Obituaries

[pbrower2a]

To call this person a piece of shit is to insult shit.

Peter William Sutcliffe (2 June 1946 – 13 November 2020), also known as Peter William Coonan, was an English serial killer who was dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper by the press. On 22 May 1981, Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women and attempting to murder seven others. He was sentenced to 20 concurrent sentences of life imprisonment, which were converted to a whole life order in 2010. All except two of his murders took place in West Yorkshire; the others were in Manchester.


Sutcliffe initially attacked women and girls in residential areas, but appeared to have moved to red light districts because he was attracted by the vulnerability of prostitutes.[1][2] Sutcliffe had allegedly regularly used the services of prostitutes in Leeds and Bradford. He carried out murders over five years, from 1975 to 1980.[3] After his arrest in Sheffield by South Yorkshire Police for driving with false number plates in January 1981, he was transferred to West Yorkshire Police, who questioned him about the killings. He confessed to being the perpetrator, saying that the voice of God had sent him on a mission to kill prostitutes. At his trial, Sutcliffe pleaded not guilty to murder on grounds of diminished responsibility, but he was convicted of murder on a majority verdict. Following his conviction, Sutcliffe began using his mother's maiden name of Coonan.

West Yorkshire Police were criticised for their failure to catch Sutcliffe despite having interviewed him nine times in the course of their five-year investigation. Because of the sensational nature of the case, the police handled an exceptional amount of information, some of it misleading (including the Wearside Jack hoax recorded message and letters purporting to be from the "Ripper"). Following Sutcliffe's conviction, the government ordered a review of the investigation, conducted by Lawrence Byford, known as the "Byford Report". The findings were made fully public in 2006 and confirmed the validity of the criticism against the force. The report led to changes to investigative procedures which were adopted across UK police forces.[4] In 2019, The Guardian described the manhunt as "stunningly mishandled".[5]

Sutcliffe was transferred from prison to a high-security psychiatric hospital in March 1984 after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.[6] The High Court dismissed an appeal by Sutcliffe in 2010, confirming that he would serve a whole life order and never be released from custody. In August 2016, it was ruled that Sutcliffe was mentally fit to be returned to prison, and he was transferred that month to HM Prison Frankland in Durham. He died on 13 November 2020 at the age of 74.

[pbrower2a]

Another Hall of Famer, this time football:

(NOTRE DAME)...6'2'', 215...PAUL VERNON HORNUNG ... HEISMAN TROPHY WINNER, ALL-AMERICAN AT NOTRE DAME ... BONUS DRAFT PICK, 1957 ... MULTI-TALENTED CLUTCH PLAYER, AT BEST INSIDE 20-YARD LINE ... NFL PLAYER OF YEAR, 1960, 1961 ... LED NFL SCORERS THREE YEARS WITH RECORD 176 POINTS IN 1960 ... CAREER STATS: 3,711 YARDS RUSHING, 130 RECEPTIONS, 760 POINTS ... TALLIED RECORD 19 POINTS IN 1961 NFL TITLE GAME ... PLAYED IN TWO PRO BOWLS ... BORN DECEMBER 23, 1935, IN LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY ... DIED NOVEMBER 13, 2020, AT AGE OF 84

https://www.profootballhof.com/players/paul-hornung/

[pbrower2a]

Fascist pig Tom Metzger died nine days ago at age 82.

Perfect music to fit the KKK: violent, nocturnal, primitive, superstitious, and barbarous... Night on Bald Mountain.

[pbrower2a]

physicist Masatoshi Koshiba


He graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1951 and received a Ph.D. in physics at the University of Rochester, New York, in 1955. From July 1955 to February 1958 he was Research Associate, Department of Physics, University of Chicago; from March 1958 to October 1963, he was Associate Professor, Institute of Nuclear Study, University of Tokyo, although from November 1959 to August 1962 he was on leave from the above as Senior Research Associate with the honorary rank of Associate Professor and as the Acting Director, Laboratory of High Energy Physics and Cosmic Radiation, Department of Physics, University of Chicago. At the University of Tokyo he became Associate Professor in March 1963 and then Professor in March 1970 in the Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, and Emeritus Professor there in 1987. From 1987 to 1997, Koshiba taught at Tokai University. In 2002, he jointly won the Nobel Prize in Physics "for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos". (The other shares of that year's Prize were awarded to Raymond Davis Jr. and Riccardo Giacconi of the U.S.A.)[2]


Koshiba's award-winning work centred on neutrinos, subatomic particles that had long perplexed scientists. Since the 1920s it had been suspected that the Sun shines because of nuclear fusion reactions that transform hydrogen into helium and release energy. Later, theoretical calculations indicated that countless neutrinos must be released in these reactions and, consequently, that Earth must be exposed to a constant flood of solar neutrinos. Because neutrinos interact weakly with matter, however, only one in a trillion is stopped on its way to Earth. Neutrinos thus developed a reputation as being undetectable.

