Obituaries

[pbrower2a]

Hans Küng (pronounced [ˈhans ˈkʏŋ]; 19 March 1928 – 6 April 2021) was a Swiss Catholic priest, theologian, and author. From 1995 he was president of the Foundation for a Global Ethic (Stiftung Weltethos). After he rejected the doctrine of papal infallibility, he was not allowed to teach as a Catholic theologian; his priestly faculties were not revoked. In 1979, he had to leave the Catholic faculty, but remained at the University of Tübingen as a professor of ecumenical theology, retiring with the title professor emeritus in 1996.

Much more at Wikipedia.

[pbrower2a]

Mass killing by a former NFL player. He then killed himself.


COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The gunman who killed five people including a prominent doctor in South Carolina was former NFL player Phillip Adams, who killed himself early Thursday, according to a source who was briefed on the investigation.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak publicly, said Adams’ parents live near the doctor’s home in Rock Hill, and that he had been treated by the doctor. The source said Phillips killed himself after midnight with a .45-caliber weapon.

The York County Sheriff’s Office said they had searched for hours before finding the suspect in a nearby home.

Adams, 33, played in 78 NFL games over five seasons for six teams. A safety and special teams player from South Carolina State, he joined the 49ers in 2010 as a seventh-round draft pick.

Rarely a starter, Adams also was with New England, Seattle, Atlanta, Oakland and the New York Jets, finishing his career with the Falcons in 2015.

As a rookie late in the 2010 season, Adams suffered a severe ankle injury that required surgery that included several screws being inserted into the leg. He never played for the 49ers again, getting released just before the 2011 season began and signing with New England. Only in 2013 with the Raiders was he on a roster for a full season.

Dr. Robert Lesslie, 70, and his wife, Barbara Lesslie, 69, were pronounced dead at the scene along with grandchildren Adah Lesslie, 9, and Noah Lesslie, 5, the York County coroner’s office said.

A man who had been working at the home, James Lewis, 38, from Gaston, was found shot to death outside, and a sixth person was hospitalized with “serious gunshot wounds,” York County Sheriff’s Office’s spokesperson Trent Faris said.

https://apnews.com/article/rock-hill-sho...2634c8e37c

[pbrower2a]

Charles Henry Coolidge (August 4, 1921 – April 6, 2021) was a United States Army technical sergeant and a recipient of the United States military's highest decoration for valor—the Medal of Honor—for his heroism in France during World War II.

At the time of his death, Coolidge was the only living Medal of Honor recipient from the European theater of the war, and the only one to receive the Medal of Honor during the war (with Hershel W. Williams receiving the medal after the war on October 5, 1945).[1]


Coolidge was drafted into the United States Army on June 16, 1942.[3] He received basic training at Fort McClellan in Alabama. He was then sent to Camp Butner, North Carolina, and Camp Edwards in Massachusetts, where he was assigned to M Company, 3rd Battalion, 141st Infantry Regiment, 36th Infantry Division. In April 1943, his unit was shipped overseas to Oran in Algeria, to participate in the North Africa Campaign. While serving as a machine gun section leader and sergeant, he was awarded the Silver Star for gallantry in action in Italy on May 31, 1944.[2][4]

On October 24, 1944, Coolidge was a technical sergeant in charge of group of machine-gunners and rifleman of M Company who were to hold a vital hilltop position in France near the German border. During four days of attacks at Hill 623, east of Belmont-sur-Buttant in France, Coolidge and his group held off numerous enemy infantrymen, plus two tanks on October 27 using grenades; one tank unsuccessfully fired 5 separate rounds at Coolidge personally. For his actions above and beyond the call of duty during the battle, Coolidge was presented the Medal of Honor by Lieutenant General Wade H. Haislip during a ceremony at an airfield near Dornstadt, Germany, on June 18, 1945. [2][5] 

.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_H._Coolidge

[Marypoza]

RlP Prince Philip another GI gone. Just 2 mo away from the triple digits. Close but no cigar. No telegram from his wife either

[pbrower2a]

Frank Jacobs (May 30, 1929 – April 5, 2021)[2][3] was an American author of satires, known primarily for his work in Mad, to which he contributed from 1957 to 2014. Jacobs wrote a wide variety of lampoons and spoof, but was best known as a versifier who contributed parodies of famous song lyrics and poems.[4] In 2009, Jacobs described himself as "the least-known writer of hysterical light verse in the United States."[5]


In 2021, musical parodist Weird Al Yankovic told the Washington Post, “I absolutely devoured every issue [of Mad], and Frank Jacobs was a big reason for that obsession. I can’t swear that Frank’s work was my first-ever exposure to the art form of parody, but it was definitely the first time I had seen the craft approached with that much skill, wit and attention to detail. Frank laid out the template for me — he irrevocably changed my DNA.”[6]

Jacobs appeared in the sixth chapter of PBS' comedy documentary, Make 'em Laugh: The Funny Business of America singing "Blue Cross", his own 1961 parody of Irving Berlin's "Blue Skies". That lyric was one of 25 that were the subject of Berlin v. E.C. Publications, Inc., a precedent-setting case that was appealed to the Supreme Court and helped to define the boundaries of parody in American law.[7][8]


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

[Eric the Green]

(04-01-2021, 03:42 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: G. Gordon Liddy, Watergate offender. Does anyone care anymore?

