the lugubrious blog

Last Dance - Last Call - Last Everything

2013-12-31T23:59:00.000-08:00

Ecclesiastes 7:2 ~ It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart.
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The last call here is of a photo shoot order - Norma Jean's last photo shoot. She was 36 years old and looked to finally have found herself; she had found stability and inner peace, at long last. Weeks later, she was found dead.

They say that we are all born equal -
and there are some who will say that is not the case.
None will ever refute this though:
we are all equal before the Grim Reaper.
- L.P. 2008

Is death the last sleep?
No, it is the final awakening.
~~ Walter Scott

Death To Twitter

2011-04-28T20:02:00.000-07:00

Did I say -or rather type- "to"...?
I meant ON, of course...
;-)

We know that everyone and everything has a twitter account by now - so it should not surprise anyone that the grim reaper also has one at this time.
And his tweets are far more interesting than most of the living's
- now, that should surprise most...
But that is not quite relevant right now.

Death's first name is Steve, apparently.
He (or it) describes himself/itself as "a guy who likes horses" and who lives with three other guys who like them as well.

Death has a Gmail address -
to email him/it is to have a near-death experience.
Give it a try, now:

Death has a ton of followers too - figures.
I thought he/it should know about this site, the Lugubrious Blog, but really - I don't need that kind of approval. But if one of you decides to have a near-death experience, you can go ahead and mention this site indeed. He'll get mad at the way I ridicule him/it, trivialize his/its power and wish him/it eternal destruction (him/it and his/its three buddies too) with the very telling title chosen for this blog's URL: deathtodeath. (You noticed it, right?)

So he/it will get mad;
that is for damn sure...

Bah. What's the worst that could happen, eh?
;-)

Post-Scriptum:
remember now - you may find
all of his/its numerous victims
either on the other side or here, most likely:

Adieu!

480,000 deaths - each year...

2010-12-31T20:45:00.000-08:00

Death comes soon enough as it is...
It truly is pointless to go out of your way looking for it...

Click above to act now - and end breast cancer

The fight against breast cancer has many champions and many detractors as well. 40,000 women die of breast cancer each and every year - so every action we can take in order to fight it is invaluable. As devastating as breast cancer is, smoking is 11 times worse, as it kills nearly 440,000 Americans A YEAR according to some figures. Some sources claim that there are two vaccines being developed right now - vaccines that could block nicotine from ever reaching the brain. That could cull the numbers of the addicted, but smoking attacks other body parts - not the brain. Everything happens in the brain though - so I hope we will all make the right choices: click here to stop breast cancer and NEVER smoke again! Death comes soon enough for our mortal shells; there is no need to run after it!

See - we can help, actually make a difference.
Aye, even at our desks...
Even here...!
We may croak right where we sit too, of course...

DO NOT FEAR DEATH, THOUGH
It may come for each one of us -
but we shall never fear it!

Simply have trust about that -
have trust
in The Word
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<<>>
King James Bible
<<>>

1 Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; 2 By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.
3 For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; 4 And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: 5 And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: 6 After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. 7 After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. 8 And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time. 9 For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. 11 Therefore whether it were I or they, so we preach, and so ye believed.

12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: 14 And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. 15 Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. 16 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: 17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. 18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. 19 If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.

20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. 21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. 24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. 25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. 27 For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. 28 And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.

29 Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead? 30 And why stand we in jeopardy every hour? 31 I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. 32 If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not? let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die. 33 Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good manners. 34 Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame.

35 But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? 36 Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die: 37 And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain: 38 But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. 39 All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. 40 There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. 41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.

42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: 43 It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. 45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. 46 Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. 47 The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven. 48 As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. 49 And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. 51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. 55 O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? 56 The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for asmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.

AMEN!

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Say A Prayer...

2010-08-14T09:58:00.000-07:00

Thanksgiving for the Life of the Deceased

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us all with the gift of this earthly life
and has given to our brother/sister [Name]
his/her span of years and gifts of character.
God our Father, we thank you now for all his/her life,
for every memory of love and joy,
for every good deed done by him/her
and every sorrow shared with us.
We thank you for his/her life and for his/her death,
we thank you for the rest in Christ he/she now enjoys,
we thank you for giving him/her to us,
we thank you for the glory we shall share together.
Hear our prayers through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Christian Funeral Prayer

Soul of Christ, sanctify me.
Body of Christ, save me.
Blood of Christ, refresh me.
Water from the side of Christ, wash me.
Passion of Christ, strengthen me.
O good Jesus, hear me.
Within your wounds hide me.
Let me never be separated from you.
From the power of darkness defend me.
In the hour of my death, call me
and bid me come to you,
that with your saints I may praise you
for ever and ever.
Amen.

Day by Day

Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you
for all the benefits you have won for us,
for all the pains and insults you have borne for us.
Most merciful redeemer,
friend and brother,
may we know you more clearly,
love you more dearly,
and follow you more nearly,
day by day.
Amen.

Find more comforting words like these at this address - for we are not much at all in this world without the comfort provided by this kind of material. Prayer and soothing words are the beginning of HOPE - and that hasn't a price. So partake of it, as much as you need. And don't forget to BELIEVE - eh

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Click here too.

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End Of The Line!

2010-08-13T09:59:00.000-07:00

The human animal differs from the rest of the animal kingdom in all the wrong ways - and the video that follows illustrates it extremely well...

At the end of the line, though, it is all back to what we came from; dust! That's the way things are, on this side of things anyhow! For all creatures, all walks of life. No difference - for all else is but vanity...

Until a resurrection, rebirth and afterlife makes it otherwise, that is.

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Am I Dead? (You Ask - That Is...!)

2010-07-25T16:55:00.000-07:00

Certain kind, illuminated, enlightened souls (and, no, illuminated and enlightened are not the same thing, in the luminous/lugubrious worlds...!) have been asking... inquiring... desperately wondering out loud, in suffocated lamentations (well, almost) and in dejected cries of denial... about my whereabouts. They got so very used , you see, to these regular (at the very least monthly, as it pertains to this particular blog especially) installments of luminescence in the darkness - the times when I would round up the demises of the month (as many as possible, anyway) and influx a sense of *meaning* into it all. Like clockwork, I would come onto here and tell you that there is a meaning to all this - all this suffering, that irremediably leads to corporeal death, has a reason to be; the test that is life. All this death has a meaning too; a transitory state of being akin to a pause in the oasis amidst the desert. And beyond that, there is another life to aspire - there is more; this is not all there is... no!

But then, all of a sudden, I just stopped doing that - haven't I.

No more round-ups, no more summaries, no more lessons about the afterlife and its promises...

Well, if it all stopped abruptly - it was not because of death, no.
Not at all, in fact!
It was, quite ironically enough, because of LIFE that it all ground to a halt around here...!
Life took over - and its over is as enthralling as death's and, in fact, much more so - of course!
More details -perhaps- on another blog, on some other time...

This was not the sole reason, though, of course...

This blogger's reviews of the "deaths of the month" were always biased - due to obvious restrictions, one can only blog and write about the famous and those with a certain degree of notoriety. Whenever we get some "regular joes" it is either "en masse" (fifteen hundred dead in this calamity, ten thousand others dead in this earthquake or some other natural disaster...!) and they tend to all be anonymous... Or we get another case of the "lugubriously famous" - someone famous, too, but only due to the extraordinary ways in which he or she met their own demise... And writing about these remains writing about the FAMOUS - alas.

What about the true regular joes - won't they ever get their own day in the sun, aside from an afterlife hopeful perspective - again. That is the role to be played by the necrology sections in thy local newspapers, you would say - and it is partially true. No one will ever bother (much, anyways) with those pages unless a dear one (or just an acquaintance) has departed recently, though... And even then...

It seems that the regular joes that no one knows are doomed to remain so, in the afterlife as well - and perhaps that is for the best indeed. After all, how many of the rich and shameless would -almost literally- die for a chance at anonymity again - hmm?

Not only for that reason, either...

For I, too, have come to the conclusion that mankind does not deserve so much hoopla either. Why lament so much about these departures - when most of us are all guilty as charged of killing the planet that never harmed us one bit and was, in fact, given to us, free of charge and all that we had to do was live on it and be good to it...? We collectively failed at this simple task quite pathetically - and our passing is only a meek amend to pay for our transgressions...! Add the spiritual element, and, aside from our nostalgic preferences -clinging on to loved ones- there is truly no viable defense for our wretched lot!

In this light, NONE of us would EVER deserve an eulogy - EVER.

What would possess anyone, really, to eulogize and praise a departed soul in this case? Much less one who is not a kindred! Foolish waste of time - is it not?!?

I would rather lament the losses of the truly innocent ones - as evidenced by the last two entries here - about a dog and a toad! Animals lost to us now, and that were never appreciated in their living years as they should have been...

Of course, being mediatized, even these would be easily categorized as "lugubriously famous" - but at least they are furry and simply guided, throughout their short earthly lives, by animal instinct instead of capricious, vanitous human malice...!

Certainly, I may return to old habits - they die hard, as you all know... Harder than most of us likely will, I'd wager! I have saved, as drafts, all the previous months' highlights - yes, all the deaths, facts and witty commentary that goes with it all too... And it may yet be published - soon...

Until then -
reflect about death... differently.

Vaya Con Dios... Para Dios!
;)

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Grr... Granby!

2010-07-24T17:46:00.000-07:00

These ads have been appearing in all forms of media throughout the summer

in the God-forsaken province of Quebec, Canada...

Not only are they abysmal, they desensitize the population

(already not even close to an iota of sensitivity towards the issue)

in regards to the possible extinction of many animal species

(more than the two seen here -

photos courtesy of... moi.)

by trivializing it in the most idiotic manner there could be:

comparing it to the temporary loss of voice, after a fun day at the park

shouting your lungs out while bothering all the animals there in what

barely passes as an adequate habitat for them...

For, let it be reminded that this is not only an aquatic-themed park

but also a zoological park -

where animals are supposedly the guests of honor,

throughout the year...

Only in French could such an obtuse play on words be done -

extinction de voix / en voie d'extinction

Ha.

Très amusant - conards.

One can only hope that

the "voice extinction"

was caused by pneumonia

and it snuffed out

the initiators of this

distasteful campaign!

Et vlan!

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R.I.P. Wild Kihansi Toad

2010-07-18T18:37:00.000-07:00

Yup - it looks dead to me.

PHOTO BY TIM DAVENPORT / WCS.

A fungus and a barrage did in this poor tiny creature - out there in its own natural habitat, that is. The good news is that, even though it was annihilated in the wild by these regrettable factors (and note human intervention among them - again) the species continues, in captivity... It is the only and best thing that man can do for these poor little critters it pushes that it pushes to the edge of the extinction abyss - round them up and keep them well-fed and imprisoned in a safety bubble - in a ZOO.

In other words...
we have surely seen the last of this toad.

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+++ Santo Pai +++

2010-06-20T07:58:00.000-07:00

With the precious help of a few key mementos
-the angels which garnered his casket;
the picture of his and our Lord;
the framed picture of his patron saint
the picture of Our Lady of Fatima
and his very own picture as well, taken by me,
lo, so many years ago-
I think of thee today,
father.

Father's Day will never be the same for me
- without you here.

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The ugly die young... in human years, anyways...

2010-06-05T18:22:00.000-07:00

Photo copyright - AFP

World's ugliest dog dies at 17

Thursday, June 3 10:59 pm
AFP

Canine lovers were in mourning Thursday at the news that a bug-eyed Chinese crested hairless pooch, who was officially crowned the "World's Ugliest Dog," has died at age 17.
The lovable Miss Ellie, whose lopsided tongue always stuck out of the side of her mouth, died on Tuesday in her Tennessee home, the local Mountain Press daily newspaper said.
Rescued by owner Dawn Goehring when she was seven years old, Miss Ellie, who drew smiles with the shock of blonde hair above her eyes, had helped raise over 100,000 dollars for the Humane Society of the Tennessee Valley.

Despite being blind in her final years, she won Animal Planet's "World's Ugliest Dog" award last year.
(...)

R.I.P. MISS ELLIE.

Say hello (or, rather,sniff and/or lick) the original Benji, Lassie, Rin Tin Tin and "Yo Quiero Taco Bell" Chihuahua, for us...

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R.I.P. Moishe - Jesus welcomes you with open arms!

2010-05-27T08:15:00.000-07:00

LChaim2007 — May 20, 2010 — Moishe Rosen, the founder of Jews for Jesus and former executive director went home with Y'shua (Jesus) on May 19, 2010 at 8:30pm PST. He born in Denver, Colorado and raised in his Orthodox Jewish home even attended the Orthodox Syngogue. He was employed at America Board of Mission to the Jews from 1957 to 1969, In 1973 Moishe established Jews for Jesus Headquarter in San Francisco. http://www.jewsforjesus.org/ He had been fought against his prostate cancer for several years. I may share this memory of Moishe Rosen with you on my vlog. Some pictures of my mission work with JFJ. Check Moishe Rosen's homepage http://blog.jforj.com/moisherosen/

R.I.P. GeoCities...

2009-12-31T07:50:00.000-08:00

And So It Goes...
Everything that comes easy
goes away just as easily...
GeoCities died this year -
for most of its smart users anyways, it did.
As a free website building tool,
it was still limiting and frustrating
and certainly not worth
any investment, as it was asked this year
in order to safeguard all that you had
on that dreary platform...
With background images as bland as the one above
-although it is a nice blue sky and all-
or archaic such as a disquette design
GeoCities was indeed doomed to die
an ignominious cyberdeath, indeed!
I was extremely dissatisfied with it
and kept it up, since 2005 or so,
only for the extra bandwidth usage...
Images linked to it, of course,
many of which were here on the
TLB Prime Network on Blogger,
vanished into thin air too...
I'll upload them straight onto here,
sometime... When possible...!

From GeoCities, only vague memories will remain -
personally, I had a profile there...
Some sort of online résumé...
Samples of my writing...
Oh, there were also *poetry pages* there...
And my theme song for the site
as for myself, as a GeoCities user,
simply had to be this one:

Nota Bene: granted, initially,
I had the original video by Gnarls,
the one chock-full of rorschach tests...
But since I'm such a Star Wars fan too
-or rather, still was back in 2005-
I kinda like this live performance
with Chewbacca on drums, especially!

There you go -
Rest In Peace, GeoCities
2005-2009, as far as I am concerned!

We hardly knew thee...
And that is GOOD.

Pimentel - R.I.P.

2009-09-09T19:22:00.000-07:00

Two more have crossed over to everlasting truth...

Maria Da Graça Pimentel
(com sô 41 anos de idade)

and Bernardo *Bernardinho* Pimentel

Necrologias courtesy of A Voz de Portugal - the only paper I have ever seen put the opening of a brand-new FUNERAL PARLOR as its front page news! The Portuguese know what matters the most...

O Senhor Deus Todo Poderoso welcomed you with open arms, Maria Da Graça - I wish I had actually been related to you... On the necrological article, your smile seems so angelic. That is more than I can say about several of my actual female relatives...!

As for B.P. - it is not quite mentioned in A Voz... But that is not really surprising, though; coming from a branch of la familia that doesn't disclose important news to those they should do so, how can we blame to fail at notifying the local paper too..?

As with the rest of the departees, literally every single one of those that have been mentioned here, on this lugubrious blog, and all those who were NOT, also, I can only wish this: get all the Answers, the Answers with a capital "A" - now that you've gotten to the Other Side, to the Great Beyond...

Where everything is possible - where everything becomes clear...

Like R.E.M. sang (relatively) (so) well - the only song I truly ever liked from them: "The Great Beyond" indeed! You can listen to it (more than a few times too) on the playlist found at the very bottom of this page; scroll all the way down, do not be afraid!

And here are the words...

"The Great Beyond"

I've watched the stars fall silent from your eyes
All the sights that I have seen
I can't believe that I believed I wished
That you could see
There's a new planet in the solar system
There is nothing up my sleeve

I'm pushing an elephant up the stairs
I'm tossing up punch lines that were never there
Over my shoulder a piano falls
Crashing to the ground

In all this talk of time
Talk is fine
But I don't want to stay around
Why can't we pantomime, just close our eyes
And sleep sweet dreams
Me and you with wings on our feet

I'm pushing an elephant up the stairs
I'm tossing up punch lines that were never there
Over my shoulder a piano falls
Crashing to the ground

I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers from the great beyond

I want the hummingbirds, the dancing bears
Sweetest dreams of you
I Look into the stars
I Look into the moon

I'm pushing an elephant up the stairs
I'm tossing up punch lines that were never there
Over my shoulder a piano falls
Crashing to the ground

I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers from the great beyond

I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers from the great
Answers from the great, answers

I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers from the great beyond

I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers from the great
Answers from the great, answers

I'm breaking through
I'm bending spoons
I'm keeping flowers in full bloom
I'm looking for answers from the great beyond

[ REM LYRICS at www.AZLyrics.com ]

Thanks, AZLyrics.com...
Thanks Playlist.com...
Thanks Blogger!

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Ghosts Caught On Film...!

2009-07-07T03:44:00.000-07:00

Almost always seems too good to be true -
and a true believer does not need such evidence
in order to believe in an afterlife -
but this latest bit of "evidence" comes from CNN itself!
"News" you can believe in - right?

Good ol' Larry King -
I knew he'd be useful as well as insightful
yet...!

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June Jumps... Onto The Other Side

2009-06-30T22:04:00.000-07:00

A tormented soul can, now, finally be at peace...
with himself - with everything else.
R.I.P. M.J.

Michael Jackson feared he'd "end up" like Elvis: Lisa Marie
In a touching online confession (made via her MySpace page - the blog portion of it, I do believe) the ex-Mrs. Jackson, daughter to one king and now widow of another, revealed just how tormented the king of Pop truly was...
Too bad she was too 'shook up' to show up and perform a little something at the tribute afterwards, hmm.
Still - as I commented on the spot, I add here:
Kudos to Lisa Marie for coming forth with all that she declared on her MySpace - it takes courage. Most of all, it takes a heart.
POSTED BY: LUCE on FRI, JUN 26, 2009 06:47 PM -0500

M.J. must have been weeping the horrible demise of these Mexican children, just before his own untimely demise...
Deaths rise to 41 children in Mexico day-care fire
(...) Pope Benedict said he was "deeply pained" and sent his condolences to the victims' families, saying he would pray for them.
Smoke inhalation killed many of the children, who ranged in age from a few months to three. (...)
More...

M.J. wasn't the only one capable and prone to make children's wishes come true, though; PIXAR made Colby Curtin's dream -a simple one, really- a reality just in time too... Just before the young girl passed away.
Pixar flies employee, DVD to dying 10-year-old Calif. girl whose final wish was to see 'Up'
You've gone up now yourself, Colby Curtin - upper than anything Pixar can even begin to fathom...
Another angel gained by Heaven - to add to all those Mexican-born ones...

M.J. liked animals too: he must have lamented this Miami tragedy as well, before leaving...
Psychiatric evaluation ordered for South Florida teenager accused of mutilating cats
Mon Jun 15, 7:37 PM
By Sarah Larimer, The Associated Press
MIAMI - A teenager accused of killing and mutilating cats in two South Florida communities must undergo a psychiatric evaluation before he is released from jail, a judge ruled Monday.
Tyler Hayes Weinman, 18, appeared at an afternoon hearing in a Miami-Dade County courtroom via videoconference, wearing a sleeveless, blue vest reserved for prisoners on suicide watch.
Judge Mindy Glazer ruled Weinman must also wear an electronic monitoring device if he is released on bond, which was set at $249,500. (...)
This crazed kid had gone on this anti-feline campaign throughout the Miami-Dade communities - making all cat persons there fear for their precious kitties' lives.
Blame it all on Garfield, I say.
(That is, of course, if Weinman is truly responsible for the cat carnage here...! If it's a cult's doing - Garfield is off the hook. Cultists do not watch cartoons; only slasher flicks. But that is another story.)
Meanwhile, they nabbed a "suspect" and seem to have all the "evidence" they need - making said suspect so morose while he's in custody that he's even become suicidal now.
But have no fear - Judge Mindy is on the case... The kid won't be allowed to off himself so easily! As for the kitties - all of their nine lives have expired.

