Consequential is subjective to the poster for all I’m ever gonna care - ain’t nobody got time for gatekeeping - which I deleted. RIP Biz.
It seems like all the funny rappers are dying this year. If Doug E. Fresh enters your elevator, I would get out, like yesterday.
Bob Moses. One of the most influential civil rights activists. Founder of Mississippi Freedoms Summer, and later in life, of the Algebra Project. Subject of my hagiographic history thesis. The only person I've ever called "my hero." RIP
Rip Der Bomber: The DFB is mourning the passing of one of the greatest German footballers of all time. Rest in peace, Gerd Müller. Our thoughts are with his wife and family at this time. pic.twitter.com/2kkIgiYtcO— germanfootball_dfb (@DFB_Team_EN) August 15, 2021
James Loewen, 79, most famous for authoring Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your High School History Textbook Got Wrong https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/20/books/james-w-loewen-dead.html James W. Loewen, a sociologist and civil rights champion who took high school teachers and textbook publishers to task for distorting American history, particularly the struggle of Black people in the South, by oversimplifying their experience and omitting the ugly parts, died on Thursday in Bethesda, Md. He was 79. * ******** “Those who don’t remember the past are condemned to repeat the 11th grade,” Dr. Loewen wrote in “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong” (1995), the best known of his dozen books attacking historical misconceptions. Dr. Loewen was a relentless contrarian who challenged anyone who imagined academic life as a passage through genteel lectures on settled matters for drowsy students on leafy campuses. He charged through history like a warrior, dismantling fictions and exposing towns for excluding minorities; teachers and historians for dumbing lessons down; and defendants in 50 class-action lawsuits who, according to his expert testimony, victimized people in civil rights, voting rights and job discrimination cases.
I still have a "Rolling Stones Magazine" from 1964 with a picture of Charlie Watts holding two drumsticks in a V sign. The caption says "Charlie Watts making a rude sign with his drumsticks". Took me a year or two to work out why it was "rude"...
Fans and colleagues of actor Ed Asner took time out to express sadness at his passing at age 91. Reports of the popular "Lou Grant" actor and social justice activist led to an outpouring of condolences to his family on Twitter.
He was cast constantly on Broadway, in movies, and on tv from 1960 on though. We didn't even have a tv most of my childhood and I knew who he was by name long long before MTM. He was on outer limits so often you wondered if his brother was the producer, he was in rat pack movies, Route 66, Burke's Law, I think, Bonanza or Gunsmoke or Maverick-- some Western, anyway. He showed up on time, knew his lines, had a distinctive face and voice, and didn't fight with colleagues. You can stay employed that way, and eventually you get your shot...
Omar is dead. How ironic - drug OD. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58470253 American actor Michael K Williams, best known for starring in The Wire TV series, has been found dead in his New York apartment. He was 54. US media quote law enforcement sources as saying he died from a suspected drug overdose. This has not been officially confirmed. Williams - who was nominated for three Emmy Awards - had openly discussed his struggles with drugs over the years. In The Wire, he played Omar Little, a streetwise robber of drug gangs. He was also known for playing Albert "Chalky" White in the Boardwalk Empire TV series.
That news really hit me hard today. He was a mesmerizing actor and from all accounts a terrific human being. Rest in Power Michael K. Willams.
Him, Sonja Sohn, and Andre Royo really used their roles to help out. Feels like the little guy got him.
Didnt know he was battling addiction while filming The Wire But several years ago, while he starred on “The Wire,” Williams, now 45, lived a double life as a doper in Newark’s most dangerous neighborhoods — doing drugs “in scary places with scary people.” He swears it was just cocaine and pot for him — “nothing stronger”— but many of those around him were felons, some with guns, dealing or using heroin and desperate for their next hit. On camera, millions are mesmerized by Williams, the actor who has played the baddest badass on “The Wire,” a mean-streets series thick with badasses. But off camera, starting around 2004, that badass was begging lines in out-of-the-way places from dead-enders who could’ve beat him senseless or snuffed him out at any time. “I was playing with fire,” Williams says. “It was just a matter of time before I got caught and my business ended up on the cover of a tabloid or I went to jail or, worse, I ended up dead. When I look back on it now, I don’t know how I didn’t end up in a body bag. https://www.nj.com/inside-jersey/2012/08/the_redemption_of_michael_k_williams.html
So if you haven't yet seen The Wire, your missing out on some of the finest acting on TV in the last 20-25 years.