A 45 year old Chicagoan's observations and commentary on top news, pop culture and an accounting of the Obama Regime and their 'statist' power grab from my unabashed, right leaning/conservative point of view..
This is our culture; fight for it. This is our flag; pick it up. This is our country; take it back. –Tom Tancredo
"Obama will turn the entire US into the south side of Chicago" - Chicago Ray
God Bless America...
Coming from Buffalo Grove IL, 20 miles NW of King Richard Daley's
Fiefdom AKA Chicago,Illinois,USA the land of the free because of the brave..
Here's one of my first posts and observations on a then potential Obama presidency in Feb 07/ I'm no prophet believe you me..... it was all common sense far too many today simply 'lack',
George Mason explained, “(T)o disarm the people (is) the best and most effectual way to enslave them.” Noah Webster elaborated: “Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed
These people have incredible video of illegals, Armed terrorists, you name it invading the country each second of every day..
If this is true I'm kind of ashamed to be an American and an Olympic supporter today, thinking something like this could go on and on, yet, somehow someway some one, single adult couldn't put a stop to it? Not a one?
So they mean the whole entire adult structure there is a freak parade of up to 36 freaking molesters in one damn place, at an Olympic level swimming training facility? I don't know on this one yet, sounds a little too sick even for today's collapsing society in many areas.
Beyond words on this one, a first for me, so put on the scum wader's boots to wade through this story running this afternoon happened across that I'm surprised it's not making bigger news, maybe everyone's ashamed to show it, who knows.
Families sue coaching authority for lax oversight: "(Newser) – USA Swimming has been rocked by the disclosure that 36 coaches have been banned for life for molesting teen athletes over the last 10 years, according to a suit brought by victims' families. Coaches secretly videotaped, fondled, and were otherwise indecent with their charges, court papers reveal. One coach in Indiana set up a camera in a 'special' shower room and secretly filmed his athletes while they bathed, ABC News reports.
In some cases, the itinerant coaching lifestyle allowed predators to stay one step ahead of authorities and victims' families. Another coach, who was sentenced to 40 years in prison last year for molesting over a dozen female teens, would switch towns after arousing suspicion. His 30 years of sexual predation highlight the ineffectiveness of background checks by USA Swimming, the sport's national governing body, which cleared him in 2008." continued
In the past couple of days, you have likely seen or read media coverage criticizing USA Swimming’s policies on child protection. The story has made many headlines, but it lacks a great deal of truth.
We want to take this opportunity to speak openly to you, our swimming family.
First, and most importantly, sexual abuse – and any abuse of our athletes – is an issue that USA Swimming takes very, very seriously, and always has. It breaks our hearts to see a child mistreated. It should simply never happen. We are a youth organization first, and the safety of our kids is the absolute most important consideration in our business.
We have several safeguards in place to protect our members from the small number of people who would act inappropriately. continued
What a potential freak show this will be, I'm really so sickened by this and just hope and pray it's not true or at least inaccurate in some fashion. If not, we're really surrounded by a freak show today more than I've ever witnessed in my lifetime society wise, not personally. My family has fortunately been untouched by such sickness we read about all day everyday.
The initial and now resurgence of the Catholic priest situation, which hurts coming from a Notre Dame grad dad catholic family, put a lot of time and effort into that stuff growing up and as an adult early on mostly, Olympic Swim coaches, Boy scout leaders, freakin elementary school teachers, no wonder the country is blowing a gasket man.
Kids are being stripped of their childhood in the womb and out of the womb right through adulthood from the very people they trust the most. Where are all these sick adults man, I've never met a single one of these people and wish for once I'd be the one to get the opportunity to stop something like this and take a lifetime of anger out on a bank robber or a child molester, I think of it all the time. Haven't had the opportunity...yet.
Turns out the man was indeed drunk and belligerent when the "accident" occurred just as I predicted in the post in it's entirely following the blurb inserted later below
Police: Notre Dame recruit 'drunk' on fatal fall:
"CINCINNATI (AP) - A 'drunk and belligerent' 17-year-old Notre Dame
football recruit was killed in a fall from a fifth-floor hotel balcony
during his senior-year spring break in Florida, authorities said
Saturday.
Matt James died Friday around 6:30 p.m. at the Days
Inn Motel in Panama City Beach. Police said he was dead when officers
arrived.
'It appears to be a tragic accident,' Panama City Beach police Maj. David Humphreys said." more at My Way News -
* * * * * * * * Original Post Follows Below * * * * * * * *
How many times have all you out there read these kinds of sad stories from "spring break", where kids including myself at one time "get out of town for the first time as young adults in order to get drunk, act stupid and ignorant" for the most part.
Something which has developed into some misguided "right of passage" for American kids where peer pressure forces parents to send kids on these trips, which does nothing more than put money in the hands of third world locals like that snotty assed island local Joran Vander Sloot and his forlorn Aruban buddies.