As mesmerizing it may be to see the king of pop pass away so suddenly and unexpectedly, the most fascinating departee this month has to be one named Neda...
In Iran, One Woman's Death May Have Many Consequences
By ROBIN WRIGHT – Sun Jun 21, 1:10 am ET
Iran's revolution has now run through a full cycle. A gruesomely captivating video of a young woman - laid out on a Tehran street after apparently being shot, blood pouring from her mouth and then across her face - swept Twitter, Facebook and other websites this weekend. The woman rapidly became a symbol of Iran's escalating crisis, from a political confrontation to far more ominous physical clashes. Some sites refer to her as "Neda," Farsi for the voice or the call. Tributes that incorporate startlingly upclose footage of her dying have started to spring up on YouTube.
Although it is not yet clear who shot "Neda" (a soldier? pro-government militant? an accidental misfiring?), her death may have changed everything. For the cycles of mourning in Shiite Islam actually provide a schedule for political combat - a way to generate or revive momentum. Shiite Muslims mourn their dead on the third, seventh and 40th days after a death, and these commemorations are a pivotal part of Iran's rich history. During the revolution, the pattern of confrontations between the shah's security forces and the revolutionaries often played out in 40-day cycles. (See pictures of terror in the streets of Tehran.)
The first clashes in January 1978 produced two deaths that were then commemorated on the 40th day in mass gatherings, which in turn produced new confrontations with security forces - and new deaths. Those deaths then generated another 40-day period of mourning, new clashes, and further deaths. The cycle continued throughout most of the year until the shah's ouster in January 1979.
The same cycle has already become an undercurrent in Iran's current crisis. The largest demonstration, on Thursday of last week, was called by opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi to commemorate the deaths of protesters three days after they were killed.
Shiite mourning is not simply a time to react with sadness. Particularly in times of conflict, it is also an opportunity for renewal. The commemorations for "Neda" and the others killed this weekend are still to come. And the 40th day events are usually the largest and most important.
"Neda" is already being hailed as a martyr, a second important concept in Shiism. With the reported deaths of 19 people Saturday, martyrdom also provides a potent force that could further deepen public anger at Iran's regime. (See the Top Ten Players in Iran's Power Struggle.)
The belief in martyrdom is central to modern politics as well as Shiite tradition dating back centuries in Iran. It too helped propel the 1979 revolution. It sustained Iran during the eight-year war with Iraq, when over 120,000 Iranians died in the bloodiest modern Middle East conflict. Most major Iranian cities have a Martyrs' Museum or a Martyrs' cemetery. (...)
View this article on Time.com
Neda Farsi's violent demise was captured on video; this makes it all the more striking. Her death is senseless and it should not have happened at all. What's more, her blood is on Mahmoud's hands - dying because you protest some gloryhound's suspicious re-election is NOT admissible.
But so is the lot of the martyrs - they die when they have all the right to live, for they are RIGHT.
'Neda' death video steps up pressure on Iran over protests
Mon Jun 22, 3:43 PM
PARIS (AFP) - A video of a blood-drenched young woman, purportedly killed in the Tehran protests, has become an Internet symbol of the demonstrations and heightened pressure on Iran in its battle with foreign media.
The video, showing blood pouring from the nose and mouth of the young woman, was placed online Saturday and has since been viewed hundreds of thousands of times around the world. So far, she has only been identified on the Internet as Neda.
International media have taken pictures from the film which has inspired an avalanche of blog and twitter comment, mainly against Iran's hardline government.
After a call spread by Internet to rally at Haft-e Tir square in Tehran to pay tribute to Neda, police on Monday broke up a gathering of about 1,000 people there.
Later Monday at a press conference in Washington, the son of the late shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, produced an image of the slain protester from his pocket alongside pictures of his family.
"I have added her (Neda) to the list of my daughters. She is now forever in my pocket," the former crown prince of Iran told AFP, fighting back tears.
The film reportedly shows Neda moments after she is hit in the chest by a shot while watching the protests on Saturday with her father on a Tehran street.
Bystanders desperately tend to the woman who wears jeans, a black jacket and an Islamic headscarf. Her eyes roll back as blood spreads across her face. People around her scream and a white haired man desperately tells her: "Don't be afraid! Don't be afraid!"
There have been mass protests in Tehran against the disputed president election victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. (...)
That white-haired oldtimer was wise to tell you that, Neda: and you know now, better than anyone else, that there is no reason to be afraid, indeed.

Air France probe studies speed monitors
Sun Jun 7, 11:42 AM
PARIS (AFP) - Salvage crews found bodies and a wing section from an Air France jet which plunged into the Atlantic, as investigators probed Sunday a possible link between false speed measurements and the crash.

Six days after AF 447 from Rio to Paris disappeared while flying through violent storms in the middle of the night with 228 passengers and crew on board, speculation is focusing on its airspeed monitors. (...)
Two bodies were found that day - and more would be found shortly; may they all rest in peace after the shocking and surprising end that they never expected to be met with...
One young girl miraculously survived it all though - enough children had ded this month, one must have thought, up in the Heavens above...
More...

Another 'Airport' hero... In New York too!
Trans-Atlantic flight lands safely after pilot dies
Thu Jun 18, 6:28 PM
NEW YORK (AFP) - A Continental passenger plane en route from Brussels to New York landed safely at Newark airport Thursday after the pilot died during the flight in a rare mid-air drama, officials said.
The Boeing 777 flight, carrying 247 passengers, was guided down by two co-pilots around midday (1600 GMT) at the New Jersey airport, its final destination which is one of three main airports serving New York City. (...)
With 21 years of experience and at 61 years of age, the pilot died a veteran hero - and he died of "natural causes" too, according to sources. If only Alain Delon had perished so, too, while filming that horrid "Airport - Concorde" atrocity, back in the late seventies...!
R.I.P. - real-life pilot. Fly on.

Suicide truck bomber kills 67 in northern Iraq
Sat Jun 20, 4:05 PM
By Khalid al-Ansary
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed 67 people on Saturday as they left a mosque, shortly after a speech in which the prime minister urged Iraqis not to lose faith if a U.S. military pull-back sparked more violence. (...)
They keep on truckin' down there - as if lives counted for absolutley nothing... hmm?
(Sorry, Khalid; I had to help your sentence out a bit, in bold, so it would make more sense...!)

U.S. drone strike kills 45 in Pakistan
Tue Jun 23, 3:27 PM
By Alamgir Bitani
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - A U.S. drone killed at least 45 Pakistani Taliban militants on Tuesday when it struck after a funeral of an insurgent commander killed earlier in the day, Pakistani intelligence officials said.
U.S. ally Pakistan officially objects to the strikes by pilotless U.S. aircraft though the attack came as the Pakistani army is preparing an offensive against Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan on the Afghan border.
The military went on the offensive against Taliban fighters allied with Mehsud in the Swat Valley, northwest of Islamabad, in May and are in the final phase of that operation.
And since everyone loves continuity, a cliffhanger and all - the article mentions, in passing, that Mehmud is indeed the next target too!
That killer all-american drone is gunning for more, yet...! And it knows how to pick its spots too: wow, after FUNERALS...!
Lugubrious to the infinite degree.

Ancient mass grave found on Olympics site
Fri Jun 12, 10:44 AM
By Stefano Ambrogi
LONDON (Reuters) - An ancient burial pit containing 45 severed skulls, that could be a mass war grave dating back to Roman times, has been found under a road being built for the 2012 British Olympics.
Archaeologists, who have only just begun excavating the site, say they do not yet know who the bones might belong to.
"We think that these dismembered bodies are likely to be native Iron Age Britons. The question is -- how did they die and who killed them," said dig head, David Score, of Oxford Archaeology.
"Were they fighting amongst themselves? Were they executed by the Romans? Did they die in a battle with the Romans?
"The exciting scenario for us possibly is that there were skirmishes with the invading Romans and that's how they ended up chopped up in a pit," he told Reuters. (...)
Historian moi cannot pass this one in silence - of course!
Perhaps knowing for sure that they are competing on top of a grave where many true warriors were lumped together after one battle-too-many, one can hope that this knowledge will bring out the very best in today's competitors now? That "olympic spirit" is great, sure - but back in the Iron Age, they were far more pragmatic than that...! Maybe we want to get back to basics too; especially as long as it is NOT a question of "life or death" - yet! But merely "gold or silver... or bronze!"
A true return to the Iron Age tendencies is inevitable enough anyway - in time...

And speaking of Iron Age methods...
Crown asks for 20 years no parole for N.L. man who dismembered dead girlfriend
Fri Jun 26, 12:17 PM
By The Canadian Press
ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - A Newfoundland man who strangled his girlfriend and "butchered" her body last year should have to serve 20 years in prison before he is eligible for parole, the prosecution argued Friday.
CAUTION To READERS : This story contains graphic content. Some readers may be offended.
Crown lawyer Phil LeFeuvre said Warren White's crimes had devastated the victim's family and "horrified" the public.
White "literally butchered" Amanda Power, 29, in an attempt to get away with murder and lacked remorse for his actions, LeFeuvre said.
"These are the actions of somebody who does not want to be caught," he said.
"One can only imagine the pain Ms. Power's death has caused her loved ones."
But defence lawyer Lori Marshall argued that White was under a "vast quantity of drugs" when he choked Power to death, adding that his taped confession to police - in which he repeatedly apologizes to Power and ponders suicide - is evidence he was remorseful.
"It took approximately 90 seconds for Amanda Power's life to end, and the nightmare of Warren White's to begin."
Marshall is calling on Justice James Adams of the Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court to allow White parole eligibility after serving 12 years in prison.
Last month, White pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and interfering with a dead body after most of Power's remains were found in June 2008.
White, 36, faces a mandatory life sentence.
Power's lower torso was found inside a suitcase by children who were playing in the backyard of White's apartment in a leafy St. John's neighbourhood.
Her upper torso was discovered in a hockey bag nearby and h er head was wrapped in grocery bags inside White's freezer.
White admits in an agreed statement of facts that he cut off her limbs, put them into two backpacks and threw them into a river that leads into the city's harbour.
They've not been recovered.
R.I.P. Amanda Power - you didn't know how to pick them but at least, now, you cannot make the wrong choice and not choose the Light.
Go to It.
More...

Murder victims, especially when they are very young or very righteous, appear to have been so very unjustly targeted by their slayers, whom we immediately label as monsters, with good reason. Some other victims, though, may leave us wondering "was there something we couldn't know about underneath that vestal façade"... hmm?
Several hundred mourners attend vigil for slain Iowa football coach
by Nigel Duara, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jun 24, 11:15 pm EDT
PARKERSBURG, Iowa - Several hundred mourners gathered Wednesday at a rural Iowa stadium named for a popular high school football coach who authorities said was gunned down by a former player who was to have been taken to a psychiatric ward days before. (...)
"Lord, we summon you as people and a community that is bruised and battered," said Phillip Jensen, pastor at First Congregational Church, where Thomas served as a church elder. Parkersburg recently commemorated the first anniversary of a tornado that wiped out about a third of the town, killing six people and destroying the high school and football field.
(...)
Thomas' shooting stunned the community and reverberated through NFL circles, where he also was remembered as much for his faith as his winning record.
"His legacy for many will be associated with his tremendous success as a football coach," said Green Bay Packers linebacker Aaron Kampman. "However, I believe his greatest legacy comes not in how many football games he won or lost but in the fact that he was a committed follower of Jesus Christ."
Besides Aaron Thomas, Ed Thomas also is survived by his wife, Jan, and another adult son, Todd.
(Associated Press writers Michael J. Crumb, Melanie S. Welte and Luke Meredith in Des Moines contributed to this report.)
My condolences to the Thomas family - and apologies for being such a... doubting Thomas.

I've an inquisitive mind - what can I say beyond that?

Billy Mays, known for hawking cleaning products, found dead at Florida home
Sun Jun 28, 4:33 PM
By Mitch Stacy, The Associated Press
TAMPA, Fla. - Billy Mays, the burly, bearded television pitchman whose boisterous hawking of products such as Orange Glo and OxiClean made him a pop-culture icon, has died. He was 50.
Tampa police said Mays was found unresponsive by his wife Sunday morning. A fire rescue crew pronounced him dead at 7:45 a.m.
Oxi-Clean container made of gold, as an urn for the ashes - would that be too much?
UPDATE: after further autopsies and inquiries, it was revealed that Mr. Mays had some other whitish substance in his system: cocaine.
One will never look at Oxi-Clean the same way again.
R.I.P. Billy.

Roméo LeBlanc, former governor general, dies at 81
PM hails longtime Liberal MP as 'passionate Canadian'

'He was a deeply committed Acadian, but he was motivated by living with the majority in a community spirit.'
—Donald Savoie, University of Moncton

Roméo LeBlanc, the former governor general, died Wednesday morning in his home in southeastern New Brunswick after a lengthy illness. He was 81.
LeBlanc was the first Acadian to hold the post, serving from 1995 to 1999. A state funeral is planned for Memramcook, N.B., but there are no further details.
His son, Liberal MP Dominic LeBlanc, now holds the Beauséjour riding his father once occupied.
Dominic LeBlanc told CBC earlier this year how the family slowly came to terms with the fact the former governor general had Alzheimer's disease.
In a statement, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he was saddened to learn of LeBlanc's death and hailed him as a "passionate Canadian who served his country with distinction and honour."
"He profoundly believed Canadians should know more about their own extraordinary, everyday courage," the prime minister said.
Gov. Gen. Michaëlle Jean expressed her condolences to LeBlanc's family and praised him as "a man known for his simplicity, his serenity and his generosity."
"He carried in him a love of the French language, in particular the accents, colours and rhythms of his Acadian roots, where he took his last breath, facing the ocean that cradled him in his youth," Jean said Wednesday in a statement.
'Deeply committed Acadian'
In an interview with CBC News, Liberal MP Justin Trudeau described the close bond that LeBlanc had with his father, former prime minister Pierre Trudeau.
"Roméo was one of the rare, real friends to my father ... and that is something that I knew both of them held in high value throughout their lives, the close personal friendship that they had," Trudeau said.
"The real connection was the genuine closeness and belief in Canadians. Roméo was someone who was always willing to take the time to chat with people, to listen to them to share with them, to connect on a real personal level." (...)
Romeo Leblanc is the former Speaker of the Senate of Canada, and a Senator in his own right. He was a Liberal Cabinet Minister that was respected by all government parties. Mr. Leblanc was a Privy Council and the Governor General of Canada (Holding the highest office in Canada representing The Queen)
Romeo LeBlanc, RIP.
Comments and sympathy poured from all over; this bit was the best, in my estimation:
Kahlest wrote:
Posted 2009/06/25
at 12:02 PM ETMr. LeBlanc was the type of politician we will never see again. We will never again have politicians run who have ONLY the people of Canada as their motivating factor. Now it is driven by greed and special interest groups. The question is can we ever go back? Is it possible to go back to a time when politicians didn't fight dirty, didn't look out only for themselves etc.? I would like to think so but I doubt it.
Assorted headlines that came with this particular bit of sad news:
New Brunswick Headlines
Top Headlines
LeBlanc's state funeral draws thousands
Former governor general Roméo LeBlanc was remembered during his state funeral Friday in Memramcook, N.B., as a devoted journalist and politician who worked to improve the lot of the less fortunate.
No solution in sight for tracking 911 calls on cellphones
Couples cutting wedding costs
The sagging economy has prompted a resurgence in frugality, as well as creativity, for couples making preparations for their big day, a New Brunswick wedding planner told CBC.
Doctors take N.B. government to court over fee freeze
The New Brunswick Medical Society has taken its fight against the provincial government's two-year fee freeze to the next level by launching its promised court action.
Remains of MP's daughter could return from England
An Ontario member of Parliament and a relative of a New Brunswick woman who died in London nearly a century ago are trying to bring her remains to the family burial plot near Sussex, N.B.
Susan Bonner reports: Romo LeBlanc, former governor general, dies at 81
Man, Bonner - you're a Canadian, in the media, sworn to uphold the semblance that, in this country, there are TWO official languages: English AND French! And yet your laptop obviously has the elementary typeface deficiency of lacking an "é" (commonly called an "e accent aigu") - turning the name of the man here into "Romo" instead of "Roméo"...
Have some respect for the dead, PLEASE; get their names right!)
Canada Headlines
Top Headlines
Ramp ceremony held for fallen Canadian soldier
About 2,000 soldiers have paid their respects to Cpl. Nick Bulger, killed in Afghanistan on Friday, as his casket was loaded onto a plane for the journey home to Canada.
6th bomb at B.C. pipeline causes gas leak
EnCana Corp.'s natural gas pipeline in northeastern B.C. sprang a small leak after being targeted by a sixth bomb Saturday, the second case of what the RCMP describe as 'domestic terrorism' in less than a week.
Roméo LeBlanc's state funeral set for July 26.
A state funeral is being organized for former governor general Roméo LeBlanc in his hometown...
R.I.P. Mr. Leblanc. And Cpl. Bulger.

Now I am afraid I have to file the next two news bits under "trivial and totally avoidable" - so I'll refrain from eulogizing much afterwards...
Tributes flow for 3 teens killed in Yorkton, Sask., crash
Mon Jun 15, 9:19 PM
SASKATCHEWAN (CBC) - Residents of Yorkton, Sask., are in mourning following the deaths of three local teenagers in a car crash on the weekend.
Lucas Puchala, 16, Alex Robichaud, 17, and Mason Shore, whose age wasn't available, died Friday night after the car they were in hit a curb, left the road, and struck a tree. (...)
As George of the Jungle learned so well, but failed to pass on to these kids, somehow, "watch out for that tree"...
Sad to see a fellow L.P. pass on so early in life - man, at sweet'n'sour sixteen, I hadn't even BEGUN to suffer...! Or had I? It's all a blur now, somehow...
Some are not born to run - these three were not born to drive, methinks... They will not be making any roadkills now, at least.
If the families affected have faith - they'll be relieved, in a way, that the teens' mistakes have been cut short; and they know that they'll see them again... SOON... in the afterlife.

Taser inquiry delayed to Sept. after explosive email suggests officers lied
Fri Jun 19, 7:11 PM
By James Keller, The Canadian Press
VANCOUVER, B.C. - A single sentence contained in an email between RCMP brass in the weeks after Robert Dziekanski died has derailed a public inquiry, raising questions yet again about the testimony of four police officers and prompting calls for further investigation of the national police force. (...)
In that electronic piece of incriminating evidence, the four coppers apparently joked (as I do all the time in this very blog) about using excessive force... Maybe they were not joking either; who knows. They deny having made any plans to use the taser that proved to be fatal for poor Bob D. there; but if there were plans formulated ahead of time for the use of the taser, then we have the all-incriminating PREMEDITATION factor here...! Imagine that - cops actually thinking; while eating a donut? Easy joke to make - I know.
And besides - proving they had thought of zapping Bob with the taser ahead of time will not bring Bob back; so just make sure these lazy cops are denied access to the toy forevermore and it will be great already...

Siblings, ages 4 and 5, found dead in car trunk on hot day in US
Tue Jun 16, 4:56 PM
By The Associated Press
SPRINGDALE, Arkansas - A young brother and sister were found dead in the trunk of their family's car about an hour after they slipped out of their mother's view on a hot afternoon.
Temperatures Monday had climbed into the mid 30s Celsius in the northwest Arkansas town of Springdale.
Detectives were interviewing neighbours and relatives Tuesday.
Police said the mother reported the children missing 45 minutes after she last saw them. Authorities searched about a half-hour before finding them in the closed trunk.
The boy is 5 years old and his sister, 4. Names were not released.
Sgt. Shane Pegram told Fayetteville television station KFSM that the kids might have been playing but a thorough investigation will be done to rule out foul play.
And they called M.J. a "bad parent"...
Either this is a game of "hide and seek" that turned horribly wrong; or Fayetteville's finest are as dumb as they get...!
Two new cherubs recruits for Heaven - pending their genes' compatibility with angelic chores?

Two new swine flu deaths in Canada
Tue Jun 16, 5:15 PM
MONTREAL (AFP) - Two new swine flu-related deaths in Canada's Quebec province were announced Tuesday, bringing the nationwide death toll from the A(H1N1) virus to nine, officials said. (...)
A quick stopover at morbid Montreal - where swine better not sneeze or they'll be destroyed.
It's either that or the Lafleur slaughterhouse, anyway: no-win situation either way.
Okay - enough of my sarcasm - we all know now that the H1N1 virus has nothing to do with pork meat! (Just feel relieved I left a certain poor ol' chronic LOONEY stutterer out of this...!)

And, in other celebrity horrid endings, this month:

Farrah Fawcett finally succumbs to cancer

"Kung Fu" actor Carradine found hanged in Thai hotel

Ed McMahon died at 86 after battling a series of illnesses in recent months.

I am absolutely certain that you'll find the related articles all on your own - on the vastness of the world wide web.

May all three rest in peace too.

