February Farewells

A lovely lady named Shell,
A guru to beatles and men,
Another good man named John
and one named Tom as well
not to mention Barry and Roy

Those are among this month's victims
of the accursed Grim Reaper
Making us desire all the more
the day when Death will be no more

And as if those individual demises
weren't already enough
we have senseless deaths too
via bombs, floods
and tornadoes too

Read on for more details...

A little anonymity for a dead celebrity?
Why not indeed...
The novel idea is not mine though, but truly Yahoo's,
and I wholeheartedly condone it!
After all, Shell Kepler's close ones
bereaved as they are now,
need not be reminded how famous she was
how dear she is to all of those who loved to see her
on daytime television's 'General Hospital' on ABC.
No, those who knew her best
and miss her terribly, now
and for as long as they will live,
all they want to focus on is
the endearing person that was lost to them today
for a time - until a Change Occurs...
They need to focus on that gem of a person
gone now from this place...
And they can do so by focusing
on her resplendent smile indeed
evocative of the warm and sweet nature
of both the lady as of the soul
which resided inside of her frame
and which is now freed from this plane of existence.
A soul whose mirror -her eyes- we need not see now
for that soul is now far, far away from here...

Rest In Peace, Shell Kepler.
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'General Hospital' Actress Kepler Dies
(as seen reported on another site)

"Actress Shell Kepler, who for years played the gossipy nurse Amy Vining on the TV soap opera "General Hospital," has died. She was 49. Kepler died Friday at Oregon Health & Science University hospital, which did not give the cause of death.

Kepler's busybody character on "General Hospital" was a fan favorite and enjoyed a long run, 1979-2002.

In addition to her run on "General Hospital," she was also in a 1982 Joan Collins film, "Homework," and a couple of episodes of the situation comedy "Three's Company."
>>Read the rest of the story"

"Talk About It: What did you like most about Kepler's character Amy Vining?"

The leader of the Transcendental Meditation movement Maharashi Mahesh Yogi during a visit to Helsinki in 1983. Surviving ex-Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr paid tribute Thursday to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the band's one-time spiritual advisor, who died this week. (As worded by the Free Press... Me, I would have marveled at how the Yogi outlived half of the Fab Four by such a substantial margin of years...)
(AFP/Lehtikuva/File)

Having said that, may the many followers of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi continue to take a holy dip at Sangam, continue to converge towards the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in India and continue to try and emulate him in every day life.

Unidentified practicioners enter at the gate to the house of the Maharishi during the memorial service for the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Vlodrop, southern Netherlands, February 7, 2008. Practitioners of the Transcendental meditation gathered at the Dutch home and international headquarters of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on Thursday for a memorial and recalled the achievements of the late guru to the Beatles who brought transcendental meditation to the West.
(As originally seen on newswires across the globe.)
Photo Credits: REUTERS/Michael Kooren

I simply had to add the similar pic from half-way across the world - different set of circumstances, same results...


Feb. 8: Flowers are seen on the stairs leading to Kirkwood City Hall as the flag outside is at half staff in Kirkwood, Mo.
The full story, in the comments section.


Now, onwards to another completely different story - though it still involves someone's demise (otherwise, it wouldn't be here...)



It is in very poor taste to have a male model pose with cotton swab in hand and tongue firmly in cheek in order to ridicule even further the notion that a mere cotton swab could lead to someone's death - when we know fully well that, no matter how remote the chance, it did happen and the victim was male indeed.
Shame on the news agencies that went through the extra trouble to stage such a photo shoot - shame on them even if they just searched a bank of images for the express purpose of this abusive, heartless and disrespectful use of the pic, as it was clearly to go with the news item... A pic I refuse to add here and substituted an innocuous shot of cotton swabs to, yes - for I am not about to spread the bad taste that I denounce, myself, on my own site! To those who had the brilliant idea to use that sort of pic in that context, I have but one thing to say... SHAME ON YOU.
I couldn't expect more from punks - but from the press, I did expect more decency, yes!

Daniel St-Pierre died in March 2007, two days after he accidentally pierced his eardrum with a cotton swab.
St-Pierre, 43, died of meningitis-induced intracranial complications caused by a bacterial ear infection that he developed after accidentally piercing his eardrum with a cotton swab while trying to treat a painful earache.

Thou shall not mock thy brother's demise, no matter how far-fetched the circumstances - that is one extra commandment God Can Use His prophets to deliver to the mindless masses of today... That is if they will heed the message at all; and if there are any prophets worthy of the name to act as messengers left too...

R.I.P. DANIEL ST-PIERRE


Herbert "Barry" Morse is no more.
No more of this earth - he's in the evermore now.
Stage veteran, with over a thousand roles in both the BBC as the CBC; character-actor, vital to any production that he was a part of; a one-man show specialist, on top of all that, and devoted humanitarian - really, Barry Morse is so much more than merely "a fine actor" - but that he surely was too.
A fine underrated actor whom I place right next to Leo McKern, Ian Hendry, Van Heflin and even Sir Laurence Olivier himself - Morse's story is so touching to read. Either click on his picture or go to the comments section for more details to see what I mean. Here is a man who was devoted to the last; a refined thespian who did things his own unimitable way and a gentle soul that we shall miss down here.
(Heck, we could spare the moon but not a kind soul like this!)

