Thread Rating:
  • 1 Vote(s) - 5 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Obituaries
Patrick Caddell --aide to Jimmy Carter, but in the end the Mercer family in its support to Donald Trump.

Patrick Hayward Caddell (May 19, 1950 – February 16, 2019)[1] was an American public opinion pollster and a political film consultant who served in the Carter administration, and in other presidential campaigns.

Caddell was born in Rock Hill, South Carolina and graduated from Harvard University.[2] He worked for Democratic presidential candidates George McGovern in 1972, Jimmy Carter in 1976 and 1980, Gary Hart in 1984, Joe Biden in 1988, and Jerry Brown in 1992. He also worked for Colorado Senate candidate Andrew Romanoff in 2010.[3] Caddell persuaded Carter to focus in 1976 on the "trust factor", rather than divisive political issues in the 1976 campaign, a strategy which led, narrowly, to victory. The Arkansas political scientist and pollster Jim Ranchino declared the then 26-year-old Caddell "the best pollster in the business."[4] According to researchers, Caddell had wide influence in the Carter White House, and was the chief advocate of what later became known as Carter's "malaise speech".[5]
Caddell served as a consultant to various movies and television shows, most notably the movies Running Mates, Air Force One, Outbreak, In the Line of Fire, and the serial drama The West Wing. He was also a marketing consultant on Coca-Cola's disastrous New Coke campaign.[6]

In 1988, Caddell left Democratic consulting firm Caddell, Doak and Shrum after what the Washington Post described as an "acrimonious lawsuit."[7] Republicans would often cite Caddell's tirades against the Democratic Party when they spoke on the floor of the House and the Senate.[8][9][10]

Caddell's analysis on polls and campaign issues often put him at odds with the leadership of the Democratic Party. He was criticized by Media Matters for America and Salon columnist Steve Kornacki for predicting negative consequences for the Democratic Party.[11][12] He called environmentalism "a conspiracy 'to basically deconstruct capitalism.'"[3]

Caddell was a regular guest on the Fox News Channel, and at the time of his death was listed as an official "Fox News Contributor". This earned him the label of a "Fox News Democrat" by critics such as liberal opinion magazine Salon.com.[3] He also frequently appeared on the conservative website Ricochet.com, discussing politics.[13][14][15]

According to Slate,[16] Caddell was involved in identifying people willing to participate in the 2012 anti-Obama documentary The Hope and the Change, produced by Citizens United.

In the 2016 election cycle, Caddell exerted considerable influence in his capacity as advisor to Republican contributor Robert Mercer, who was a major fundraiser for the successful candidacy of Donald Trump.[17]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Caddell
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
Karl Lagerfeld, designer for Chanel.



Quote:The fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld has died aged 85, his Chanel label has said.

As one of the most prolific and admired designers of modern times, Lagerfeld’s influence on the fashion industry is unparalleled. Known fondly in fashion circles as “the Kaiser” thanks to his German heritage, he was famously uncompromising in his design vision, once declaring: “Sweatpants are a sign of defeat. You lost control of your life so you bought some sweatpants.”

In January he missed the Chanel haute couture show in Paris, fuelling speculation about his health. According to reports, he was admitted to the American hospital in Paris on Monday night. The cause of death is not yet known. The designer Donatella Versace posted a photograph of herself and Lagerfeld on Instagram, writing: “Karl your genius touched the lives of so many, especially Gianni and I. We will never forget your incredible talent and endless inspiration. We were always learning from you.”


Born in Hamburg in 1933, Lagerfeld began his career as an assistant to Pierre Balmain in 1955 and joined Chanel in 1983, spending 36 years at the house. In the interim, he has also held long-term design positions at the Italian house Fendi, the French house Chloé, and established his eponymous brand. He is credited with reinventing Chanel, taking it from a small house to an industry leader. In 2017 the house released financial figures for the first time, revealing it had made £1.35bn the previous year.


https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2019...es-aged-85
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
Director Stanley Donen





Stanley Donen (/ˈdɒnən/ DON-ən;[1] April 13, 1924 – February 21, 2019) was an American film director and choreographer whose most celebrated works are Singin' in the Rain and On the Town, both of which he co-directed with actor and dancer Gene Kelly. His other notable films include Royal Wedding, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Funny Face, Indiscreet, Damn Yankees!, Charade, and Two for the Road. He began his career in the chorus line on Broadway for director George Abbott, where he befriended Kelly. In 1943 he went to Hollywood and worked as a choreographer before he and Kelly made On the Town in 1949. He then worked as a contract director for MGM under producer Arthur Freed producing hit films amid critical acclaim. In 1952 Donen and Kelly co-directed the musical Singin' in the Rain, regarded as one of the greatest films ever made. Donen's relationship with Kelly deteriorated in 1955 during their final collaboration on It's Always Fair Weather. He then broke his contract with MGM to become an independent producer in 1957. He continued making films throughout the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, often financial successes that were critically acclaimed. His film output became less frequent in the early 1980s and he briefly returned to the stage as a director in the 1990s and again in 2002.
Donen is credited with having transitioned Hollywood musical films from realistic backstage dramas to a more integrated art form in which the songs were a natural continuation of the story. Before Donen and Kelly made their films, musicals – such as the extravagant and stylized work of Busby Berkeley – were often set in a Broadway stage environment where the musical numbers were part of a stage show. Donen and Kelly's films created a more cinematic form and included dances that could only be achieved in the film medium. Donen stated that what he was doing was a "direct continuation from the AstaireRogers musicals ... which in turn came from René Clair and from Lubitsch ... What we did was not geared towards realism but towards the unreal."[2]
 