+++

+++

March Is Morbid

2009-03-31T11:13:00.000-07:00

Reality TV star Jade Goody dies of cancer
1 hour, 10 minutes ago on March 22nd, 2008
LONDON (AFP) - Reality TV star Jade Goody, who turned terminal cancer into red-hot media property to secure her children's future, died Sunday aged 27 with Prime Minister Gordon Brown leading tributes.
Rags-to-riches Goody died in her sleep at her home in Upshire, southeast England, at 3:14 am on Mother's Day, with new husband Jack Tweed and her mother Jackiey Budden by her side.
"My beautiful daughter is at peace," Budden said. Goody's publicist Max Clifford added: "She was a very, very brave girl. And she faced her death in the way she faced her whole life -- full on, with a lot of courage."
Admirable courage in the face of death - surely it will translate into the same bravoure now that she dwells with the Higher Truths of the Cosmos... of Creation!
RIP, Jade

Natasha Richardson dies after fall on ski slope
Wed Mar 18, 8:32 PM
By The Associated Press
NEW YORK - Natasha Richardson, a gifted and precocious heiress to acting royalty whose career highlights included the film "Patty Hearst" and a Tony-winning performance in a stage revival of "Cabaret," died Wednesday at age 45 after suffering a head injury from a skiing accident in Quebec.
Alan Nierob, the Los Angeles-based publicist for Richardson's husband Liam Neeson, confirmed her death Wednesday night in a written statement.
"Liam Neeson, his sons, and the entire family are shocked and devastated by the tragic death of their beloved Natasha," the statement said. "They are profoundly grateful for the support, love and prayers of everyone, and ask for privacy during this very difficult time."
The statement did not give details on the cause of death for Richardson, who suffered a head injury when she fell on a beginner's trail during a private ski lesson at the luxury Mont Tremblant ski resort in Quebec. She was hospitalized Tuesday in Montreal and later flown to a hospital in New York City.
Natasha Richardson was briefly hospitalized at a familiar place, right after her collapse; Sacred-Heart Hospital, better known as l'hôpital Sacré-Coeur to locals from the area... She was already beyond help (and is, in fact, just the latest in a long, long list of deaths who have crossed over at that particular hospital - no libeling here, just facts.) but Liam Neeson left Toronto in a hurry, where he was shooting a film with Julianne Moore, to be at her bedside -her deathbed- in Montreal. Morbid Montreal. (If local songstress Diane Tell can call Manhattan "monotone" (monotonous - of course) so can I call Montreal morbid - okay? I speak en toute connaissance de cause...
Natasha Richardson basically died in the same circumstances as my Dad did, three years ago very nearly to the day, in the same hospital.
Dad had been admitted there on March 19th - it had been my decision. He'd shown signs that told me something was amiss. I took no chances. After reaching the hospital, he felt perfectly fine too; just as Natasha felt perfectly fine -minus a headache- after the ski slope bump she took. It took a mere few hours for things to turn tragic for her; it took days for Dad - that is the only difference.
Skiing, on Canadian slopes especially, seems to have turned into a deadly sport this winter - with this tragedy happening as a celebrity was learning to ski on a BEGINNER'S SLOPE on Quebec's Mont Tremblant... And, earlier this year (last month, in fact) the Kicking Horse Mountain Resort tragedy that made a widower, too - only not a famous one, that one (but also a product of Quebec, as it turns out.)
Another accident was reported in-between; that one involving an avalanche, as I recall - google it, you may yet find it still.
All I can say is: it must be skier recruiting season in Heaven?

Family, friends gather for viewing for Natasha Richardson
Fri Mar 20, 11:21 PM
By Mesfin Fekadu, The Associated Press
NEW YORK - Liam Neeson looked distraught but grateful for the outpouring of sympathy as he greeted grieving family members and friends who attended a private viewing for wife Natasha Richardson on Friday.
Neeson was the last to leave the viewing at the Upper East Side's American Irish Historical Society, where he was joined by the couple's sons, - Micheal, 13, and Daniel, 12 - as well as Richardson's mother, Vanessa Redgrave, and sister, Joely Richardson. An array of famous friends came to express their sadness about the family's sudden loss.
Neeson hugged friends as he left the society's building at 8:40 p.m., after more than six hours of receiving condolences from friends including Mike Nichols, Diane Sawyer, Matthew Modine, Ralph Fiennes, Uma Thurman, Ethan Hawke, and Sarah Jessica Parker.
RIP, Natasha - you are so very missed, obviously.

Sask father given 3 years for 'reckless' actions in freezing deaths of daughters
By Jennifer Graham, The Canadian Press - Fri Mar 6, 6:25 PM
ROSE VALLEY, Sask. - A Saskatchewan man's behaviour that led to the freezing deaths of his two young daughters was "wanton and reckless" and deserves a three-year prison term, a judge ruled Friday.
Christopher Pauchay stood quietly and looked straight ahead as Judge Barry Morgan handed down the sentence in the deaths of Kaydance, 3, and Santana, 1.
It was January 2008 when Pauchay stumbled drunk from his home on the Yellow Quill First Nation and lost the girls in a frigid blizzard. He pleaded guilty in November to criminal negligence causing death.
"The children were completely helpless and vulnerable, and were totally dependent upon Mr. Pauchay for their care," said Morgan. "Mr. Pauchay's conduct that night clearly demonstrated a wanton and reckless disregard for the lives and safety of his children."
Here's that number again: 3 years... But anyway...
It used to be said that GOD Blessed with a lineage -with children- those that were worthy of having them. It is obviously no longer the case - and this would be the only time where evolution actually has the upper hand on creationism too; as "natural selection" creates the occasion for the most "fit" breeders to, ah, do their thing... And the result is this. Now, is that "evolution" - or the opposite? For, truth be told (and I know it will be painful to digest for all the "fittest genes" carriers out there...!) it is NOT about the quality of your genes but about the quality of your INNER SELF; your character; the person that you truly are...! THOSE are the true criteria that really determines future good (not to mention WORTHY) parents - pass the word, quick. Before more inane fools reproduce themselves.

Parents in Manitoba town concerned over death of girl who may have died from strep - Fri Mar 20, 6:58 PM
PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE, Man. - Parents in a small Manitoba community are upset after a six-year-old girl may have died from an easily treated disease.
Manitoba's chief medical examiner, Dr. Thambirajah Balachandra, says the clinical suspicion is the child in Portage la Prairie died from strep throat and scarlet fever, but more tests are needed.
He said a cause of death should be determined by the weekend.
In the 1800's scarlet fever often resulted in death, but pediatrician Dr. Grant MacDougall says it's easily treatable unless not treated right away.
He says scarlett fever is strep with a rash, but rheumatic fever usually happens if strep throat is untreated for nine days or more.
MacDougall says parents should watch out for the warning signs _ sudden sore throat with fever and possible stomach pain.
As evidenced so many times, and again in the totally avoidable demise of Natasha Richardson (to once more use the celebrity example focused upon by the media) - when your hour has come, no amounts of vigilance in re warning signs will do SQUAT. Richardson could have had herself checked out - pride prevented her from admitting she needed that. Singer Laura Branigan never saw a specialist about here terrible migraines; she died of an aneurysm, I do believe. So many more like those two, out there, no one ever hears about: yet, it happens every day. The grim reaper gets a lot of help doing its reaping; oftentimes, from the reaped souls themselves...
As for these poor kids who may exhibit warning or rather alarming signs soon: parents, don't be too proud, like the famous examples here evidently were... Still, if it is there time to go, no matter what we do, they'll still go anyway...

Jealous teen who used sexual taunts in text messages convicted in Rengel murder
Fri Mar 20, 7:35 PM
By Allison Jones, The Canadian Press
TORONTO - A jealous teenage girl who used sexual taunts in reams of online and text messages to orchestrate the killing of 14-year-old Stefanie Rengel, a girl she had never met but considered a rival, was convicted Friday of first-degree murder.
The victim's family made a plea for the court to send a message that murder has serious consequences regardless of age. The Crown said it will seek an adult sentence for the 17-year-old girl, known only as M.T.
Rengel was lured from her home on New Year's Day 2008, stabbed six times and left to die in the snow. The crime was allegedly carried out by M.T.'s boyfriend, who stands trial in the fall.
Murder in the Internet Age.
RIP, Stefanie Rengel.

Man shoots woman, kills self at Florida Wal-Mart
Wed Mar 4, 5:10 PM
By The Associated Press
FLORIDA CITY, Fla. - Authorities say a man shot a woman he knew while she was working at a Wal-Mart in Florida City, then fatally shot himself.
Miami-Dade Police Department spokeswoman Rebeca Perez says the shooting happened inside the store Wednesday morning after an argument between the two.
The woman is in critical condition and the man was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Their identities have not been released.
No one else was hurt.
Wal-Mart spokesman Dan Fogleman says the company is "deeply concerned" for the woman's well-being.
On Monday, an Arizona couple was shot outside a Wal-Mart there.
The woman died and her husband was critically injured.
Authorities say the suspect in that shooting killed himself after being stopped by police in New Mexico.
The motive wasn't known.
Wal-Marts down south are dangerous ground to thread...?
And it's not just because they sell guns down there (as opposed to their Canadian counterparts who never will, American Wal-Marts do sell firearms, yes) - remember the Wal-Mart employee who was dispatched to open the doors around opening time, when there was a huge sale starting that day...? He was stampeded to death by crazed customers seeking "a great bargain" on that memorable morning. The supervisor who dispatched the employee to open the doors knew full well of the stampede danger and should be deemed as responsible in the employee's death as any general who's ever dispatched a batallion of soldiers on a assuredly no-return mission.
No bargains whatsoever should be worth someone's LIFE.
RIP, Wal-Mart shoppers - and employee too.

Pennsylvania widow who shot spouse to be returned to Canada
Thu Mar 5, 5:56 PM
By The Associated Press
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. - A federal judge has ordered the extradition of a northeastern Pennsylvania woman to Canada to face charges in her husband's death.
Forty-four-year-old Mary Beth Harshbarger fatally shot her husband while the couple were on a hunting trip near Buchans Junction, Newfoundland, in 2006.
Canadian officials say it was too dark to safely fire a weapon and charged Harshbarger with criminal negligence causing death.
The Pennsylvania woman says she mistook her husband, Mark Harshbarger, for a black bear.
That most probably is an insult to the intelligence of all black bears who may be reading this... Or a compliment to all "bears" of another ilk...! Whichever the case, the widow must be feeling pangs of remorse as well as dreading retaliation from the bear community - so she fled back to Pennsylvania, where there are no bears left alive, as we all know. Way to go, widow! Her defense can be triple-headed too, when one thinks about it. For, once she's extradited back to Canada, she can claim she mistook her husband for either a bear, a sasquatch or a wendigo. Way to go, widow!! It will be the first case in the annals of justice that has a cougar killing a bear and getting away with it.
RIP, Mark Harshbarger.

One dead, at least 2 wounded in shooting at Illinois church
Sun Mar 8, 1:47 PM
By The Associated Press
MARYVILLE, Ill. - Illinois state police say a man has shot a pastor to death and injured others at a church during a service in the community of Maryville.
Illinois Master Trooper Ralph Timmins says the man walked down the aisle during the early Sunday service at First Baptist Church in Maryville.
He said the man exchanged words with pastor Fred Winters and then pulled out a .45-calibre handgun.
Timmins said the man fatally shot Winters once before the gun jammed, then pulled out a knife and wounded himself.
Churchgoers tried to subdue the attacker and two of them suffered minor injuries.
Timmins said officials don't know if Winters and the suspect know each other.
Maryville is about 32 kilometres northeast of St. Louis.
If you don't want to listen to a particular pastor, don't attend his sermons... Shooting him is a bit extreme; boycotting is the civilized way to go.
RIP, pastor Fred Winters. More...

Pastor killed during service
Gunman opens fire in a Sunday morning church service. » What happened?
Gunman stabs himself, others with knife
Woman, children killed in shooting spree
Police hunt Real IRA shooting suspects
The insanity never stops: not even at the news-reporting level, I guess; is it just me that finds the headline "gunman stabs himself, others with knife" oxymoronic? I think not.
RIP, all the victims of insanity - including logic.

Trucker who held alleged bus beheader at bay still has dreams about experience
from: The Canadian Press - Tue Sep 2, 2:25 PM - 2008
MORDEN, Man. - Long-haul trucker Christopher Alguire says he still has dreams about what he saw as he pressed his body against the closed door of a Greyhound bus where a young man was brutally beheaded in the summer of 2008 in southern Manitoba.
You'd have to have gone through what Mr. Alguire went through to truly KNOW the true meaning of HORROR. Geeks like Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger and Micheal Myers are weaklings and outright buffoons next to a real-life Vince Li doing what he did nearly right in front of you...

Treatment, not jail, for Manitoba bus beheader; victim's family angry
Thu Mar 5, 2:38 PM
By Chinta Puxley, The Canadian Press
WINNIPEG - A man who believed he was following God's orders when he stabbed and beheaded a fellow passenger on a Greyhound bus in Manitoba has been found not criminally responsible, devastating the victim's loved ones.
Justice John Scurfield said Vince Li's attack on Tim McLean last summer was "barbaric," but the law makes allowances for those with severe mental illnesses.
"These grotesque acts are appalling," Scurfield said Thursday. "However, the acts themselves and the context in which they were committed are strongly suggestive of a mental disorder.
"He did not appreciate the act he committed was morally wrong. He believed he was acting in self defence and that he had been commanded by God to do so." (...)
Woe to the Crown and the "Justice" who nearly equate the inability to differenciate morally right from wrong to believing in a Command from GOD... True Justice Will Be swift for you too, on the Day of Reckoning, John Scrufield!
Typo - honest - Scurfield it is.

Victim's family says Manitoba bus beheader 'getting away with murder'
By Chinta Puxley, The Canadian Press - Thu Mar 5, 5:19 PM
WINNIPEG - The family of a man who was beheaded on a Greyhound bus says his killer is "getting away with murder," but the judge who found him not criminally responsible for the "barbaric" slaying says the law doesn't unnecessarily punish the mentally ill.
Vince Li's attack on Tim McLean in Manitoba last summer was "grotesque" and "appalling," said Justice John Scurfield.
"However, the acts themselves and the context in which they were committed are strongly suggestive of a mental disorder," the judge said Thursday. "He did not appreciate the act he committed was morally wrong. He believed he was acting in self-defence and that he had been commanded by God to do so." (...)
Both Crown and defence psychiatrists had testified at Li's trial that he was suffering from schizophrenia and believed the voice of God ordered him to kill McLean because the young man was a force of evil.
Li, 40, was charged with second-degree murder but pleaded not guilty. His DNA will be put on file but he won't have a criminal record.
He is to appear before a criminal review board within 90 days to determine how he will be institutionalized. His mental health will be reviewed every year by the same board to determine if he can be released into the community.
And they said pleas of "temporary insanity" wouldn't fly anymore...
RIP, Tim McLean.

Former pro wrestler accused in nursing home death
Thu Mar 5, 4:18 PM
By Steve Karnowski, The Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS - During his glory days as a pro wrestler, Verne Gagne shared the spotlight with other burly men in trunks, guys with names like Killer Kowalski, Mad Dog Vachon, The Crusher and Baron Von Raschke.
But all of that seemed well in the past until just weeks ago, when authorities say Gagne, 82 and suffering from Alzheimer's disease, apparently body-slammed a 97-year-old fellow patient at the suburban nursing home where they both lived, causing the man's death.
Bloomington police are investigating, but not even the victim's widow wants to see the dementia-stricken Gagne prosecuted.
"It's been so hard on both families," said Greg Gagne, Gagne's son and a former wrestler himself.
Helmut Gutmann, a former cancer researcher who suffered from dementia himself, died Feb. 14, about three weeks after breaking his hip in the confrontation. Authorities ruled his death a homicide.
Never mess with a wrestler. Especially not if you're a geeky egghead type - retired, on top of that. Helmut Gutmann feared not Verne Gagne though - wow. You sure were a man with guts alright, Helmut - you took on one of the best grapplers of all-time, with no previous training...!
All kidding aside - both men recalled no details after their final confrontation (because there had been a previous one; the two old men truly didn't get along - alas, the second one would have tragic consequences.)
But truly now - it is RIDICULOUS to brand as a murderer a retired wrestler suffering from ALZHEIMER'S while the CRAZED BEHEADER gets away practically scot free... That, as much as anything else on this lousy mudball of ours, PROVES that Earthly Justice is NOT Justice at all! Sure - go ahead, release Vince Li into the community already, set him free, but make sure old man Verne Gagne can't put the smackdown on any more of the geriatric community...
RIP, Helmut Gutmann.

Colleen Howe, wife of hockey great Gordie Howe, dies at age 76
Fri Mar 6, 7:01 PM
By Neil Stevens, The Canadian Press
With a keen business mind and the interests of her husband and sons at heart, Colleen Howe was the glue that held the Howe family together.
She was such an integral part of her husband Gordie Howe's hockey career that her nickname was Mrs. Hockey.
Gordie was Mr. Hockey, reflecting his status as the NHL's all-time leading scorer before Wayne Gretzky broke his records, so it seemed right the woman who worked so hard for him behind the scenes should get a similar title.
Colleen Howe died Friday at the age of 76 in the family home in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., following a long battle with Pick's disease, an incurable neurological form of dementia.
She was the outspoken business manager of one of the most prominent families in the history of the sport. As the first female hockey player agent she was as forceful in the boardroom as her husband was in rink corners for the Detroit Red Wings.
"The National Hockey League grieves the passing of Colleen Howe - a formidable woman, the wife and partner of our iconic player, the matriarch of a remarkable hockey family," NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said in a statement.
There is no known cure for Pick's disease. Colleen was diagnosed with it in 2002. Her judgment and behaviour became impaired and her speech and memory more scrambled as the condition worsened.
"I thank God for the years we had," Gordie Howe said upon their 50th wedding anniversary in 2005.
Colleen was an only child raised by her divorced mother, with the help of an aunt and uncle, until her mother remarried. Colleen grew up on a farm outside Sandusky, Mich., where an arena was eventually named after her, and in Detroit.
Gordie Howe met Colleen Joffa at the Detroit bowling alley Lucky Strike Lanes during the 1951-52 Red Wings hockey season. She was a gregarious teen and he was a bashful but star player. They were married on April 15, 1953.
The couple had four children: Marty, Mark, Cathleen and Murray. The latter became a doctor who was involved in treating his mother in her final years. (...)
The First Lady of Hockey is no longer a part of the sport - lest she is associated to some "ice rink of dreams" (à la Field of Dreams) up there...? My only complaint is that she was never associated with the Hub of Hockey - the Boston Bruins organization. One of her sons, at least, could have...? No matter - she remains Mrs Hockey forevermore.
RIP, Colleen Joffa Howe.
More...

Boxer Parisi dies in car accident at 41
AP - Mar 25, 5:04 pm EDT
ROME (AP)—Boxer Giovanni Parisi, a former Olympic and world champion, died in a car accident in northern Italy on Wednesday. He was 41.
Parisi died when the car he was driving collided head on with a van on a highway outside the town of Voghera, where he lived, police said. The cause of the accident was under investigation, said police official Alessandro Casanova.
Parisi won the featherweight gold medal at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul.
He was the WBO lightweight champion from 1992-94, when he stepped up to junior welterweight. Parisi lost a decision to Julio Cesar Chavez for the WBC crown in 1995, but won the WBO version in 1996 and held it for two years.
He was knocked out trying to claim the WBO welterweight title in 2000, then fought only three times before his last reported bout in 2006, a loss for the European welterweight title.
Parisi finished with a pro record of 41-5-1 and 29 KOs.
“He was in a league of his own,” Italian boxing great Nino Benvenuti told Italy’s SKY TV. “He was very precise, very technically well-prepared, sometimes he just needed to touch his opponents … so they had watch to out for a surprise punch.”
RIP Giovanni. You should have had a chauffeur - but then again, if such was your fate, there was nothing to do about circumventing it...
One has just to look at Lady Di's demise, for example, to see that.

'Angel' actor Andy Hallett dies at age 33 of heart disease
By Solvej Schou, The Associated Press
LOS ANGELES - An agent for 33-year-old singer and actor Andy Hallett says the former cast member from the vampire TV series "Angel" has died of congestive heart disease.
Hallett's agent Pat Brady says Hallett died Sunday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after having problems breathing. Brady says he has battled the heart condition for the past five years.
Hallett was a fan favourite on the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" spinoff as Lorne, a green-skinned good guy demon who runs a karaoke club and can read a person's aura when they sing.
The show ran five seasons on the WB network and ended in 2004.
Hallett, an only child, is survived by his father Dave Hallett and mother Lori Hallett. More...
I feel for Dave and Lori - for they lost their only son and that lone offspring of theirs had but the oddest claim to fame his whole life through; to have played a devil on some television fantasy that had it all upside down to begin with. RIP, Andy.