The boys who killed and dumped Natalie Holloway in the ocean, along with enriching Caribbean and Mexican governments with more dollars they don't deserve. Especially 'Mehico' as the locals call it, who screws America by the minute by not closing it's side of the deadly, God forsaken porous southern border.
A yearly ritual which really needs to be re evaluated by all American parents in this day and age as every single year we hear this stuff, every year like clockwork some student goes missing or ends up dead. Guaranteed, as parents all sweat at home hoping it's not their kid who's the unlucky one.
It, like most young and dumb Americans seeking their next inebriated thrill, has gotten out of control.
Especially when year after year some kid with a promising life gets drunk for the first time and also for the last time, like this kid who was about to embark on a likely life as a star NFL football player with a college degree from Notre Dame. A guarantee of success in American life that very few are even given the chance to achieve.
But now he's dead after inexplicably playing Superman on his hotel balcony in Panama City where I once went for spring break myself and ended up in jail with 10 buddies from a barroom brawl. Swell time had by all. not. My poor late mother ended up wiring down a thousand dollars for the bunch of us to bail out of jail I'll never forget and always regret.
chicagotribune.com: "On Friday night, Matt James' family gathered in Ohio to celebrate an uncle's 50th birthday party. The revelry came to an incomprehensibly tragic end with news delivered by one phone call.
James, a hulking offensive lineman and Notre Dame's top recruit, died in a fall from a hotel balcony in Panama City, Fla., while on a spring break trip with dozens of classmates from Cincinnati's St. Xavier High School.
Panama City Beach police told the Tribune were not releasing any information late Friday night, but television station WHJG cited police as saying a teenager fell over the balcony railing of his motel room at 6:26 p.m. Friday and apparently died instantly.
Dan Rudolph, the father of current Irish tight end Kyle Rudolph, was at the James family gathering when the news came.
'His mom and dad were here when they got the call,' Dan Rudolph told the Tribune late Friday night. 'The whole James family was here. I can't believe that happened.'
The utter disbelief was understandable and pervasive, as a Facebook page titled 'R.I.P. Matt James' already was posted Friday night. James was a 6-foot-6, 291-pounder just one week shy of his 18th birthday, and he was new Irish coach Brian Kelly's first impact recruit, ranked the nation's No. 86 prospect overall by Rivals.com.
Reached late Friday night by the Tribune, Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said the school was still in the process of gathering information and therefore likely would have no official statement until Saturday at the earliest."
Haven't heard much of this in all the news about Sea World Whale Trainer Dawn Brancheau, but she's a native of Chicago suburbs, and will actually be buried Monday back home here at a local cemetery after visitation all day today.
May she rest in peace as she at least left this world doing what she loved the most with what she loved the most.
SeaWorld Trainer’s Family Says Goodbye
Central Florida News 13: "ORLANDO -- Friends and family will begin to say their final goodbyes Sunday to the SeaWorld trainer pulled underwater by a killer whale.
Dawn Brancheau, 40, died Wednesday after Tilikum, a 12,000-pound whale, grabbed her ponytail and dragged her into the tank.
Viewing services are scheduled Sunday afternoon and evening in Brancheau’s native Chicago. She will be buried there after a funeral Monday.
Brancheau’s family said a memorial will be held in Orlando in the future"
Some folks aren't very happy the so called killer whale is back at work and I don't know what to say to people who are against this as this woman was doing absolutely what she loved doing, all one has to do is see that picture of her laying in the water with the beast to see it. I'm sure she would die if anything happened to this whale as a result of this obvious accident and the show is back on I guess.
Everyone hates seeing fans injured any time any where during any sporting events, and frankly as many car racing events they have that go on without a hitch is a testament to the reasonable level of safety most of the time at these car races. Yet the cries will come to "build higher walls" or make 'lighter tires' or better yet "nerf tires".
You can see where I'm headed with that, so we'll just leave it with 'may God bless her' and 'Our hearts go out to her loved ones', who obviously must be stunned from the sudden, unexpected loss on a day which was intended to absorb some pleasure, I'm sure.
'It's a dangerous activity for ' is maybe the message here, and that some things are just plain old, sad and terribly regrettable accidents.
A race official climbs over a barrier with a fire
extinguisher to aid Antron Brown after Brown crashed his Matco
Tools/U.S. Army dragster during the NHRA Arizona Nationals auto race at
Firebird International Raceway, Sunday, Feb. 21, 2010, in Chandler,
Ariz. A fan later died after being hit by a tire from the crashing
dragster. (AP Photo/The Arizona Republic, Crystal Ochoa)"]
Fan dies after hit by debris from NHRA crash
CHANDLER, Ariz. - A woman died Sunday after being hit by a tire from a crashing dragster at the NHRA Arizona Nationals.
The woman was watching a first-round Top Fuel run at Firebird International Raceway when Antron Brown’s Matco Tools/U.S. Army dragster went out of control on the strip and its left rear wheel came off.
Alia Maisonet, a spokeswoman for the Gila River Indian Community, said the woman was airlifted to a hospital for treatment and later died. Gila River emergency personnel were among the first to respond to the scene.
more nbcsports.msnbc.com.