In the 1980s, Koshiba, drawing on the work done by Raymond Davis Jr, constructed an underground neutrino detector in a zinc mine in Japan. Called Kamiokande II, it was an enormous water tank surrounded by electronic detectors to sense flashes of light produced when neutrinos interacted with atomic nuclei in water molecules. Koshiba was able to confirm Davis's results—that the Sun produces neutrinos and that fewer neutrinos were found than had been expected (a deficit that became known as the solar neutrino problem). In 1987 Kamiokande also detected neutrinos from a supernova explosion outside the Milky Way. After building a larger, more sensitive detector named Super-Kamiokande, which became operational in 1996, Koshiba found strong evidence for what scientists had already suspected—that neutrinos, of which three types are known, change from one type into another in flight; this resolves the solar neutrino problem, since early experiments could only detect one type, not all three.
Koshiba was a member of the Board of Sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and also a foreign fellow of Bangladesh Academy of Sciences [3] and also a founding patron of Edogawa NICHE Prize Steering committee [4]. He died on November 12, 2020 in Tokyo at the age of 94.[5][6][7][8]
Awards

• 1987 – Asahi Prize
  
  
• 1987 – Nishina Memorial Prize
  
  
• 1997 – Humboldt Prize
  
  
• 2000 – Wolf Prize in Physics
  
  
• 2002 – Nobel Prize in Physics
  
  
• 2002 – Panofsky Prize
  
  
• 2003 – Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics
  
  
  

Honors

• 1985 – Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
  
  
• 1997 – Order of Culture
  
  
• 2002 – Honorary citizenship of Suginami
  
  
• 2002 – Honorary doctor of Meiji University
  
  
• 2002 - Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society. [9]
  
  
• 2003 – Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun
  
  
• 2003 – In commemoration of the Nobel Prize-winning by Masatoshi Koshiba, Koshiba hall was established at the University of Tokyo's School of science.[10]
  
  
• 2003 – Honorary citizenship of Tokyo
  
  
• 2003 – Emeritus Professor of the University of Tokyo
  

[Eric the Green]

(11-13-2020, 07:41 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Fascist pig Tom Metzger died nine days ago at age 82.

Perfect music to fit the KKK: violent, nocturnal, primitive, superstitious, and barbarous... Night on Bald Mountain.

I dunno; I claim it as bewitched music. It has great ritual dance moves, and spell-castings, and is very exotic.

http://philosopherswheel.com/bewitched.html

[pbrower2a]

Acting coach, comedy program director Art Wolff

Art Wolff (1938 – November 16, 2020) was an American television director and acting coach.
Wolff amassed a number of notable directing credits, directing episodes of The Tracey Ullman Show, It's Garry Shandling's Show, The Powers That Be, Dream On, and most notably the original Seinfeld pilot episode "The Seinfeld Chronicles".[1]
In later years, Wolff directed theatre at a number of venues,[2] as well as taught courses at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and the Actors Studio.[2]
As an acting coach, Wolff ran an acting studio in Hollywood and worked with Dakota Fanning, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Sean Penn, Matthew Perry, Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, Julie Hagerty, Steve Martin, Brian Benben, and many others.[2][3]

Wolff died at Mount Sinai West in New York City on November 16, 2020 of heart failure; he was 82.[4]

[pbrower2a]

Actress Dena Dietrich (no obvious relation to Marlene even if she was about the right age) 


Dena Dietrich (December 4, 1928 – November 21, 2020) was an American actress. She was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
On television, Dietrich portrayed Grace Peterson in Adam's Rib,[1] Dena Madison in Karen,[1]:555 Estelle Milner in Paul Sand in Friends and Lovers,[1]:818 Molly Gibbons in The Practice[1]:850 Ethel Armbrewster in The Ropers,[1]:910 and Pearl Newman in 13 East.[1]:1072

Her other television credits include recurring roles on Life with Lucy, Santa Barbara, All My Children and Philly. She made guest appearances on Emergency!, Life Goes On, NYPD Blue, Murphy Brown, and The Golden Girls (as Dorothy's sister Gloria).