I had just recently re-watched the Perry Mason movie from 1993 called The Telltale Talk Show Host, in which Liddy played a right-wing talk show host-- and he was the murderer. This was before seeing pbrower's post today.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107813/

George Gordon Battle Liddy (November 30, 1930 – March 30, 2021) was an American lawyer, FBI agent, talk show host, actor, and figure in the Watergate scandal as the chief operative in the White House Plumbers unit during the Nixon administration. Liddy was convicted of conspiracy, burglary, and illegal wiretapping for his role in the scandal.[1]

Working alongside E. Howard Hunt, Liddy organized and directed the burglary of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate building in May and June 1972. After five of Liddy's operatives were arrested inside the DNC offices on June 17, 1972, subsequent investigations of the Watergate scandal led to Nixon's resignation in 1974. Liddy was convicted of burglary, conspiracy, and refusing to testify to the Senate committee investigating Watergate. He served nearly fifty-two months in federal prisons.[2]

He later joined with Timothy Leary for a series of debates on multiple college campuses, and similarly worked with Al Franken in the late 1990s. Liddy served as a radio talk show host from 1992 until his retirement on July 27, 2012.[3] His radio show as of 2009 was syndicated in 160 markets by Radio America and on both Sirius Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio stations in the United States.[4] He was a guest panelist for Fox News Channel in addition to appearing in a cameo role or as a guest celebrity talent on several television shows.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._Gordon_Liddy

[Eric the Green]

(04-09-2021, 05:00 PM)Marypoza Wrote: RlP Prince Philip another GI gone. Just 2 mo away from the triple digits. Close but no cigar. No telegram from his wife either

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark;[1] 10 June 1921[fn 1] – 9 April 2021), was a member of the British royal family as the husband of Elizabeth II.

Philip was born into the Greek and Danish royal families. He was born in Greece, but his family was exiled from the country when he was eighteen months old. After being educated in France, Germany and the United Kingdom, he joined the British Royal Navy in 1939, aged 18. From July 1939, he began corresponding with the thirteen-year-old Princess Elizabeth, whom he had first met in 1934. During the Second World War he served with distinction in the Mediterranean and Pacific Fleets.

After the war, Philip was granted permission by George VI to marry Elizabeth. Before the official announcement of their engagement in July 1947, he abandoned his Greek and Danish titles and styles, became a naturalised British subject, and adopted his maternal grandparents' surname Mountbatten. He married Elizabeth on 20 November 1947. Just before the wedding, he was granted the style His Royal Highness and created Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth, and Baron Greenwich by King George VI. Philip left active military service when Elizabeth became queen in 1952, having reached the rank of commander, and was made a British prince in 1957. Philip had four children with Elizabeth: Charles, Prince of Wales; Anne, Princess Royal; Prince Andrew, Duke of York; and Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex. Through a British Order in Council issued in 1960, descendants of the couple not bearing royal styles and titles can use the surname Mountbatten-Windsor, which has also been used by some members of the royal family who do hold titles, such as Anne, Andrew and Edward.

A sports enthusiast, Philip helped develop the equestrian event of carriage driving. He was a patron, president or member of over 780 organisations, and he served as chairman of The Duke of Edinburgh's Award, a self-improvement program for young people aged 14 to 24.[2] He was the longest-serving consort of a reigning British monarch and the longest-lived male member of the British royal family. He retired from his royal duties on 2 August 2017, aged 96, having completed 22,219 solo engagements and 5,493 speeches since 1952.[3] Philip died on 9 April 2021, two months before his 100th birthday.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Phi..._Edinburgh

[pbrower2a]

Ramsey Clark (more at Wikipedia)


William Ramsey Clark (December 18, 1927 – April 9, 2021[1]) was an American lawyer, activist and federal government official. A progressive, New Frontier liberal,[2] he occupied senior positions in the United States Department of Justice under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, notably serving as United States Attorney General from 1967 to 1969; previously he was Deputy Attorney General from 1965 to 1967 and Assistant Attorney General from 1961 to 1965.


As attorney general, he was known for his vigorous opposition to the death penalty, his aggressive support of civil liberties and civil rights, and his dedication in enforcing antitrust provisions.[3] Clark supervised the drafting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and Civil Rights Act of 1968. After leaving public office, Clark led many progressive activism campaigns, including opposition to the War on Terror. He offered advice or legal defense to figures such as Charles Taylor, Slobodan Milošević, Saddam Hussein, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and Lyndon LaRouche.[4]
Clark was the last surviving member of the Cabinet of Lyndon B. Johnson.