Anyone who tunnels straight down as this poor child did would find themselves trapped unless they could lift themselves out with their arms, simultaneously inching upward while pushing on the sides, which many adults probably couldn't do in a snowdrift or anywhere, that's hard.
Picture her feet sticking upward.....someone, an adult or a couple kids, would have to pull her out by her feet! A child wouldn't think of that before digging downward as she did, in fact probably many adults wouldn't, but then an adult hopefully wouldn't do it.
Sad that something children love so much can hurt them so much if not careful. (and I mean the snow, not the too many negligent parents and adults of today, not to insinuate hers were either) Just a sad accident :(
Besides looking pretty funny, this is near the most atrocious thing I've seen done with a kid... and we know it's not even close to the level of sickness that exists out there directed at the children around the world.
In all seriousness though, if he doesn't freeze he'll probably end up being the Chinese Premier someday because he'll be the toughest and craziest fkr on the block being treated like an animal such as this (when and again if he grows up, that is). The sickest thing however is that this man says he has to do this to keep his child while he runs fares for $4 a day in a country that owns our asses at this moment.
Where does all the money go one must wonder?
Apparently not on the people as this man makes 4 bucks a day, and his disabled wife collects trash on the side of the road to eek out a living and lost their other child to a trafficker. I don't want my money going to any government and particularly a communist one that treats it's people like this, do you? Not that any treat their people humanely in the first place.
Certainly not 13 trillion bucks, which is about what we'll owe them if Obama gets his way. And we'll NEVER BE ABLE TO PAY BACK in this lifetime or the next.
Mail Online: "At first sight it seems the ultimate in child cruelty - a two-year-old boy chained to a lamp post to stop him getting away.
Yet his parents say this is the only way they can guarantee not to lose him.
His father Chen Chuanliu works as an unlicensed rickshaw cyclist in Beijing, taking fares all over the city, while the boy's disabled mother collects rubbish at the roadside." continues
Father chains two-year-old son to a post while he's at work..Childcare, Chinese style
The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it.
H. L. Mencken
There's no cause of death being exposed as of yet but of course we can assume since she had no pre existing condition something out of the ordinary brought on full cardiac arrest in a 32 year old woman.
That's very sad.and my prayers out to her family and loved ones at this time. What a brutal time to lose a loved one, I know after losing my own mother on my birthday in November of 2007. Hurt comes back every Christmas season now. I actually liked her in the movie Clueless about 10 years ago since then I haven't really followed her career or much of anyone's in Hollywood since after 911.
FOXNews.com : "Actress Brittany Murphy died at age, 32, after she reportedly went into full cardiac arrest and could not be revived.
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Spokeswoman Sally Stewart told the Associated Press Murphy died at 10:04 a.m. Sunday. She would not provide a cause of death, or any other information.
Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Devon Gale says crews responded to a call at 8 a.m. Sunday from a home in Los Angeles that is listed as belonging to British screenwriter Simon Monjack, who is married to Murphy. Gale says one person was transported to a hospital.
'In this time of sadness, the family thanks you for your love and support,' a rep for Murphy said. 'It is their wish that you respect their privacy.'
TMZ reports Murphy's mother found the actress unconscious in the shower, and was in full cardiac arrest and started CPR.
The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office is reportedly launching an investigation into Murphy's death, according to TMZ."
Another Hollywood Star Prematurely Dead- Brittany Murphy at 32
The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it.
H. L. Mencken
This is sad, yet I can't rag about it too much because I spent a good sized portion of my youth doing often the same damn dangerous and deadly things, you just wish you could shake these kids and wake them up but they do same thing we did then too, not listen to people who've already been through it, love us the most and really the only ones who care, our parents.
But everyone seems to have to learn the most heedful lessons the hard way, some in the worst way like this sad sad story. There's been a real string of tragic teen drunk driving deaths around the country, and last night claimed two drunk teens in separate accidents, one which two drunk drivers hit each others, and that's no bullspit.
I'm waiting for someone to post a video from the news on that one, but here's the cheerleader texting video on the sad and untimely deaths of Veronica Aguirre, a cheerleader from Poway High School in San Diego, and Jeffrey David Hodson, who just turned 18..
Cheerleader Text Friend "I'm Hammered"
Report | NBC San Diego: "It’s a frightening trend that teenagers don’t seem to be heeding.
Two more collisions have claimed the lives of two more teenagers – 17-year-old Veronica Aguirre, a cheerleader from Poway High School, and Jeffrey David Hodson, who just turned 18.
Investigators believe alcohol played a role in both crashes.
'I'm hammered,' Veronica Elizabeth Aguirre texted to a girlfriend in Poway just before midnight Thursday, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Cheerleader, Teen Killed in Separate Crashes
The friend sent a text message back, offering to pick her up.
Aguirre drove instead.
Less than 90 minutes later, the 17-year-old cheerleader was dead."
Dead Cheerleader Texted Friend "I'm Hammered":
The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it.
