https://www.cnbc.com/2019/07/09/bil...ntial-candidate-ross-perot-is-dead-at-89.html Ross Perot, 89 Perot was an early tech entrepreneur. He started his career in sales at IBM, where he excelled. In 1962, he founded his first company, Electronic Data Systems, with just $1,000 in savings. More than two decades later, he launched information technology services provider Perot Systems, which was acquired in 2009 by Dell for $3.9 billion. As a disruptive third-party candidate for president, Perot ran on a platform of fiscal responsibility and protectionism. He won nearly 19% of the vote in the 1992 race — by far the biggest slice of the electorate for a third-party candidate since Theodore Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Party in the 1912 election.
Carvey & Hartman as Perot & Stockdale https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/joyride-with-perot/n10313
Justice John Paul Stevens, 99. https://www.newsday.com/amp/news/nation/john-paul-stevens-dead-obituary-1.33917619 During nearly 35 years on the {Supreme Court} Stevens stood for the freedom and dignity of individuals, be they students or immigrants or prisoners. He acted to limit the death penalty, squelch official prayer in schools, establish gay rights, promote racial equality and preserve legal abortion. He protected the rights of crime suspects and illegal immigrants facing deportation. He influenced fellow justices to give foreign terrorism suspects held for years at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, naval base the right to plead for their release in U.S. courts. Stevens served more than twice the average tenure for a justice, and was only the second to mark his 90th birthday on the high court. From his appointment by President Gerald Ford in 1975 through his retirement in June 2010, he shaped decisions that touched countless aspects of American life. He remained an active writer and speaker into his late 90s, surprising some when he came out against Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation following Kavanaugh's angry denial of sexual assault allegations. Stevens wrote an autobiography, "The Making of a Justice: My First 94 Years," that was released just after his 99th birthday in April 2019. At first considered a centrist, Stevens came to be seen as a lion of liberalism. But he rejected that characterization. "I don't think of myself as a liberal at all," Stevens told The New York Times in 2007. "I think as part of my general politics, I'm pretty darn conservative."
I'm sure Suzette Kelo and other residents of New London, CT aren't wishing it's peace he rests in. Nor other recent victims of eminent domain favoring private entities. I'm with them.
Elijah "Pumpsie" Green, 85 https://www.npr.org/2019/07/18/7429...black-player-on-the-boston-red-sox-dies-at-85 Elijah "Pumpsie" Green was the first black player on the Boston Red Sox, the last Major League Baseball team to integrate. He died on Wednesday at the age of 85. . . . ... Green made his major league debut in 1959, some 12 years after Jackie Robinson played his first game with the Brooklyn Dodgers. It happened after the Red Sox were forced to integrate by a government agency, and after Green endured a humiliating spring training period. Walter Carrington, who led the investigation that pushed the Red Sox to change, described the spring training in a piece for NPR member station WBUR: "Unlike other major league clubs, the Sox did not insist that Green be allowed to stay in the same hotels as the rest of his teammates. He had to secure his own lodging, often miles away. He traveled through Texas with the Chicago Cubs, their barnstorming partners, who — unlike Boston — refused to bow to Southern segregationist traditions. "Then, at the end of spring training, the Red Sox sent Green back to the minor leagues, despite sportswriters' general praise of his performance. It was an outrage." . . . In an interview with the Red Sox released last year, Green described the period leading up to his debut at Fenway Park: "Sometimes it was difficult, sometimes it was hard, sometimes it was impossible but I stuck with it." After public pressure and Carrington's investigation, the Red Sox eventually brought Green onto the team. He remembered his first game at Fenway as deeply nerve-wracking: "There was more pressure on me that night than I don't know what. I couldn't relax." The stands were packed with people who wanted to see him play. "As I was approaching home plate I got a standing ovation," Green remembered. "He threw me a slider and I hit it, I got out in front and hit it off the Green Monster in left center field, and the crowd went crazy."
Aww fvck. Dave Berman of The Silver Jews has died. https://pitchfork.com/news/david-be...collaborator-bob-nastanovich-deerhunter-more/
Rip Captain America. Peter Fonda. George: You know, this used to be a helluva good country. I can't understand what's gone wrong with it. Billy: Huh. Man, everybody got chicken, that's what happened, man. Hey, we can't even get into like, uh, second-rate hotel, I mean, a second-rate motel. You dig? They think we're gonna cut their throat or something, man. They're scared, man. George: Oh, they're not scared of you. They're scared of what you represent to 'em. Billy: Hey man. All we represent to them, man, is somebody needs a haircut. George: Oh no. What you represent to them is freedom. Billy: What the hell's wrong with freedom, man? That's what it's all about. George: Oh yeah, that's right, that's what it's all about, all right. But talkin' about it and bein' it - that's two different things. I mean, it's real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. 'Course, don't ever tell anybody that they're not free 'cause then they're gonna get real busy killin' and maimin' to prove to you that they are. Oh yeah, they're gonna talk to you, and talk to you, and talk to you about individual freedom, but they see a free individual, it's gonna scare 'em. Billy: Mmmm, well, that don't make 'em runnin' scared. George: No, it makes 'em dangerous. Nik, nik, nik, nik, nik, nik, nik, nik - Swamp.
when someone passes away, no matter who it is, it's a time for mourning. it's not the time to discuss things like whether they "destroyed the entire planet" and "ushered in an American cultural dark age that has permanently poisoned our collective soul." RIP David Koch— Law Boy (@The_Law_Boy) August 23, 2019
Wrong half, but still. This is irony, right? (it is a time for mourning... that I can no longer tell dickishness from irony, just like trying to tell the difference between the Trump Administration and the Onion) This. At least the raging Amazon fires would have one positive.