Alain Bashung
Le chanteur Alain Bashung est mort
Article publié le 14 Mars 2009
Source : LE MONDE.FR avec AFP et Reuters
Taille de l'article : 487 mots
Extrait :
La chanson française a perdu, samedi 14 mars, un grand monsieur. Alain Bashung, 61 ans, est mort samedi après-midi à l'hôpital Saint-Joseph à Paris. Depuis l'automne 2007, il était atteint d'un cancer du poumon et suivait une chimiothérapie. En raison de sa maladie, il avait dû annuler ses concerts prévus ce samedi 14 mars à Longjumeau (Essonne) et les 17 et 18 mars au Grand Rex à Paris. Sa dernière apparition publique s'est déroulée lors des dernières Victoires de la musique, le 28 février. Il y avait remporté trois nouveaux trophées, s'ajoutant à huit autres obtenus précédemment. Un triplé qui faisait de lui l'artiste le plus primé de l'histoire des Victoires. Il y était apparu alors très affaibli.
Bashung, for me, will always be the consummate rebel. I remember singing along to his most irreverential material way back when I was but a <puceau...! I had no idea what most of the stuff meant, but I recognized the irreverence anyhow - in his tone, in his désinvolture. I suppose he was a role-model on some subliminal level - maybe he helped mold my natural penchant for sarcastic wit, helped define it, even refine it... We lost another good one, I think - as big as Gainsbourg, I would say. May God Have Mercy on both of their souls!

And in other lugubrious news, this month...
Iraq suicide cyclist kills 28 in Baghdad
Sun Mar 8, 8:24 AM
BAGHDAD (AFP) - A suicide bomber on a bicycle blew himself up killing at least 28 people and wounding 58 more outside a police academy in the Iraqi capital on Sunday in the bloodiest attack in weeks, officials said.
The bomber activated his explosive vest as he ploughed into the crowd on busy Palestine Street in central Baghdad, an interior ministry official told AFP.
"The death toll has reached 28 dead and 58 wounded. The majority of the dead were police or recruits," the official said.
An AFP photographer at Baghdad's Al-Kindi hospital said many of the casualties he saw had serious injuries. The victims were taken to three hospitals in the city. More...
RIP, 28+ latest victims of maddening indocrination...

Massachusetts man killed sisters on 5-year-old's birthday
Sun Mar 29, 2:59 PM
By Glen Johnson, The Associated Press
MILTON, Mass. - A man on a rampage fatally stabbed his 17-year-old sister, decapitated his five-year-old sister in front of a police officer and then headed toward his nine-year-old sister before officers shot him amid what their chief described as "a killing field."
There is no clear motive yet for the events that unfolded about 5 p.m. Saturday in this tony Boston suburb that is also home to Gov. Deval Patrick. But there is no doubt at the carnage wrought by 23-year-old Kerby Revelus against his three sisters in the two-family home they shared with their parents and grandmother.
Bianca was killed as a cake for her fifth birthday sat on the kitchen table. Sarafina, 9, dialled 911 and watched police shoot her brother as her elder sister, Samantha, lay dead on the floor.
Sarafina was hospitalized Sunday at the Boston Medical Center with defensive wounds to her hands and stab wounds in her abdomen and one of her legs. (...)
RIP, Bianca & Samantha

7 residents, 1 nurse die in nursing home shooting
N.C. Nursing Home Massacre - AP By TOM FOREMAN Jr. and KEVIN MAURER
CARTHAGE, N.C. – A lone gunman burst into a North Carolina nursing home Sunday morning and started "shooting everything," barging into the rooms of terrified patients, sparing some from his rampage without explanation while killing seven residents and a nurse caring for them.
Authorities said Robert Stewart also wounded three others, including the Carthage police officer who confronted him in a hallway of Pinelake Health and Rehab and stopped the brutal attack. (...)
By late Sunday afternoon, Krueger had charged Stewart, 45, of Moore County, with eight counts of first-degree murder and a single charge of felony assault of a law enforcement officer. Authorities offered few other details, allowing only that Stewart was not a patient or an employee at the nursing home and isn't believed to be related to any of the victims. Authorities said they would release more information at a news conference Monday morning.
"I don't know if the emotion entirely has set in," said Police Chief Chris McKenzie, a Carthage native who said nothing in his nearly 20-year law enforcement career compared to Sunday's slaughter. "It's a small community built on faith, and faith will get us through."
While authorities declined to comment on a possible motive, Stewart's ex-wife said he had been reaching out recently to family members, telling them he had cancer and was preparing for a long trip and to "go away." Sue Griffin said she was married to Stewart for 15 years, and while they hadn't spoken since divorcing in 2001, he had been trying to call her during the past week through her son, mother, sister and grandmother.
"He did have some violent tendencies from time to time," Griffin said. "I wouldn't put it past him. I hate to say it, but it is true."
Authorities said Stewart began his rampage around 10 a.m. at Pinelake Health and Rehab in the North Carolina Sandhills about 60 miles southwest of Raleigh, firing shots inside and outside the home. It ended when 25-year-old Officer Justin Garner traded gunfire with Stewart in a hallway, wounding the suspect.(...)
"He just came in and started shooting everywhere" - said an eyewitness. That sums it all up right there; madness can erupt at just about anytime and for no reason at all.
RIP, nursing home eight...

19 killed in Ivory Coast stadium stampede
15 minutes ago (March 29th, 2009)
ABIDJAN, March 29, 2009 (AFP) - Fans stampeded in an Abidjan stadium during a World Cup match featuring top European-based stars on Sunday killing at least 19 people and injuring 132, a minister said.
Hundreds of fans with tickets tried to force their way into the Houphouet-Boigny Stadium in Ivory Coast's biggest city as the match against Malawi started, a medical source told AFP.
Police were said to have fired tear gas to control crowds who had wanted to see top European-based stars taking part and the stampede was followed by a wall collapse, according to the source.
Many casualties were treated at the stadium as the match went ahead and the worst injured were taken to the Treichville hospital in Abidjan and a military hospital.
Sports and Youth Minister Dagobert Banzio said on national television that 19 people were killed and 132 injured in the disaster.
People do the craziest things at sporting events - but it truly gets the craziest at European football games. There must be something about soccer, I suppose... I mean, call it barbaric and retarded, but at least rival hockey fans will only hit each other a few times, nornally... Baseball fans will most often simply exchange expletives (America's pasttime being such a cerebral sport and all, they tend to stay at that level, even in rough mode; and even the players' violence is stymied, what with the bench-clearing brawls being all about MINIMIZING CONTACT and potential injury...!)
RIP, Ivory Coast 19...

Mars Est Mort
+++

February Finis

2009-02-09T21:39:00.000-08:00

British girl starves to death after dentists pull all her teeth
Tue Feb 10, 11:44 AM
By Jill Lawless, The Associated Press

ADVERTISEMENT
(NOT FROM THE DENTIST ASSOCIATION - I DARE HOPE!)

LONDON - Eight-year-old Sophie Waller cracked a baby tooth eating candy, and set off the chain of events that led to her death.
Sophie refused to open her mouth for a dentist so doctors at her local hospital took out the tooth in an operation, one of the doctors told a coroner's inquest. They removed all seven of her other baby teeth at the same time to avoid the need for future operations, the doctor said.
After the surgery Sophie refused to eat or even open her mouth for her parents, the couple told the inquest. But she was sent home anyway, and starved to death three weeks after the operation.

Dental phobia: doctors blamed after 8-year-old's death
Mon Feb 16, 10:46 AM

TRURO, England (AFP) - Doctors' failure to organise adequate post-hospital care for an eight-year-old girl with an extreme phobia of dentists led her to starve herself to death, an inquest in Cornwall heard on Monday.
ADVERTISEMENT (WHAT - AGAIN?!?)
Sophie Waller died on December 2, 2005 after refusing to eat for two weeks following an operation to remove all of her milk teeth.
Following the operation, Waller was sent home to be looked after by a GP and a community phsycologist, but was not seen by a medical professional, the inquest in Truro was told.
Consultant child psychiatrist, Dr Arnon Bentovin, told the inquest that Waller's medical notes had been sent to the wrong GP and that no direct contact was made between the hospital and a GP.
Of course, let's blame it all on a mere lack of communication, not on any even faint notion that incompetence is permeating the air...

11-year-old shot pregnant woman, then went to school
23/02/2009 7:24:00 AM. | LIVENEWS.com.au
An 11-year-old boy shot his father's pregnant partner in the back of the head, before getting on the school bus and heading off to school.
Jordan Brown has been charged as an adult for the shooting death of 26-year-old Kenzie Marie Houk in western Pennsylvania, according to Lawrence County District Attorney John Bongivengo.
Houk's family and friends revealed that she'd had problems with the boy in the past.

And if you think that THAT is something, wait until you see what some of the...
Most Discussed Articles ...are all about!
Islamic TV founder charged with beheading wife: reports
1326 Comments
I'll leave it up to you folks the distinction of googling that up though...

In other lugubrious news, this month:
Suspected U.S. strike in Pakistan kills 20: militant
from: Reuters - Mon Oct 27, 6:43 AM
?

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Missiles from a suspected U.S. drone aircraft killed up to 20 militants in a Pakistani region on the Afghan border on Monday, officials said, hours before Afghan and Pakistani tribal and political leaders met to discuss peace.
Read Article at Reuters
When everyone else is beyond suspicion, blame it on the drones - sure. Next up we'll have Reagan's Star Wars making a comeback with, you've guessed it, "Attack of the Drones"...
We've already had The Phantom Menace, see - with Dubya's administration's case against Saddam! The death toll THERE is still being tallied up - no Taliban pun intended.

Blast in China coal mine kills 74
BEIJING (Reuters) - An explosion in a mine belonging to China's biggest coking coal producer killed 74 miners in Shanxi province on Sunday and scores more were rescued after being trapped underground for hours.
Xinhua news agency said 436 miners were working underground when the accident occurred at the Tunlan mine near Taiyuan, the capital of the northern province.
Many of the survivors were quickly brought to the surface but at least 60 were trapped underground. Rescuers said some of the trapped miners managed to contact their families on their mobile phones. (...)
Thank God for modern technology -
which allows us to share our very last gasp with our loved ones...
Betcha those mobile phones were made in China too.

Woman found dead in Red Deer home
Last Updated: Wednesday, February 4, 2009 | 6:02 PM MT CBC News
Central Alberta RCMP said they were investigating the killing of a woman in Red Deer on Wednesday, but released few other details.
At about 11:25 a.m., Mounties went to a home in the Anders neighbourhood of the city after receiving a 911 call, Const. Sabrina Grunow said.
Officers found a dead adult female inside the duplex and are currently investigating the case as a homicide, she said.
Another, distraught woman was taken out of the residence on a stretcher on Wednesday morning, the Red Deer Advocate reported.
It isn't just the deer that are endangered, up there, in Red Deer...

Flea market vendors wary of bargain hunting after colleague's slaying
CALGARY (CBC) - Vendors at a Calgary flea market will be "thinking twice" when it comes to buying bargain goods from strangers in the wake of the slaying of a colleague, the market's manager said Wednesday.
Bonnie Constable, who manages the Hillhurst Sunnyside flea market in Calgary, said vendors are deeply upset about the recent death of Rino (Ray) Johnson, 77, but are also worried about their safety.
Johnson's body was discovered Saturday in an industrial park in the Ramsay neighbourhood.
His family said he had had an appointment at noon Friday to pick up an item for his flea market stall. Police won't say if he made it to the appointment. More...
You lay with dogs, you're bound to catch fleas - right?
R.I.P. Mr. Johnson.

Man who censored Beatles is dead
Wed Feb 4, 10:07 AM
HAVANA (Reuters) - The man who banned the Beatles from the communist-run island's radio and television stations has died, state television said on Tuesday.
Jorge "Papito" Serguera, who at the time was president of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television, pulled Beatles music from the airwaves in the 1970s even though he later admitted he enjoyed listening to it in private.
Serguera, who was 76 when he died, said in a 2001 interview he was following orders from high government officials who viewed the British band's music as a threat to the revolution. (...)
But he was viewed as an architect of a general cultural crackdown that dampened dissent and marginalized many for their beliefs or sexuality.
Serguera fought in the 1959 revolution that toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista, then worked alongside Ernesto "Che" Guevara as a prosecutor in controversial trials that condemned to death hundreds of Batista collaborators.
His appearance on television in 2006 provoked protests from intellectuals still angry about his 1970s actions.
(Reporting by Esteban Israel; editing by Jeff Franks)
I am sure Ringo feels vindicated now. NOT.

27 dead in Bangladesh boat accident
Thu Feb 19, 12:04 PM
DHAKA (AFP) - Twenty seven people died in southern Bangladesh Thursday after a ferry carrying more than 100 passengers collided with a cargo boat and capsized, an official said.
District administrator Mussfiq Ahmed Shamim told AFP the bodies had been recovered by divers in a search mission that went into the night after the small ferry was hit by a sand-laden boat on the river Kirtankhola in dense early morning fog.
"We have called off the search for the evening and have recovered 27 dead bodies. Some more -- perhaps two or three -- may surface in the morning," he said.
The sea has no mercy, they say - why should it be any different for rivers... lakes... rapids? We pollute them all without discrimination, too...

And, finally, let's once again share some of the contents of our inbox - shall we?

****************************************
Humane Society International/Canada
STOP THE GREY SEAL HUNT
****************************************

Dear Luciano,

Last week, I told you about my trip to Hay Island, where I
watched mother grey seals nurse their babies still covered in
white fur, while older pups slept and played in groups.

I was thrilled to be there - not to document their deaths - but
to celebrate the fact that the grey seal hunt had not gone on as
planned, because there were no buyers for grey seal skins.

The sealing season had not been officially cancelled, but I was
filled with hope.

I am devastated to have to say that on Monday, sealers butchered
200 of these pups - just to provide "samples" to a Newfoundland
seal processing company.

To know that 200 of the pups we filmed last week were beaten to
death with wooden bats is too much to bear.

And though the sealers have not returned to Hay Island so far,
in a few weeks, they will go to the ice floes off Canada's east
coast to slaughter hundreds of thousands of harp seals.
If you haven't already, please contact your MP today. The
cruelty on the ice must end, and we can end it.
CLICK HERE:
https://community.hsus.org/ct/3p_WpMd1iRZl/takeaction

Thank you for all that you do to help animals,

Rebecca Aldworth
Director
Humane Society International/Canada

********************************
Copyright (c) 2009 Humane Society International/Canada
(HSI Canada)
All Rights Reserved. | Humane Society International/Canada
1 Yonge Street, Suite 1801 | Toronto, ON M5E 1W7 | 416-214-3446
info@hsicanada.ca | www.hsicanada.ca
********************************
--------------------------------------------------

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Win some - lose some...
250 puppy dogs saved to 200 puppy seals slaughtered...
With scores like that, there will never be any sudden death overtime - at least.

Life Wins!

Hi friend,

The White County Sheriff's Department in Tennessee recently rescued more than 250 dogs from a local puppy mill.

Thank the sheriffs for their diligence in protecting these innocent dogs. »

The dogs were small breeds, most under 20 pounds. They were found to be suffering from malnourishment, dehydration, lack of proper ventilation, feces encrusted pens and medical conditions such as matting, sores, mange, poor teeth, abscesses and more.

Officials from the ASPCA were also on hand to help the troubled dogs, and their Mobile Animal Crime Scene Investigation Unit was there to help collect forensic evidence against the puppy mill.

The rescued dogs are now safely housed in an emergency shelter. Please send a thank you to the hard-working law enforcement officers of White County. »

The Take Action Link: http://www.care2.com/go/z/e/AFiAO/ziDt/GdUA

Thanks for taking action!

Samer
ThePetitionSite

Et c'est fini pour Février...
+++

January Journeys...

2009-01-19T18:43:00.001-08:00

A New Year's New Beginning - In The Afterlife -
for all of the following:

Portuguese woman, listed as world's oldest person, dead at 115
Her name was Maria De Jesus - another Mary "of" as in "belonging to" Jesus. Her soul is with Him now - assuredly.

Connecticut man's last lottery ticket wins $10 million for his widow
The Good Lord Always Provides - and His Ways remain Mysterious, always!

South African activist Helen Suzman dies at 91
Another luminary has left us - after accomplishing all the good tasks she was sent forth to do.

Israel kills top Hamas figure, escalating campaign
No comment on where that figure will wind up now.
The same goes for some Israeli decision-makers though...

More Obituaries:

Rocky Williams, Stevens case witness, dies at 58 UPI
RIP, Rocky...

Claiborne Pell, college grant author, dies UPI
RI Sen. Pell, creator of Pell Grants, dead at 90 AP
He was granted his release - by The Lord.

Paul Hofmann, who informed on Nazis, dies at 96 AP
He's not going where Nazis are...

Goldwater family remembers senator on 10th anniversary of his passing UPI
It is important to always REMEMBER - as long as *we* remain *here*...

Prolific mystery writer Donald Westlake dead at 75
So it was written...

Bernie Hamilton, "Starsky and Hutch" captain, dies at 80
His life's movie ends - another begins...

Ex-resident threatened 'mass death' in ritzy Aspen, shoots and kills himself
Maybe it is better than "mass death" - but I will never condone suicide, not even in cases like this - if only by principle.

Car going 54 mph over limit crashes in Ohio; 5 die
I hope they throw the book at that car, then.

John Travolta's son dies suddenly in Bahamas, at 16
So young - he goes back to the Lord practically sinless. Fortunate, in his misfortune, he is.

Obituaries in the news - on the first DAY of the new year too... AP
The Grim Reaper couldn't wait to get started anew...

===

Couple's failed suicide pact leads to murder charges for mother: Quebec police
Only in Quebec can they mess up this bad...
Okay - not quite so, but...

Suicide bomber kills 35 at Baghdad shrine
Another shrine sullied by blood - unnecessary bloodshed.

Edward D. Cartier, illustrator whose work graced 'The Shadow,' dead at 94
The Shadow Knows where he's headed...

Arizona boy, 12, found guilty of murdering Mom in argument over chores
Kids are not half as obedient as they used to be in the good old days...

Children alone for days, parents dead in locked room at Oregon home
Parents are not half as competent as they used to be in the good old days...

Guatemalans dig for bodies after landslide kills 34

Dakar Rally says French motorcyclist found dead

Cheryl Holdridge, former Mouseketeer, dies at 64
Eternally young at heart, she will now sing in a Celestial Choir...
:)

William Zantzinger, villain in Dylan song, dies
There are worse villains than Willy here - then again, waitresses need more respect, whatever their color, creed or competence.

[ Québec ] Jean Pelletier est mort d'un cancer à l'âge de 73 ans; il a été maire de Québec et chef …
L'ancien maire de Québec, qui combattait un cancer, est décédé samedi matin à l'âge de 73ans. Il a aussi été chef de cabinet de Jean Chrétien, pendant 11ans.
View Feed Entry
Feeds - Sat Jan 10 02:28pm AST
Source: Radio-Canada | Grands titres

Israel throws reservists into Gaza battles - 31 more Palestinians killed
Will this ever end...

Taliban commander killed in offensive: Australia
How many commanders can a fallen army possibly have left...?

250 are feared dead as Indonesian ferry capsizes in severe storm
And a plane landed on the sea - 155 out of 155 survived. Logic is not always observed.

Jobless parents kill five kids
Employer reportedly told them, "You should blow your brains out."
(A certain newswire service adds these three related topics, for your convenience:
How men, women handle economic stress
Some common causes of suicide
How to recognize signs of depression
All related topics numbered all in a row.
How very convenient - indeed.)

Three dead, 10 wounded in Belgium daycare stabbings
DENDERMONDE, Belgium - An unidentified man entered a daycare centre in Belgium and went on stabbing rampage Friday, killing two young children and a female worker and sending 10 others to the hospital, officials said. Non mais, dans quel Dendermonde vivons-nous donc...
Ou, plus proprement dit, mourrons-nous donc.
But wait up - there is much worse:

Five newborns killed in incubator fire in India
CHANDIGARH, India (Reuters) - An accidental fire in an incubator killed five newborns and injured another at a state-run hospital in northern India on Saturday, officials said.
The accident occurred at Rajendra hospital in Patiala city where the babies were being treated for jaundice in a special phototherapy machine using special lights.
Police and hospital authorities said a short-circuit could have sparked the fire. The newborns died before help could arrive.

93-year-old freezes to death at home after utility firm limits power use
Unpaid bills will come back to haunt you - sometimes fatally, it seems.

Robert Stone, former top executive at Hertz, dies at his home at age 87
By The Associated Press - BOCA GRANDE, Fla. - Robert L. Stone, a former top executive at the Hertz corporation who had hired O.J. Simpson in the 1970s as a famous pitchman for the car rental giant, has died. He was 87.
Stone died Wednesday, January the 28th, of heart failure at his home in Boca Grande, his wife, Sheila Muldowny Stone, said Saturday, January the 31st.

'Fantasy Island' host Ricardo Montalban dies at 88 in Los Angeles
Tattoo has been waiting for ze.

"Prisoner" Patrick McGoohan Liberated At 80
Not going back to that atrocious village - ever again.
Be seeing you.

