05-29-2017, 04:18 AM)Galen Wrote:

(05-28-2017, 07:10 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:

(05-28-2017, 02:18 AM)Galen Wrote:

(05-27-2017, 06:49 PM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: Zbigniew Brzezinski. I'll miss his generally-wise commentary.

You do realize that it was his ideas about Afghanistan in the wake of the Soviet occupation that led to our current situation with Al-Qaeda and ISIS.  He was as much of a destructive asshole as Kissinger was for pretty much the same reasons.

Unintended consequences can be horrible. Malign intent can do incomparably worse.

If you want to push culpability back, then you can blame the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

It would have been best to leave that one alone since Afghanistan is also known as the "Graveyard of Empires".  Carter screwed up because if he had learned the economics of Mises and Rothbard and understood the history of the region he would have known that Soviet occupation would have brought down the the Soviet Union anyway without the entertaining consequences we face today.

He is still culpable for giving bad advice.

Mises and Rothbard are not mainstream figures in the liberal world.

It may be paradoxical, but Brzezinski was one of the first mainstream figures (this was in the early 1980s) to recognize that the Communist order was doomed. I read the book, and it made sense. In reality, trends away from Marxism, rediscovery of religiion,  and failures of the official economies doomed Communist rule or Marxist-Leninist economics. What is left of hard-line Communist rule with a highly socialist (Marxist-Leninist) economy is now... North Korea. Even if Communist Parties remain in charge in China, Cuba, and Vietnam the Parties have abandoned Marxism-Leninism if not dictatorial rule. I forget the title.

If you had actually bothered to read Mises then you would know that he predicted the failure of the Soviet decades before Carter or Brzezinski ever got around to it.  In his essay on the subject he predicted the failure mode and the methods the Soviet Union would use to try to keep its system going.  You would do well to remember that no nation can survive, let alone prosper, without a functioning economy.

[pbrower2a]

Mises was not mainstream. People outside the mainstream are often recognized as fools or cranks. Until at least 1980 most people, even conservatives, thought that the Soviet Union was an Evil Empire with great powers of survival. It could repress anything. by economic measures of the West, the Soviet Union was generally recognized as a prosperous society even if the masses seemed not to prosper. 'Experts' were valuing Soviet output at prices for comparable objects in the West -- never mind that the Soviet Union was producing lots of stuff for which the rest of the world had a glut or that the Soviet economy was wasting energy (world energy use fell during the 1990s because Russia and the former Socialist states of Europe quite wasting energy as they did.

Is the mainstream always right? No. There just might be some quack cure for cancer, heart disease, AIDS, or arthritis that really works. I would not bet on it. If I am to ever buy a copper bracelet, then it will be strictly for appearance and not out of any expectation that it will give any relief from arthritis. So it is with economics. The purist libertarianism of Mises has consequences that most people find objectionable. Economic inequality that leads to mass deprivation offends too many sensibilities.

Do I have use for some of the teachings of libertarians? Sure. Hayek has a very good explanation of economic bubbles and how they cause economic meltdowns. Economic bubbles devour capital, pulling it away from investments that might do some real good and create a monstrous imbalance in the economy. Just think of the real estate boom of the Double-Zero decade. Without the bubble there might not have been so much wasteful development in housing that people could not afford. Americans would have been better off with more investment in industrial plant and equipment that creates jobs that make housing affordable, as the solid economy of the 1950s demonstrated. But with a bubble, capital is turned into garbage and only when people recognize that the investments are unworthy of the cost that a financial panic ensures.

But Hayek satisfies me on this without convincing me that pure plutocracy is the way to go.

[Galen]

(05-30-2017, 12:31 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Mises was not mainstream.

It doesn't matter if he was mainstream.  It does matter that he was right and unless you have actually read the man's written work you really aren't in a position comment on it.  I would point out that the level of energy waste in the Soviet Union and the rest of the Warsaw Pact tends to underscore how bad central planning was and still is.

I would also remind you that Hayek got most of his ideas from Mises and he would never have approved of how big governments have gotten in the west.

[pbrower2a]

Governments got big (1) to get out of the Great Depression and ensure that no repeat of it, (2) to meet the military needs of the Second World War, and (3) to resist the menace of Communism.

There is no valid rationale for bad Big Government.