Donen is highly respected by film historians; however his career is often compared to Kelly's, and there is debate over who deserves more credit for their collaborations. Donen and Kelly's relationship was complicated, both professionally and personally, but Donen's films as a solo director are generally better regarded by critics than Kelly's. French Film critic Jean-Pierre Coursodon has said that Donen's contribution to the evolution of the Hollywood musical "outshines anybody else's, including Vincente Minnelli's"[2] and David Quinlan called him "the King of the Hollywood musicals".[3] Among his awards are an Honorary Academy Award in 1998 and a Career Golden Lion from the Venice Film Festival in 2004. Donen married five times and had three children. Film director and comedian Elaine May was his partner from 1999 until his death in 2019. He was the last surviving notable director of Hollywood's Golden Age.
More at Wikipedia
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
German-born musical great André Previn


André George Previn, KBE (/ˈprɛvɪn/; born Andreas Ludwig Priwin; April 6, 1929 – February 28, 2019)[1][2] was a German-American pianist, conductor, and composer. Previn won four Academy Awards for his film work and ten Grammy Awards for his recordings (and one more for his Lifetime Achievement). 

Previn was born in Berlin, Germany, the son of Charlotte (née Epstein) and Jack Previn (Jakob Priwin), who was a lawyer, judge, and music teacher.[3] He is said to have been "a distant relative of" the composer Gustav Mahler.[4] However, in a pre-concert public interview at Lincoln Center, in May 2012, Previn laughed at the suggestion that he was related to Mahler. The year of his birth is uncertain. Whereas most published reports give 1929,[1] Previn himself stated that 1930 was his birth year.[5]
In 1938, his Jewish family left Berlin to live in Paris, but moved to Los Angeles after a year or so.[6] His great-uncle, Charles Previn, was music director for Universal. André grew up in Los Angeles and became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1943. At Previn's 1946 graduation from Beverly Hills High School he played a musical duet with Richard M. Sherman; Previn played the piano, accompanying Sherman (who played flute). Coincidentally, both composers won 1964 Oscars for different films, both winning in musical categories.
In 1951 and 1952, while stationed at the Presidio of San Francisco during his military service, Previn took private conducting lessons from Pierre Monteux, which he valued highly.[7]

Previn came to prominence by arranging and composing Hollywood film scores first working for MGM when he was still in high school in 1946 having been noticed by the studio's music department for his work with a local radio program.[8] The film studios, he said in 2005, "were always looking for somebody who was talented, fast and cheap and, because I was a kid, I was all three. So they hired me to do piecework and I evidently did it very well."[9] At 18 he became a composer-conductor for the studio.[10] His first official credit was for an entry in the Lassie series, The Sun Comes Up (1949), which much later he thought was "the most inept score you ever heard" after seeing a television rerun.[11]

Previn remained with MGM for a decade and a half, but resigned in his early 30s. He told Emma Brockes of The Guardian in 2008: "At MGM you knew you were going to be working next year, you knew you were going to get paid. But I was too ambitious musically to settle for it. And I wanted to gamble with whatever talent I might have had."[8]

His break with the film world in the 1960s was not as straightforward as he often tried to claim in later life. His film work continued until Rollerball (1975).[12] Over his entire film career, Previn was involved in the music for over 50 movies as composer, conductor or performer.[10]

 In 1967, Previn succeeded Sir John Barbirolli as music director of the Houston Symphony Orchestra. In 1968, he began his tenure as principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO),[13] serving in that post until 1979. During his LSO tenure, he and the LSO appeared on the BBC Television programme André Previn's Music Night. However, during his period with the LSO, according to the music critic Martin Bernheimer, Previn gained the reputation of being "a first-rate conductor of second-rate music."[12]

From 1976 to 1984, he was music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO) and, in turn, had another television series with the PSO entitled Previn and the Pittsburgh. He was also principal conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra from 1985 to 1988.
In 1985, he became music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Although Previn's tenure with the orchestra was deemed satisfactory from a professional perspective, other conductors, including Kurt Sanderling, Simon Rattle, and Esa-Pekka Salonen, did a better job at selling out concerts. Previn clashed frequently with Ernest Fleischmann (the LAPO's Executive VP and General Manager), including the dispute when Fleischmann failed to consult Previn before naming Salonen as Principal Guest Conductor of the orchestra, complete with a tour of Japan.[12] As a result of Previn's objections, Salonen's title and Japanese tour were withdrawn; however, shortly thereafter, in April 1989, Previn resigned. Four months later, Salonen was named Music Director Designate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, officially taking the post of Music Director in October 1992.[14]