H. L. Mencken
Too sad, I liked this guy a lot, as he was one of the gang of male actors from my age group who all started out as young actors together in the movie adaptation of the Outsiders, he as the oldest brother and friend of Tom Cruise, Ralph Maccio, Emilio Estevez,and Matt Dillon .... obviously going on to make other great movies, 3 of which happen to be favorites of mine, Ghost, Roadhouse and Point Break.
This was one of the lighter moments of his excellent career in the land of loons which he was not one of thank the lord above
He will obviously be missed but thanks to his contributions to entertainment remembered for a long time.
The end scene and line of the movie Ghost couldn't be more appropriate.....
Yahoo! News: "LOS ANGELES – Patrick Swayze, the hunky actor who danced his way into moviegoers' hearts with 'Dirty Dancing' and then broke them with 'Ghost,' died Monday after a battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 57.
'Patrick Swayze passed away peacefully today with family at his side after facing the challenges of his illness for the last 20 months,' his publicist, Annett Wolf, said in a statement Monday evening. Swayze died in Los Angeles, Wolf said, but she declined to give further details.
Fans of the actor were saddened to learn in March 2008 that Swayze was suffering from a particularly deadly form of cancer. He kept working despite the diagnosis, putting together a memoir with his wife and shooting 'The Beast,' an A&E drama series for which he had already made the pilot.
Swayze said he opted not to use painkilling drugs while making 'The Beast' because they would have taken the edge off his performance. The show drew a respectable 1.3 million viewers when the 13 episodes ran in 2009, but A&E said it had reluctantly decided not to renew it for a second season.
When he first went public with the illness, some reports gave him only weeks to live, but his doctor said his situation was 'considerably more optimistic' than that. Swayze acknowledged that time might be running out given the grim nature" read more
Not much too say after this major loss from the major loss against the Green Bay Packers last night as after wrist surgery today it's been determined Brian Urlacher's season is over and with that end any chances the Bears will make it to the Super Bowl which will cost me $5oo as yesterday's Bears post cam explain......
Damn!
BEARS season Over Before It Starts
The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it.
H. L. Mencken
After the successful and safe run of the annual Chicago Air and Water show it's sad to see this crash take place in Russia during a similar air display this past weekend seen in the video below
Russian Fighter Jets Collide During Air Show
The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it.
H. L. Mencken
As a longtime casual reader of the great Flopping Aces blog, I like many was shocked and deeply saddened to hear and read this news over the past couple days that one of their fine writers, among our nation's proudest and toughest had taken his own life back in late June, the 30th to be exact.
A sad fact which wasn't brought to the attention of his blogging readers as well as brothers and sisters until just this past week
All I can say to he and his loved ones is "Rest in Peace Major Galloway as you will undoubtedly be greatly missed, soldier.
A memorial post in his honor has now been displayed there for a couple days and begins like this... Here's all Chris' writings at Flopping Aces by the way
Flopping Aces Writer Major Chris Galloway Dead at 36:
"Life and the internet are strange strange things. I’ve been trading emails and posts etc with Chris for years now. It wasn’t at all uncommon for his duties, deployments, and family to make those virtual conversations sporadic from time to time. Well, Chris won’t be returning emails anymore. He passed away suddenly on June 30, 2009." please continue
Sad Sad News: "Flopping Aces Writer Major Chris Galloway Dead at 36"
The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it.
H. L. Mencken
As the addition to that headline says, this is absolutely unbelievable that this crash seems now to be due solely to the fact a traffic controller was yappin' away to his girlfriend while on the job and some other crazy circumstances that lead to this preventable tragedy.
"WASHINGTON - The air traffic controller at Teterboro Airport was on the phone with his girlfriend during the mid-air collision over the Hudson River.
His supervisor had wandered off and wasn't even in the tower.
Horrified officials called their actions "unacceptable," even though they were not blamed for Saturday's crash.
Both controllers - who were not immediately identified - have been suspended and will likely be fired. Crash probes by the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration revealed the two controllers seriously deviated from their assignments at the time of the collision.
Nine people died when a single-engine Piper plane with three aboard clipped a Liberty Helicopters sightseeing chopper carrying a pilot and five Italian tourists. Both aircraft plummeted into the river.
The NTSB and FAA discovered the controller lapses by listening to audio recordings from the Teterboro tower.
"We learned that the controller handling the Piper flight was involved in apparently inappropriate conversations on the telephone at the time of the accident," FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt said.
"We also learned that the supervisor was not present in the [tower] building as required."
Babbitt said, "We have no reason to believe at this time that these actions contributed to the accident" but he called the laxness unacceptable.
"We have placed the employees on administrative leave and have begun disciplinary proceedings," he said.
Air traffic control transcripts indicated no problems in the exchange between controllers at the New Jersey airport and the plane's pilot, Steven Altman, who was heading for Ocean City, N.J.
The controller gave Altman two choices of route, and he chose a straight shot down the Hudson.
NTSB chairwoman Debbie Hersman has said the controller told Altman to switch his radio over to the Newark tower - and gave the correct frequency - but Newark never made contact.