[pbrower2a]

Manuel Noriega. He can roast in Hell, so far as I am concerned.

the BBC Wrote:General Manuel Antonio Noriega, the former military leader of Panama, has died aged 83, officials have announced.

Noriega recently underwent an operation after suffering a haemorrhage following brain surgery.

Noriega had been a key US ally but was forcibly removed when American troops invaded in 1989 and was later jailed in the US on drugs and laundering charges.

He spent the rest of his life in custody, latterly in Panama for murder, corruption and embezzlement.

But the former leader was released into house arrest in January to prepare for an operation in early March to remove a brain tumour.


   Born in Panama City on 11 February 1934
   Studies at a military academy in Peru. Begins a three-decade relationship with the CIA
   Backs Gen Omar Torrijos in the coup that topples President Arnulfo Arias in 1968
   Rises in influence after mysterious plane-crash death of Gen Torrijos in 1981, becoming de facto ruler in 1983
   Plays key role in mid-1980s Iran-Contra affair, which involves smuggling weapons and drugs to aid US undercover efforts to support forces opposing the Sandinistas government in Nicaragua
   Ousted in 1989 after US invasion and jailed in US
   US trial reveals he wore red underwear to ward off the "evil eye"
   In Panama's El Renacer prison in 2014, unsuccessfully sues company behind the video game, Call of Duty: Black Ops II for using his image without permission

By 3 January 1990, Noriega surrendered and was flown to the US to face drug-trafficking, money-laundering and racketeering charges, serving 17 years in jail there.

While in prison he was convicted in absentia in France of money-laundering and sentenced to seven years. After the US extradited him to France, a court there approved a request from Panama in December 2010 to send him back home, where he was convicted again.

In an interview on Panamanian TV two years ago, Noriega read out a statement of apology.

He said: "I apologise to anyone who feels offended, affected, harmed or humiliated by my actions or those of my superiors whilst carrying out orders, or those of my subordinates, during the time of my civilian and military government."

A US Senate sub-committee once described Washington's relationship with Noriega as one of the United States' most serious foreign policy failures.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-40090143

[pbrower2a]

Jiří Bělohlávek CBE (Czech pronunciation: [jɪr̝iː bjɛloɦlaːvɛk]; 24 February 1946 – 31 May 2017)[1] was a Czech conductor. He was a leading interpreter of Czech classical music, and became chief composer of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in 1990, a role he would serve on two different occasions during a combined span of seven years (1990-92, 2012-17). He also served a six-year tenure as the chief conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra from 2006-2012.[2] He gained international renown and repute for his performances of the works of Czech composers like Antonin Dvorak and Bohuslav Martinu, and was credited as "the most profound proponent of Czech orchestral music" by critics.[3]


Much more here

---

The management agency for Sir Jeffrey Tate has confirmed his death, this afternoon, at the age of 74. The eminent British conductor suffered a heart attack while visiting the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo, Italy, and could not be revived. Sir Jeffrey Tate, who was 74, was knighted six weeks ago for services to music.

Born with spina bifida and suffering disability all his life, he has been principal conductor at Covent Garden, the Rotterdam Philharmonic and the Sao Carlo theatre in Naples.

At the time of his death he was chief conductor of the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra.
His disability did not prevent him from working at most of the great opera houses, including the Met. At one point, in the 1980s, he was in line to become music director at Covent Garden. Amiable and sensitive, especially when rehearsing singers, Jeffrey was unfailingly well liked and respected.

- See more at: http://slippedisc.com/2017/06/sad-news-e...lak27.dpuf

[pbrower2a]

Jack O'Neill (March 27, 1923[1] – June 2, 2017) was an American businessman, often credited with the invention of the wetsuit,[2] and the founder of the O'Neill brand.



In 1952, he founded the O'Neill brand while opening one of California's first surf shops in a garage on the Great Highway in San Francisco, close to his favorite bodysurfing break at the time.[2] This led to the establishment of a company that deals in wetsuits, surf gear, and clothing.[5] Jack O'Neill's name is attached to surfwear and his brand of surfing equipment.[6] Although O'Neill is widely believed to be the inventor of the wetsuit, an investigation concluded that UC Berkeley physicist Hugh Bradner was most likely the original inventor.[7]

In December 1996 he began a non-profit organization called O'Neill Sea Odyssey which provides students with hands-on lessons in marine biology and that teaches the relationship between the oceans and the environment.[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_O%27N...sinessman)