Previn was nominated for 11 Academy Awards.[10] He won four times, in 1958, 1959, 1963 and 1964. He is one of few composers to have accomplished the feat of winning back-to-back Oscars, and one of only two to have done so on two occasions (the other being Alfred Newman). Previn was the only person in the history of the Academy Awards to receive three nominations in one year (1961).[37] In 1970 he was nominated for a Tony Award as part of Coco's nomination for Best Musical. In 1977 he became an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music.[38] The 1977 television show Previn and the Pittsburgh was nominated for three Emmy awards.

Previn was appointed an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1996.[39] (Not being a citizen of a Commonwealth realm, he was permitted to use the post-nominal letters KBE but was not called "Sir André".) Previn received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1998 in recognition of his contributions to classical music and opera in the United States. In 2005 he was awarded the international Glenn Gould Prize and in 2008 won Gramophone magazine's Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in classical, film, and jazz music.[40] In 2010, the Recording Academy honored Previn with a Lifetime Achievement Grammy.

More at Wiki.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
Soviet/Russian physicist, co-discoverer of the heterostructure in electronics, Zhores Alferov:

Zhores Ivanovich Alferov (Russian: Жоре́с Ива́нович Алфёров, [ʐɐˈrɛs ɪˈvanəvʲɪtɕ ɐɫˈfʲɵrəf]; Belarusian: Жарэс Іва́навіч Алфёраў; 15 March 1930 – 1 March 2019) was a Soviet and Russian physicist and academic who contributed significantly to the creation of modern heterostructure physics and electronics. He was the inventor of the heterotransistor and shared the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics. He also became a politician in his later life, serving in the lower house of the Russian parliament, the State Duma, as a member of the communist party since 1995.


Alferov was born in Vitebsk, Byelorussian SSR, Soviet Union, to a Belarusian father, Ivan Karpovich Alferov, a factory manager, and a Jewish mother, Anna Vladimirovna Rosenblum.[1][2] He was named after French socialist Jean Jaurès while his older brother was named Marx after Karl Marx.[1] In 1947 he completed high school 42 in Minsk and started Belarusian Polytechnic Academy. In 1952, he graduated from V. I. Ulyanov (Lenin) Electrotechnical Institute in Leningrad. Starting in 1953 he worked in the Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences. From the Institute, he earned several scientific degrees: a Candidate of Sciences in Technology in 1961 and a Doctor of Sciences in Physics and Mathematics in 1970. He was director of the Institute from 1987 to 2003. He was elected a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1972, and a full member in 1979. From 1989, he was Vice-President of the USSR Academy of Sciences and President of its Saint Petersburg Scientific Center. Starting in 1995 he was a member of the State Duma on the list of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation. In 2000 he received the Nobel Prize in Physics together with Herbert Kroemer, "for developing semiconductor heterostructures used in high-speed- and optoelectronics".[3]

Alferov invented the heterotransistor. This coped with much higher frequencies than its predecessors, and apparently revolutionised the mobile phone and satellite communications. Alferov and Kroemer independently applied this technology to firing laser lights. This, in turn, revolutionised semiconductor design in a host of areas, including LEDs, barcode readers and CDs.[3]

Hermann Grimmeiss of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, which awards Nobel prizes, said: "Without Alferov, it would not be possible to transfer all the information from satellites down to the Earth or to have so many telephone lines between cities."[4]

 
After 1962 Alferov worked in the area of semiconductor heterostructures. His contributions to physics and technology of semiconductor heterostructures, especially investigations of injection properties, development of lasers, solar cells, LEDs, and epitaxy processes, have led to the creation of modern heterostructure physics and electronics.[3]

He had an almost messianic conception of heterostructures, writing: "Many scientists have contributed to this remarkable progress, which not only determines in large measure the future prospects of solid state physics but in a certain sense affects the future of human society as well."[5]

More at Wiki.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
Hockey great Ted Lindsay


Robert Blake Theodore "Terrible Ted" Lindsay (1925-2019) was a former professional ice hockey player, a forward for the Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Black Hawks of the National Hockey League (NHL). He scored over 800 points in his Hockey Hall of Fame career, won the Art Ross Trophy in 1950, and won the Stanley Cup four times. Often referred to as "Terrible Ted", Lindsay helped to organize the National Hockey League Players' Association (NHLPA) in the late 1950s, an action which led to his trade to Chicago. In 2017 Lindsay was named one of the '100 Greatest NHL Players' in history.[1]