The controller was also on a separate line with his girlfriend.
"The handoff was never made," an aviation source said.
Mayor Bloomberg was alarmed by the development.
"If true, this is an unacceptable breach of the trust we put in those who watch the city's sky," he said.
New clues to the crash may be contained in a dramatic tourist video of the tragedy that surfaced Thursday on NBC News.
The footage, taken from a boat on the river, shows Altman desperately trying to lift his left wing to avoid hitting the helicopter.
Meanwhile, the remains of the five Italian tourists were welcomed home to Bologna by a large, emotional crowd of friends, relatives and mourners.
Silvia Rigamonti, who lost her husband and youngest son, threw herself at her husband's casket.
A godd old fashioned Chinese beatdown seems to be the treatment one young Chinese boy received from the illustrious Chinese Military who run a rehab camp that looks like something right out of the Obamacare handbook and could be coming to America, particularly once China owns us all outright.
Thanks entirely to Obama and friends running up a trillion dollar defecit being funded by these same people.
Rehab death of China Internet addict concerns:"The death of a teenage Internet addict allegedly beaten to death at a rehab camp in south China has triggered calls from medical experts for regulation on treatments for the problem.
Deng Senshan died early Sunday after he was allegedly beaten by trainers at a rehabilitation camp in Guangxi region where his parents had sent him to cure his addiction, state media reports said.
The case triggered outrage on the Internet and medical experts Wednesday called for specific laws and regulations on the diagnosis and treatment of Internet addiction, the official Xinhua news agency reported."
"The market of Internet addiction treatment in China is in a total mess due to lack of diagnostic standards and treatment guidelines," Tao Ran, director of China's first Internet addiction clinic at Beijing's Military General Hospital, was quoted as saying. "The government should end this as soon as possible," Tao said.
Tao regards Internet addiction as a disease which needs medical treatment rather than the "ineffective" military-style training used by some rehab centres.
"The tragedy is not accidental. Most rehab camps adopt military training, but many teenage Internet addicts cannot handle it well. Thus it comes with conflicts and violence," Tao said.
Tao suggested the health and education ministries and other departments should make joint efforts in the prevention and treatment of Internet addiction, Xinhua said.
"Internet addiction has become the biggest youth problem in China. It deserves wide public concern," Tao said.
China has the world's largest number of Internet users with 338 million -- more than the entire population of the United States.
More than 10 million of the country's 100 million teenage web surfers are Internet addicts, the China Daily said Tuesday, citing a survey by the China Youth Internet Association last year.
How ironic is this information that the murdered ex football star was in the process of making a public service announcement regarding suicide prevention...did he know more about the 20 year old lover that ended up taking his life and hers as well than is being uncovered?
We'll of coarse never know and it's probably none of our business anyways, but this news is strange to say the least, on the order of Michael Jackson in the midst of recording a PSA regarding prescription drug use 3 weeks ago
McNair taped suicide prevention ad before death - CNN.com: (CNN) -- Former NFL quarterback Steve McNair taped a youth suicide prevention public service announcement before he was fatally shot in a murder-suicide, Tennessee health officials said." The Tennessee health officials were "developing a PSA with Steve McNair, but it never reached the point of being aired. And it seems broadcasting it now is not only inappropriate, but doesn't serve the community, his family or memory -- or the issue we hoped the PSA would help address," said Jill Hudson, a spokeswoman for Tennessee's Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities.
Authorities have said that McNair was fatally shot by his mistress, who then killed herself. McNair was married and had four children.
The bodies of McNair, 36, and Sahel Kazemi, 20, were found in a condominium on Saturday afternoon in downtown Nashville, authorities said.
There was a public memorial for McNair on Thursday at several locations in Tennessee. He spent 13 seasons in the National Football League, mostly with the Tennessee Titans, with whom he excelled as quarterback. He was named the NFL's co-MVP in 2003 and spent his last two seasons with the Baltimore Ravens before announcing his retirement in April 2008.
The sad side of the internet in young people's lives is now being told in this video and story from Tuesday.
The net has added this nasty social aspect we didn't have growing up in the70's and 80's, and it's always so sad when any young kid can't see the beauty of life that likely lay ahead in this death culture we're living through....The woman who survived her call for help here is 23 ,so she's not a kid like poor Meghan Meir but still sad nonetheless.
"PHOENIX - A Phoenix woman has been rescued after attempting to hang herself live on her webcam. The 23-year-old got into a fight with her boyfriend and tried to kill herself on the internet -- and police are worried that other people may have been watching.
Web suicide happens more often than some may think, and in today's case, police say the suicide attempt was broadcast over a webcam in a chat room." more
Phoenix Woman Hangs Self on Webcam, Survives (news video)
The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it.
H. L. Mencken
Most regular readers of this blog know I'm not a very sympathetic person towards most of the crud coming out of Hollywood and the music industry today and I believe for good reason.