Dietrich appeared in such films as The Wild Party (1975), Disney's The North Avenue Irregulars (1979) and the Mel Brooks film History of the World, Part I (1981).[citation needed] She appeared on Broadway in The Rimers of Eldritch, Here's Where I Belong, and The Prisoner of Second Avenue.[2] Outside of film and television, Dietrich provided the voice of the grandmother narrator on the dark ride attraction Horizons at Epcot in Walt Disney World from 1983 until 1999. She studied acting at HB Studio.[3]

Dietrich was perhaps best known for her portrayal of Mother Nature in Chiffon margarine's 30-second commercials in the 1970s (1971–79).[4] Dressed in a gown of white and adorned with a crown of daisies, Mother Nature is seen sampling what she believes is butter, straight from nature. An unseen narrator (Mason Adams) informs her "That's Chiffon Margarine, not butter." A perplexed Mother Nature replies that it would be impossible for it to be margarine because it tastes too much like real butter; the narrator responds in delight that the margarine is indeed so close to real butter that it could fool even Mother Nature. Dietrich angrily responds "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!" and commands nature to attack, such as through thunder and lightning or commanding an elephant to charge the camera. "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!" eventually became Dietrich's trademark catchphrase. The melodic tagline for the ad reads: "If you think it's butter, but it's not...it's Chiffon."

Iconic ad:





Dietrich died of natural causes on November 21, 2020, at a health-care facility in Los Angeles. She was 91 years old.[5]

[pbrower2a]

David Dinkins, former mayor of New York City. 93.

[pbrower2a]

Argentinian "Bad Boy" soccer star Diego Maradona.

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

[pbrower2a]

Frederick Sasakamoose, CM (December 25, 1933 – November 24, 2020) was a Canadian professional ice hockey player. He was one of the first Canadian Indigenous players in the National Hockey League,[2][3] and the first First Nations player with treaty status.[4] He played 11 games with the Chicago Black Hawks during the 1953–54 season; the rest of his career, which lasted from 1953 to 1960, was spent in various minor leagues. After his playing career, Sasakamoose became involved in Indigenous affairs, and served as chief of the Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation for a period. He was later recognized for his work, including being named a member of the Order of Canada.

Sasakamoose is of Cree descent.[5] He was born in Debden, Saskatchewan and grew up on the Ahtahkakoop Indian Reserve in Saskatchewan and learned to play ice hockey at an Indian residential school in Duck Lake, Saskatchewan. He was one of 11 children, where only 5 survived throughout childhood due to smallpox.[6][7]

In 1944 Sasakamoose joined the Duck Lake ice hockey team.[8] Sasakamoose's skills were first recognized by a priest in Montreal who became the sports director at the Indian residential school Sasakamoose was attending. The priest pushed Sasakamoose to improve himself, and he went on to develop an extraordinary left-handed shot as a result.[5] Sasakamoose had a troubled time at the school: when he was nine he was raped by fellow students, and detailed other punishments by the school officials.[9] While Sasakamoose became one of the star players on the school's team, he left Duck Lake at the age of 15 and so feared returning to the school that he didn't believe at first when a priest had a hockey scout visit his home.[10]

Ultimately Sasakamoose did meet the scout, and at the age of 16 joined the junior Moose Jaw Canucks, who played in the Western Canada Junior Hockey League.[8] After scoring 31 goals during the 1953–54 season he was named the league's most valuable player.[5] During the season he made his NHL debut with the Chicago Black Hawks, playing November 20, 1953 against the Boston Bruins. Sasakamoose played two games with Chicago at the time before being sent back to junior, though he was called up again a few months later after Moose Jaw's season ended in February 1954.[11] Sasakamoose played 11 games for the Black Hawks that season, recording no points. The rest of his career was spent in various minor leagues.[11]

After retiring from ice hockey, Sasakamoose became a band councilor of the Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation, serving for 35 years, and spent one term (6 years) as Chief.[12] He was also extensively involved in the development of sports programs for Indigenous children.[11] Starting in 1961, he used his fame to promote opportunities for youth in sports which included ice hockey, long-distance running, track and field, soccer, and basketball.[5] In 2002, he was honoured by the Blackhawks at a home game.[11] He was inducted into the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame in the builders category in 2007.[13][14] He was also inducted into the Prince Albert Sports Hall of Fame, Meadow Lake Wall of Fame, FSIN Circle of Honour and the Canadian Native Hockey Hall of Fame.[15] He was acknowledged for achievements and contributions by both the Assembly of First Nations and the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN).[5] He was also a founding member of the Northern Indian Hockey League. He became a member of the Order of Canada in 2018.[16]

Sasakamoose was admitted to hospital in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, where he was diagnosed with COVID-19 on November 20, 2020 and passed away four days later due to complications from the virus during the COVID-19 pandemic in Saskatchewan.[17][18]

He married Loretta Isbister in 1955, and had nine children.[12] At the time of his death Sasakamoose's memoir, Call Me Indian, was being finished, and had a release date for April 6, 2021.[8]

[pbrower2a]

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh Mahabadi  (Persian: محسن فخری‌زاده مهابادی‎; 1958 – 27 November 2020) was an Iranian nuclear physicist.[2] He was a professor of physics at Imam Hussein University in Tehran and a brigadier general in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.[3][4] A UN Security Council resolution in 2007 identified him as a senior scientist in the Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics and the former head of the Physics Research Center (PHRC) at Lavizan-Shian.