Police investigate homicide after inmate found dead at Halifax-area facility

Andrew Wyeth, Painter, Dies at 91
Mr. Wyeth portrayed the hidden melancholy of the people and
landscapes of Pennsylvania's Brandywine Valley and coastal
Maine in works such as "Christina's World."

French director Claude Berri succumbs to a stroke at 74
My father would have been 74 now - he crossed over to the Other Side after an "accident cérébro-vasculaire" as the French would delineate it themselves...

'Lost in Space' actor Bob May dies at 69 from congestive heart failure
After losing my best friend, I might as well lose my Robot as well...

"Star Trek" creator and wife's ashes space-bound
They will not get lost in space now - will they?

All of these souls are space-bound indeed; only a few "privileged ones" will have their ashes follow suit, temporarily, but that is truly meaningless ultimately...

All will know the true final frontier now; and cross the ultimate veil of secrecy, the one that is not man-made.

Most of them will be able to start anew, on the right foot this time, once their sins are eradicated by Omnipotent Forgiveness -
and surely they all will... God Willing.

Welcome to PARADISE REALM... Mr. Montalban, Mr. McGoohan, Mr. Wyeth, Mr. May, Mrs. Suzman - and others...

A realm that shall be everyone's waiting room too - one day, sooner or later - until Kingdom Come.

+++

post-scriptum - just not a posthumous one:
aye, 'tis a new year, a new beginning and a new way to do things here, at the lugubrious blog. Links galore - some photos, and all the data you need - if you really need it though, and the link has gone as dead as its physical subject, e-mail me and I shall send it to you.
And remember - the physical aspect may die
but the ethereal can never die.

+++

The Lugubrious Year In Review: A Pictorial

2008-12-31T23:59:00.000-08:00

There will be many other pictorials of the kind -one of which is here- and there will be numerous more eulogies scattered all about the web; but here, at the Lugubrious Blog, we insist upon doing things differently right - and doing them in our own special way as well...

Hence, without further ado - the lugubrious pictorial depicting those that we miss the most, feel the most for, here, on the TLB Prime Network, begins...

Edward Walter Spulnik

aka Killer Kowalski

BEIJING (AFP) -
A Chinese man who received a rare face transplant in 2006 has died,

his doctor and a government official confirmed Saturday,

highlighting the risks of a recent groundbreaking US operation.

Li Guoxing, 32, died in July at his rural home in rugged southwestern China

after forsaking immune-system drugs in favor of herbal medicine,

surgeon Guo Shuzhong told AFP. (...)

Debby The Polar Bear

Anne Pressly
(Photos: KATV)

Paul

Adventurer Steve Fossett
was finally confirmed to be dead
a mere few weeks ago...

Suzanne Tamim -
killed by the jealousy of others...

Mumba The Gorilla

Guillaume Depardieu -
le fils de Gérard
et fils spirituel de Dewaere...

Nancy Cooper

Janica Milot

Majel Barrett

L'animatrice et chroniqueuse Valérie Letarte

meurt du cancer à 47 ans

(Photo: LCN)

Le 30 décembre 2008 - 22:00

L'animatrice et chroniqueuse Valérie Letarte
meurt du cancer à 47 ans
MONTREAL _ L'animatrice et chroniqueuse Valérie Letarte est décédée, dimanche, à l'âge de 47 ans, a rapporté Radio-Canada. Elle était atteinte d'un cancer.
Mme Letarte a animé les émissions "275-allô" et "Ados-radio" de 2003 à 2007 à la Première Chaîne de Radio-Canada. Elle a aussi été chroniqueuse culturelle à l'émission "C'est bien meilleur le matin", à la même chaîne, de 1998 a 2003.
Elle a également travaillé pour les stations CKOI-FM, CFGL-FM, CKVL-AM et FM 93. A la télévision, elle a été chroniqueuse à l'émission "Salut Bonjour" à TVA et au "Grand Journal" de TQS.
Mme Letarte laisse dans le deuil son fils Pavel.

Isaac Hayes

Samuel P. Huntington

Olga Lepeshinkaya

Eartha Kitt

Bettie Page

Diane Hébert

And then there were those
deemed "lucky" enough to have died
and COME BACK...

To all of them
and the many others
who left our "dwindling" numbers
in 2008...
R.I.P.

You got off this ride
just before it got any rougher
- lucky ones...!

+++

December Dirges

2008-12-12T00:12:00.000-08:00

DIRGE
Definition:
a funeral hymn or mournful speech
Example:
Melville wrote the poem A DIRGE for James McPherson for the funeral of a Union general who was killed in 1864.
Synonyms:
knell, requiem

Dreadful Shadows Lyrics
Dirge Lyrics

In a month that saw a certain politician say that the solution for the poor and their lack of vital nutrients on their table lies in hunting and cooking RATS - and this odd statement comes simultaneously with the revelation that *some* poor have indeed gone as far as to consider their guinea pigs as Christmas time feast... (R.I.P., piggies)
In a bitterly cold month, in which one sees the harshness of one's climate more than clearly - depending where you live, exactly, on the ol' mudball...
In a month tailor-made for mourning; we have seen irrefutable evidence, once again, that BEFORE DEATH as before Our Creator... Our Maker... Our Lord Of lords... we are all equal.

The only difference being that *that* Mr. Rogers right there is able to have long and costly dirges sung to his memory - his estate and his heirs will not have it any other way.
Others cannot even convince their priests to have the bells chime in their wake...!
This discrepancy is only of THIS WORLD though - not from the next one, to which we are all headed, sometimes head first; and on equal footing indeed.

Of those crossing over to the Other Side this month - on the ethereal even-playing field - I'll delineate Majel Barrett, Janica Milot, Sam Bottoms (who is not going to the bottom), Hubert "Pit" Martin (who is not going to the pit), Bettie Page, Eartha Kitt and many more illuminaries as well as numerous more of the nameless, unidentified, non-celebrity kind...

Remember, this December and evermore: no matter what amounts of notoriety one has garnered on this side, it is all as nothing for the Other Side - the one that counts for all of Eternity...

Thus, score points while here THE RIGHT WAY - capisce?

In This Life...

- Chantal Kreviazuk Lyrics

Chantal Kreviazuk Lyrics
God Made Me Lyrics

And in lieu of a decent dirge...

Dark Lotus Lyrics
I Wanna Die Lyrics

Subhumans Lyrics
I Don%27t Wanna Die Lyrics

New Radicals Lyrics
I Don%27t Wanna Die Anymore Lyrics

2 to 1 in favor of living on...!

Have a luminous 2009 -
not a lugubrious one.

+++

November Numbness

2008-11-02T15:21:00.000-08:00

This month, the month of the dead, the month of remembrance, the month of Death... this month, the grim reaper has hit home - again.

C.A.P. has died, in a fiery car accident.
Who is C.A.P. you ask?
C.A.P. is Carlos Alberto PIMÈNTEL - my first-degree cousin. He was quite exactly fifty years-old. I link here the Boston.com GUESTBOOK for his LEGACY as they put it... (Note that my entry has been pushed to page three now, but it can be read right here, rightow too:
My sympathy to Martina, Rita, tio Jose and tia Margarida. Sorrow is only normal now; but cry not and rejoice instead that he is in the Hands of God now. He may be asleep, awaiting The Day - he may be no longer there with you, physically - but he is on the Greater Side of Things. And Carlos will be seen again, by all those who held him dear. One day. On The Day. From one who is still in mourning too - mourning in Faith.
Luciano Pimentel (Laval, QC)

C.A.P. was a good man - that is the consensus.
He died heirless but many are mourning him now - on two continents too.
He has touched many lives, without siring one; perhaps because he didn't sire one.

Verily, how can one not feel NUMB at this point, when Death seems to be after everyone of their lineage lately...?
In a few short years, it has been an uncle, a lady cousin, my own saintly Dad and now C.A.P. here...
Before that, we had lost several precious members of the Clan - but over the course of 20 years or more.
This is too much in too short a timespan.
This means WAR!
As if this very blog wasn't me waging war upon the grim reaper already (methinks EVERYONE who's ever stopped by here has thoroughly grasped the significance of the URL that reads "deathtodeath" - hmm?) - I solemnly swear on this day to act as though DEATH HAS NO POWER OVER ME, from this day onward!
That's right; I shall be carefree, if not careless per say.
Not to advocate devil-may-care attitudes and total absence of caution in anyone's life, I will still detach myself from the constant material world's ULTIMATE LURE: to want to hold on to "precious life" here...
As with anything else down here (riches, fame, lustful desires, all seven deadly sins and the other category too...) one has only to see the EPHEMERAL nature of it all and ONE SHALL BE FREE.
Truly free, that is - free of any constraint.
Free as a "free spirit" should truly be: free to be PURE. Free to reach out for PURITY - and touch it, feel it and become one with It.

Perhaps that is what C.A.P. has finally done, now - his relatively short passage on this earth was riled with aspirations of various earthly merit; he tried to prove his dad wrong, he tried to please others, he tried to have fun... Countless others have done and do the exact same thing, every single day that goes by. C.A.P. as all the others who have passed on, crossed over to the other side, while caught in that cycle, now sees the true GOAL out there... And they all know that death is truly nothing to fear.

Hey - it's just a frail pack of bones veiled underneath some dark cloak; one punch and it will keel over and collapse!

No, death is nothing to fear - especially not when you are reaching out for the true goal - true Life. And true Life is not what we've known so far, down here...

ooo

November is, this year especially, doubling as a month of remembrance AND anniversaries - as the 18th marks the 30th anniversary of the tragic insanity that befell the eponymous "Jonestown" in 1978. A fine article retelling the alleged chronology of events that led to a mass suicide and to the shooting death of cult leader Jim Jones can be found here - on the associated content network that I should be joining myself incessantly.

A quick web search unearths several more notable DEATH ANNIVERSARIES on this month of death...

Web Results 1 - 10 sur un total d'environ 21 000 000 (0,16 secondes)

10th NOVEMBER 1996: 1st ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF KEN SARO-WIWA - 10th NOVEMBER 1996: 1st ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF KEN SARO-WIWA. 26kb Jpeg · 99kb Gif · On this, the occasion of the first anniversary of the execution of ...
archive.greenpeace.org/comms/ken/ - 11k

Anniversary of Death : Articles from Catholic Blogs - [ Traduire cette page ]THE SMITHY - November 8, 2008 Happy optional memorial, everyone! Today is the 700th anniversary of his death in Cologne. Here's to another 700 years. ...
www.catholicblogs.com/search/anniversary_of_death

November 13 Marks 'ODB Day', Third Anniversary of Death - HipHop ... - [ Traduire cette page ]13 Nov 2007 ... November 13 Marks 'ODB Day', Third Anniversary of Death. Contributed by: MetroGnome Source: MetroGnome Posted on: November 13, ...
www.hiphop-elements.com/article/read/4/8899/1/ - 25k

Russia - Litvinenko remembered on anniversary of death - JRL 11-23-07 - [ Traduire cette page ]Litvinenko remembered on anniversary of death. LONDON, November 23 (RIA Novosti) - Relatives and friends have paid tribute to Alexander Litvinenko, ...
www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/2007-242-39.cfm - 32k

145th anniversary of death of Josef Ressel, inventor of propeller ... - [ Traduire cette page ]On Thursday, 145 years will have passed since the death of Josef Ressel, a Czech -born ... 18.11.2008, November 17th anniversary overshadowed by radar debate ...
www.radio.cz/en/article/33185 - 41k

Celebrations for 65th anniversary of "death railway" bridge ... - [ Traduire cette page ]The 65th anniversary of the infamous death railway (River Kwai) Bridge built ... and those who died building it in a week of celebrations in late November. ...
www.thailand-travelonline.com/thailand-events-calendar/celebrations-for-65th-anniversary-of-death.../485... - 52k

Zorn on Anniversary of Taylor's Death - Redskins Insider - [ Traduire cette page ]20 Nov 2008 ... The first anniversary of Sean Taylor's death doesn't come until ... Posted by: Soup17 | November 20, 2008 9:53 AM
voices.washingtonpost.com/redskinsinsider/2008/11/zorn_on_anniversary_of_taylors.html?nav=rss_blog

TamilNet: 02.11.08 Tamils commemorate first death anniversary of ... - [ Traduire cette page ]2 Nov 2008 ... Tamils commemorate first death anniversary of Thamilchelvan. ... air-strike on his residential office in Ki'linochchi on November 02, 2007. ...
www.tamilnet.com/art.html?catid=13&artid=27373 - 41k

20th Death Anniversary of Nur Hossein: November 10 « Addafication - [ Traduire cette page ]20th Death Anniversary of Nur Hossein: November 10. November 8, 2007 in Blogroll | by Adda. Gonotontro mukti pak - Let democracy be free! ...
addafication.com/2007/11/08/17th-death-anniversary-of-nur-hossein-november-10/ - 17k

Anyone who has a less "notable" anniversary to add to the list - less noteworthy to the eyes of the world, but all-important to you personally - please feel free to notify us here, at the lugubrious blog, if you wish to see it mentioned along the elite and the notorious here; ODB, Litvinenko, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Sean Taylor, Nur Hossein, the Thamilchevan and Jonestown victims, etc...

ooo

Another aspect of REMEMBRANCE was underlined and bravely emphasized by the very Google staff, on their blog right here at Blogger. A remembrance day all their own for the transgendered, who have an increased risk (by an estimated 16 to 1 margin) of being MURDERED. The Google blog encouraged all to "take just a few moments to remember the trans siblings, parents, friends and lovers who lost their lives to gender-based intolerance and hatred" on November 20th, the chosen date for Transgender Remembrance Day. No one should have to suffer the loss of a loved one due to blind hatred - and none has the right to take another's life. Kudos to Google for reminding everyone of all this, with perhaps the least spoken of category of victims there could be out there... Remember also this: love the sinner, hate ONLY the sin.

Beyond all that remembrance, I shall suggest Remembrance that, verily, we should always have at heart: that of His Sacrifice for us all. And, fittingly, the day that I am blogging this, November 23rd, is indeed the day of CHRIST THE KING, on the Roman Catholic calendar; everybody's favorite calendar - right? Whether you believe in the power behind this sacrificial act or not, the fact remains that it is historical and that He Was Indeed Crucified, while Being indeed Innocent and Pure from any sin. He Did Die for someone else's sins, and it is but a simple leap of faith as of the imaginative mind to see it as a Redemptory Act for ALL SIN.

CHRIST, King of kings, died for us all.
Remember the greatest of all of those who have died - and the only One to have vanquished death and Risen Again (in a new glorified body - no longer mere flesh, let that be crystal clear to all) on this month of the dead; and thou shall not regret it.
Hey, thou may even be saved - if thou believeth!

+++

Here's to ALL SAINTS that may be roaming out there...!

2008-11-01T13:22:00.000-07:00

In the afterlife... that is!

Photo Copyright - Mortfield

Okay - and to those still alive and "well" too!

(Sorry, I've no specimen to display -
unlike the previous kind...!
NOTA BENE: the picture may in fact prove the existence of spirits in the "sky" - or simply gaseous effects out there, as eggheads will explain/rationalize it... No matter - actual saints will likely not take these shapes - in whatever form they manifest themselves in, no matter the time they choose to manifest themselves...
Just thought I'd add that, too!
Extra information never hurts, I say!
For more astral pics -astral in every sense- you may start here! )

THRILLER... THRILLER NIGHT!

2008-10-31T13:15:00.000-07:00

If only for old times' sake and in total respect of all those passings that have now joined the illustrious ones such as Vincent Price, we could screen for the umpteenth time the video classic "Thriller" instead? Mr. Price's "rap" in it, along with John Landis classy cinematography, truly innovated their respective domain - even if neither invented either genre. Mr. Price made rapping known to a larger audience that had never heard before words being actually simply READ to the sound of music - so, in effect, he "made" RAP. Likewise, even though undead films are George Romero's schtick and brainchild (!) it was this video directed by John Landis in close collaboration with Michael Jackson that truly put zombies "on the map" so to speak - otherwise, Night of the Living Dead might have remained the obscure curiosity it was for so long for another decade... Kudos also to Ola Ray - also the pioneer, in her own field: not only is she one of the first to go from Playboy pictorial to some form of "acting" - she played the part of the MJ girlfriend of service way before Brooke Shields and especially Lisa Marie Presley ever got to. All of these stellar people's careers have DIED too, though, so it is doubly logical to have this video back here again, on the lugubrious blog! As much as it natural to have it on U.A.N.G.A.D. - the blog for original souls that set or reaffirm new trends... trailblazers of the bizarre! Price, Landis, Ray and MJ are certainly THAT!

Besides, it has been my guilty pleasure for more years than I will admit, each and every October 31st, to watch this one... So... Watch with me!

...

September Mourning

2008-09-02T20:11:00.000-07:00

And here is, finally, a much-needed (much-demanded it would appear) update here - as we continue to wish death to Death!

Rumors of my own demise were greatly, GREATLY exaggerated - quite obviously!
My time has not come...
As always, their time came for a myriad others though - and this is their stories...

And whether they are teens or old-timers, the Grim Reaper truly doesn't seem to care.

From ages 16 to 98, this September of 2008 as in most other months on any given year, *anyone* is "fair game" for the reaper - and anyone can undertake the greatest journey, at any time, in whatever circumstance it is...
No matter what age the journeyer to the other side is, the shock is always as great to the loved ones, close ones, near-and-dear ones...

Some things truly never do change -
and neither will the lugubrious blog!
As long as it endures - and its author endures...!

Gruesome head-on crash
Death toll rises after a packed commuter train collides with a freight train.» Footage

'It's the worst feeling in the world'
Dramatic photos of the wreckage

US: 7 soldiers die in chopper crash in Iraq (AP)
16 dead in attack at US Embassy in Yemen (AP)

Bodies of fallen soldiers return home
Canadian Press

» More News

Actor Paul Newman dies
Oscar winner, philanthropist passes at 83.
» His life, legacy

And to all the others, notables or 'unknowables' who have undertaken the greatest journey thispast month of September - from Anita Page and Jack Falla to Richard Wright and the nameless victims of shootings in Finland and Canada as well as blasts in India and elsewhere across the globe... REST IN PEACE.
Or rather - put in a good word for thy loved ones, on the Other Side...!
Thy loved ones are the ones in need of peace, solace, comfort, understanding, kindness, recomforting in this trying time...

My thoughts go especially toward the great Joanne Woodward at this time.

+++

He Would Have Been 40 Years-Old --- Today

2008-07-02T06:40:00.000-07:00

A 40th Anniversary.
Maybe it is because
I am approaching the milestone myself
each and every month... week... day...
minute... second that goes by,
but I certainly did tune into this information
the likes of which I have completely missed out on
in the recent past.
Ronald Lyle Goldman,
the man who was only 25
and found himself
in the wrong place,
at the wrongest time,
has been laid to rest
for fifteen years already -
and it still appears to be
only yesterday
that his "presumed assassin"
was seen LIVE on CNN
being chased on the highway
by police and the media alike.
The media circus
that was the court case that followed
was a farce only toppled
by the verdict rendered
(evidently, by a jury composed
of 12 morons... and an idiot judge?)
The facts were clear enough:
the glove fit the suspect's hand
like a... well, like a glove!
He had motive.
He had the temperament to do it.
There was a history of battery
and spousal abuse.
His account of his time spent
was shabby at best.
The hypothesis of a robber
losing control and adding murder
to his night's mischief
was completely ludicrous;
only someone with real antagonism
towards his victims
would stab the main victim
ONE HUNDRED TIMES
and nearly decapitate her as well...
And yet,
despite all these facts,
O.J. Simpson
was found not guilty at first
of either Nicole Brown's murder
or Ron Goldman's.
The criminal court trial
was laughable at best, indeed -
especially in the light of
what followed;
the civil court verdict
finding O.J. "liable"
and the rights to the book
O.J. dared to write
and title "If I Did It"
eventually going to the Goldmans
and to the newly-created
Ron Goldman Foundation
that benefits victims
of violent crime.

The book was published
by Beaufort Books
and retitled by the Goldmans
"If I Did It:
Confessions of the Killer."
The perfect title -
indubitably.

Does anyone remember
-and did you even know-
that O.J.'s now pathetic
"dream team" of lawyers
(pathetic for they defended
an animal of a murderer)
actually hired black bodyguards
from the Nation of Islam
nationalist group, back then...?
Meanwhile, Goldman's father
was supported outside the courtroom
by the Jewish Defense League.
That absurd travesty of justice
had become another battlefield
opposing Islam and Israël.

Maybe it is not the way
Ron Goldman wanted to achieve fame.
It certifiably isn't,
I am 100% sure -
however, one has to admit
that it is much more significant
than his appearance in 1992
on a game show called
"Studs"...

He died a gallant hero
probably trying to succor
Nicole, a lady in distress,
again...
He died way too young;
his family losing a son
and gaining an ethereal guardian.
I know all about these things -
I acquired a new guardian too,
back in 2006...