 
Lindsay was born in Renfrew, Ontario. His father, Bert Lindsay, had been a professional player himself, playing goaltender for the Renfrew Millionaires, Victoria Aristocrats, and Toronto Arenas. Lindsay played amateur hockey in Kirkland Lake before joining the St. Michael's Majors in Toronto. In 1944 he played for the Memorial Cup champion Oshawa Generals.
Lindsay's performance in the Ontario Hockey Association Junior A League (now the Ontario Hockey League) earned him an invitation to try out with the Detroit Red Wings of the NHL and he made his big league debut in 1944 at the age of 19. Lindsay played only one game in the AHL, with the Indianapolis Capitals, during the 1944–45 AHL season.[2]

Having played amateur in Toronto, yet playing for Detroit, earned him the enmity of Toronto's owner Conn Smythe with whom he would feud for the length of his career.
Playing left wing with centre Sid Abel and right winger Gordie Howe, on what the media and fans dubbed the "Production Line", Lindsay became one of the NHL's premier players. Although small in stature compared to most players in the league, he was a fierce competitor who earned the nickname "Terrible Ted" for his toughness. His rough play caused the NHL to develop penalties for 'elbowing' and 'kneeing' to discourage hitting between players using the elbows and knees.[3]

In the 1949–50 season, he won the Art Ross Trophy as the league's leading scorer with 78 points and his team won the Stanley Cup. Over the next five years, he helped Detroit win three more championships and appeared with Howe on the cover of a March 1957 Sports Illustrated issue.[4] Lindsay was the first player to lift the Stanley Cup and skate it around the rink, starting the tradition.[5]

 That same year, Lindsay attended the annual pension plan meeting as the representative of the Red Wings players, where he found that the plan was kept secret. Later that year when he attended a promotion with football and baseball players, he found out that conditions in the other sports' pro leagues were much better. He was introduced to the lawyers for the players of the other leagues and became convinced that only through an association could the players' conditions be improved.

At a time when teams literally owned their players for their entire careers, the players began demanding such basics as a minimum salary and a properly funded pension plan. While team owners were getting rich with sold out arenas game after game,[citation needed] players were earning a pittance and many needed summer jobs to make a living. Almost all of these men had no more than a high school education and had been playing hockey as a profession all their working life. Superstars in the 1950s earned less than $25,000 a year ($223 thousand in 2018 dollars)[6] and when their playing days were over, they had nothing to fall back on and had to accept whatever work they could get in order to survive.

Lindsay and star defenceman Doug Harvey of the Montreal Canadiens led a small group in an effort to organize the first National Hockey League Players' Association. In secret, all of the players at the time were contacted and asked for their support to form an "association", not a "union", which was considered going too far. Support was nearly unanimous.

Lindsay worked doggedly for the cause and many fellow players who supported the association were benched or sent to obscurity in the minor leagues. He and Harvey then became convinced that only a union could win the demands, and set up a schedule to get players' support on record to be certified as a union. In a defiant gesture, the Toronto Maple Leafs and Detroit Red Wings were targeted for certification votes. While Montreal's ownership was not opposing a union, Toronto's Conn Smythe was adamantly against it. In the United States, the four teams were controlled or under obligations to the Norris syndicate. Despite Smythe's efforts, the Toronto Maple Leafs players unanimously voted to organize. Next was the turn of Detroit to organize, and the Norrises would fight back.
When asked about the formation of the NHLPA, Lindsay remarked:

Actually, we don't have many grievances. We just felt we should have an organization of this kind.[7]

Lindsay, one of the league's top players, was first stripped of his captaincy, then was traded to the struggling Chicago Black Hawks. Jack Adams then planted rumors about Lindsay and false defamatory comments by him against his old team in the press, and showed a fake contract to the press, showing an inflated annual salary. The ruse worked and the Red Wings players rejected the union. Harvey suffered a similar fate, being traded from Montreal to the New York Rangers.

Lindsay initiated an anti-trust lawsuit against the league, alleging a monopoly since 1926. The players had a strong case, that could be easily proved with an exposure of the Norris syndicate's operations, and Frank Calder's efforts against the American Hockey Association (AHA) in 1926 and 1932, ironically involving James E. Norris on the AHA side. Also, the various Norris arenas were hiding revenues through ticket scalping and under-reporting arena capacities and actual ticket sales. Rather than face the lawsuit in court, the NHL, in an out-of-court settlement in February 1958, agreed to most of the players' demands, although the pension plan was not exposed until 1989, showing a surplus of $25 million. Although a union was not formed in 1958, a permanent union would be formed in 1967.
Part of the problem of organizing the players was confusion about the type of association they were forming. The NHLPA had applied, in Canada, to the Ontario Labour Relations Board for certification, but the ORLB had no experience with workers like hockey players.[8] NHLPA members negotiated individual contracts and wanted to continue to bargain this way. The matter of the NHLPA being an actual union, where the members were bound together and fought for collective agreements, was unclear. The NHLPA legal counsel, Milton Mound, addressed this, saying that the players would negotiate on matters common to all players (pensions, allowances) but retained the right to individual contracts.[9] The League, and especially Conn Smythe, argued that players were forming a "trade union" and were no better than "commies" and would lose things like individual bonuses.[10] He believed that hockey players were in the business of being "independent contractors" and had no right or reason for a collective organization.[11]