According to Alireza Jafarzadeh, Fakhrizadeh was a member of the Imam Hossein University faculty beginning in 1991.[6] In the early 2000s, Fakhrizadeh led an initiative called the Biological Study Centre, described as a successor to the Physics Research Centre (PHRC). The activities of this research group took place at Lavizan-Shian.[7] Between 2008 and 2011, he directed an institute called the Organization of Defense Innovation and Research (known as SPND, for its initials in Farsi), which was affiliated with Malek-Ashtar University of Technology.[8] Transliterated Sazman-e Pazhohesh va Noavarihaye Defaee, SPND was founded in February 2011 and headquartered within Iran's Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics.[9]


Fakhrizadeh had been subject to a UN Security Council asset freeze and travel notification requirements because the Council said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had asked to interview Fakhrizadeh and Iran refused to make him available.[10] With respect to Fakhrizadeh's work Iran has provided some information which the IAEA says is "not inconsistent with its findings", but the IAEA continues to seek corroboration of its findings.[11] According to the UN designation, Fakhrizadeh was a senior Ministry of Defence and Armed Forces Logistics scientist and former head of the Physics Research Center (PHRC). The IAEA asked to interview him about the activities of the PHRC over the period he was head, but Iran denied the request.[12] Fakhrizadeh was identified as a "key figure" in a 2007 report by the UN on Iran's nuclear programme.[13]

An internal 2007 Iranian document leaked to The Sunday Times identified Fakhrizadeh as the chairman of the Field for the Expansion of Deployment of Advanced Technology (FEDAT), the cover name for the organization running Iran's nuclear weapons programme. The document, entitled Outlook for Special Neutron-Related Activities over the Next Four Years, lays out a four-year plan to develop a uranium deuteride neutron initiator.[14][15][16]
In 2010, The Guardian reported that he was believed to be in charge of Iran's nuclear program.[17] In 2012, The Wall Street Journal called him "Tehran's atomic weapons guru";[18] in 2014, The New York Times called him the closest thing to an Iranian Oppenheimer

On 27 November 2020, Fakhrizadeh was ambushed while traveling in a vehicle on a rural road in Absard, a city near Tehran.[27][28][29] The attack was initiated when a truck carrying explosives hidden beneath a load of wood detonated near Fakhrizadeh's car.[30][31] A second vehicle was destroyed with a bomb.[32] Fakhrizadeh's bodyguards then clashed with gunmen.[33][27] Iranian sources reported that three to four of the attackers were killed while Fakhrizadeh's bodyguards and family members were also injured in the attack.[3][33] There were also reports of a suicide attacker who later died from his injuries.[34]


Fakhrizadeh was taken to a hospital where he died after efforts to resuscitate him failed.[3][35][33] Several others were also reportedly killed in the attack, possibly including family members who were traveling with Fakhrizadeh at the time.

Following the incident, Iranian security forces reportedly began stopping vehicles in Tehran in a search for the culprits.[31] Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the roads were emptier than was typical, resulting in fewer witnesses.[36]
No group immediately claimed responsibility for his killing.[36]

[pbrower2a]

Actor (if not the voice) of Darth Vader in the original Star Wars, David Prowse


David Charles Prowse MBE (1 July 1935 – 28 November 2020) was an English bodybuilder,[1] weightlifter and character actor in British film and television. Worldwide, he was best known for physically portraying Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy (with the character's voice being performed by James Earl Jones); in 2015, he starred in a documentary concerning that role, entitled I Am Your Father. Prior to his role as Vader, Prowse had established himself as a prominent figure in the UK as the first Green Cross Code man, a character used in road safety public information aimed at children.[2][3][4]

Much more at Wikipedia.

[pbrower2a]

Edda Bresciani(23 September 1930 – 29 November 2020)[1] was an Italian Egyptologist.

Bresciani was born in Lucca, and graduated in 1955 from the University of Pisa. She excavated at several places in Egypt and is mainly known for her work at several sites in the Fayum. Her work included the excavation of the tomb of the vizier Bakenrenef at Saqqara. She also found and excavated a Middle Kingdom cemetery at Khelua. She published many books on her work. She earned a medal for meritorious science and culture in May 1996.[2] Bresciani was a professor emerita at the University of Pisa.[3]

[pbrower2a]

Benjamin William Bova (November 8, 1932 – November 29, 2020) was an American writer. He was the author of more than 120[2] works of science fact and fiction, six-time winner of the Hugo Award, an editor of Analog Magazine, an editorial director of Omni; he was also president of both the National Space Society and the Science Fiction Writers of America.[3]

Bova worked as a technical writer for Project Vanguard in the 1950s and later for the Avco Everett Research Laboratory.[10] in the 1960s. when they conducted research in lasers and fluid dynamics. At Avco Everett he met Arthur R. Kantrowitz (later of the Foresight Institute).[citation needed]