Clark was born in Dallas, Texas, on December 18, 1927,[6] the son of jurist Tom C. Clark and his wife Mary Jane (née Ramsey). Clark's father served as United States Attorney General from 1945 to 1949 under President Harry S. Truman and then became a Supreme Court Justice in August 1949.[7] His maternal grandfather was William Franklin Ramsey, who served on the Supreme Court of Texas,[8][9] while his paternal grandfather, lawyer William Henry Clark, was president of the Texas Bar Association.[8]


Clark attended Woodrow Wilson High School in Washington, D.C., but dropped out at the age of 17 in order to join the United States Marine Corps, seeing action in Western Europe in the final months of World War II;[8] he served until 1946. Back in the U.S., he earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin in 1949, and obtained a Master of Arts in American history from the University of Chicago and a Juris Doctor from the University of Chicago Law School in 1950 and 1951, respectively.[10] While at the University of Texas, he was a member of the Delta Tau Delta International Fraternity.[11]

He was admitted to the Texas bar in 1950, and was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States in 1956. From 1951 to 1961, Clark practiced law as an associate and partner at his father’s Texas law firm, Clark, Reed and Clark.[12]

In the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, Clark occupied senior positions in the Justice Department; he was Assistant Attorney General, overseeing the department's Lands Division from 1961 to 1965, and then served as Deputy Attorney General from 1965 to 1967.[13]

In 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated him to be Attorney General of the United States. He was confirmed by the Senate and took the oath of office on March 2. Clark was one of Johnson's popular and successful cabinet appointments, being described as "able, independent, liberal and soft-spoken" and a symbol of the New Frontier liberals;[2] he had also built a successful record, especially in his management of the Justice Department's Lands Division; he had increased the efficiency of his division and had saved enough money from his budget so that he had asked Congress to reduce the budget by $200,000 annually.[2]



However, there also was speculation that one of the reasons that contributed to Johnson's making the appointment was the expectation that Clark's father, Associate Justice Tom C. Clark, would resign from the Supreme Court to avoid a conflict of interest.[14] Johnson wanted a vacancy to be created on the Court so he could appoint Thurgood Marshall, the first African American justice. The elder Clark assumed senior status on June 12, 1967, effectively resigning from the Supreme Court and creating the vacancy Johnson apparently desired.[15]

During his years at the Justice Department, Clark played an important role in the history of the civil rights movement. He:

• supervised the federal presence at Ole Miss during the week following the admission of James Meredith;
  
  
• surveyed all school districts in the South desegregating under court order (1963);
  
  
• supervised federal enforcement of the court order protecting the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches;
  
  
• headed the Presidential task force to Watts following the 1965 riots; and
  
  
• supervised the drafting and executive role in passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and Civil Rights Act of 1968.[4]
  
  
  

As attorney general during part of the Vietnam War, Clark oversaw the prosecution of the Boston Five for "conspiracy to aid and abet draft resistance." Four of the five were convicted, including pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock and Yale chaplain William Sloane Coffin Jr.,[1] but in later years, Clark expressed his regret at the prosecution's victory: "We won the case, that was the worst part."[16]



Clark served as the attorney general until Johnson's term as president ended on January 20, 1969.[17] Because of Richard Nixon's attacks on Clark's liberal record during the 1968 presidential election campaign and ultimate narrow victory over Hubert H. Humphrey, relations between Johnson and Clark soured and, by inauguration day, they were no longer on speaking terms.[1]



In addition to his government work, during this period Clark was also director of the American Judicature Society (in 1963) and national president of the Federal Bar Association in 1964–65.[17]

(After being the Attorney General of the United States he defended some highly-controversial -- and especially objectionable -- international defendants)   

[pbrower2a]

Bernard Lawrence Madoff (/ˈmeɪdɔːf/ MAY-doff;[1] April 29, 1938 – April 14, 2021) was an American market maker, investment advisor, financier, and convicted fraudster who served a federal prison sentence for offenses related to a massive Ponzi scheme.[2] He was at one time non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ stock market,[3] before being revealed as and later confessing to having been the operator of the largest Ponzi scheme in world history, and the largest financial fraud in U.S. history.[4] Prosecutors estimated the fraud to be worth $64.8 billion based on the amounts in the accounts of Madoff's 4,800 clients as of November 30, 2008.[5]


Madoff founded a penny stock brokerage in 1960, which eventually grew into Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. He served as its chairman until his arrest on December 11, 2008.[6][7] The firm was one of the top market maker businesses on Wall Street,[8] which bypassed "specialist" firms by directly executing orders over the counter from retail brokers.[9]

At the firm, he employed his brother Peter Madoff as senior managing director and chief compliance officer, Peter's daughter Shana Madoff as the firm's rules and compliance officer and attorney, and his now deceased sons Mark and Andrew. Peter was sentenced to 10 years in prison[10] and Mark died by suicide by hanging exactly two years after his father's arrest.[11][12][13] Andrew died of lymphoma on September 3, 2014.[14]

On December 10, 2008, Madoff's sons told authorities that their father had confessed to them that the asset management unit of his firm was a massive Ponzi scheme, and quoted him as saying that it was "one big lie".[15][16][17] The following day, FBI agents arrested Madoff and charged him with one count of securities fraud. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had previously conducted multiple investigations into his business practices but had not uncovered the massive fraud.[8] On March 12, 2009, Madoff pleaded guilty to 11 federal felonies and admitted to turning his wealth management business into a massive Ponzi scheme. The Madoff investment scandal defrauded thousands of investors of billions of dollars. Madoff said that he began the Ponzi scheme in the early 1990s, but federal investigators believe that the fraud began as early as the mid-1980s[18] and may have begun as far back as the 1970s.[19] Those charged with recovering the missing money believe that the investment operation may never have been legitimate.[20][21] The amount missing from client accounts was almost $65 billion, including fabricated gains.[22] The Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) trustee estimated actual losses to investors of $18 billion.[20] On June 29, 2009, Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison, the maximum allowed. Madoff died in April 2021 while serving out his sentence.[23][24][25]


More at Wikipedia.