Amity sheriff Martin Brody, or rather Roy Scheider, has gone on the ultimate seaquest now, in the sea of infinity... Though his true favored role was Joseph Gideon (in All That Jazz) Scheider is better known for his sea adventures; something the late Llyod Bridges could have sworn would have been the case for him too, but due to other factors, wasn't so true for him... Scheider was the instrument of the "Jaws shot" - a pioneering “forward tracking zoom out” shot - and though he had much better lines to deliver throughout his career, the laconic (and lacklustre) one he delivered in "Jaws" (“You’re gonna need a bigger boat”) is the one that was voted 35th best movie quote by the American Film Institute in 2005. For my money, one of his very last roles (in an episode of Law & Order) had better lines than that - more meaningful ones, at the very least...
Scheider could indeed elevate the quality of any film by his mere presence in it; nowhere was this more evident, perhaps, than in "52 Pick-Up" (a Cannon Films production from the mid-1980s) but he had not been on producers' minds much in the last decade or so, incredibly, and had worked sporadically due to that. His greatest regret though was not to have done more classical material on stage. Now, of course, even the most "pointlessly gung-ho" movie productions will not have the option of enhancing their final product and elevating their standards by casting Mr. Scheider anymore.
Their loss. And the Great Director Up There's gain!


BARRY MORSE AND ROY SCHEIDER are both on a grander stage now.


Now, I never do this here - more often on the LUMINOUS blog rather than here, really - but here goes a plea to sign a petition.

A petition to call for the abolishment of SUICIDE-CAUSING ANTI-DEPRESSANTS (and it could verily extend to those anti-depressants that can become a lethal, fatal cocktail when carelessly administered; such as those actor Heath Ledger was taking and that caused his untimely death.)

Anti-depressants that misfire to the point that they induce the sufferer to end his or her days are the pits of absurdism though.
Medication is meant to make us better - if it enhances the sickness rather than the healthy side of our metabolisms, than they (and the doctors that prescribe them) should indeed be banned forevermore.

If you sign only one petition this month - it has to be this one.

Thank you.

Hacker On The Loose

U.S. Video

Call for action 

after NYC hacking death

AP

How Much Would You Pay 

for a License Plate?

ABC News

» All news video


Somewhat not surprising
to see the newswires trivialize
the first horrid story
with a piece on mere
license plates
right next to it...

May the hacking victim's soul
find solace where she is now
and may the murderer
find mercy upon his
but only from the Good Lord.
Earthly justice must be brought
upon him, swiftly and
decisively.
He may be mentally-ill
but this cannot go
without punishment.

The victim's soul
likely wants justice.

Or... she sees things
far more clearly now
than we ever will
in our living years
and has forgiven
her murderer.

That is possible too.

Hopefully "action" will be taken
as mentally-ill individuals
cannot be only taken in
when they become in fact
this dangerous -
the system has to take them in
and prevent them from
ever coming to that.
As an insider says
on the video in question,
it is ludicrous that
the system will actually
await that it gets to this
before acting.

Bathurst Phantoms Forever - And Other Touching Commemorations

As I pen these words -the cyber equivalent of penning them anyhow- they are holding a touching and fitting commemorative basketball MARATHON in Bathurst, N.B.
Or on the University of New Brunswick's Fredericton campus, rather. It is playing host to a very special basketball marathon this weekend indeed. The object of the entire entreprise is to raise funds for the Boys in Red Trust Fund, which was set up after seven members of the Bathurst High School men's basketball team (the Phantoms) and a teacher were killed in a tragic automobile accident in January. Several teams of youths are relaying each other to take the court and play basketball for a whole 24 hour period, to honor the 7 who departed this world last month, in that tragic road accident.

What a great idea - and what an ideal way to deal with grief.
Those young men who found it difficult to cope with the loss of their friends, which was indeed so sudden, can inject all of their energy into this tournament and pay homage to their friends by doing what they all loved best of all.

One could imagine a basketball version of "A Field Of Dreams" here - but perhaps that is too much of a stretch here.

The seven -and their teacher- who perished too soon will be smiling upon this endeavour - wherever they are.

==================================

Meanwhile, at the St-Martin parish, Laval, they held a very emotional celebration to honor the mother and four children of the ultimately doomed Ferrari-Veillette family. Their ashes were laid into the ground as well as various other objects brought by tearful relatives still in shock and disbelief over what happened to the five, in Ohio. The Ferrari family and the Veillette family, united in grief, released doves into the atmosphere symbolically. A snowstorm had just left a good accumulation in its wake but the sun was shining the day of the funeral - fittingly.

I commend the bereft family on bringing the remains to St-Martin for proper burial - Ohio was not where their roots were.

And St-Martin happens to be the parish where I was baptized too - it is a fine remainder of the Catholic faith in North America and I am proud of that fact.

May the four cherubims and their martyred mother rest in peace now.

==================================

Elsewhere, a father was brought inside an ambulance to the funeral of his daughters. There was no other way to allow Christopher Pauchay to be brought in to the Yellow Quill reserve in Saskatchewan, where the sad memorial event took place. He and Tracey Jimmy could then say their proper goodbyes to their two daughters, who just died days ago, frozen to death.

Kaydance and Santana Pauchay froze to death earlier this week. Their father, Christopher, is still being treated in hospital "for the frostbite and hypothermia he suffered the night his daughters, aged 3 and 1, died."

Details are "sketchy" about how the three of them wound up overexposed to the elements like this; all that can be said at this time is that a tragic accident took place and the two innocents are no more.

Tracey Jimmy is awaiting another child though - birth is scheduled for April, luckily.

Even in Saskatchewan, I believe spring has sprung by then...

Rest in peace, Kaydance & Santana

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