In 1972, Bova became editor of Analog Science Fact & Fiction, after John W. Campbell's death in 1971. At Analog, Bova won six Hugo Awards for Best Professional Editor.[11]



Bova served as the science advisor for the television series The Starlost (1973),[11][12] resigning as he lacked the "contractual right to remove his name from the credits."[13] His novel The Starcrossed, loosely based on his experiences, featured a characterization of his friend and colleague Harlan Ellison as "Ron Gabriel".[14] In 1974, he co-wrote the screenplay for an episode of the children's science-fiction television series Land of the Lost, titled "The Search".[15] After leaving Analog in 1978, Bova went on to edit Omni, from 1978 to 1982.[11]

Bova held the position of President Emeritus of the National Space Society and served as President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA).[16][17]



In 2000, he attended the 58th World Science Fiction Convention (Chicon 2000) as the Author Guest of Honor.[18] In 2007, Stuber/Parent Productions hired him as a consultant to provide insight into what the world may look like in the near future, for their film Repo Men (2010) starring Jude Law and Forest Whitaker. Also in 2007 he provided consulting services to Silver Pictures on the film adaptation of Richard K. Morgan's hardboiled cyberpunk science-fiction novel Altered Carbon (2002). He was awarded the Robert A. Heinlein Award in 2008 for his work in science fiction.[19]



As of February 2016, Bova had written over 124 books in various genres.[20] He edited several works, including The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two (1973)[21] and Nebula Awards Showcase 2008.[22] He wrote the Grand Tour novel series about exploration and colonization of the Solar System by humans. Reviewing a collection of 12 of the series published in 2004, The New York Times described Bova as "the last of the great pulp writers".[23]


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

[pbrower2a]

Valéry Marie René Georges Giscard d'Estaing (UK: /ˌʒiːskɑːr dɛˈstæ̃/,[1] US: /ʒɪˌskɑːr -/,[2][3] French: [valeʁi ʒiskaʁ dɛstɛ̃] (listen); 2 February 1926 – 2 December 2020), also known as Giscard or VGE, was a French politician who served as President of France from 1974 to 1981.[4]


After serving as Minister of Finance under prime ministers Jacques Chaban-Delmas and Pierre Messmer, he won the presidential election of 1974 with 50.8% of the vote against François Mitterrand of the Socialist Party. His tenure was marked by a more liberal attitude on social issues—such as divorce, contraception, and abortion—and attempts to modernise the country and the office of the presidency, notably launching such far-reaching infrastructure projects as the TGV and the turn towards reliance on nuclear power as France's main energy source. He promoted liberalisation of trade. However, his popularity suffered from the economic downturn that followed the 1973 energy crisis, marking the end of the "Trente Glorieuses" (thirty glorious years of prosperity after 1945). He was forced to impose austerity budgets and allow unemployment to rise in order to avoid deficits. Giscard d'Estaing in the centre faced political opposition from both sides of the spectrum: from the newly unified left of François Mitterrand and a rising Jacques Chirac, who resurrected Gaullism on a right-wing opposition line. In 1981, despite a high approval rating, he was defeated in a runoff against Mitterrand, with 48.2% of the vote.

As president Giscard d'Estaing promoted cooperation among the European nations, especially in tandem with West Germany. As former president, he was a member of the Constitutional Council. He also served as President of the Regional Council of Auvergne from 1986 to 2004. Involved with the European Union, he notably presided over the Convention on the Future of Europe that drafted the ill-fated Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe. In 2003, he was elected to the Académie française, taking the seat that his friend and former President of Senegal Léopold Sédar Senghor had held. At the time of his death at age 94 years and 304 days, from COVID-19, Giscard was the longest-lived French president in history.

Much more at Wikipedia.

[pbrower2a]

Warren Berlinger (August 31, 1937 – December 2, 2020) was an American character actor, with Broadway runs, movie and television credits, and much work in commercials.

Berlinger performed in the original 1946 Broadway production of Annie Get Your Gun, with Ethel Merman and Ray Middleton. He guest-starred on the original Howdy Doody television show, with roles following on Kraft Television Theatre and other programs. He also guest-starred on John Cassavetes's detective series, NBC's Johnny Staccato.
In 1960 he appeared with Jack Lemmon and Rick Nelson in The Wackiest Ship in the Army (film) as Radioman 2nd class A.J. Sparks.

Berlinger appeared in both the Broadway stage and Hollywood movie productions of Blue Denim (winning a Theatre World Award for the stage version), and also Happy Time, Anniversary Waltz (later adapted as the movie Happy Anniversary), and Come Blow Your Horn in 1961. He also performed in the 1963 London stage production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying at the Shaftesbury Theatre. His career as a character actor began in 1956 with the film Teenage Rebel[2], and continued in the movies Because They're Young (1960), The Wackiest Ship In The Army (1960), Billie (1965) and Thunder Alley (1967).

