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Author Topic:   Tribute Thread for the Recently Passed Greats
Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3977
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 29 of 1282 (440833)
12-14-2007 6:46 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by macaroniandcheese
12-13-2007 11:26 AM


Re: Ike Turner (lol) and my grandmother
Please accept my sympathy for your loss, brenna.
My mother and grandmother died within the same month a few years back.
I still catch myself thinking, "Wait till I tell Mom about this!"

This message is a reply to:
 Message 25 by macaroniandcheese, posted 12-13-2007 11:26 AM macaroniandcheese has replied

Replies to this message:
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Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3977
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 32 of 1282 (440847)
12-14-2007 7:49 PM
Reply to: Message 30 by macaroniandcheese
12-14-2007 7:07 PM


Re: Ike Turner (lol) and my grandmother
brenna writes:
she had her flaws, and a great many, but to me, she was magic.
The people who love us make magic.
My mother loved silly songs. Along with teaching me to read at age 4 by pointing at each word as she read it, she taught me a huge number of nursery rhyme ditties and folk songs.
I especially liked:
"She's got a dimple on her but she's nice..."
...changed, of course, when I was a toddler in my bath to "He's..." while giving my butt a pinch. Makes me giggle still, just to remember it.
I'm always too hot when others are too cool, so I developed the absent-minded habit of pulling off one sock to lose body heat while I read:
"Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John,
One shoe off, one shoe on..."
Adapted, of course, to suit.
With the gift of reading, she gave me the world. With the gift of humor and song, she gave me one way to console myself with the world.
To this day, I have a constant soundtrack running in my head, sometimes simply a tune that matches my mood, sometimes a song that comments on what's going on around me.
It's all magic.

Real things always push back.
-William James
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Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC!
---------------------------------------

This message is a reply to:
 Message 30 by macaroniandcheese, posted 12-14-2007 7:07 PM macaroniandcheese has replied

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Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3977
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 88 of 1282 (587231)
10-17-2010 8:25 PM
Reply to: Message 87 by Modulous
10-17-2010 8:01 PM


Re: Benoit Mandelbrot
I had the pleasure of conversing with Benoit Mandelbrot several times over the past decade.
He was a charming, mischievous man, patient with explanations and impatient with fools.
The world is a poorer place for his death.

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Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3977
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 108 of 1282 (606890)
02-28-2011 8:41 PM


My Dad's Favorite Pin-up
RIP, Jane Russell.
My dad carried you through the WWII Pacific theater and back home again to Indiana, where you curled up inside the lid of his toolbox, where Mom wouldn't see you.
What a babe.


Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?
-Shakespeare
Real things always push back.
-William James

Replies to this message:
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Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3977
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 111 of 1282 (609065)
03-16-2011 10:50 AM


Owsley Stanley, 1935-2011
Happy trails, Bear.
What a long strange trip it was.


Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?
-Shakespeare
Real things always push back.
-William James

  
Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3977
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


(1)
Message 219 of 1282 (676492)
10-23-2012 10:39 AM
Reply to: Message 217 by subbie
10-11-2012 7:32 PM


Re: 6.5 ounce refillable Coke bottles
In the early 70s I drove a daily circuit from Indianapolis to county court houses throughout Indiana, doing real estate abstracting and tax roll checks for mortgage companies.
Nearly every county court house/capitol was that county's most imposing structure--columns, rotunda, colorful ceramic murals mounted on the brilliant Indiana limestone--and every court house had the glossy red, round-topped Coke machine that served 6.5 oz Cokes for a nickel.
You'd pull out a Coke and the entire vertical stack of bottles would move to fill the space. Those little bottles were sturdy--they usually didn't break even when you dropped them. I'd hit a half dozen counties in any given day, and that nickel Coke machine was always a welcome sight.
So long ago...it seems that everything good from that time is gone, and all the bad has flourished: the laid-back bigotry, rather than fading, has been replaced with the passionately intense conviction that the bigotry is not only justified, but patriotic. I miss my naive belief that bigotry and hatred were on the run.
I wish I had some of those Cokes.

"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."

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Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3977
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


(1)
Message 232 of 1282 (692865)
03-08-2013 8:32 AM
Reply to: Message 229 by subbie
02-01-2013 12:15 AM


8 to the bar, baby!
My Mom would have been about her age. She married my father just before sending him off to the Pacific theater in 1942.
She adored the Andrews Sisters: she couldn't sing much, but she was a better dancer than the Sisters It's great to have the old films that remind us our parents/grandparents were once young and funky.
Can't you just hear the rock coming, though?

"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."

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Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3977
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


(1)
Message 237 of 1282 (693034)
03-09-2013 10:18 PM
Reply to: Message 236 by CoolBeans
03-09-2013 8:07 PM


Re: Duane Gish, 92 ... some balance
CoolBeans writes:
Man 92 years old. Wouldnt say that it didnt took me by surprise, though.i
Well said.
He was an evil man consumed by his passion to do violence to the truth.
Had he not been so hapless, I'd have had to stand over his grave till I was sure he was dead.