[pbrower2a]

Former head of India's counterpart of the American FBI. COVID-19, which ravages more than the USA. When COVID-19 is killing members of the elite in a country, COVID-19 is a social menace.


Ranjit Sinha (27 March 1953 – 16 April 2021) was an Indian Police Service officer[4] of the 1974 batch and was the former Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation. He was the Director General of Police of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and the Director General of the Railway Protection Force before joining as the CBI Director in December 2012 for a two-year tenure. He has also served in senior positions in the CBI in Patna and Delhi.
He has also worked in Central Reserve Police Force as IG (Operations) in Srinagar and IG (Personnel) in Delhi. Sinha had earlier held important positions in CBI including the post of Joint Director and Deputy Inspector General. He has been associated with the investigations of a number of sensitive and important cases of national and international ramifications. He was selected based on the procedure laid down by CVC Act 2003 and had a tenure of two years. He was selected by the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet.

Ranjit had to co-ordinate between different anti corruption bureaus, Income Tax Department and the CVC in fighting corruption with the main responsibility of administering the CBI. When his appointment was announced, the Bharatiya Janata Party had questioned the manner in which the 1974 batch IPS officer was appointed to head the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) by the Congress-led government.
He died in Delhi on 16 April 2021 at the age of 68.

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

[Tim Randal Walker]

The name G. Gordon Liddy rang a bell when I came across the post. I suspect that when I recognized the name I was showing my age (I am 64 years old)-the Watergate scandal was decades ago.

The same day I rewatched Airplane, which I saw in the theater back in 1980. I noticed a few references made that may now be obscure to young adults, who grew up afterwards. But I haven't asked any, because I don't really know any at this point.

Why is this relevant? It occurred to me that a twenty-year-old won't remember September 11th. And a forty-year-old won't remember the events of the Boom Awakening. Part of generational turn over would be people simply having no personal memories of key events or turning moods.

[David Horn]

(04-17-2021, 12:06 PM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: The name G. Gordon Liddy rang a bell when I came across the post.  I suspect that when I recognized the name I was showing my age (I am  64 years old)-the Watergate scandal was decades ago.

The same day I rewatched Airplane, which I saw in the theater back in 1980.  I noticed a few references made that may now be obscure to young adults, who grew up afterwards.  But I haven't asked any, because I don't really know any at this point.

Why is this relevant?  It occurred to me that a twenty-year-old won't remember September 11th.  And a forty-year-old won't remember the events of the Boom Awakening.  Part of generational turn over would be people simply having no personal memories of key events or turning moods.

Dead on!  It's one of the reasons we're here talking about all this and others aren't.

[pbrower2a]

... about the me age as G. Gordon Liddy, and memorable for all the right reasons.


Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale (January 5, 1928 – April 19, 2021) was an American politician, diplomat, and lawyer who served as the 42nd vice president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A United States senator from Minnesota (1964–1976), he was the Democratic Party's nominee in the 1984 United States presidential election, but lost to incumbent Ronald Reagan in an Electoral College and popular vote landslide. Reagan won 49 states while Mondale carried his home state of Minnesota and the District of Columbia. In October 2002, Mondale became the last-minute choice of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party to run for Senate after the death of Senator Paul Wellstone, but was defeated by Saint Paul Mayor Norm Coleman. Mondale was the oldest living former U.S. vice president from 2018 to 2021, following the death of George H. W. Bush.


Mondale was born in Ceylon, Minnesota, and graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1951 after attending Macalester College. He then served in the United States Army during the Korean War before earning a law degree in 1956. He married Joan Adams in 1955. Working as a lawyer in Minneapolis, Mondale was appointed Minnesota Attorney General in 1960 by Governor Orville Freeman and was elected to a full term as attorney general in 1962 with 60% of the vote. He was appointed to the U.S. Senate by Governor Karl Rolvaag upon the resignation of Senator Hubert Humphrey following Humphrey's election as vice president in 1964. Mondale was elected to a full Senate term in 1966 and reelected in 1972, resigning in 1976 as he prepared to succeed to the vice presidency in 1977. While in the Senate, he supported consumer protection, fair housing, tax reform, and the desegregation of schools. Importantly, he served as a member of the Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities (the "Church Committee").[1]

In 1976, Jimmy Carter, the Democratic presidential nominee, chose Mondale as his vice-presidential running mate. The Carter–Mondale ticket defeated incumbent president Gerald Ford and his vice presidential running mate, Bob Dole. Carter and Mondale's time in office was marred by a worsening economy and they lost the 1980 election to Republicans Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. In 1984, Mondale won the Democratic presidential nomination and campaigned for a nuclear freeze, the Equal Rights Amendment, an increase in taxes, and a reduction of U.S. public debt. His vice presidential nominee was Geraldine Ferraro, a Congresswoman from New York, the first female vice-presidential nominee of any major party in U.S. history. Mondale and Ferraro lost the election to the incumbents Reagan and Bush.