Ron Goldman was preserved
from earthly life
and its hassles
when he was cut short
in his prime.
Maybe, like Christ,
he wasn't meant
to reach 40 at all...

I think he would agree
with such an assessment,
especially as, now,
he knows truer bliss
than anyone can ever know
on this earth.

Remember Ron!
A foundation in his name
and a website
managed by Patrica L. Martin
(that you can reach
by clicking on the picture above)
help in that act
of remembrance.

+++

Many Will Not Be Able To Fathom This...

2008-06-28T14:48:00.000-07:00

Although he had let her down, to be with other women

(women such as Witchblade, Supergirl and, most recently,

a brand new creation called Soulfire, as well...)

Fathom is definitely in mourning now

as are the numerous fans of this creation

and of Michael Turner's unmistakeable talent.

As I commented on MySpace.com, in an abridged version on the blog of the CFCA, regarding this shocking, sad, sudden demise:

Michael Turner has passed away...? He was so young - only 37, wasn't he? The killer without mercy, the C-disease, is to blame - once again...

Proof that the time is always NOW when it comes to pursuing one's dreams - for we never know when our number will be up.

And then earthly ambitions will seem as trivial as dust in the wind.

Mr. Turner is moving on to greater and better things; I am sure of it.

My condolences.

+++

Truly, this demise is even more shocking and unexpected than that of Dave Stevens, another comic-book great... Cancer never lets up - nor does the Grim Reaper, for that matter...

However, The Soul Lives On.

It is immuned to both enemies.

50 Years Ago... Today

2008-06-17T18:22:00.001-07:00

June 17, 1948 - Earl Carroll dies in a plane crash.
He had been born just about 50 years prior too: September 16, 1893.
Hence, he was 55 years-old when he made the ultimate trip...

The LikeTelevision History channel proudly presents,
This Day in Hollywood - June 17th!
On June 17, 1948 - Earl Caroll, Broadway and Hollywood producer of Vanities, dies in a plane crash. Also known for the sign on the back door - “Though these portals pass the most beautiful girls in the world“.

LikeTelevision Embed Movies and TV Shows

LikeTelevision Embed Movies and TV Shows

R.I.P. NANCY MICHAUD

2008-05-21T11:46:00.000-07:00

Aucune autre accusation n'est déposée contre Francis Proulx
RIVIERE-DU-LOUP, QC, CANADA _ "Aucune autre accusation n'a été déposée, mardi, contre Francis Proulx, l'homme accusé du meurtre prémédité de l'attachée politique du ministre Béchard, Nancy Michaud, découverte sans vie dans une résidence abandonnée de Rivière-Ouelle, dans le Bas-Saint-Laurent, dimanche le 18 Mai 2008."

Because she lived in a mostly rural area, where the rules and conventions, standards and practices of life in a bristling urban environment seemingly did not apply, Mme. Nancy Michaud had taken the habit of NOT locking her doors during daylight hours. She felt safe in the belief that, to her knowledge anyhow, she "had no enemies" and no one among her neighbours either "looked dangerous" nor would, logically, want to harm her in any way, fashion, shape or form.
She was wrong, on all accounts.

The sensationalistic aura that this tragedy -heinous crime, really- was embued with thanks to the newsmedia quickly dissipated when it became clear that it wasn't because she worked for the government that she had been murdered. It wasn't some badly covered-up internal purging, hence - the rather inane Quebec government is not, after all, the Mafia or the Yakuza. It wasn't the usual suspect who had done this, either; the husband is apparently truly in the clear (although I still think that coming home from work at 2:30AM is a bit excessive - long commute or not!)

No, Mme. Nancy Michaud was indeed assassinated because she TRUSTED too much in her NEIGHBOURS. One of them, at least, was unworthy of all that trust and he proved to be envious enough and without scruples enough, also, to cowardly take the life of this elegant, charming woman - for just a few miserable dollars, perhaps.
And he went about his planned crime so ineptly too... Truly nothing but a waste, no matter what angle you look at all this sorry mess from; too bad the wasteful life of a thug of an individual had to cost an admirable lady's life as well.

Quel gâchis.

Claude Béchard dévasté (21/05/08)
"En plus des premiers commentaires du ministre Claude Béchard, le parlement observera une minute de silence à la mémoire de Nancy Michaud."

They held a minute of silence today, as things resumed on Parliament hill, three days after the gruesome discovery of Mme. Michaud's lifeless body.
Her former employer said a few words of circumstance then... Right: mourners packed the church for the funeral of slain political aide Nancy Michaud, May 24th, 2008...
Anything he might have said will sound very hollow to those who have lost this wonderful woman - and I do think mostly here of her two children, and parents, if they still lived.
Maybe if Mr. Béchard had paid Mme. Michaud a little better for her work, she could have been living in the elite neighborhood "un richard" like Béchard can afford to live in - as long as they're in public office anyway.
Only in such a neighborhood could she have safely left her doors unlocked.

+++

May Mourning

2008-05-04T17:44:00.000-07:00

‘Psycho’ Bear Tears Apart An Eco-Idyll

Animals (tags: brown bears,
reintroduction wild,
wildlife, france, old bear,
endangered )

Simone

- 279 days ago -
timesonline.co.uk

A FRENCH government plan to reintroduce bears to the wild appeared to have backfired spectacularly last week after one of the creatures was accused of being “psychotic”. The ecology minister was forced to admit France had been misled about Franska,

add a comment | visit site | problem?

COMMENTS:

Monday May 5, 2008, 1:50 pm
Now that's MY kind of teddy bear - sick and tired of the abusive and
pollutive ways of us human folks and not taking any of that sh!t
anymore!

Luciano P. (304)

Some music with that?
I suggest you click here
in order to listen to
a song that says it all:

Thanks to "knuckleheady2" for uploading it
and to Jean Ferrat for singing it!

Perhaps some extra reading material
and/or search findings
will be appreciated as well?
You will find some here.

But truly, to be fair,
this is all-around better:

As you'll surely notice,
all of the above material is in FRENCH...
It is because...
Looking for this came to mind
as I heard a song on an evangelical broadcast
that went like this:
"Le bonheur est dans la mort
(quand on est en Lui
qui est la Vie)"

When I find that one
either on MP3 or on the web
I'll post it here as well!
(The very moment it's in the clear
and permission has been duly granted -
of course.)

20 Years Ago, They Reunited For One Last Tour. Then, They Were Gone, One By One... Now They Are Reunited - In The Afterlife

2008-04-22T22:00:00.000-07:00

This file photo shows, left to right, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford and Joey Bishop, who starred in the 1960 Warner Brothers' movie, "Ocean's Eleven."
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

The Rat Pack is now all together again -
their Bishop was the last one to go, last year...

The 1960's Rat Pack, that is...

In 1988, only three of them had reunited, of course:
Deano, Sammy... and Frank. Always Frank. It was *almost* always about Frank...!
Frank Sinatra had, in fact, been the lone member of the Pack in ALL of its incarnations (something true elite groups should not have in their history, because then it seems to become a mere social tool for ONE SINGLE MAN; the Four Horsemen were always about TWO, at least - Ric Flair AND Arn Anderson, for example...)

Maybe, now, ALL of the members are reunited;
including members from the Original Rat Pack, from the 1950s
(Judy Garland, David Niven, George Cukor, among others...)

Only Lauren Bacall, once the "den mother" of the pack, will not be there...
Not yet, she isn't...

Hence the one true Rat Pack Reunion is still YET TO COME;
as each and every single one of our reunions with our loved ones
are yet to come too...

To which one can only say, verily...

Vivement le Jour du Jugement Dernier!

14 Years Ago...

2008-04-06T19:07:00.000-07:00

The Rwandan atrocity - the 100 days of genocide - began, making hitherto and forevermore April 6th a date of infamy, remembered for all the wrong reasons. On par with September 11th - which it actually dwarfs in comparison in the sheer brutality of the tragedy as well as in the total number of casualties; the Rwandan Genocide is evidence enough that man is not just "intrinsically good". Man can commit the most abominable atrocities as well...

It is not just how many lives were lost back then either - it is of course about the unspeakable acts, all the actions that made it a genocide, the most heinous of all campaigns any group of men can ever undertake, that set what happened in Rwanda apart from 9/11 and any other recent tragedy that came with a considerable death toll.

A genocide is as bad as it can get; when brother kills brother for any ill-conceived concept of "cleansing" a piece of land - a huge piece of dirt.

This atrocity spawned a book, authored by one who was there and saw it all happen first hand, quite powerless to do anything about it. He titled his book "J'ai Serré La Main Du Diable" - hinting at the fact that unspeakable evil surely comes from the devil and the devil is, in fact, one of us... Surely, many human souls can only grow horns and a tail upon "crossing over", yes... General Romeo Dallaire is thus convinced he shook hands with one such soul on the unforgivable road to hell; and one couldn't agree more with the general.

It is said that he thought himself BACK in that hell, upon seeing, on a big screen, the film made of his book, starring Roy Dupuis (the same thespian -they call them comedians where he comes from- who played the late, great, maniacal Maurice Richard -on ice, he sure had that maniacal glare in his eyes- but that may not be implying anything at all...)

May everyone else only experience such a hell in that way only - via a movie retelling true shocking events, and not while actually living similar ones as they happen... again.

And may all the victims - all the souls who left this realm of existence amidst violence and chaos during the course of those one hundred days of HORROR... May they all, somehow, REST IN PEACE.

By God's Grace - they can.

+++

April Ausência - or Allo Allotropy...

2008-04-05T17:56:00.000-07:00

Amusing, is it not,
that, quite recently,
when asked about
what favorite TV shows
I held dear to my heart,
out of the deepest
reaches of memory
came surging back
the British sitcom
"Allo, Allo"

Most of the cast
of Allo, Allo
might be dead now

A quick search on
IMDB.COM
should let us know...

That is not, of course,
the true subject
this month...

Merely a preamble to it,
as an explanation
for the alliterative title
of this month's post...
Followed by the round-up
- as usual...

First things first though:
APRIL = AUSÊNCIA
to me, now,
because this month
means a lot of things
ever since
a certain event...
Two years ago,
on this month,
as the purported to be soft
rains of April
swoop down my visage,
I attended the funeral
I knew to be inevitable
and wished never to see
become the sad reality.

April is, thus, Ausência.
Ausência, meaning
the absence of someone;
someone near and dear,
someone we always had there
or thought we always would
have, right there...

ALLO ALLOTROPY...
Because, now,
in "death"
the dear one exists
in more than one form;
his soul soared
into the starry ways
as his corporeal self
was buried into the ground.
Memories of the dear one
represent another form.
As will any photographs,
footage on celluloid,
or video film
or digital pictures...

True allotropy -
and real ubiquity too.

May all your dear ones
live on the same way
as mine.

+++

And be grateful that I resisted temptation
and did not go with "April Fools' Exits" instead
as a title for this month's compilation!

I keep my sarcastic streak in check
- more often than not.

Especially this month:
when the ausência hits home
and even an old favorite
like Charlton Heston
Moses/Ben Hur/Omega Man himself
passes away as well...

30 years ago...

2008-04-03T16:33:00.000-07:00

In the spring of 1978, the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia slaughtered some 4,000 people around the Vietnamese town of Ba Chuc, located just inside the Vietnamese border. Several months after the massacre, the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and overthrew the Khmer Rouge. The Western World condemned the invasion and subsequent occupation, but the Vietnamese people living in this frontier zone slept more soundly because of it. It is doubtful that any nation--Asian or Western--invades another out of entirely pure motives, but to stand before these skulls (and a series of photos too grisly to show here) elicited in me a high degree of sympathy for Vietnam's invasion. Given that thousands more Vietnamese had been killed all along the frontier before Vietnam launched its invasion, many locals only wished their government had acted sooner.

We remember.
And so will God - remember every single one of them -
victims and victimizers alike -
on Judgment Day.

More March Mourning...

2008-03-26T23:10:00.001-07:00

Actor Richard Widmark Dies at 93

Richard Widmark, the actor whose menacing portrayals
in numerous film noir thrillers made him synonymous with the genre,
died Monday at age 93.

Actor Richard Widmark Dies

Hollywood actor Richard Widmark has died at the age of 93. He passed away at his home in Connecticut on Monday after a long illness, according his wife Susan Blanchard. The Minnesota-born star enjoyed a career spanning more than four decades, during which he made over 70 films. He made his silver screen debut in 1947, aged 33, as a psychopathic killer in Kiss Of Death - a role which earned him an Oscar nomination and scooped him a Golden Globe prize as well. Widmark went on to star in 1950s classics like Night And The City, Broken Lance and appeared alongside Marilyn Monroe in 1952's Don't Bother To Knock. He will also be remembered for his roles in Judgement At Nuremberg (1961) and 1964's Cheyenne Autumn. Widmark made his final big-screen outing in 1991 thriller True Colors. He is survived by his second wife Blanchard and a daughter from his first marriage to writer Jean Hazlewood. (*)

(*)Copyright World Entertainment News Network All Rights Reserved.

The Internet Movie Database takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the articles above. Studio Briefing is edited by Lew Irwin and articles are the copyright of StudioBriefing. The Celebrity News articles are licensed from WENN (World Entertainment News Network) and published for the entertainment of our users only. The WENN items do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that WENN's reporting is completely factual. Please address any complaints regarding the content of WENN to imdb@wenn.com.

All fine and well - but... WHY did W.E.N.N. take off any mention of another passing in the film industry a mere 24 hours after it was reported? What, is only Mr. Widmark worthy of remembering...?

Here is the other industry demise:


•	Oscar-winning "Nuremberg" writer dies in L.A March 28, 3:57 AM ET, Reuters

Oh I get it, W.E.N.N. - writing about Nuremberg is not politically correct...!

In other news:

Trois chasseurs de phoque périssent en mer, un autre chasseur toujours porté disparus

Three or four seal-killers, their hands still sullied with the blood of the poor creatures they just clobbered to death, drowned to death on their way back home...

Boo-hoo. Somehow, it doesn't quite ring true as the "Perfect Storm" story - and even there, I was not so displeased at all to see the SEA take back what was his, while taking to oblivion Marky Mark and his buddy gorgeous George there...
(See, Mark, if you weren't such a Mark, you would've wanted to be AQUAMAN and would've survived that Perfect Storm so that you could have made a SEQUEL - "the Perfect Storm II: Back Out To Sea" or something... That sure would have done better than your last bunch of flops at the box-office, eh? My apologies to the real-life Perfect Storm tragedy victims: I just cannot miss a single opportunity to poke fun at Marky Mark...!)

As for the seal assassins (no, not those Dubya sent after God-Knows-who, in his would-be sacrosanct war against terror...) - I see only poetic justice there, really... The sea had enough of them.

Wisely, this seal hunt is done for the year.
You better, "Madelinots"...
Now if only your fellow trade workers would do likewise and put a stop to it - before they too sink in the cold waters up there...

Meanwhile, I would be remiss if I didn't remind all that they're still looking for these two CRAPULES:

Recherchés pour la mort d’un enfant (28/02/08)

Varsity news:
death threats on campus, between employees, not students - now that's odd!
Students know better than that: they haze!
And somebody employed by such an august establishment of ADVANCED LEARNING should also know better than that: for it is all in the way that you SAY IT!
You can say, for instance, "you will surely die, dude" - for it is an evidence!
Just don't mention that you intend to be the Reaper's assistant in any way...

Menace de mort à l’Université Bishop (18/02/08)

And finally - another casualty of the road...
If the rising costs of owning and USING a car won't get you, reckless driving, be it your fellow man's or your own, surely will!

La route fait un mort en Beauce (11/02/08)

Mea Culpa -
I may have forgotten to make any mention of it, in last month's February Farewells...

Truth is, I can't keep up...!
I've no idea how the Grim Reaper does...
"It" really must be "a whole team" of reapers - as seen on modern TV cult favorite (it is one in my book anyway) Dead Like Me...
Catch a repeat, if you can - while you can...

March 14th - my late, great Dad's Birthdate and his namesake's in the news again, too...

2008-03-14T16:16:00.000-07:00

The late John Ritter, with his wife Amy Yasbeck.

Jury Clears John Ritter Doctors

Panel votes 9-3 against finding docs liable in $67M wrongful-death case
More in News »

The worst thing about this may yet be that E!Online dubbed this news to be lumped into the "What's Hot" category...

How about a new category now: the "What's Not Right" news, hmm?

March Mourning

2008-03-04T17:52:00.000-08:00

Anticipated mourning
as well as ongoing mourning, this month...

Condamné à la décapitation
Mohamed Kohail

Mohamed Kohail MAY die - and his family MAY be mourning him this month...
Archbishop Rahho, for his part, DID DIE - and there can be no doubt that *his* journey on this earth has been ended in a most sickening and cowardly way, by another's hands...

This photo taken in Nov. 2007 shows Chaldean Catholic archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho posing by St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. The body of Rahho, kidnapped in Iraq last month, was found just outside the northern city where he was abducted, the auxiliary bishop of Baghdad said Thursday March 13, 2008. Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho was seized in Mosul and three of his companions were killed Feb. 29 when gunmen attacked them soon after he left mass.
(AP Photo/Courtesy of Rev. Amer Youkhanna, ho)

Another instance that proves yet again how intricately linked death and taxes truly are...

Sued: Crocodile Hunter

Creditors want Steve Irwin's zoo to cough up millions.» More details

Canadian faces beheading

Family, government appeal man's Saudi death sentence.» Details

That news item about "one-in-millions triplets" proves that, no matter how many Death reaps, Life is still battling back...

Students are not just in danger abroad - as for everyone else, danger exits right on our home turf and in the humdrum, run-of-the-mill existence that is campus life as is the case more particularly here...

Featured Video

Fire kills chief's grandchildren on Manitoba First Nation

Play Video » More CBC.ca Video

Despres found not criminally responsible for slayings

Play Video » More Canadian Press Video

Ok, OK - Here's an all-American U.S. Video now...

Dying girl's wish denied

CNN

AP Top Stories

» All news video.

Play
Euthanasia advocate's autopsy uncertain AP - Fri Mar 21, 8:03 PM ET
Results were inconclusive for an autopsy performed on the body of a woman found dead days after French authorities denied her euthanasia request, the Dijon prosecutor said Friday. (March 21)
Play
Tempest in a Tea Cup FOX News - Fri Mar 21, 6:05 PM ET
'Line Rage' at Disney World could send mom to prison for 15 years
Some mothers are indeed terrible examples for their kids - does that mean that those prospective moms should have taken the m.a. pill...?
Play
Birth Control Battle FOX News - Fri Mar 21, 6:05 PM ET
Pharmacists refuse to sell morning after pill over moral beliefs
Play
Deadly Waters FOX News - Fri Mar 21, 6:04 PM ET
At least 16 dead in Midwest flooding
Play
Officials: force of flying ray killed woman AP - Fri Mar 21, 5:09 PM ET
Authorities say a 57-year-old woman died from blunt force head trauma, struck by a spotted eagle ray leaping from the ocean into a boat. The animal died from the collision. (March 21)

And to end on a less lugubrious but truly luminous note -
another video-link with a song and video-clip at the other end that reflects Life, Hope, the passing of the years, nostalgia therefore -saudade- but the lyrical evermore quality of it all - the certainty that we shall be together once again, one day... All that I simply see in this song by the irresistible Isabelle Boulay.

Isabelle Boulay : Simplement tout

+++

February Farewells

2008-02-22T21:48:00.000-08:00

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.
+++

'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.

2008-02-19T16:12:00.000-08:00

U.S. Video

Call for action after NYC hacking death

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

2008-02-02T16:36:00.000-08:00

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

+++

10TH Anniversary of the ICE RAIN CRISIS... LA CRISE DU VERGLAS

2008-01-05T05:04:00.000-08:00

by Luciano Pimentel

Where were you in 1998?

I remember it very well...

Or do I?
"It was the best of times -

it was the worst of times"
would apply very well to this, yes...

Most of Quebec was left without electricity

for a good chunk of the first two months of 1998

when the entire province was hit,
out of the blue almost, by an ice storm
whose intensity and repercussions
took EVERYONE by surprise...

Lucien Bouchard was, at the time, the ruler...
Pardon, the prime minister of Quebec.
To his credit (as to mine - for he is, after all
my namesake and my lookalike too, in a way)
he had poise and leadership,
great commander-in-chief qualities
and generalship
exactly when it was
most desperately needed.

One of the few times
that I was proud of my namesake there...!

At the height of the crisis, many volunteers,
social workers, police and the army
were dispatched onto the streets to go door-to-door
and fetch every recalcitrant or cranky party
that would not leave their unheated home...
They could simply not be left in their homes,
with no heat, food or supervision as it was -
for back then, as is the case now, many are they
who count among the elderly and lonely
retirees who live absolutely alone
and cannot fend for themselves in such
daily activities as going to the bathroom
or dusting off the furniture - much less
dealing with such a crisis...