However, I am an admirer of most of the entertainment people of the 50's through the 80's who carved out the mold that these people today take for granted and outright exploit and even copy verbatim, mostly for lack of the same creativeness and originality that came from our generation of celebrities in my opinion.
As they say, it's all been done before and the first time is always better.
This article below from today's local newspaper the Daily Herald says pretty much how I feel about the losses of the past couple weeks, and their connection to my childhood and other generation X'ers out there.
You can also gauge my opinions if interested if you read through my posts yesterday as the deadly day actually progressed, as well as my post on Ed McMahon at the beginning of the tragic week for a further understanding of my loyalty to the stars of yesteryear who are leaving us at a more rapid rate than we all wish to see. Actually to think that the most popular female and male Icons of the 70's and 80's die on the very same day is very freaky to say the least, particularly as we see our beloved country in a near cultural death spiral, one never seen in my lifetime at least.
I do truly wish the four lost icons rest in peace, and hope the usual "after death ugliness" is kept to the very minimum, although we are likely to see some surrounding the death of Michael Jackson just as we have from David Carradine's death since it's very likely drugs played a role in his demise as my other post today touches upon.
I guess even though it sounds a little hokey to some, I say to these folks "thanks for the memories" as the old time icon of the greatest generation used to sing at the end of his variety TV specials of yore, that good old one and only star of stars..... Bob Hope.
A record-shattering vinyl album and its moonwalking maestro. A paper poster of a golden-haired beauty in a one-piece swimsuit that was gossamer and clingy in all the right places.
It all seems so quaint now, the fragmented dream memories of a fleeting micro-era that began with words like "bicentennial" and "pet rock" and ended with MTV, Atari and absurdly thin cans of super-hold mousse.
The man-child named Michael Jackson and the luminous girl known as Farrah Fawcett-Majors jumped into our consciousness at a plastic moment in American culture -- a time when the celebrity juggernaut we know today was still in diapers. When they departed Thursday, just a few hours and a few miles apart, they left an entire generation -- a very strange generation indeed -- without two of its defining figures.
"These people were on our lunchboxes," said Gary Giovannetti, 38, a manager at HBO who grew up on Long Island awash in Farrah and MJ iconography. "This," he said, "is the moment when Generation X realizes they're grown up."
It was a long time coming. Cynical, disaffected, rife with ADD, lost between Boomers and millennials and sandwiched between Vietnam and the war on terror, Gen X has always been an oddity. It was the product of a transitional age when we were still putting people on celebrity pedestals but only starting to make an industry out of dragging them down. Its memorable moments were diffuse and confusing -- the Ronald Reagan assassination attempt, the dawn of AIDS, the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger. It had no protest movement, no opponent to unite it, none of the things that typically shape the ill-defined beast we call an American generation.
These were the people who sent to the top of the charts a song called "We Don't Need Another Hero," then figured out how to churn them out wholesale, launching the celebrity obsession that is now an accepted part of American cultural fabric.
And that was personified nowhere better than in the two people who died Thursday.
She was, perhaps, the last in a line that began with Betty Grable in World War II -- the bathing beauty who seemed kissed by the sun and exuded a potent combination of innocence and sexuality. But her "Charlie's Angels" jiggle-show image presaged another world entirely. It was the one that would come to be dominated first by Brooke and her Calvins and ultimately, as the hunger grew tawdrier, by American Apparel ads and the celebrity sex videos of Pamela Anderson and Paris Hilton.
She struggled for credibility after the poster and the Angels. She got it in 1984 with a dramatic turn as an abused wife in "The Burning Bed." But her last stand -- a documentary about the cancer that killed her -- was tainted by her run-ins with insatiable paparazzi and tabloids.
He was another thing entirely -- perhaps the most recognizable face in the world, even more so than the pope or Barack Obama. His musical genius and energy seemed boundless for a time. They were rivaled only by his quirks, which consumed him.
He had a bumpy, extraordinarily public childhood. Then he spent an off-the-wall lifetime trying to get it back, erecting a ranch named after the fantasy land of Peter Pan and inviting children to share his life and his bed -- with results that some said drifted into the criminal.
He caught fire in a Pepsi commercial. He shrouded his children in full-body coverings and dangled one over a balcony to show his fans below. His fabled multiple plastic surgeries turned him into someone almost unrecognizable. Nose sunk into face, cheekbones became caricature, ebony drifted into ivory.
Yet through it all, even when the years of his quirks outstripped the years of his glory, he remained one of the planet's most popular figures, selling out shows wherever he went. "Icon," the Rev. Al Sharpton said, was "only a fraction of what he was." But icon was, of course, what he always acted as if he wanted to be.
Today, celebrities aren't merely created for our consumption. Audiences are passive no longer. We demand a part in creating our icons: Jon and Kate Gosselin and their ilk might as well be publicly held companies, and we all insist upon buying a few shares. Farrah and Michael Jackson were other -- above us, maybe, or apart from us. Now, when we crown new icons, we want them to BE us.
"We want everything right now, and there's a blurring of reality. When does the celebrity world stop and our world begin?" said Penni Pier, an associate professor of communications at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa.