In 1965, Berlinger was the star of Kilroy, a segment of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color. In 1966, he played Phillip Short in the movie Spinout.[2] Later appearances included episodes of Charlie's Angels, Happy Days (including an appearance as "tough-as-nails" United States Army recruiter Sergeant Bechler), on Marlo Thomas' TV show That Girl, as Thomas' stingy cousin Howard (Season 1, Episode 27), Love, American Style, Operation Petticoat, Friends, Columbo and Murder, She Wrote. In 1973, he was a regular cast member of the short-lived situation comedy A Touch of Grace. He also starred in an Archie Bunker type sitcom, entitled "Warren." In 1975, he was a special guest member of the show Emergency! playing the role of a heart transplant patient Mr. Frank Fenady alongside Jeanne Cooper. His other films include The Long Goodbye (1973), The Girl Most Likely to... (1973), Lepke (1975), I Will, I Will... for Now (1976), The Shaggy D.A. (1976), The Magician of Lublin (1979), The Cannonball Run (1981), The World According to Garp (1982), Ten Little Indians (1989), Hero (1992) and That Thing You Do! (1996).

In 2006, Berlinger marked his 60th anniversary in show business. He was both honorary mayor and honorary sheriff of Chatsworth, California.

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

[pbrower2a]

Rafer Lewis Johnson (August 18, 1934 – December 2, 2020) was an American decathlete and film actor. He was the 1960 Olympic gold medalist in the decathlon, having won silver in 1956. He had previously won a gold in the 1955 Pan American Games. He was the USA team's flag bearer at the 1960 Olympics and lit the Olympic cauldron at the Los Angeles Games in 1984.


In 1968, Johnson, football player Rosey Grier, and journalist George Plimpton tackled Sirhan Sirhan moments after he had fatally shot Robert F. Kennedy.

After he retired from athletics, Johnson turned to acting, sportscasting, and public service and was instrumental in creating the California Special Olympics. His acting career included appearances in The Sins of Rachel Cade (1961), the Elvis Presley film Wild in the Country (1961), Pirates of Tortuga (1961), None but the Brave (1965), two Tarzan films with Mike Henry, The Last Grenade (1970), Soul Soldier (1970), Roots: The Next Generations (1979), the James Bond film Licence to Kill (1989), and Think Big (1990).

Johnson was born in Hillsboro, Texas on August 18, 1934,[2] but the family moved to Kingsburg, California, when he was aged nine.[3] For a while, they were the only black family in the town.[4] A versatile athlete, he played on Kingsburg High School's football, baseball and basketball teams. He was also elected class president in both junior high and high school.[4] The summer between his sophomore and junior years in high school (age 16), his coach Murl Dodson drove Johnson 24 miles (40 km) to Tulare and watched Bob Mathias compete in the 1952 U.S. Olympic decathlon trials.[5] Johnson told his coach, "I could have beaten most of those guys."[4] Dodson and Johnson drove back a month later to watch Mathias's victory parade. Weeks later, Johnson competed in a high school invitational decathlon and won the event. He also won the 1953 and 1954 California state high school decathlon meets.[5]


In 1954 as a freshman at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), his progress in the event was impressive; he broke the world record in his fourth competition.[4] He pledged Pi Lambda Phi fraternity, America's first non-discriminatory fraternity, and was class president[4] at UCLA. In 1955, in Mexico City, he won the title at the Pan American Games.

Johnson qualified for both the decathlon and the long jump events for the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne. However, he was hampered by an injury and forfeited his place in the long jump. Despite this handicap, he managed to take second place in the decathlon behind compatriot Milt Campbell. It would turn out to be his last defeat in the event.

Due to injury, Johnson missed the 1957 and 1959 seasons (the latter due to a car accident), but he broke the world record in 1958 and again in 1960. The crown to his career came at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. His most serious rival was Yang Chuan-Kwang (C. K. Yang) of Taiwan. Yang also studied at UCLA; the two trained together under UCLA track coach Elvin C. "Ducky" Drake and had become friends. In the decathlon, the lead swung back and forth between them. Finally, after nine events, Johnson led Yang by a small margin, but Yang was known to be better in the final event, the 1500 m. According to The Telegraph (UK), "legend has it" that Drake gave coaching to both men, with him advising Johnson to stay close to Yang and be ready for "a hellish sprint" at the end, and advising Yang to put as much distance between himself and Johnson before the final sprint as possible.[6][7]
Johnson ran his personal best at 4:49.7 and finished just 1.2 sec slower than Yang, winning the gold by 58 points with an Olympic record total of 8,392 points. Both athletes were exhausted and drained and came to a stop a few paces past the finish line leaning against each other for support.[6] With this victory, Johnson ended his athletic career.