The confusion worried both employer and employee. The situation was exacerbated by the certification process. The OLRB was taking time, and no one knew how this transnational association would work, or how it would be recognized by the US National Labor Relations Board.[12] In fact, the NLRB asked the NHLPA to withdraw its unfair labor practices charge on November 20, 1957, arguing it did not have jurisdiction. This was followed by the Montreal Canadiens players rejection of the association in early January, 1958.[13]

The OLRB resumed meeting on January 7, but both the League and the players were concerned. The NHL was convinced that the ORLB was not going to dismiss the application, regardless of how they ruled on the union versus association issue, and the players were worried (given the setbacks in Detroit and Montreal) that they didn't have grounds to actually form an association (especially since they didn't want to be a traditional "union.")[14]
The players and owners both felt pressure to conclude something, so they gathered, without lawyers, for a 13-hour meeting in the boardroom of the Biltmore Hotel in Palm Beach, just after the regular NHL winter meetings.[15] In an out-of-court settlement on February 5, 1958, the NHL promised:[16]
 
  • a $7000 minimum wage (which was, in actuality, the unofficial League norm),
  • an increase in pension benefits,
  • increased hospitalization benefits,
  • a limit on the number of exhibition games,
  • the player shall be the sole judge of his physical fitness to play after injury.

Quote:"The fundamental question at the root of the NHLPA failure was whether players really were laborers who could form a trade union. Seemingly caught in a space both commercial and non-commercial, players felt uneasy locating themselves wholly within either. This in itself reflected the success of the owners in using cultural formations to restrain their labor force. Led by Conn Smythe, the league appealed to cultural bonds of loyalty and tradition as justifications for retaining the existing economic structure of labor-management relations, long after other industries had been forced by the state to move toward formal, union-led collective bargaining arrangements."[17]

For his role in establishing the original Players' Association, the Lester B. Pearson Award was later renamed to the Ted Lindsay Award in his honor. In 1995, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation produced the hockey movie "Net Worth" that depicts Lindsay's battle to create the NHL Players' Association, based on the Lindsay chapters in the book of the same name.[18]

The actions of the Red Wings, while maintaining control over the players, hindered their on-ice record. Jack Adams was fired in 1961. Lindsay played in Chicago for three years before retiring in 1960. Four years later, the 39-year-old Lindsay was enticed into making a comeback by his former linemate, Abel, who was now coach and general manager of the Red Wings. He played just the one season, helping Detroit to its first regular season championship since his trade seven years earlier.

The Red Wings did not have enough room on their roster to protect Lindsay in the 1965 interleague draft. He wished to retire as a Red Wing, and he and Abel planned to have him hide on the retired list for the 1965–66 season in anticipation of having him return for a "Last Hurrah" season the next year. However, when Maple Leafs owner Stafford Smythe got wind of this gambit, he pressured the league into vetoing it, forcing Lindsay to stay retired. 

The Red Wings did not have enough room on their roster to protect Lindsay in the 1965 interleague draft. He wished to retire as a Red Wing, and he and Abel planned to have him hide on the retired list for the 1965–66 season in anticipation of having him return for a "Last Hurrah" season the next year. However, when Maple Leafs owner Stafford Smythe got wind of this gambit, he pressured the league into vetoing it, forcing Lindsay to stay retired. 


In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Lindsay was the play-by-play announcer for the New York Rangers on WOR-TV. His signature saying was "that's laying the lumber on 'em" when someone got away with a good hit with a stick.
In 1972, NBC paid the NHL for the rights to broadcast games on national TV in the U.S. Lindsay was hired to do the color analysis, along with Tim Ryan, who did the play-by-play. Lindsay's rough features, the legacy of the many cuts and stitches he accumulated during his playing days, were visible whenever he appeared on camera.

In 1977, Lindsay was named general manager of the Red Wings, who were struggling just to make the playoffs. Soon after taking over as general manager he appeared in television commercials promoting the slogan " Aggressive hockey is back in town". For his efforts, he was voted the NHL's executive of the year. A year later, the Red Wings made the playoffs for the first time in nine years, and won a playoff series for the first time in 12 years. Late in the 1979-80 season, he named himself head coach. He started out the 1980-81 season on the bench, but was forced out after a 3-14-3 start.

Lindsay is currently an "Honored Member" of the Detroit Red Wings Alumni Association and is active in its efforts to raise money for children's charities in Metro Detroit. He attended the Special Olympics Sports Celebrities Festival in Toronto in December 2008.

On October 18, 2008, the Red Wings commemorated Lindsay's career with an original statue commissioned by artist Omri Amrany, who also created the Gordie Howe statue, on the Joe Louis Arena concourse.