Hypodermia and dehydration
were very real dangers

for all of these people.

Danielle Laporte and Germain Duclos
were two of the "guardian angels"
who assisted with social care work,
often guiding the elderly and difficult patients
to accept being taken in by the healthcare system.
Danielle had requested a reprieve
after many days of work without respite -
but since there was no relief on the way,
no one else available to readily step in
and replace them, she reconsidered
and chose to stay, mainly to assist Germain,
her companion both at and off work.

Danielle last helped a very cranky old woman
to simply accept to be taken to the hospital.

The old lady was brought to the hospital,
eventually, but a mere day later, she died.
She had a most malicious type of influenza
and had, unbeknownst to all,
transmitted the virus to her benefactor.
Yes - Danielle was to die too.

A month earlier,
Danielle had written a fairytale
for the children's care department
of the hospital in which
she helped patients the most.
It is reminisced about, by Germain,
that it was "très singulier"
- i.o.w. very singular -
that she wrote such a story
(un conte)
which featured
all the elements
that foreshadowed
what she herself
was going to become undone by
within a mere month or so...

Her story was about two children
who get lost in the woods
because of 'verglas' (ice rain)
and then, even in this type of tale,
they do die...
Their mother finds them though
and gives them a piece of her heart
so that they can survive -
and the children come back to life.
Happy ending.

In real life,
Danielle had, of course, heart failure
due to the virus that she contracted.

Germain recalled that she was hesitant
about how to end her story, too...
It was almost a reflection
of her desire to rewrite
her own ending
manifesting itself there,
way ahead of the sad events.

All this touching reminiscing took place
and was recorded for posterity
at the every end of a 2005 documentary
that relates many stories that happened
around "la crise du verglas" -
on a Historia TV show called "Tragédies"
that focuses on many such
calamitous events...

Danielle Laporte's story
is the only truly tragic story
that is retold there, though -
for, the rest of the interviewed parties
that agreed to participate to this show
and the episode on the Ice Rain Crisis
were all met with happy endings.
Louis-Marc Chicoine, a cook who worked
for the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Montreal,
met his bride during the crisis -
a woman that he thought, at first,
to be totally unreachable before,
of his own humble admission.
They met while doing volunteer work
at the height of the crisis.
Another couple reminisced
about how circumstances led them
to wind up back in the room
where their baby girl was conceived -
for the woman to deliver the baby!
Another volunteer worker,
married to an SRC-TV reporter
who bears a very literary name,
(Alexandre Dumas - would you believe)
talked about the improbable fire in her home
in the midst of all of her own helpful work -
which required her going home at midnight
and getting ready to go back to the shelter
around 6AM, every single day...
Her home was rebuilt - so, it was bad luck
but not as "tragic" as other stories were,
alas, most of them
untold stories...

Many died during that crisis.
27, if I remember the number right.
Many more were scarred for life.
As the new Mrs. Chicoine noted so well,
during the height of this crisis,
a newfound solidarity emerged.
Everyone was solidary and helpful -
no longer was there individualism
and solitary lifestyles,
in complete anonymity -
no, fraternity actually existed once more!
It was all lost when electricity was re-established,
as everyone returned to their modern world's
instilled and execrable individualistic attitude...
Everyone returned to
"uncaring mode", basically...

Everyone became,
once again, in effect,
the antithesis to
caring Danielle Laporte
who gave her life
to be there for others.

To all those who died during the crisis -
to Danielle Laporte and all the nameless ones -
this piece is dedicated.

None of you will ever feel cold -
ever again.
+++

Reaping In The New Year

2008-01-01T22:27:00.000-08:00

The grim reaper has been reaping them very early in life
very early on in 2008...

The usual contest sought out is to able to grasp the honor
of having the first-born babe of the year.

Some unlucky souls find themselves to be the first ones to go
in the opposite direction, though...

Or, perhaps, they are the lucky ones in that.
They are in "a better place" now - as they say...

Stefanie Rengel, 14, the daughter and stepdaughter
of two veteran Toronto police officers,
was killed on Jan. 1st.
(Photo released by Toronto Police Service)

Rengel's death is the city's first homicide of 2008.
My condolences to her parents and friends.

There were 84 homicides in Toronto during 2007,
fifteen more than there had been in all of 2006.
Toronto measures up, hence, to the numbers reported
by many other large urban centers in North America...
The trend upwards, though, is seen only in a few places
while others saw a small decrease in the number of homicides
committed on their territory...

Such are the pitfalls of urban life
in burstling metropolises...

I may keep going downtown
but I think I am not boarding a bus
for a long, long time now...
First there was the American tragedy, pictured below,
and then it was the Canadian one,
in Bathurst, New Brunswick...

Long distance trips are sometimes best never undertaken...

In this photo released by the Utah Department of Public Safety on Monday, Jan. 7, 2008, a charter bus carrying people from a Colorado ski resort sits upright after running off a wet road and rolling several times down an embankment in far southeastern Utah Sunday, Jan. 6, 2008, killing eight passengers and injuring about 20 others north of Medicine Hat, Utah.
(AP Photo/via Utah Dept. of Public Safety)

My condolences to all bereaved parties.
A sudden death in the family is always so hard to take.
One like this, out of left field, is twice as hard on the system.

You can all share your condolences by signing here.
At "press time" over here (blog publishing time, really)
there were already close to 500 pages worth of sympathy.

An illustrious old-timer also passed away
early in this year of Our Lord, 2008...

Explorers Sardar Tenzing Norgay of Nepal, left, and Sir Edmund Hillary of New Zealand who conquered Mount Everest in 1953, are in this 1953 handout photo. Hillary, the unassuming beekeeper who conquered Mount Everest to win renown as one of the 20th century's greatest adventurers, has died, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark announced Friday, Jan. 11, 2008. He was 88.
(AP Photo/NZPA,Penguin Books, HO)

My condolences to Sir Hillary's family.

And there were more demises, many more,
of course - Death sees no difference whether it is a new year
"full of promise and hope, for the future" - or not.
Deaths -violent ones at that- occurred on New Year's Day itself
(no, the Rengel tragic end was not the only one to occur
at the most unexpected time, on the most unexpected day)
And, as always, Death picked them in an undiscriminatory way -
all ages, creeds, races and colors list among the notables
as, also, among the anonymously departed,
those who are a mere faceless, nameless number
in all of these death tolls reported by news feeds everywhere...
More - in the comments section.

+++

The ultimate homage to dead wrestlers

2007-12-30T06:25:00.001-08:00

This one says it all.

Made on a lark by a third party,
it gave itself the purpose to reply
to someone else's callous remark
that went something like this:
"who cares about a bunch of dead wrestlers"
Well, they were human beings too,
like each and every single one of us
and they dared to pursue their dream
even if it ultimately meant
way too much abuse to their body,
much more than it could take,
and an early grave for most of them...

I commend them on this and this alone:
having had the guts to pursue their dream.
Most went about it the wrong way -
seeking to keep the dream alive by using
performance or physique enhancing drugs
or simply over-indulging in pain-relievers...
Some also took the easy way out
at the first sign that the dream was over.
Not their fault that, once there, they saw
no other alternative.

Some shocking revelations are to be found here
regarding the deaths of some of them, aye...
Mike Alfonso aka Mike Awesome
comes to mind...
I had no idea...
And, finally, I learned the true identity
of the tragic figure known as "the Renegade"

Between these two
and the likes of Elizabeth, Rick Rude,
Curt Hennig, Louie Spicolli, Eddie Guerrero,
Nancy Daus, Brian Pillman, Chris Benoit,
the tag-team known as 'Public Enemy' -
it all reads as a who's who of WCW talent,
circa 1995...

I gather that this will contribute in making WCW
the stuff of modern legend
much to the chagrin of one V.K. McMahon...

I am proud to showcase this video here.

Kudos to whoever did it.
(Click on the screen and you'll find that out with ease.)

Savin' it for The Year End Review - 2 of 2 - Shocking, That Monkey

2007-12-28T23:37:00.000-08:00

Such a shocking news story that I had to
concoct a playlist just for it...
After all, it is not every day that
one hears of a mere monkey
doing in a government official...
(Okay - they were many!
These monkeys know there's strength in numbers
not necessarily safety though
as some of them died in the mauling
of ONE man only...
Nonetheless, Hanuman would be proud
I suppose...)

Granted, they have wild monkeys in New Delhi
like we have squirrels here...

No squirrels will invade the White House though
and cause Dubya to leave us alone
once and for all...

Al Qaida may want to consider
contracting some monkeys now...

I hear that
Magilla Gorilla, Cheetah, Cornelius, Caesar,
Chewbacca, Bobo and all ten of these right here
are not too busy these days...
I'm sure they all dislike Dubya too...

That chimp that hung out with Reagan
must also be eager to oust Dubya...

And if all these simians are dead
they can always haunt him out of the White House?

That's what you get, Dubya,
for NOT getting impeached
as you so deserved it...

Savin' it for The Year End Review - 1 of 2...

2007-12-28T23:35:00.000-08:00

15 ans pour Francis Gignac (20/12/07)

15 ans pour Francis Gignac (20/12/07)
Francis Gignac, qui a tué sa conjointe Josée Olsen à coups de marteau,
devra passer les 15 prochaines années de sa vie derrière les barreaux.
Liens associés
Zone Haute Vitesse
TQS
Plus de nouvelles sur TQS.ca

Let's hope that Josée Olsen's soul will rest in peace now.
Her loved ones may have some peace of mind too, now -
justice was served (as severely as it's likely to be these days.)

+++

Also revealed this past year -
in October, The Spectre Of Death Called AIDS...
It was revealed that it originated from Haiti.
And we all thought all that we'd gotten from Haiti were
voodoo, zombies (and recipes how to make them) and
tetrodotoxin...
Oh, and "regular recipes" too for the puffer fish,
whose spikes give us that "precious" tetrodotoxin
that begets zombies, in turn, when ingeniously used...

And, if you're anywhere near Quebec, Haiti also gave us
Dany Laferrière! Yay...

Well, it also gave the WORLD... AIDS.

And right around the time that your luminous and lugubrious
blogger was BORN too...
Yeah, I can truly say that I am innocent in all this -
I was barely born onto this wretched world
when AIDS CAME TO TOWN...
With Dany and the Zombies...

That's enough to turn you into a
Voodoo Kin Mafia fan - isn't it?

Don't answer that...

2007-12-25T14:53:00.001-08:00

A moment of silence
on this day where we evoke
"The First Noël After"
for those who have already known
or who will have known this year
their Last Noël...

And special thoughts
of course
for their loved ones
left behind...

+++

December Demises

2007-12-20T01:59:00.000-08:00

All newswires on the Big Grid related the following

in regards to the above photo (credits below):
"Icicles hang from a statue of Abraham Lincoln in front of the

Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum and Library in Springfield, Ill.,

Sunday, Dec. 9, 2007. The brunt of an icy winter storm system

hit central Illinois leaving up to a quarter of an inch of ice accumulation

and creating dangerous driving conditions."
(And killing six people - don't be afraid to mention that all-important fact now...! Abe would approve of it being mentioned...
Here's to the Six - GOD Did not forget them either.)
(AP Photo/Seth Perlman)

And there were, of course, many more demises
in this month of December...
Among them:

A mere few days before dying, Evel Knievel had settled out of court with Kanye West pretty much in the beginnings of a dispute over the use, by West, of many of Evel Knievel's trademarks of sorts, including the name "Evel Kanyevel"...

In making peace before he went on his greatest stunt tour of all, Evel Knievel showed off one important aspect that we all knew of already, I do believe; Evel wasn't evil.

That stated - this is still the man who went after a PR man with a baseball bat in 1977, after the latter man had written a book about E.K. that the stuntman found less than flattering...

While not being evil per say, Evel sure had a temper... to spare!

Along with The Six Million Dollar Man, Steve Austin,

the Bionic Woman and, maybe, Tarzan Ron Ely,

Evel Knievel was one of my 1970s TV HEROES...

The one who bridged the gap between

Bobby Orr and Aquaman!

It is always deeply saddening to lose a hero.

Which brings me to the next departee...

Dan.

Dan Fogelberg's anthem about the Leader of *his* Band was always a favorite song of mine - ever moreso in March of 2006 when it took on a very personal meaning for me.
I'm disappointed to see someone else lose a Leader - like him.
My condolences to his offspring, to his wife and entire Band...

Tomar, seen in this photo taken last January,

was suffering kidney failure.

(CBC)

There are so few tigers left
to lose but one of these noble beasts
is a tragedy in itself.
That it was Tomar
is even more disheartening.
What happened on this damn planet
that such creatures have no place on it anymore
and even the gentler specimens, kept in a zoo,
meet an early demise.
Hear ye, poachers and other killers -
your days are numbered too
for soon there will only be
Tony, Tigger and Hobbes left
as tigers on this earth.
Good luck with the career
(translation: rot in hell)

R.I.P. TOMAR

There were many more deaths to repertoriate
I may have missed more than a lot too
(as I have surely done over the entire year)
- oh well, I am not to *officially* keep score anyway
and I won't be doing this Lugubrious thing
forevermore either...!
Those that I did catch are *all*
in the comments section.

And may they all rest in peace.

+++

AIDS Day

2007-12-01T16:44:00.000-08:00

Le Marabout Sait... Si, Si... Da, Da...!
Le Moribond - Sait Mieux! ;)
(And if you doubt those Frenchie words -
scroll back up to the top of the page
right here on the Lugubrious Blog
(or go to the 'current posts' page)
and play the 3rd video offering
straight and/or right from the top, aye
courtesy of the fine folks from YouTube!
Jacques Brel's Moribond
Lui, il connait son affaire!
He has it aaaaaall figured out -
oui monsieur!
On word of caution though:
video may not be available any longer...
A second word of advice:
if the video is indeed still available
and that you understand the words
you may be a bit down and blue afterwards...
C'est les risques du métier, quoi
ou peut-être pas exactement cela
but I'm digressing, I think...)

The advice dispensed above
applies only to those with nerves of steel
- those few of us, detached enough from
"earthly, material things"
to actually be somewhat unphased by news
such as "you have contracted H.I.V.
and your days are numbered
Have a nice day... or last days...
Next patient...!"

Ignorance truly is bliss
in this case (as in others, I'm sure...)

I could roll off the numbers now -
like any news cast has done
in order to "promote" this day...
AIDS (Awareness) Day
- isn't it?

But I will not!

Just beware who you lock lips with!

Could be the kiss of death.

....

Another death in Gay Paris that I was not aware of...

2007-11-10T20:02:00.000-08:00

This is a post made a year TOO LATE...
Just as with the classy Claude Jade who passed away in December of 2006, I was not aware that the astonishing Anicée Alvina had passed away in November of that same year.
And both were reaped by the same monster - cancer.
Anicée was only 53 - and she appeared to be eternally young due, in part, to her timeless films made early in her career; 'Deux enfants qui s'aiment' and 'Paul et Michelle' particularly (the second being a sequel to the first; this before the trend to make sequels was anywhere near to becoming a real, truly consistent trend...)

As many have said about her before, she was sort of a living symbol for the "cinéma libertin des années 1970" - the libertinous French films of that decade... That is quite an honor for someone so young when the competition for that dubious title was the likes of Sylvia Kristel and Brigitte Bardot herself - both in their prime.
The reason for that was truly just a few films she made, all in a row, in a short timespan right from the onset of her career. There were the first two titles mentioned above. And then there were the truly daring ones...
Films such as 'Isabelle Devant Le Désir' and also the much controversial 'Le Rempart des Béguines' where she was paired up with classic film and stage actress Nicole Courcel in a most unusual and unpredictable way, career-pattern wise (unless one had previously read the novel of the same name; absolutely no one could have predicted such a role for the refined Nicole Courcel - certainly not the role she was attributed there, as the seductress of a teenaged girl. And the role given to the nubile Anicée Alvina was a surprise as well.)

But this is not a movie career analysis - as much as it is an eulogy.
The films mentioned above and below shall be analyzed elsewhere...

Born Anicée Shahmanesh on the 28th of January 1953, she was of Iranian descent via her father and French through her mother. The mix contributed to make her, in time, French cinema's touch of the exotic - and erotic. She was married in 1984 and was buried last year in the same locality: Boncourt, which is to be found somewhere in Eure et Loire. She did pass away in Paris, however...

Perhaps Paris was not worthy of keeping her body in inhumation now - considering the way Parisians treated her body as a consummable in print, for so long...

Whenever a French director needed a refreshing vision of all that youth could be, such as René Richon did for his 1978 film 'La Barricade du Point du Jour', they summoned Anicée Alvina - the most promising starlet of "le nouveau cinéma français" from her very start in 1969 throughout the 1970s.

Throughout that period, these directors and casting agents required two things, primarily, from Anicée: for her to be cute and for her to disrobe.

Flash-forward to now, however:

2006 was a murderous year indeed - and I am not alone with this opinion as evidenced by this comment left elsewhere:

De PM Jarriq, le 26 novembre 2006 à 12:39
Pour continuer dans les nouvelles réjouissantes de cette fin d'année meurtrière, j'apprends le décès de Anicée Alvina, jeune première des années 70, remarquée dans ce film de Blain (Un Second Souffle), et dans Le Rempart des Béguines.

Blain's film and le Rempart - two of the most exploitive films done with Anicée - or committed at her expense as blatant exploitation of her exotic looks and unique qualities... She was the voluptuous object of desire du jour - in spite of her intrinsic innocence. For Anicée had that particularity about her, see, that which made it clear (as clear as logically could be) that she was unquestionably precocious and sensuous - yet retained the aura of a virginal nymph at the same time (as it is plainly evident below.) Her purity outshone any of the sexually suggestive things she did on screen - and, much akin to a young Romy Schneider, it would have to be the toll of years and years of disappointments, life itself hence, that would finally take away that aura of purity - replacing it with the allure of a proud woman whose dreams were not fulfilled, as it was the case for both herself and Romy, as well...

Anicée had left the seventh art in the early 1980s (most probably out of deep lassitude and dillusionment) to try and achieve her lifelong dream to sing. She released three singles: "Image à définir" (1982), "Maman, je ne veux plus aller à l’école" (1983) and "Si tu m’aimais encore" (1986). She was met with very mixed reviews and a lukewarm response from critics and audiences alike - unlike a certain Carla Bruni many years later; Carla, who had done as much nudity as Anicée had (but as a model, not an actress) to eventually turn around and become a chanteuse overnight - and she was actually embraced as such.
Anicée, one of the first to do that, was clearly not.

It is perplexing to note the obvious irony that she was born in 1953 - and was destined to remain on this Earth only 53 years as well.
She spent most of her career years as a recluse, in near-obscurity, not making films or much of anything else, in-between exploitive flicks that is. Who could blame her - she knew that the only roles French film directors would offer her (especially the French ones - although Lewis Gilbert is guilty too) were roles that would require her to be a sexpot, a seductress of some kind, a debauched woman - and she knew that these directors would want her primarily to get her to shed her clothing once again... Even as she grew older, roles of substance would not come her way. No one ever saw in her more than that - more than a pretty woman, a pretty naked body, an object of desire. Bref, plus qu'une poupée.
I do believe she has been embraced now by One Who Sees beyond mere corporeal shells - One Who embraced the beautiful person that Anicée was on the inside.
And Has Seen her true value, hence, when so few here saw it.

R.I.P.

The Month Of The Dead's Death Toll

2007-11-03T13:45:00.000-07:00

Another "November To Remember" this will be, assuredly...

Lillian Ellison
aka
The Fabulous Moolah
(1923-2007)

At least, now,
where she's headed
Vince McMahon
will not be able to
use her in abysmal ways
on his lamentable show
(where she is now
Vince will not BE
period!)

Hey, Lillian -
give 'Classie Freddie Blassie'
a hug, for me...?

My condolences to
both your daughters -
Mary 'not stone cold' Austin
and Katie Glass
aka 'Diamond Lil'

LAST YEAR
the Boston Celtics' season
started with Red Auerbach's
departure from this world...
This year,
amidst the euphoria
of a new team
with tons of
very realizable
great expectations,
another tragedy
early in the season:
the coach's FATHER
passes away
suddenly...

My condolences to Doc Rivers
and everyone who knew
and held dear
Grady Alexander Rivers Sr.
(1931-2007)

PEOPLE DIE YOUNG TOO -
the unexpected
and shocking death of
distance runner
Ryan Shay
(1979-2007)
took many by surprise
last Saturday.
Could Couch Potatoes
actually achieve more
"reliable longevity"
than those striving to be
fit and active?
The questions
that such sudden
and unforseen
tragedies raise
are many
and difficult
to answer promptly...