"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 236 by CoolBeans, posted 03-09-2013 8:07 PM CoolBeans has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 238 by CoolBeans, posted 03-09-2013 10:20 PM Omnivorous has replied

  
Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3977
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


(1)
Message 239 of 1282 (693036)
03-09-2013 10:26 PM
Reply to: Message 238 by CoolBeans
03-09-2013 10:20 PM


Re: Duane Gish, 92 ... some balance
CoolBeans writes:
He was dishonest but he atleast had a great delivery.
Goebbels liked dogs.

"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."

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Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3977
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 250 of 1282 (695355)
04-04-2013 5:59 PM
Reply to: Message 249 by 1.61803
04-04-2013 5:33 PM


Re: no thumbs up
I don't care much about movies, and less about movie reviews.
But Ebert fought his cancer with considerable courage and grace. He released photos of his disfigured face, telling friends and family who argued he shouldn't, "Why not? This is how I look."
After three failed attempts at surgical restoration, he declined a fourth round: "I decided to quit while I was behind."

"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."

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Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3977
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


(2)
Message 255 of 1282 (695653)
04-08-2013 2:14 PM
Reply to: Message 254 by 1.61803
04-08-2013 12:06 PM


Re: The Iron Lady
Great Britain's Ronald Reagan, described by Ronald Reagan as "the best man in Great Britain."
RIP, indeed.
quote:
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand over your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead.
--Bob, Masters of War

"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."

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Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3977
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 257 of 1282 (695674)
04-08-2013 4:11 PM
Reply to: Message 256 by Faith
04-08-2013 3:41 PM


Re: The First Mouseketeer
Like most little boys at the time, I adored Annette even when I didn't like girls.
AbE: The secret truth is that I always liked girls.
Edited by Omnivorous, : true confession

"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."

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 Message 256 by Faith, posted 04-08-2013 3:41 PM Faith has not replied

  
Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3977
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


(1)
Message 272 of 1282 (697430)
04-25-2013 10:25 AM


Richie Havens, 1941 — 2013
We set out for Woodstock in an old van that didn't make it. We set up camp in a roadside meadow somewhere in Ohio. A nearby college FM station (FM! radically new and subversive) synched their album sides to the artist then performing at Woodstock, so we heard a lot of Richie Havens. Within a day or two, we were joined by other children of god and did our own thing in our own mud, free of the bad brown acid , a dozen radios blasting in the meadow.
RIP, Richie.
What we wanted then seemed clear:
"Seems like so many years since it's been clear..."

"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."

Replies to this message:
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Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3977
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


Message 299 of 1282 (713993)
12-18-2013 7:18 PM
Reply to: Message 293 by Percy
12-18-2013 12:28 PM


Re: Appropriate for this thread for certain values of "great."
Percy writes:
I found this paragraph particularly enlightening - it explains a lot of discussions here:
I was struck by how some believers edited the past in order to avoid acknowledging that they had been mistaken. The engineer in his mid-twenties, the one who told me this was a prophecy rather than a prediction, maintained that he had never claimed to be certain about May 21. When I read him the transcript of our previous interview, he seemed genuinely surprised that those words had come out of his mouth. It was as if we were discussing a dream he couldn’t quite remember.
Creepy...
But it reminds me of my sainted mother, who, when asked if she remembered the time she threw a star-shaped nut dish at me and it slammed into the drywall like a Ninja death star, replied, "Oh, I did not!"
Edited by Omnivorous, : What, you thought saints were perfect?

"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 293 by Percy, posted 12-18-2013 12:28 PM Percy has seen this message but not replied

  
Omnivorous
Member
Posts: 3977
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


(3)
Message 332 of 1282 (725525)
04-28-2014 1:00 AM


Unknown Species
So I'm crying out, "Oh no, not the blue-footed booby!" over the news, and then I think about this thread.
It's numbers are down by half, no one sure why, although a lack of sardines has been noted in the Galapagos waters as the BFBs stop breeding: the cause of the sardine shortage "remains a mystery." Another fantastic species being pushed to the brink...
quote:
Just to illustrate the degree of biodiversity loss we're facing, let’s take you through one scientific analysis...
The rapid loss of species we are seeing today is estimated by experts to be between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than the natural extinction rate.*
These experts calculate that between 0.01 and 0.1% of all species will become extinct each year.
If the low estimate of the number of species out there is true - i.e. that there are around 2 million different species on our planet** - then that means between 200 and 2,000 extinctions occur every year.
But if the upper estimate of species numbers is true - that there are 100 million different species co-existing with us on our planet - then between 10,000 and 100,000 species are becoming extinct each year.
*Experts actually call this natural extinction rate the background extinction rate. This simply means the rate of species extinctions that would occur if we humans were not around.
** Between 1.4 and 1.8 million species have already been scientifically identified.
So a dozen species a day, easy. We don't even know who they are.
Here's to them.
Oh, there's the bell.

"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."

  
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