The Ted Lindsay Foundation was founded in 2001 to fund research into a cure for autism.[21] it has raised over $1.5 million to find a cure for autism. This research is not endorsed by the scientific community at large. His foundation donated over $100,000 to the Thoughtful House Center for Children in 2007.[22]

On April 29, 2010, the NHL Players' Association announced that the Lester B. Pearson Award would be reintroduced as the Ted Lindsay Award for his skill, tenacity, leadership, and role in establishing the original Players' Association.[23] The award is given annually to the NHL's most outstanding player in the regular season as judged by the members of the Players' Association.[24]

Lindsay is a third cousin to Bob Errey, who won back to back Stanley Cups with the Pittsburgh Penguins in the early 1990s as well as being a distant relative of brothers Bert and "Con" Corbeau both of whom were on Stanley Cup winning teams.

Ted Lindsay was inducted into the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame in 2009. He was selected to Canada's Sports Hall of Fame in 2002.[25]

On April 20, 2018, Oakland University announced it will award Lindsay an honorary doctor of humanities degree.[26]


More at Wikipedia.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
Sad news for the "Jilted Generation."*

Keith Flint: Prodigy singer dies aged 49


Quote:The Prodigy released a statement confirming the news, saying: “It is with deepest shock and sadness that we can confirm the death of our brother and best friend Keith Flint. A true pioneer, innovator and legend. He will be forever missed. We thank you for respecting the privacy of all concerned at this time.”

Liam Howlett, who formed the group in 1990, confirmed his death was a suicide. “The news is true, I can’t believe I’m saying this but our brother Keith took his own life over the weekend,” he wrote on Instagram. “I’m shell shocked, fuckin angry, confused and heart broken ..... r.i.p brother Liam”.






*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_for_...Generation
Reply
I'm not familiar with Prodigy. But I know that loud, adventurous and outrageous rock musicians since the 50s or 60s frequently die young.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply
Also:

Luke Perry dead at 52 following massive stroke

Quote:Luke Perry, who shot to fame as a moody teen rebel on the seminal 1990s series Beverly Hills, 90210, died Monday after suffering a massive stroke last week. He was 52.

It's generally a sad day in 90s pop culture.

90210 was a show for younger Gen Xers.  I was just a bit too old for it when it premiered in 1990, no longer high school age.  Keanu was my favorite heartthrob those days.
Reply
Katherine Marie Helmond (July 5, 1929 – February 23, 2019) was an American film, theater, and television actress and director. Over her five decades of television acting, she was known for her starring role as ditzy matriarch Jessica Tate on the sitcom Soap (1977–1981) and her co-starring role as feisty mother Mona Robinson on Who's the Boss? (1984–1992). She also played Doris Sherman on Coach and Lois Whelan (the mother of Debra Barone) on Everybody Loves Raymond. She also appeared as a guest on several talk and variety shows.

Helmond had supporting roles in films such as Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot (1976) and Terry Gilliam's Brazil (1985).[1] She also voiced Lizzie in the franchise Cars film trilogy by Disney/Pixar between 2006 and 2017.



After her stage debut in As You Like It, Helmond began working in New York City in 1955.[1] She later ran a summer theatre in the Catskills for three seasons and taught acting in university theatre programs.[1] She made her television debut in 1962, but did not achieve a high profile until the 1970s.[1] She also acted on stage, earning a Tony award nomination for her performance on Broadway in Eugene O'Neill's The Great God Brown (1973).[2] Her other appearances in Broadway productions included roles in; Private Lives, Don Juan and Mixed Emotions.[3]

Helmond appeared in such feature films as Family Plot (1976) and Brazil (1985), in which she played the mother of Jonathan Pryce's character. In 1983, she studied at the American Film Institute's Directing Workshop. She picked up Emmy nominations for her role as Mona Robinson in Who's the Boss and as Lois Whelan in Everybody Loves Raymond. She also received acclaim for her stage performance in Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues.[4]
Helmond appeared in The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975) as Emma Borden, the title character's sister.[1] She appeared in an episode of the short-lived 1976 CBS adventure series, Spencer's Pilots, starring Gene Evans. Helmond gained prominence as Jessica Tate, the ditzy matriarch of the Tate family in Soap (1977–1981) on ABC.[1] From 1984 to 1992, she played the role of Mona Robinson on the ABC sitcom Who's the Boss?.[1]

From 1995 to 1997, she starred in the ABC sitcom Coach as Doris Sherman, eccentric owner of the fictional Orlando Breakers professional football team. From 1996 to 2004, she had a recurring role on Everybody Loves Raymond as Lois Whelan (Ray Barone's mother-in-law). On July 25, 2010, she guest-starred on A&E Network's The Glades and as Caroline Bellefleur on HBO's True Blood.[1]

more at Wikipedia
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
Former Congressman Ralph Hall, last of the GI Generation in the House of Representatives:

Former Rep. Ralph Hall, a political survivor whose career mirrored the massive partisan shift that marked the last 50 years of Texas politics and made him the oldest person to ever serve in the U.S. House, died Thursday. He was 95.

The Rockwall Republican died of natural causes at his home overlooking Lake Ray Hubbard, a spokesman confirmed.