I have a question too;
as someone forwarded to me
the following
"Formidable Forwardable"
(as often seen on TLB Prime)
a mere few hours
before Shay's untimely demise...
and the message of the "FWD"
is for the recipient to
HAVE A "SHAY DAY"...
(not on a Saturday - I hope...)

>Subject: Two Choices
By A Luminous Anonymous
evidently...!
>Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2007 09:02:08 -0400
(Hence, roughly a little more
than 24 hours before Ryan Shay's
sudden passing...)
>>What would you do? You make the choice.
Don't look for a punch line,
>there isn't one.
Read it anyway.
My question is: Would you have made the same choice?
>>At a fund raising dinner for a school that serves
learning-disabled children,
the father of one of the students delivered a speech
that would never be forgotten by all who attended.
After extolling the school and its dedicated staff,
he offered a question:
"When not interfered with by outside influences,
everything nature does is done with perfection.
Yet my son, Shay, cannot learn things as other children do.
He cannot understand things as other children do.
Where is the natural order of things in my son?"
>>The audience was stilled by the query.
>>The father continued.
"I believe that when a child like Shay,
physically and mentally handicapped,
comes into the world,
an opportunity to realize true human nature presents itself,
and it comes in the way other people treat that child."
>>Then he told the following story:
>>Shay and his father had walked past a park
where some boys Shay knew were playing baseball.
Shay asked, "Do you think they'll let me play?"
>>Shay's father knew that most of the boys
would not want someone like Shay on their team,
but the father also understood that if his son were allowed to play,
it would give him a much-needed sense of belonging
and some confidence to be accepted by others
in spite of his handicaps.
>>Shay's father approached one of the boys on the field
and asked (not expecting much) if Shay could play.
(Some kids *do* have a heart -
and can figure out, also,
that baseball *is* only a game
and winning isn't everything...)
The boy looked around for guidance and said,
"We're losing by six runs and the game is in the eighth inning.
I guess he can be on our team and we'll try
to put him in to bat in the ninth inning."
>>Shay struggled over to the team's bench and,
with a broad smile, put on a team shirt.
His Father watched with a small tear in his eye
and warmth in his heart.
The boys saw the father's joy at his son being accepted.
In the bottom of the eighth inning,
Shay's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three.
In the top of the ninth inning,
Shay put on a glove and played in the right field.
Even though no hits came his way,
he was obviously ecstatic just to be in the game
and on the field, grinning from ear to ear
as his father waved to him from the stands.
In the bottom of the ninth inning,
Shay's team scored again.
Now, with two outs and the bases loaded,
the potential winning run was on base
and Shay was scheduled to be next at bat.
>>At this juncture, do they let Shay bat
and give away their chance to win the game?
Surprisingly, Shay was given the bat.
Everyone knew that a hit was all but impossible
because Shay didn't even know how to hold the bat properly,
much less connect with the ball.
(Pray for a walk...?)
>>However, as Shay stepped up to the plate,
the pitcher, recognizing that the other team
was putting winning aside
for this moment in Shay's life,
moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly
so Shay could at least make contact.
The first pitch came
and Shay swung clumsily and missed.
The pitcher again took a few steps forward
to toss the ball softly towards Shay.
>As the pitch came in, Shay swung at the ball
and hit a slow ground ball right back to the pitcher.
>>The game would now be over.
The pitcher picked up the soft grounder
and could have easily thrown the ball to the first baseman.
Shay would have been the inning's third out
and that would have been the end of the game.
>>Instead, the pitcher threw the ball
right over the first baseman's head,
out of reach of all his teammates.
Everyone from the stands
and both teams started yelling,
"Shay, run to first! Run to first!"
Never in his life had Shay ever run that far,
but he made it to first base.
He scampered down the baseline,
wide-eyed and startled.
>>Everyone yelled, "Run to second, run to second!"
Catching his breath, Shay awkwardly ran towards second,
gleaming and struggling to make it to the base.
By the time Shay rounded towards second base,
the right fielder had the ball ...
the smallest guy on their team
who now had his first chance to be the hero for his team.
He could have thrown the ball to the second-baseman
for the tag and the final out,
but he understood the pitcher's intentions
so he, too, intentionally threw the ball
high and far over the third-baseman's head.
Shay ran toward third base deliriously
as the runners ahead of him
circled the bases toward home.
All were screaming,
"Shay, Shay, Shay, all the Way Shay!"
>>Shay reached third base because
the opposing shortstop ran to help him
by turning him in the direction of third base
and shouted, "Run to third! Shay, run to third!"
>>As Shay rounded third, the boys from both teams,
and the spectators, were on their feet screaming,
"Shay, run home! Run home!"
Shay ran to home, stepped on the plate,
and was cheered as the hero who hit the grand slam
and won the game for his team.
>>"That day", said the father softly
with tears now rolling down his face,
"the boys from both teams helped bring a piece of
true love and humanity into this world".
>>Shay didn't make it to another summer.
He died that winter,
having never forgotten being the hero
and making his father so happy,
and coming home and seeing his mother
tearfully embrace her little hero of the day!
>>AND NOW A LITTLE FOOTNOTE TO THIS STORY:
We all send thousands of jokes
through the e-mail
without a second thought,
but when it comes to sending
messages about life choices,
people hesitate.
The crude, vulgar, and often obscene
pass freely through cyberspace,
but public discussion about decency
is too often suppressed in our schools and workplaces.
>>If you're thinking about forwarding this message,
chances are that you're probably sorting out
the people in your address book who aren't
the"appropriate" ones to receive this type of message.
Well, the person who sent you this
believes that we all can make a difference.
We all have thousands of opportunities every single day
to help realize the "natural order of things."
EVEN AS DEATH HOVERS OVER US ALL
So many seemingly trivial interactions
between two people present us with a choice:
Do we pass along a little spark of love and humanity
or do we pass up those opportunities
and leave the world a little bit colder in the process?
>>A wise man once said every society is judged
by how it treats its least fortunate amongst them.
>>You now have two choices:
>1. Delete>2. Forward
And my third option: Blog! And...
>>May your day be a Shay Day.>>>

My condolences to Alicia Shay
and all of Ryan Shay's family and kins.

Massachusetts Wins - And Loses A Favorite Son

2007-10-30T18:46:00.000-07:00

Aye, it is time, once again, for yet another one of those infamous lukewarm-&-lugubrious simultaneous posts of mine... Buckle up, grin and bear it - for it is going to be another bumpy ride folks; hell yeah!

As much as I enjoyed seeing the Boston Red Sox win it all just now - as I also had enjoyed it back in 2004 - I got outraged at the sight of this headline:

(AP) Police in riot gear prepare to withdraw after finding themselves between two groups of celebrating Boston Red Sox fans...
Full Image

"Boston Ready to Paint the Town Red for World Series Champion Sox"

Now, I know that it wasn't meant as "red as..." anything other than the red in "Red Sox" (then again - there was the famous bloodied -heck, bloodsoaked- red sock worn by Curt Schilling in 2004 - as much as anyone can hope for genuine modern-day stuff of legend nowadays, that one - even if I am sort-of lukewarm about it and all... THAT sure is IT!) - but just in the light of world events happening currently (as the Sox won the "World Series", bloodshed sure was prevalent across the globe - as they scored runs, HUNDREDS met violent demises in Iraq, Pakistan, all over the REAL world...!) and in the light of what happened, also, the last time that the Red Sox won it all, I have to say that THEY REALLY SHOULD NOT HAVE GONE WITH "PAINTING THE TOWN RED" AS A STYLISH, tongue-in-cheek PHRASE THERE... Really.

Victoria Snelgrove died in 2004 - not due to a car-bomber in the Middle-East or even a terrorist attack in the USofA, but because the festivities surrounding the Boston Red Sox victory and, more specifically, the measures taken to subdue the rowdy crowds back then were found to be quite INADEQUATE. Personally, even if I had been in town that day, I would not have gone on a rampage just because my team won - come on people! Did you bet money on it or something?!? Even so, you'd have to bet on an underdog who somehow DID prevail for the payoff to be worth making a violent ruckus about...! And, likewise, the riot squad was a bit overzealous with their new toy - a certain pepper-pellet gun...

To be fair, let's mention that the author of the above so-tastelessly titled article did mention the 2004 death - but left it a NAMELESS VICTIM. That, coupled with the mere choice of a title, is quite distasteful indeed I think and inadmissible.

We at the lugubrious and lukewarm blogs HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN at least.

Victoria Snelgrove died an unnecessary death.
She had a future ahead of her - snatched away by pure folly, momentary euphoria over what is, ultimately, no big deal at all... (Not diminishing the Boston Red Sox feat here; all the championships won by all the franchises in our modern society - since the inception of pro-sports leagues and associations - NONE of those means SQUAT in the Grand Scheme of Things; is that clearer now?)

Was this demise the price to pay to lift the alleged Curse of the Bambino, as I remember asking back in 2004? (As it did occur between the Red Sox historical comeback against the Yankees and the first World Series win in 86 years for the Sox, if you'll recall...)

Once again, the answer is a resounding NO, as no sports result could ever possibly equate a life, with all its dreams, hopes and aspirations that dwarf any championship, any title, any crown that any competition can offer.

At least this year, they did not kill anyone because the good guys in the Boston Red Sox clubhouse did come out on top in October...

Good.

Still, there was a death shortly after the Sox won it all and partied hardy too -
Massachusetts lost one of its favorite sons, Robert Goulet.

Goulet had performed the national anthem at the Red Sox season opener at Fenway Park back in April, in what was to be their most dominant year ever and his final performance on a major platform...
One wonders if the cool Boston air in April was not good to him...

Singer Robert Goulet performs prior to the Boston Red Sox home opener in Boston in this April file photo. Goulet is in a Los Angeles hospital in critical condition awaiting a lung transplant, according to a notice put on his Web site. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

He was diagnosed with a rare form of pulmonary fibrosis and had been awaiting a lung transplant in Los Angeles - where the Red Sox began their post-season dominance by sweeping the local Angels.
Goulet's famous baritone voice was stiffled in the end by the presence of a breathing tube - and time ran out on him as no lung donor was found within a reasonable delay.
He was 73 - the age my dear father would be.

Why is there always to be some tragedy attached to a Boston triumph?

Shades of the Curse...

Lugubrious Anniversaries In October

2007-10-15T11:42:00.000-07:00

More reasons to hate Mondays...

The photographs of 42 of the 43 victims who perished in 1997...

Last October 8th, in the municipality of Saint-Bernard de Beauce, a tiny village in Quebec, Canada, they remembered the 1997 accident that cost the lives of 3% of the population there - forty-three people in all... A bus that was returning from a pilgrimage slid down a curve and into a ravine. Most of the elderly pious passengers onboard died in the tumble down the gully. The location of the accident bore that odd and evocative name, "Les Éboulements", which means "the slidings" in French. A very bad omen that proves once again that no one should ever ask "what's in a name"...

Also last October 8th, CHE GUEVARA's demise was commemorated 40 years after the fact. A demise that occurred really on October 9th... Bolivia and Cuba were united in this commemoration of the revolutionary guided by a great feeling of love.
Nathalie Cardone's song is, of course, perfect for the occasion:

And, 37 Years Ago...
Today, October 15th...

The West Gate Bridge is one of Australia's biggest cable-stayed girder bridges. Its mighty 850 metre length soars high over the banks of the Yarra River, joining Melbourne's western suburbs to the CBD. Before the bridge was built, access to the city of Melbourne and suburbs to the east was possible only by travelling the old Geelong Road . Used by thousands of commuters daily, the journey from entrance to exit, including approach roads, covers 5.6 kilometres.

To most it is simply a bridge, albeit an impressive one. To many though, the bridge is a majestic memorial which they never traverse without a feeling of sadness and a silent farewell to workmates and loved ones who died when the bridge collapsed during its construction.

This website is dedicated to those 35 working men who went to work on the 15th October, 1970 and never came home, to those who were injured, and to their brave comrades and the rescue crews who toiled tirelessly in horrific circumstances on that terrible day to assist and recover them.

An International Day Against The Death Penalty

2007-10-10T19:44:00.000-07:00

Skully asks:

"B-b-but... WHY?!?"

Because...
Sometimes
there are no easy answers...?

And that is something
that Skully's kins
know all too well...

You can exterminate so many scumbags -
more will come out of the woodwork.
And those we do snuff out of existence
were they truly such scumbags after all?

You can't just turn your back
and pretend not to know that
you damn yankee grim reaper wannabees, you...!

Death & Taxes -
the two certainties of this life
- they do stand united,
in the good ol' U.S. of A.
don't they...?
But that is another story...

Harrowing Halloweenish October Death Toll...

2007-10-04T11:23:00.000-07:00

Any excuse is a good excuse
no matter how morbid it may be
to listen to this unappreciated
GENESIS song:
CONGO.

Truly, this song's lyrics fit the occasion...

The An-26 cargo plane that crashed there,
on October 4th, killed over two dozen people.
My condolences to the victims' families.

In other demises, this month:

The first Republican woman
to be elected in the state of Virginia
-Jo Ann Davis-
also a mother, wife, grandmother,
lost her fight to cancer
but likely won her election into Heaven
I'll bet that she'll like it there
much more than she liked Capitol Hill...

Horsephotos.com

John Henry, a two-time Horse of the Year,
won 39 of 83 races and $6,591,860.

He was euthanized at the venerable age of 32...

Bob Denard is no more -
well, he is not staging coups anymore,
that is for sure.

Bob wasn't even a genuine Bob;
he was a genuine Gilbert...

Read his complete sordid story
in the comments section
(around "comment" # 32...)
(ironically...)

September Mourning - the monthly death tolls continue...

2007-09-30T01:40:00.000-07:00

EVA ESMANN.
Foto: Maria Fonfara

Varmt hjerte for fristaden
Eva Esmann ~ (1924-2007)

An excerpt from nekrolog, 08/31/2007:
Jeg er så glad for at få lov til at
fortælle om Christiania en sid-
ste gang, inden jeg kreperer«,
indledte forfatteren Eva Es-
mann et længere interview
her i avisen for halv anden må-
ned siden. Nu er hun så død, 83 år.
Eva Esmann, der voksede op
i et kunstnerhjem i Frankrig,
faldt som lille på en trappe og
kvæstede underkæben så al-
vorligt, at den holdt op med at vokse.
Det havde nok slået mange
unge piger ud, men ikke hen-
de. Hun ville have sin kæbe la-
vet, uanset hvor mange opera-
tioner hun skulle igennem, og
det var mange.
Og så skulle det være den
dygtigste kæbekirurg i Euro-
pa, en tysk læge fra Berlin. Da
krigen brød ud i 1939, var ræk-
ken af operationer ikke over-
stået, men hvad gjorde Eva Esmann?
At rejse til Berlin var ikke til-
ladt enhver, så hun bad om et
job som sporvognskonduktør
dernede, for så kunne hun jo
få lejlighed til at opsøge den
dygtige læge. Han var imidler-
tid optaget af mere alvorlige
læsioner hos sårede fra Øst-
fronten, og Eva Esmann blev
bedt om at vente, til der igen
blev fred. Så tog hun hjem
igen, flygtede med fare for sit
liv fra sit job, og tilbage i Dan-
mark gik hun ind i mod-
standsbevægelsen. Men ty-
skerne kom på sporet af hen-
de, så hun måtte flygte til Sverige.
Efter krigen fandt hun frem
til, at lægen stadig levede, nu i
Hamburg. Hun tog job hos en
hjælpeorganisation og fik ar-
bejde dernede et par år, og her
fik hun så endelig sin kæbe på
plads efter i alt 40 kirurgiske
indgreb og i alt syv års
hospi-talsindlæggelser.
Disse oplevelser beskrev Eva
Esmann i sin første bog, ’En
kvindes ansigt’, der er en af
dansk litteraturs erindrings-
klassikere og udkom i mange oplag.
I bogen ’Den evige dansker’
har hun skrevet historien om
Karl Friedrich Gøbelsmann,
der voksede op i det krigshær-
gede Europa som pacifist og
overlevede tre dødsdomme.
En anden af hendes mange
bøger hedder ’Der er en regn-
bue over Christiania’, for her
lagde Eva Esmann mange
kræfter. Fristaden tiltrak sidst
i 1970’erne en del eksistenser
(...)

A great woman
a pioneer
and a patron of the arts
has left us, in Eva Esmann
Her kind is dwindling in numbers
and she is so greatly missed by all who knew her
by those who have only heard of her,
and wished to have known her,
and by those who will never know her,
perhaps, ironically, this latter category
will suffer the most
from Eva's absence in this world.

Rest In Peace, Eva Esmann

Body Shop founder Anita Roddick poses for photographers
Thursday Dec. 11, 1997 in London.
Roddick died, aged 64, of a brain haemorrage
Monday night Sept 10 2007, her family said.
Body Shop International PLC,
the British retailer which promotes
natural-based cosmetics and has branches worldwide,
was taken over by L'Oreal of France in a 652 million pound
(euro944 million; US$1.14 billion) cash deal in 2006.
(AP Photo/Dave Thomson)
A true "winner"
as defined in our society;
a self-made woman
and an example of emancipation
well-managed ambition
as well as business acumen
contained within a delicate feminine shell,
Anita Roddick accomplished a lot indeed
while she was "with us"...
Let's hope that the "Body Shop"
she spent countless hours in
did not impede her from devoting time
to 'Soul Shaping' as well...!
One look into her soulful eyes, though,
appears to indicate that, indeed,
she found the time to indulge both
- and, on top of that,
rapatriate over a billion bucks
from England's perennial rival, France -
via corporative sucker L'Oréal...!
She was smart enough to know
that buying one's competition
is really folly, not wisdom at all...!
But selling to an overzealous competitor
and retiring - is very smart, aye!
I hope she had worthy heirs though...
Leona Helmsley, who died last month,
was the Queen of Mean...
Anita Roddick was the Queen of Green.
And a beautiful lady, inside and out.
R.I.P. Amazing Anita

Ronald Reagan and his first wife, Jane Wyman,
attend a traditional Hollywood world premiere,
December 23, 1945, in Los Angeles.
Wyman, an Academy Award winner
for her performance as
the deaf rape victim in 'Johnny Belinda,'
star of the long-running TV series 'Falcon Crest'
and Reagan's first wife,
died Monday morning, Sept. 10, 2007, at 93.
(AP Photo)
They are, indeed, reunited now
together again
for the first time ever
in God's Domain...!
A first spouse is
one's true spouse
before the Eyes of The Lord
- don't you know...?
Not that wedding vows mean anything
in any way, shape or form
once you're in the afterlife...

And I could not make omission here, again,
of the September 11th victims
over 3,000 of them died 6 years ago...
And how many more have died since...
From the toxic dust left behind...?
Just the other day, two firemen died on the site.
Really, Bin Laden's coup
is the Trojan Horse - perfected.
The gift of death
that keeps on giving...

And the mourning will never end.

Not as long as there are those kindhearted ones
that REMEMBER...

This month of September was the time chosen, also,
specifically for the purpose of mourning...
no... CELEBRATING...
the Passage Into The Light of all of those that crossed over
before the rest of us... who remain, hence...
It was chosen as such by my local cemetery
on the exact day that, for me,
is a most lugubrious anniversary - the 22nd...

And it doesn't get any more lugubrious than this too:
the same month that saw the departure of the King of Tenors
also saw the King of Mimes leaving us as well
(as a matter of fact, on the 22nd, I do believe...)
And the most tragic aspect of it all, for me,
who am an ocean away from his human remains,
is that the first thought that crossed my mind was
"will he do 'the cage' once they seal him tight
inside his final home on earth - his coffin"...

Might not even apply
if he chose to be incinerated...

Either way, he is not boxed in at all -
he is truly free now.

A Touching Tribute To The Forgotten Thespian

2007-09-25T19:25:00.000-07:00

George Emlyn Williams

Date of Birth
26 November 1905, Mostyn, Flintshire, Wales, UK
Date of Death
25 September 1987, London, England, UK. (cancer)

Watch now the mini-tribute done to the thespian time forgot;
courtesy of a true fan called "mooncove":

This special commemorative post made in conjunction with
Sequential Art, Seventh Art And Other Arts.

+++

10 Years Ago

2007-09-24T10:59:00.000-07:00

GILBERTO PIMENTEL
family man,
husband, father,
grandfather,
uncle.
1928-1997

It's been ten years now -
ten years since you've
left this mortal plane.
And it may feel like
only ten hours to you,
but a whole decade
has passed, for us.
A decade during which
the family you wanted
to unite so much
has dissolved some more
come unglued
and fallen apart
at the seams...

Sad, isn't it
uncle Gil...

I hope you see things
in a more enlightened way
where you are now

I've a feeling that you do
and that you would be
in MY corner
in all that I say
and all that I do
NOW...
+++