After his defeat, Mondale joined the Minnesota-based law firm Dorsey & Whitney and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (1986–1993). President Bill Clinton appointed Mondale United States Ambassador to Japan in 1993; he retired from that post in 1996. In 2002, Mondale ran for his old Senate seat, agreeing to be the last-minute replacement for Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone, who died in a plane crash less than two weeks before the election. Mondale narrowly lost the race to Saint Paul mayor Norm Coleman. He then returned to working at Dorsey & Whitney and remained active in the Democratic Party. Mondale later took up a part-time teaching position at the University of Minnesota's Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs.[2]


Much more at Wikipedia.

[pbrower2a]

Marc Ferro. French historian:


Marc Ferro (24 December 1924 – 21 April 2021) was a French historian.

Ferro worked on early twentieth-century European history, specialising in the history of Russia and the USSR, as well as the history of cinema.
His Ukrainian-Jewish mother died during the Holocaust.[1]
He was Director of Studies in Social Sciences at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales. He was a co-director of the French review Annales and co-editor of the Journal of Contemporary History.
He also directed and presented television documentaries on the rise of the Nazis, Lenin and the Russian revolution and on the representation of history in cinema.[2]

Ferro died in Saint-Germain-en-Laye in April 2021 at the age of 96.[3]

• Knight of the Legion of Honour
  
  
• Officier of the National Order of Merit
  
  
• Officer of the Ordre des Palmes académiques
  
  
• Knight of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
  

• City of Paris History Film Prize (France, 1975)
  
  
• Prize Clio (France, 1988)
  
  
• Europe's Historical Prize (1994)
  
  
• Peace Prize (France, 2007)
  
  
• Prize Saint-Simon (France, 2011)
  

He has a huge list of published books.

[pbrower2a]

Idriss Déby, basically dictator of Chad


Idriss Déby Itno (Arabic: إدريس ديبي‎ [i]Idrīs Daybī Itnū[/i]; 18 June 1952 – 20 April 2021) was a Chadian politician and military officer, head of the ruling Patriotic Salvation Movement, who was the president of Chad from 1990 until his death at the hands of militant forces when commanding troops on the front in 2021.[4]


Déby was a member of the Bidayat clan of the Zaghawa ethnic group. He took power by leading a rebellion against President Hissène Habré in December 1990 and survived various rebellions and coup attempts against his own rule. Déby won elections in 1996 and 2001, and after term limits were eliminated he won again in 2006, 2011, 2016, and 2021.

Several international media sources have described Déby's multi-decade rule as authoritarian.[5][6][7]




Déby was killed in April 2021 while commanding forces fighting on the front against rebels from the Front for Change and Concord in Chad (FACT).[81] According to an army spokesperson, Déby succumbed to injuries resulting from gunshots on 20 April 2021 while commanding his army against FACT rebels in the north of Chad during the Northern Chad offensive, at the age of 68.[82][83][84][85] According to a rebel spokesperson, he was mortally wounded in the village of Mele, near the town of Nokou, before being taken to the capital, where he died.[70] The Chadian Parliament was dissolved upon his death[83] and a Transitional Military Council was formed in its place with his son Mahamat Déby Itno as chairman.[86] In addition to the parliament, the Government of Chad was dissolved as well.[87]


Déby's funeral was due to take place on 23 April 2021.[88] On 23 April 2021, thousands gathered in the streets of N'Djamena to pay their respects to Déby. French President Emmanuel Macron and Guinean President Alpha Condé, and several other African leaders attended the funeral.[89][90][91]

[pbrower2a]

Christa Ludwig (16 March 1928 – 24 April 2021) was a German mezzo-soprano and occasional dramatic soprano, distinguished for her performances of opera, lieder, oratorio, and other major religious works like masses, passions, and solos contained in symphonic literature. Her performing career spanned almost half a century, from the late 1940s until the early 1990s.[1]
She sang at many international opera houses and festivals, including at the Vienna State Opera from 1955 to 1994, and at the Metropolitan Opera in many roles. She is remembered for roles such as Mozart's Dorabella, Beethoven's Leonore in Fidelio, Wagner's Kundry, and both Octavian and the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss.[2] In Vienna, she created the title role of Gottfried von Einem's Der Besuch der alten Dame in 1971.
She is widely recognised as having been one of the most significant and distinguished singers of the 20th century. The NPR Listener's Encyclopedia of Classical Music (2006) stated "Ludwig possessed a voice of exquisite richness and, when needed, breathtaking amplitude. She had the ability to impart dramatic urgency to a performance, the hallmark of a great singer."[3]

Ludwig was born in Berlin to a musical family. Her father, Anton Ludwig, who began his singing career as a baritone and later moved into the tenor repertory, was also an opera administrator,[4] and her mother, Eugenie Besalla-Ludwig, was a mezzo-soprano who sang at the Aachen Opera during Herbert von Karajan's period as conductor.[5][6] Ludwig grew up first in Aachen, where her first voice teacher was her mother. At age eight, she sang an aria of the Queen of the Night in Mozart's The Magic Flute.[7]


At the Aachen Conservatory, she studied piano, cello, flute and music theory.[7] The family moved to Hanau[7] when their home was bombed in 1944.[5] She studied voice at the Musikhochschule Frankfurt.[4]