Services will be held on Saturday March 16 at 2 p.m. at First United Methodist Church in Rockwall. Visitation will take place on Friday March 15 at Rest Haven Funeral Home in Rockwall between 6 and 8 p.m.

Hall represented a largely rural northeast Texas district in Congress for 34 years after serving two decades years in other public office before that. He left, in his own way, an indelible imprint on a massive swath from his hometown of Rockwall all the way to Texarkana.

Hall’s longevity — he left office in 2015 at age 91 — was truly for the record books. But that tenure, which included Hall’s switch in 2004 from the Democratic Party to the GOP, also marked the change and end of an era.

“There have been many great members from Texas that served in the House,” former Rep. Joe Barton, an Arlington Republican, said in 2014. “But none has been more beloved and none has been more effective than Ralph Hall of Rockwall, Texas.”

When Hall was first elected to public office in 1950, he served in an area so Democratic, the primary effectively determined the election. By the time he was voted out of office in 2014, the primary was still the vote that mattered, just on the Republican side.

A retired Navy pilot, Hall was one of a host of World War II veterans in Congress when he got elected in 1980. By the time he left office, he was one of the last two World War II veterans left in the House or Senate.

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas-po...ll-dies-95
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
Former US Senator Birch Bayh, D-IN (1928-2019).

The Great Society Democrats are dying off.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
(03-16-2019, 01:23 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Former US Senator Birch Bayh, D-IN (1928-2019).

The Great Society Democrats are dying off.

Dying off, and yet they are still ahead of their time, compared to today's regime.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply
(03-18-2019, 10:54 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:
(03-16-2019, 01:23 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Former US Senator Birch Bayh, D-IN (1928-2019).

The Great Society Democrats are dying off.

Dying off, and yet they are still ahead of their time, compared to today's regime.

Selfishness, cruelty, recklessness, folly, and inequity get very stale very fast.

The Silent are dying off, and the last ones with power -- which I can imagine including Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders as president, considering how badly Boomers have fcuked up with Dubya and Trump, let alone some of the worst business executives and non-profit administrators of all time  -- will be the last. They would set a short-lived, unique style for probably a short moment in time.

But much good can happen in a short time in the long span of history. The Silent have never defined the Presidency as an Adaptive phenomenon. Maybe we would be far better off had we had someone like McCain, Lugar, or Voinovich as President instead of Dubya... d@mn Karl Rove for that "black baby" smear of McCain in 2000!

I have known people to be emotionally healthy and intellectually active into their 90s, if necessary. But we all know the risks. Someone like Donald Trump who demands more power than the Constitution allows and can ill use what he has may go mad if he was not so to begin with. 

If we are to get a President like Biden or Sanders who will cross age 80 even in his first term, then he must recognize the perils of aging (Trump is worse than Reagan in having people to take his reactionary ideals on more extreme courses rather than to have people capable of backtracking when necessary), have competent understudies, and contemplate retirement if the signs of mental degradation set in severely. If we elect Biden or Sanders, the choice of VP had better have the possibility of the 47th President needing to step in instead of "it would be great to pick up (name state)".

We will need to undo the Trump-era damage to our institutions. Maybe just having the decency and caution that Trump lacks will be key.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
Michel  Bacos, Air France pilot and hero of the Entebbe hijacking (1976):

Michel Bacos (c. 1924 – 26 March 2019)[1][2] was the captain of Air France Flight 139 when the aircraft was hijacked on June 27, 1976, by Palestinian and German terrorists.[3][4][5] The hijacking, by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), was part of an international campaign of Palestinian terrorism.[5]

Bacos was a recipient of the National Order of the Legion of Honour, the highest decoration in France.[6][7] He was also awarded a medal by the Israeli government for refusing to leave his Jewish passengers behind when the terrorists released their non-Jewish hostages and offered to release Bacos and his crew.[8]

His Airbus A300 flight originated in Tel Aviv and was on its way from Athens to Paris with Bacos at the controls. Minutes into the flight, Bacos heard screams and quickly realized that the plane was hijacked.[3][5][9] Bacos was forced to re-route the plane, at gunpoint.[10] He recalled later: "The terrorist had his gun pointed continuously at my head and occasionally he would poke my neck not to look at him. We could only obey the orders of the terrorists."[3] Bacos was forced to turn the plane south to Benghazi, Libya, for refueling,[11] and then he was forced to fly it in a south-eastern direction. He ultimately landed the jet at Entebbe in Uganda, with only 20 more minutes of fuel left.[5][9]

The terrorists freed the 148 non-Jewish passengers, and offered to release Bacos and his crew. They felt duty-bound to remain on the plane, and refused to leave. They stayed behind with the Jewish hostages.[11][3] The captives were freed in an Israeli commando raid known as Operation Entebbe, and Bacos was dazed in the attack.[12][13]