When Farrah gazed at us in her swimsuit and, a single moment in history later, MJ dared us to moonwalk, they commanded giant audiences. The world had not yet become fragmented into the microcommunities that exist today. We liked them or we hated them, but we shared the experience just as Walter Cronkite told us each night that "that's the way it is."
Today, when Lindsay Lohan Twitters pictures of herself to her legions of followers, the notion that a paper poster bought in a shopping-mall Spencer Gifts could change the celebrity game seems rustic. And the vinyl version of "Thriller," redolent of raw materials and production lines, is a ghost in the virtual world of iTunes -- a world that the generation after X negotiates with the fluidity of natives.
In the 1990s, members of Generation X would often laugh in bars about how the time of the Boomers was passing -- about how the quaintness and naivete that made up the 1960s was, finally, a grave being danced on by Kurt Cobain. Today, members of that same generation sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings of pop.
A sexy poster upon a boy's wall in which a young woman grins wholesomely. A record album called "Thriller" and its attendant music videos, built upon the notion that sexiness came in the frisson of hints and suggestions rather than in cutting directly to the big reveal.
In the end, finally, they stand as the relics of a generation -- one that struggled to find its place and now, suddenly, while still young, one that must wonder if it is as passe as the paper and vinyl that its icons' most memorable moments were etched upon.
We don't need another hero? After this week, are we sure?
If the reporting coming from British tabloids is believed, which has become far more accurate and trustworthy about American issues since Obama has incorporated the lapnut American media into his central government's Ministry of Information & Propaganda, there's trouble brewing.
As we've all come to know, there's almost always a Dr Feelgood behind every single one of these "out of the blue" celebrity deaths, and this one will likely follow the same pattern as Elvis' Dr Nik, Anna Nicole Smith's personal drug dispensers and others.
The Jackson family attorney of the month known as Brian Oxman says as much Thursday in this somewhat strange interview that took place in the circus like aftermath of the Jackson's death, the same bizzaro world follows him right into the grave the same way it followed him around in real life for most of his unique 40 years as a boy adult.
Michael Jackson's last moments
The Sun |Showbiz|Bizarre"PARAMEDICS dashed to dying Michael Jackson’s side after a panic-stricken phone call from the superstar’s Los Angeles home.
The dramatic call was made by a member of staff last night at just after 8pm UK time.
Fire Department medics responded to the alert and arrived to find the 50-year-old singer collapsed and not breathing. He had suffered a cardiac arrest."
The emergency staff rushed him to hospital in their vehicle, where a computer screen revealed chilling details of his condition.
A record of the call-out read: “50 year old male Not breathing at all.” It gave the time of the call-out as 12.21pm local time.
Medics administered heart massage and oxygen along the route. But they could not revive the star. Jacko’s family were informed and rushed to his bedside as weeping fans began massing outside the city’s UCLA Medical Centre.
There were screams of “You’ve got to save him, you’ve got to save him” as the star was stretchered in.
Mum Katherine made it to the hospital shortly after her son, although his father Joe was in Las Vegas when told the news. Close pal Elizabeth Taylor also rushed to the hospital to say her goodbyes.
Finally a doctor appeared and told shocked relatives and aides that all efforts to restart his heart had failed and that he had died.
Sister La Toya was seen running into the hospital sobbing after her brother was pronounced dead.
Los Angeles County Coroner Fred Corell last night confirmed that Jackson had died of heart failure at 2.26pm local time.
Last night it was suspected his collapse could have been caused by an overdose of painkillers.
An Emergency Room source at UCLA hospital said Jackson aides told medics he had collapsed after an injection of potent Demerol — similar to morphine.
A Jacko source said: “Shortly after taking the Demerol he started to experience slow shallow breathing.
“His breathing gradually got slower and slower until it stopped.
“His staff started mouth-to-mouth and an ambulance was called which got there in eight minutes “But found he was in full respiratory arrest, no breathing and no pulse. They started full CPR and rushed him to hospital.
“When he arrived they started resuscitation, giving him heart shocks and inserted a breathing tube and other supportive measures to try and save his life.
“He never regained consciousness.The family was told that he had passed.”
As news spread of Jackson’s death, thousands of fans gathered outside the hospital.
Many were dressed in the eccentric singer’s trademark costumes and others blasted out his smash-hit tunes.
Michael Jackson's last moments, Did Demerol Injection Kill Him? His "Dr Feelgood" Sweating Bullets Today
The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it.
H. L. Mencken
I wonder if Obama feels any different starting out this week after the youtube filmed death of the poor young Iranian woman known as NEDA, first broadcast out of Iran on Twitter and the entire internet was filled with tributes and editorials about the killing of the young woman over the weekend.
Meanwhile, Obama was taking 17 vehicle motorcades to frozen custard stores, and I don't give a damn whether it's father's day or no father's day, while also hosting Skateboarding adults riding up and down the hallways of our White House and twittering pictures of it you can see here and defending it as well as some kind of Patriot. One who's parent's obviously never taught him to not ride a skateboard in the house, especially the White House, which is NOT OBAMA's HOUSE.