At UCLA, Johnson also played basketball under legendary coach John Wooden and was a starter for the Bruins on their 1958–59 team.[8] Wooden considered Johnson a great defensive player, but sometimes regretted holding back his teams early in his coaching career, remarking, "imagine Rafer Johnson on the [fast] break."[4]
Johnson was selected by the Los Angeles Rams in the 28th round (333rd overall) of the 1959 NFL Draft as a running back.

While training for the 1960 Olympics, his friend Kirk Douglas told him about a part in Spartacus that Douglas thought might make him a star: the Ethiopian gladiator Draba, who refuses to kill Spartacus (played by Douglas) after defeating him in a duel. Johnson read for and got the role, but was forced to turn it down because the Amateur Athletic Union told him it would make him a professional and therefore ineligible for the Olympics.[4] The role eventually went to another UCLA great, Woody Strode. In 1960, Johnson began acting in motion pictures and working as a sportscaster. He made several film appearances, mostly in the 1960s. Johnson worked full-time as a sportscaster in the early 1970s. He was a weekend sports anchor on the local NBC affiliate in Los Angeles, KNBC, but seemed uncomfortable in that position and eventually moved on to other things.
Johnson worked on the presidential election campaign of United States Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and on June 5, 1968 with the help of Rosey Grier, he apprehended Sirhan Sirhan immediately after Sirhan had assassinated Kennedy at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California. Kennedy died the following day at Good Samaritan Hospital. Johnson discussed the experience in his autobiography, The Best That I Can Be (published in 1999 by Galilee Trade Publishing and co-authored with Philip Goldberg).

[/url]
Rafer Johnson at 1972 Special Olympics

Johnson served on the organizing committee the first [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Olympics]Special Olympics competition in Chicago in 1968, hosted by Special Olympics founder, Eunice Kennedy Shriver and the next year he led the founding of the California Special Olympics.[9] Johnson, along with a small group of volunteers, founded California Special Olympics in 1969 by conducting a competition at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for 900 individuals with intellectual disabilities. Following the first California Games in 1969, Johnson became one of the original members of the Board of Directors. The board worked together to raise funds and offer a modest program of swimming and track and field. In 1983, Rafer ran for President of the Board to increase Board participation, reorganize the staff to most effectively use each person's talents, and expand fundraising efforts. He was elected president and served in the capacity until 1992, when he was named Chairman of the Board of Governors.[10]

More at Wikipedia

[pbrower2a]

Alison Stewart Lurie (September 3, 1926 – December 3, 2020) was an American novelist and academic. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her 1984 novel Foreign Affairs. Although better known as a novelist, she wrote many non-fiction books and articles, particularly on children's literature and the semiotics of dress.

Alison Stewart Lurie was born on September 3, 1926, in Chicago,[1] and raised in White Plains, New York. Her father Harry Lawrence Lurie was a sociologist, and her mother Bernice Lurie (née Stewart) was a journalist and book critic.[2] Due to complications with a forceps delivery, she was born deaf in one ear and with damage to her facial muscles.[3] She attended a boarding school in Darien, Connecticut,[3] and graduated from Radcliffe College in 1947 with a bachelor's degree in history and literature.[2]

Lurie married literary scholar Jonathan Peale Bishop in 1948. Bishop later taught at Amherst College and Cornell University, and Lurie moved along with him. They had three sons and divorced in 1984. She then married the writer Edward Hower. She spent part of her time in London, part in Ithaca, and part in Key West, Florida.[2]

In 1970, Lurie began to teach in the English department at Cornell, where she was tenured in 1979. She taught children's literature and writing. In 1976, she was named the F. J. Whiton Professor of American Literature at Cornell,[4][5] and upon retirement, professor emerita.[6] In 1981, she published The Language of Clothes, a non-fiction book about the semiotics of dress. Her discussion in Language of Clothes has been compared to Roland Barthes' The Fashion System (1985).[7]



Lurie died under hospice care in Ithaca, New York, on December 3, 2020, at age 94.[2]



Lurie's novels often featured professors in starring roles, and were frequently set at academic institutions.[8] With their light touch and focus on portraying the emotions of well-educated adulterers, her works bear more resemblance to some 20th-century British authors (such as Kingsley Amis and David Lodge) rather than to the major American authors of her generation.[9] A 2003 profile of Lurie, styled as a review of her Boys and Girls Forever, a work of criticism, observed that Lurie's works are often "witty and astute comedies of manners".[10] Lurie noted that her writing was grounded in a "desire to laugh at things".[5]


Literary critic John W. Aldridge gave a mixed assessment of Lurie's oeuvre in The American Novel and the Way We Live Now (1983). He notes that Lurie's work "has a satirical edge that, when it is not employed in hacking away at the obvious, is often eviscerating", but also remarks that "there is … something hobbled and hamstrung about her engagement in experience".[11]



Although better known as a novelist, she wrote many non-fiction books and articles, particularly on children's literature and the semiotics of dress.[1]


More at Wikipedia.