Ludwig made her stage debut in 1946 at the age of 18 as Orlovsky in Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss at the Oper Frankfurt,[6] where she sang until 1952. She was a member of the Staatstheater Darmstadt from 1952 to 1954, then sang the 1954–1955 season at the Staatsoper Hannover. She joined the Vienna State Opera in 1955, where she became one of its principal artists[4] and was awarded the title Kammersängerin in 1962. She performed with the company for more than thirty years in 43 opera roles and 769 performances.[8] In 1954, she made her debut at the Salzburg Festival as Cherubino in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro,[4] conducted by Karl Böhm,[2] and appeared there regularly until 1981.[8][9] At the Vienna State Opera, she created the title role of Gottfried von Einem's Der Besuch der alten Dame on 23 May 1971, conducted by Horst Stein and alongside Eberhard Wächter as her lover Ill.[4][10] The performance was recorded by Deutsche Grammophon, and reissued on CD by Amadeo and later Orfeo.[11]

She first performed in the U.S. at the Lyric Opera of Chicago as Dorabella in Mozart's Così fan tutte in 1959. The same year, she appeared at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City as Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro and subsequently sang 121 performances in 15 roles with the company until 1993, where she quickly became one of the audience's favourites. Her repertoire there included The Dyer's Wife in the Met's first performances of Die Frau ohne Schatten by Richard Strauss, the title role and (in 1968) the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, Klytemnestra in Elektra, Ortrud in Wagner's Lohengrin, Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde, Fricka in both Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, Waltraute in Götterdämmerung, Kundry in Parsifal, the title role in Beethoven's Fidelio, Didon in Les Troyens by Berlioz, Charlotte in Massenet's Werther, and Amneris in Verdi's Aida.[4] In 1960, she performed as Adalgisa alongside Maria Callas as Bellini's Norma for an EMI recording. She appeared at the Bayreuth Festival first as Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde in 1966.[4] She first appeared at the Royal Opera House in London in 1968 as Amneris in Verdi's Aida.[9]

As Ludwig's voice matured, she expanded her repertoire from lyric and spinto mezzo-roles to dramatic roles. Her vast repertory eventually grew to encompass Princess Eboli in Verdi's Don Carlo which she sang at La Scala in Milan, in Salzburg and in Vienna, the title role in Bizet's Carmen, Ulrica in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera, Octavia in Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea, and contemporary roles by von Einem and Orff. She also ventured briefly into the spinto and dramatic soprano repertoire with performances as Lady Macbeth in Verdi's Macbeth, the Dyer's Wife, the Marschallin and Leonore in Fidelio.[4][7]

In addition to her opera performances, Ludwig regularly gave recitals of lieder, with pianists including Sebastian Peschko, Gerald Moore, Geoffrey Parsons[9] and on occasion Leonard Bernstein.[12][13] She performed as a soloist with orchestras, including works by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Wolf, Mahler and Strauss.[9][14] She was one of few women to tackle and record Schubert's Winterreise.[9] She also sang Bach's music and recorded many of his large vocal works,[9][14] such as the St Matthew Passion conducted by Otto Klemperer in 1961, with Peter Pears as the Evangelist and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as the voice of Christ,[15] and the Mass in B minor the same year, Karajan's third recording of the work, with Leontyne Price, Nicolai Gedda, Gérard Souzay and her husband Walter Berry.[16] She recorded Bach's Christmas Oratorio conducted by Karl Richter in 1965, with Gundula Janowitz, Fritz Wunderlich and Franz Crass.[17] She performed Mahler's Second Symphony with Bernstein in 1967.[5] From September 1973 to January 1974, she took part in Karajan's fourth recording of Bach's Mass in B minor, with Janowitz, Peter Schreier, Robert Kerns and Karl Ridderbusch.[16]
In 1993 and 1994, she gave a series of farewell recitals in many cities,[7] and made her farewell appearance at the Metropolitan Opera, as Fricka in Die Walküre. Her final live operatic performance was Klytemnestra in Elektra for the Vienna State Opera in 1994.[5][8]

Quote:In times where personalities are thinly sown, we have first class, yes excellent, musical practitioners, who lack intuition, imagination, and a feeling for composers, who, even though they lived in the past, can speak to us about today. Courage is needed to reveal one's own feelings in interpretation and not tell the audience with raised forefinger: "The composer wanted it like this, and no other way." But at the same time we singers must never forget that we are only the servants of the great minds who created all the wonderful pieces of music we enjoy today.

—Christa Ludwig, In My Own Voice: Memoirs, p. 119. (translated by Regina Domeraski)

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The Apollo 11 astronaut who did not get to set foot on the Moon:


Michael Collins (October 31, 1930 – April 28, 2021) was an American astronaut who flew the Apollo 11 command module Columbia around the Moon in 1969 while his crewmates, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, made the first crewed landing on the surface. He was a test pilot and major general in the U.S. Air Force Reserves.
Collins graduated from the United States Military Academy with the Class of 1952. He joined the United States Air Force, and flew F-86 Sabre fighters at Chambley-Bussières Air Base, France. He was accepted into the U.S. Air Force Experimental Flight Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in 1960, also graduating from the Aerospace Research Pilot School (Class III).