In 1976, Bacos was awarded the National Order of the Legion of Honour, the highest decoration in France, by the President of France.[6] The Israeli government awarded Bacos and his crew medals for heroism, for refusing to leave the Jewish passengers behind.[8] In June 2008, Bacos was awarded the B'nai B'rith International "Ménoras d'Or" (Golden Menorah) in Cannes, France.[14] Bacos retired from Air France in 1982, and resided in Nice, France with his wife as of 2006. At that time, he had seven grandchildren.[2] In 2016, the American Jewish Congress awarded Bacos the organization's Moral Courage Award. Bacos lived in Nice at at the time of his passing. Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi recognized Bacos, saying: "Michel, bravely refusing to give in to anti-Semitism and barbarism, did honor to France. The love of France and the defense of liberties have marked his destiny."[15]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Bacos
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
From the "Blood on the Water" game of the usually-civilized sport of water polo (Hungary versus the Soviet Union in the 1956 Summer Olympics):


Miklós (Nick) Martin (June 29, 1931 – March 25, 2019) was a Hungarian water polo player who competed in the 1952 and 1956 Summer Olympics. He was born in Budapest. He died in Pasadena, CA.

Martin was part of the Hungarian team which won the gold medals in the 1952 and the 1956 tournaments. He played two matches, including the "Blood in the Water" semi-final match against the Soviet Union, and scored five goals. His name is often left out of the 1956 Olympics because he defected to the United States immediately after the games, along with numerous fellow Olympians, and the communist party of Hungary at the time omitted him. In all, the U.S. State Department granted asylum to 34 of the Hungarian athletes.[1]

In June 2012, the magazine Sports Illustrated published a detailed account of the Hungarian defections that resulted from the Soviet Union's involvement in Hungary. The magazine itself played a key role in facilitating a secret plan to bring defecting Olympians to the United States. When the Hungarian delegation touched down in Darwin, Australia, Martin, one of the only athletes who read English, found a newspaper in the transit lounge and shared its reports. He became one of the primary spokespeople for the group.[2]

As the best English speaker among the Hungarian Olympians who defected, Martin found himself quoted so often that he feared he would be punished as a ringleader if he were to return to Hungary. So, with an art history master's degree from the University of Budapest, he enrolled at the University of Southern California but played only one semester of water polo because he found the sport there "too Mickey Mouse." He was the first person to receive a water polo scholarship to USC.[3] Instead he buckled down, earned his B.A. in French in three terms and, after earning a Ph.D. in Romance languages at Princeton on a Woodrow Wilson scholarship, became a professor. "The U.S. of that period was a land of endless opportunities," he says, "but my teaching career has been like an avalanche, straight down -- from Princeton to USC to Pasadena City College." Although retired from full-time teaching and over 80, he was still an adjunct professor of French at PCC and swam a mile each day. "PCC has a gorgeous pool," he says, "and I have the key."[4]

In 2006, Colin K. Gray and Megan Raney directed "Freedom's Fury", a film about the 1956 Olympic water polo semi-final match between Hungary and the U.S.S.R.[5] Nick Martin appears as himself.

In 2012, Martin participated in a video interview held at PCC’s Aquatic Center as part of an in-depth feature by CNN/SI on the 1956 Hungarian Olympic team.[6]

Martin retired as an associate professor in the French department of Pasadena City College.[7] He was a full-time faculty member for 44 years, and spent 27 years as head coach of the Pasadena City College men's water polo team.[8]


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikl%C3%B3...#Biography
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


Reply
Ranking Roger, Frontman For The English Beat, Dies At 56  

Quote:Roger Charlery, best known as Ranking Roger, singer of the widely influential U.K. group The Beat — known as The English Beat in the U.S. — died Tuesday afternoon, at 56. The singer was diagnosed with brain tumors and lung cancer last year. His death was announced on the website of The Beat, and confirmed to NPR by the group's manager, Tarquin Gotch.





(21 February 1963 – 26 March 2019)  Born in Birmingham, UK
Reply
Some of these new wave/punk musicians didn't take very good care of themselves, I guess. Along with some sixties ones, we know about them... too bad....
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
Reply
(03-28-2019, 02:58 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Some of these new wave/punk musicians didn't take very good care of themselves, I guess. Along with some sixties ones, we know about them... too bad....

Cancer affects many people.  Sometimes it happens to people who have not necessarily taken poor care of themselves.  It sounds like he had lung cancer, he might have been a smoker.
Reply
(03-28-2019, 03:43 PM)gabrielle Wrote:
(03-28-2019, 02:58 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Some of these new wave/punk musicians didn't take very good care of themselves, I guess. Along with some sixties ones, we know about them... too bad....

Cancer affects many people.  Sometimes it happens to people who have not necessarily taken poor care of themselves.  It sounds like he had lung cancer, he might have been a smoker.

-- this is true. Linda McCartney took good care of herself, wrote cookbooks about eating healthy, & she passed from cancer. I remember thinking @ the time, if cancer can take her it can take anybody
Heart my 2 yr old Niece/yr old Nephew 2020 Heart
Reply


Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 3 Guest(s)