A rather large contrast between the real world of Iranian revolution and young women being killed and Obama's little 'I'm the president" playworld, wouldn't you agree?
Obama's a perfect compliment the dim dem Carter era, and together they make perfect bookends of American weakness in democratic leadership that the world exploits every time it comes to town, which put these Mullah's in power in the first place 30 plus years ago.
Only, pray the kids there have the strength to continue their pursuit for freedom ,because they shamefully won't be getting any assistance from the pussies in the west who now hold the leadership positions, led by Obama of coarse.
Now there's 18 fathers who have lost their children to Iranian Revolutionary guardsmen and police for protesting a rigged election, just as the man who's daughter referred to as NEDA is dying in his very arms for all the world to see.
This video may haunt Obama and his pathetic inaction prior to this killing for a long time, which you can see in this very sad and graphic youtube below that's haunting me after watching it the first time causing me to pen this rant aimed in Obama's direction.
This is a budding revolution as we all can see, one that Obama first ridiculously characterized as a "Robust Debate", an idiotic statement of which we clobbered him for last week in this post, long before he began to backpedal on his dumb assed assessment of the obvious explosive Iranian elections.
Our government should have been far more prepared for this than they obviously were, and I'll tell you one thing, if this Chicago blogger can recognize a revolution before the POTUS.. we're in big, big trouble.
But of coarse we've known this here since Obama was elected senator 3 years ago and didn't manage to accomplish a damn thing of note in the 110 days before starting to run for president. As I've been writing here since my first Obama post in August of 2006, This man is the biggest mistake the United States has ever made.
Thanks to Maggie's notebook for the video as she has a great write up on this tragic murder, as does Time Mag online, which I've clipped a piece of below.
In Iran, One Woman's Death May Have Many Consequences
TIME: "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.
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. continued
In Iran,Will NEDA's Death Change Obama's Tune?
The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it.
H. L. Mencken
That old star of the show Kung Fu from the seventies and recent Kill Bill Fame who I've been seeing more and more of lately on television has been found dead in Bangkok Thailand.
Prayers out to his family and may he rest in peace and thanks to him for all those fun Kung Fu childhood memories.
My Way News - "BANGKOK (AP) - Actor David Carradine, star of the 1970s TV series 'Kung Fu' who also had a wide-ranging career in the movies, has been found dead in the Thai capital, Bangkok. A news report said he was found hanged in his hotel room and was believed to have committed suicide.
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy, Michael Turner, confirmed the death of the 72-year-old actor. He said the embassy was informed by Thai authorities that Carradine died either late Wednesday or early Thursday, but he could not provide further details out of consideration for his family. The Web site of the Thai newspaper The Nation cited unidentified police sources as saying Carradine was found Thursday hanged in his luxury hotel room.
It said Carradine was in Bangkok to shoot a movie and had been staying at the hotel since Tuesday."The newspaper said Carradine could not be contacted after he failed to appear for a meal with the rest of the film crew on Wednesday, and that his body was found by a hotel maid at 10 a.m. Thursday morning. The name of the movie was not immediately available.
It said a preliminary police investigation found that he had hanged himself with a cord used with the room's curtains. It cited police as saying he had been dead at least 12 hours and there was no sign that he had been assaulted.
A police officer at Bangkok's Lumpini precinct station would not confirm the identity of the dead man, but said the luxury Swissotel Nai Lert Park hotel had reported that a male guest killed himself there.
Carradine was a leading member of a venerable Hollywood acting family that included his father, character actor John Carradine, and brother Keith.
In all, he appeared in more than 100 feature films with such directors as Martin Scorsese, Ingmar Bergman and Hal Ashby. One of his prominent early film roles was as singer Woody Guthrie in Ashby's 1976 biopic "Bound for Glory."
(AP) This May 17, 2003 file photo shows American actor, David Carradine, smiles as he arrives for... Full Image But he was best known for his role as Kwai Chang Caine, a Shaolin priest traveling the 1800s American frontier West in the TV series "Kung Fu," which aired in 1972-75.
He reprised the role in a mid-1980s TV movie and played Caine's grandson in the 1990s syndicated series "Kung Fu: The Legend Continues."
He returned to the top in recent years as the title character in Quentin Tarantino's two-part saga "Kill Bill."
The character, the worldly father figure of a pack of crack assassins, was a shadowy presence in 2003's "Kill Bill - Vol. 1." In that film, one of Bill's former assassins (Uma Thurman) begins a vengeful rampage against her old associates.
In "Kill Bill - Vol. 2," released in 2004, Thurman's character comes face to face again with Bill himself. The role brought Carradine a Golden Globe nomination as best supporting actor.more
Shocker: " Actor David Carradine found dead in Bangkok"
The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it.
H. L. Mencken
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In the past couple of days, you have likely seen or read media coverage criticizing USA Swimming’s policies on child protection. The story has made many headlines, but it lacks a great deal of truth.
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