Selected as part of NASA's third group of 14 astronauts in 1963, Collins flew in space twice. His first spaceflight was on Gemini 10 in 1966, in which he and Command Pilot John Young performed orbital rendezvous with two spacecraft and undertook two extravehicular activities (EVAs, also known as spacewalks). On the 1969 Apollo 11 mission he became one of 24 people to fly to the Moon, which he orbited thirty times. He was the fourth person (and third American) to perform a spacewalk, the first person to have performed more than one spacewalk, and, after Young, who flew the command module on Apollo 10, the second person to orbit the Moon alone.
After retiring from NASA in 1970, Collins took a job in the Department of State as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs. A year later, he became the director of the National Air and Space Museum, and held this position until 1978, when he stepped down to become undersecretary of the Smithsonian Institution. In 1980, he took a job as vice president of LTV Aerospace. He resigned in 1985 to start his own consulting firm. Along with his Apollo 11 crewmates, Collins was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2011. He died of cancer on April 28, 2021, at the age of 90.

Much more at Wikipedia.

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(04-28-2021, 04:14 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: I think you can understand why I consider the murder of a journalist in the line of duty as an abominable crime. Journalists often get their noses into places that some thuggish governments and some more independent thugs don't want them prying.

David Beriáin Amatriáin (1977 – 27 April 2021) was a Spanish journalist, producer, and documentaries anchor,[1] who specialized in armed conflicts, violence, and inmersion journalism.

Graduated in Information Sciences from the University of Navarra, during his professional career he interviewed members of the Taliban, FARC guerrillas, members of drug cartels, and hitmen. He became known for presenting and directing the cycle 'Clandestino', which aired on Discovery Max.
Beriain worked for La Voz de Galicia, (International section), from March 2001 to July 2007.[2] He was a special envoy for this newspaper in the second war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. where he covered the Spanish contingent in the city of Herat and the town of Qala e Naw. As a war correspondent he covered conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Congo, and Libya. He was one of the few reporters in the world who managed to enter the FARC camps. He also directed the reports Afghanistan, Spanish in the mousetrap; in Congo, violated land; The guardians of Chávez and Baby Sicarios. As a reporter he worked in other media such as the Argentine newspaper El Liberal and the free DNA. On television, he was part of the team of reporters for the REC program broadcast by Cuatro. On Antena 3 he carried out a report on the Fukushima nuclear accident.[3]
In 2012 he founded the audiovisual production company "93 Metros" which specializes in large audiovisual formats, data journalism, and design of advertising content and other innovative technologies.[2]

Awards[edit]

• José Manuel Porquet Digital Journalism Award for "Diez días con las FARC"
  
  
• Nominated in Normandy's Bayeux
  
  
• RealScreen Awards, topicality documentaries award for 'El negocio del secuestro en Venezuela' in 2019
  
  
• RealScreen Awards for 'La Colombia de las FARC' in 2016
  
  
• Goya Awards nomination for "Percebeiros"
  

Killing[edit]

Beriaín was found dead on 27 April 2021 after having been reported missing the previous day and while he was filming a documentary about poaching in Burkina Faso, along with his cameraman Roberto Fraile and an Irish journalist who was also filming the documentary.[3]

.


Comment: Wildlife poachers are unscrupulous killers, and going from from killing protected wildlife to killing people who expose their crimes isn't much of an ethical stretch.  

Also murdered with him:


Rory Young (21 May 1967 – 27 April 2021[1]) was an Irish conservationist. He was the president and co-founder of the anti-poaching organisation Chengeta Wildlife that is active all over Africa.

He was killed along with at least two others, including Spanish journalists David Beriain and Roberto Fraile, in Burkina Faso while working on a documentary about wildlife poaching.[2][3][4][5]

To HELL with poaching!

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One of the original Mousketeers... with a diverse career in entertainment after that


John Ernest Crawford (March 26, 1946 - April 29, 2021) was an American actor, singer, and musician. He first performed before a national audience as a Mouseketeer. At age 12, Crawford rose to prominence playing Mark McCain in the ABC Western series The Rifleman, which he was nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor at age 13 for his work on the show.
Crawford had a brief career as a recording artist in the 1950s and 1960s. He continued to act on television and in film as an adult. Beginning in 1992, Crawford led the California-based Johnny Crawford Orchestra, a vintage dance orchestra that performed at special events.

Crawford was born in Los Angeles, the son of Betty (née Megerlin) and Robert Lawrence Crawford Sr. His maternal grandparents were Belgian; his maternal grandfather was violinist Alfred Eugene Megerlin.[1][2][3] In 1959, Johnny, his older brother (Bobby) Robert L. Crawford Jr., a co-star of NBC's Laramie series, and their father Robert Sr. were all nominated for Emmy Awards (the brothers for acting, and their father for film editing).[4]
Career[edit]
Crawford began his career as a child actor. One of the Walt Disney Company's original Mouseketeers in 1955, he has acted on stage, in films, and on television.[citation needed]

