The movies and music forum has a thread for posting remembrances of celebrities who died. This forum needs a similar thread for those who are maybe more accomplished. Not that the passing of Frank Gifford isn't sad, but not all fame is created equal. To wit: Julian Bond has passed away. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...5d06f39e4b055a6dab09356?kvcommref=mostpopular RIP.
This should be fun. Where I live, Ken Stabler's passing would be hailed as a bigger loss by conservatives/libertarians.
Well, to quote myself from the racism thread... He made my college years better. He delivered a lecture one night and during the Q and A someone asked him about racism in white fraternities. In his response he said something about the venality of racist frats. He continued to say the only thing worse than racist white frats are the typical Black fraternities and sororities. He proceeded to denounce the hazing and humiliation of younger brothers and sisters in the Black Greek system, arguong that it was worse than anything white frats could do to them, and then he proposed a solution: why don't you get together and compete to have the highest GPA, or raise the most money for charity? Light bulbs went on all over the large room. Next thing you know, the library is busier, but quiter. And two years later when the state proposed massive cutbacks to the library, and much shorter hours, it was the black fraternities and sororities that were most effective in protesting for longer hours on weekends. Julian Bond started that process, and he's always been one of my heroes for that. @Auriaprottu has a noteworthy tale of Bond's regular visits to Morehouse during his student days, too. I also remember his answer to the question about why he sought elected office: he said something like "I know I'm supposed to speak in platitudes about public service and the betterment of humankind, but there's only one reason to go into politics: power. That's how you get things done, by getting the power to make decisions" He then pointed out that it's important for politicians to keep that fact in mind, that it's about power, because then you're more likely to live up to your responsibilities of your office than you would be if you start believe your campaign sloganeering about public service and the betterment of humanity, because doing that makes it easy to convince yourself that your motives are pure and incorruptible, unlike those power-mongers across the aisle, etc. He was a lot more articulate, obviously.
I applaud the opening of this thread for people who really mattered. Though a month late. I submit Nicolas Winton. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Winton also some good videos on youtube, here is a brief one:
This is a man I can't say I have ever heard of, and reading about him both from posts and in articles it appears obvious why. He did not follow the party line, and even open identified the errors of the movement. That would not make him endearing to either the popular Black leaders or to the White supporters, the latter being more important at the time. Also would have been a major reason he did not succeed as a politician in Georgia (though that was as much just him being Black). I would very much have liked to have herd him speak in person.
No, he's dead, but Rand Paul's still around. I've heard this from several people who were basically responding to the idea (held, I guess, by a fair number of overly religious Black people) that politics is something to avoid because it tends to corrupt. He's responding to that segment of the Black population that's running around trying to pray away dehumanization and the thought processes that create it.
Where you live, they are probably pissed that Obama didn't order flags lowered to half staff for Snake.
For some reason, I've always thought that was a gubernatorial decision. But yeah, they'd blame my country's president even if it was the governor's call.
Helmut Schmidt, 1918-2015, Chancellor of West Germany 1974-1982: - committed European, famous for his sharptongued debating skills and wit - first German chancellor to visit Ausschwitz - led Germany through two oil crisis' of the 70s - led Germany through Baader-Meinhof terrorist period aka "German autumn" - thus dubbed "the pilot" and "Schmidt, the Lip" - inventor of NATOs "dual track" negotiate-and-deploy decision on medium-range nuclear missiles - against the plattform of his own left social democrats - lost power after the first vote of misconfidence in FRG history in 1982, his predecessor Helmut Kohl continued his policies - by 1988, NATO had caught up in the nuclear arms race which had ultimately contributed to the downfall of the Soviet Union and the runfication of Germany - passionate smoker and famous for reckless chain smoking everywhere also on public tv debates - most popular German chancellor since WWII
Providence, Rhode Island mayor Vincent "Buddy" Cianci, 74 http://www.npr.org/2016/01/28/46469...-two-time-mayor-felon-buddy-cianci-dead-at-74 Cianci was loved and reviled in a city, like America, that has been rocked by financial troubles and shaped by demographic change. He was loved for leading a small, dying city through a renaissance — and for being its biggest cheerleader. He even spoke at the 1976 Republican National Convention. But he was reviled because of his major shortcomings — both personal and professional. In addition to serving two terms as mayor, and having once been America's longest-serving mayor, he also served four-and-a-half years in prison after twice being convicted on felony charges. Both times, 20 years apart, ousted him from office. Once, he roughed up the man he thought was having an affair with his wife — he tried to jab a cigarette in his eye and threw an ashtray at him and had his bodyguard, provided to him by the city, bring him the man. The other stemmed from corruption charges after Cianci had made an improbable comeback to lead the city yet again. "He really does embody the best and worst of American politics throughout his long and checkered career," former Providence Journal reporter Mike Stanton told me in 2014 when I caught up with Cianci for a few days when Cianci was trying yet another comeback bid for mayor. A very effective city leader, and one hell of a crook.
Cigarette in eye and ashtray toss? They might have to get Joe Pesci out of mothballs to play him in The Buddy Cianci Story.
Hans-Dietrich Genscher 21 March 1927 - 31 March 2016 -- Minister of the Interior 1969-1974 Hostage crisis during the Olympic Games in Munich 1972 -- Germany's foreign minister and as vice chancellor 1974 - 1992 making him the longest-serving holder of either post negiator of German reunification 4500 East Germans had taken refugee on the area of the West-German embassy in Prague, Czech Republic, with a view to be permitted to leave for West-Germany. The video shows the West-German foreign minister at that time, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, standing on the embassy's balcony and telling the refugees that their departure permission had been negociated. Translation: "We're trying for a solution, but I don't want to give a statement now. First I'd like to speak to the Germans from the GDR who are currently at the embassy." "We have come to you to tell you that today, your departure..." (rest is drowned in cheers)
don't know why looking at this picture makes me break into a George W Bush "You're doing a great job, Browny" meme.
Devastated..... Been to so many concerts and aftershows, he was a musical genius. I remember hunting for all the bootlegs in the late 80´s and 90´s. I am glad I still have them all along with all the memories. RIP. What´s up 2016......
A Prince guitar solo of Hendrixian proportions on While My Guitar Gently Weeps. As a casual Prince fan who knew his talent but thought of him more as a pop star, when I heard this I said "where the F did Prince learn how to play like THAT??"
I don't know if I'd elevate it to Hendrixian levels, but it shoudn't be any surprise that he can play a rock solo as well as the hair band slingers we were forced to endure in the 80s.
You mean Mick Mars couldn't have busted out something similar? This article discusses the effortless way Prince combined genres and had his finger on the pulse the way the great artists do. Bowie & Dylan are other musical giants who come to mind. Prince managed to combine a huge number of the seeming oppositions in American life – black and white, masculine and feminine, sacred and profane, pop and rock, mainstream and avant-garde – and make sense of them all. His early albums, like “Dirty Mind,” were sexually explicit in ways that kept him off the radio. But by the time he emerged as a mainstream figure with the film and album “Purple Rain,” he developed, like Bowie and the Beatles, the ability to be both attuned to the zeitgeist and streets ahead of it. http://www.salon.com/2016/04/21/the..._divides_between_genre_race_gender_and_style/
Can somebody explain to me, representing people younger than 30, why this is discussed in the consequential people's thread and not in the famous people one?