[pbrower2a]

Narinder Singh Kapany (31 October 1926 – 4 December 2020) was an Indian-American physicist best known for his work on fibre optics.[2][3][4] He is credited with coining of the term fibre optics and is also considered the 'father of fibre optics'.[5][6] Fortune named him one of seven 'Unsung Heroes' in their 'Businessmen of the Century' issue in 1999.[3][7][4]

Kapany was born on 31 October 1926, in a Sikh family in Moga, Punjab.[8][9] He completed his schooling in Dehradun and went on to graduate from Agra University.[8] He served briefly as an Indian Ordnance Factories Service officer, before going to Imperial College London in 1952 to work on a Ph.D. degree in optics from the University of London, which he obtained in 1955.[8][10]


At Imperial College, Kapany worked with Harold Hopkins on transmission through fibres, achieving good image transmission through a large bundle of optical fibres for the first time in 1953.[11][12][13] Optical fibres had been tried for image transmission before, but Hopkins and Kapany's technique allowed much better image quality than could previously be achieved. This, combined with the almost-simultaneous development of optical cladding by Dutch scientist Bram van Heel, helped jump start the new field of fibre optics. Kapany coined the term 'fibre optics' in an article in Scientific American in 1960, wrote the first book about the new field, and was the new field's most prominent researcher, writer, and spokesperson.[11][14][15]

Kapany's research and work encompassed fibre-optics communications, lasers, biomedical instrumentation, solar energy and pollution monitoring. He had over one hundred patents, and was a member of the National Inventors Council. He was an International Fellow[1] of numerous scientific societies including the Royal Academy of Engineering,[1] the Optical Society of America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.[10]

[/url]
Optical fibres

As an entrepreneur and business executive, Kapany specialized in the processes of innovation and the management of technology and technology transfer. In 1960, he founded Optics Technology Inc. and was chairman of the board, President, and Director of Research for twelve years. In 1967 the company went public with numerous corporate acquisitions and joint-ventures in the United States and abroad. In 1973, Kapany founded Kaptron Inc. and was President and CEO until 1990 when he sold the company to AMP Incorporated. For the next nine years, Kapany was an AMP Fellow, heading the Entrepreneur & Technical Expert Program and serving as Chief Technologist for Global Communications Business. He founded K2 Optronics. He also served on the boards of various companies. He was a member of the Young Presidents Organization and later was a member of the World Presidents Organization.[url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narinder_Singh_Kapany#cite_note-:1-10][10][16]



As an academic, Kapany taught and supervised research activity of postgraduate students. He was a Regents Professor at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB), and at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). He was also Director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Development (CIED) at UCSC for seven years. At Stanford University, he was a Visiting Scholar in the Physics Department and Consulting Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering.[17]


As an author and lecturer, Kapany published over 100 scientific papers and four books on opto-electronics and entrepreneurship. He lectured to various national and international scientific societies. His article on fibre optics in Scientific American in 1960 established the term "fibre optics". In November 1999, Fortune magazine published profiles of seven people who have greatly influenced life in the twentieth century but are unsung heroes. Kapany was one of them.[4]

more at Wikipedia.

[pbrower2a]

former US Senator Paul Sarbanes:

Paul Spyros Sarbanes (February 3, 1933 – December 6, 2020) was a American politician and attorney. A member of the Democratic Party from Maryland, he served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1971 to 1977 and as a United States Senator from 1977 to 2007. Sarbanes was the longest-serving senator in Maryland history until he was surpassed by Barbara Mikulski by a single day when her term ended on January 3, 2017.[a]

Born in Salisbury, Maryland, Sarbanes was a graduate of Princeton University, Balliol College, Oxford, and Harvard Law School. Elected to the Maryland House of Delegates in 1966, he went on to serve two terms in the Maryland House from 1967 to 1971. In 1970, he won a seat in the United States House of Representatives, representing Maryland's 4th and later Maryland's 3rd congressional district from 1971 to 1977. In 1976, he ran for the United States Senate, defeating Republican incumbent John Glenn Beall, Jr. with 59% of the vote. Sarbanes was re-elected four times, each time receiving no less than 59% of the vote. He did not seek re-election in 2006, when he was succeeded by fellow Democrat Ben Cardin. Sarbanes was known for his low-key style,[1] often shunning the limelight over his thirty-year Senate career. In 2002, Sarbanes co-sponsored the Sarbanes–Oxley Act, which is cited as his most-noted sponsored piece of legislation.[2][3]

More at Wikipedia.