Disney started out with 24 original Mouseketeers, but at the end of the first season, the studio reduced the number to 12, and Crawford was released from his contract. His first important break as an actor followed with the title role in a Lux Video Theatre production of "Little Boy Lost", a live NBC broadcast on March 15, 1956. He also appeared in the popular Western series The Lone Ranger, in 1956, in one of the few color episodes of that series.[5] Following that performance, the young actor worked steadily with many seasoned actors and directors. Freelancing for two and one-half years, he accumulated almost 60 television credits, including featured roles in three episodes of NBC's The Loretta Young Show and an appearance as Manuel in, "I Am an American", an episode of the syndicated crime drama Sheriff of Cochise. He starred as Bobby Adams in the 1958 drama Courage of Black Beauty. He appeared as Tommy Peel in the 1958 episode "The Dealer" in "Tales of Wells Fargo", a CBS television series. By the spring of 1958, he had also performed 14 demanding roles in live teleplays for NBC's Matinee Theatre,[6] appeared on CBS's sitcom, Mr. Adams and Eve, in the Wagon Train episode "The Sally Potter Story" (in which Martin Milner also appeared) and on the syndicated series, Crossroads, Sheriff of Cochise, and Whirlybirds, and made three pilots of TV series. The third pilot, which was made as an episode of Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater, was picked up by ABC and the first season of The Rifleman began filming in July 1958.[citation needed]

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Crawford on The Rifleman in 1961

Crawford was nominated for an [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmy_Award]Emmy Award as Best Supporting Actor[7] at age 13. He received the nomination for his role as Mark McCain (the son of Lucas McCain, played by Chuck Connors) in the ABC series[7] The Rifleman. Crawford also played a young boy named Clay Holden, who befriends Connors in a 1965 episode of “Branded”. Throughout The Rifleman's five seasons, a remarkable on-screen chemistry existed between Connors and Crawford in the depiction of their father-son relationship. They were still close friends when Connors died on November 10, 1992, and Crawford gave a eulogy at Connors' memorial service.[citation needed]

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Crawford had wide popularity with American teenagers and a recording career on Del-Fi Records that generated four Billboard Top-40 hits, including the single "Cindy's Birthday", which peaked at number eight in 1962. His other hits included "Rumors" (number 12, 1962), "Your Nose is Gonna Grow" (number 14, 1962), and "Proud" (number 29, 1963).[8][9]
Late in 1961, Crawford appeared as Victor in the episode "A Very Bright Boy" of the ABC sitcom, The Donna Reed Show.[10] His brother Robert had also been a guest star on The Donna Reed Show. Once in 1964 and once in 1965, Crawford appeared on the NBC education drama Mr. Novak playing JoJo Rizzo.[11]
Crawford played Jeff, Wilbur's neighbor in Mister Ed - season six, episode two (1965) - who was more interested in pop music than his algebra.[12]
Among his films, Crawford played an American Indian in the unique adventure film, Indian Paint (1965).[13] He played a character involved with a disturbed young girl played by Kim Darby in The Restless Ones (1965), and played a character shot by John Wayne's character in El Dorado (1967).[14] He played a young deputy Billy Norris, in The Big Valley episode "The Other Face Of Justice" in 1969.[15]
While enlisted in the United States Army for two years, Crawford worked on training films[16] as a production coordinator, assistant director, script supervisor, and occasional actor. His rank was sergeant at the time of his honorable discharge in December 1967.[citation needed]
In 1968, Crawford played a soldier wanted for murder in "By the Numbers", an episode of the popular TV series Hawaii Five-O.[17]
The Resurrection of Broncho Billy was a USC student film Crawford agreed to do as a favor to his close friend, producer John Longenecker. It won the 1970 Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Subject.[citation needed]

The Naked Ape was a partially animated 1973 feature film starring Crawford and Victoria Principal, produced by Hugh Hefner.[18]
In 1976, Crawford co-starred as Ben Shelby in the 10th episode of season three of Little House on the Prairie, "The Hunters".[19]
Crawford appeared as Sheriff's Deputy Noah Paisley in a 1985 episode of Murder, She Wrote.[20]

Crawford played a key role in the early career of entertainer Victoria Jackson, of Saturday Night Live fame. After the two appeared together in a summer stock production of Meet Me in St. Louis, he presented her with a one-way ticket to California and encouraged her to pursue a Hollywood career. This led Jackson to early appearances on the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, before she was cast as a regular on SNL.[21]
Beginning in 1992, Crawford led a California-based vintage dance orchestra, which performed at special events. The formal na
me of the band was JCO (Johnny Crawford Orchestra). The JCO logo appeared on Crawford's drums when the band played in Las Vegas.[citation needed] The band has been sponsored by the Playboy Jazz Festival,[22] and the orchestra has been the choice for 15 consecutive annual Art Directors Guild Awards shows at the Beverly Hilton, in Beverly Hills.[23] A remastered version of the orchestra's highly rated [24] first album, Sweepin' the Clouds Away, was released on August 21, 2012, on the CD Baby (distributor) label.[25]

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Olympia Dukakis (June 20, 1931 – May 1, 2021) was an American actress, director, producer, teacher and activist. She performed in over 130 stage productions, over 60 films and in 50 television series. Best known as a screen actress, she started her career in theater. Not long after her arrival in New York City, she won an Obie Award for Best Actress in 1963 for her off-Broadway performance in Bertolt Brecht's Man Equals Man.
She later moved to film acting and won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe, among other accolades, for her performance in Moonstruck (1987). She received another Golden Globe nomination for Sinatra (1992) and Emmy Award nominations for Lucky Day (1991), More Tales of the City (1998) and Joan of Arc (1999). Dukakis's autobiography, Ask Me Again Tomorrow: A Life in Progress, was published in 2003.[1] In 2020, a feature-length documentary about her life, titled Olympia, was released theatrically in the United States.[2]

Much more at Wikipedia