Passings

[BO]

Dan Folgelberg dies of prostrate cancer. 56 years old.

http://www.danfogelberg.com/news.html

I loved this guy--sappy music and all.

[Mouse]

British Nuclear Expert’s 17th Floor UN Death Plunge ‘Was Not Suicide’

Timothy Hampton, 47, a scientist involved in monitoring nuclear activity, was found dead last week at the bottom of a stairwell in Vienna.

[Mouse]

Giving evidence before the arms-to-Iraq inquiry, Higson was the only British official commended by Lord Justice Scott for telling the truth. The price he paid was the loss of his health and marriage, and constant surveillance by spooks. He ended up living on benefits in a Birmingham bedsit where he suffered a seizure, struck his head and died alone. Whistleblowers are often heroes; he was one.


I tried to contact Mark Higson the other day, only to learn that he had died nine years ago. He was just 40, an honourable man.

So John Pilger wrote in this fine article "Iraq: The Crime of the Century".

[littleoldme]

Alaina Reed Hall, who played photographer Olivia on the long-running PBS series, died of breast cancer on December 17 in Los Angeles. She was 63 years old.

[pan]

Howard Zinn, an author, teacher and political activist whose leftist "A People's History of the United States" sold a million copies and became an alternative to mainstream texts and a favorite of such celebrities as Bruce Springsteen and Ben Affleck, died Wednesday. He was 87.

[Cal]

Eugene Terreblanche - leader of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement. Aged 69. Murdered on his farm.


I always remember him for falling off his horse one parade.

I've been reading the blogs and internet new comments ... seems to me like a turning point of some sort going on around me.

[Mouse]

Been wondering how that is looking to you. How goes it where you are?

[hannah j]

waiting for more insights!

[Cal]

I'm not full of insights at the moment ... just a very, very strong sense of impending doom. I did not emigrate when most of my contemporaries did 16 years ago - had a ridiculous kind of optimism that this country would prove the Afro-pessimists wrong and go from 'rainbow' strength to strength. But if someone had wanted to start a civil war here it's hard to imagine a more appropriate move than hacking Terreblanche to death over a wage dispute. I have always been the opposite end of the political spectrum from him but that does not put me in the camp of the culture that murdered him. As a criminal act it was just one more farm murder in a long tragic spate of murders of old people on their farms which is bad enough. Personally I think it was very much fuelled by the incendiary politics of the ANC youth lead by a truly ignorant racist bigot, Julius Malema.and his 'shoot the boer' song he loves to sing at gatherings... except that blacks in this country think that the epithet of 'racist' can only be applied to whites. He has just been on a visit to Zimbabwe to express solidarity with Robert Mugabe and his 'successful' land reform there which has left what was once the bread basket of the continent unable to feed itself and its people destitute (except of course for the ruling party).

Got to love our cartoonist Zapiro ...

Emigrating for me at this age and stage of my life is not a particularly viable option so it looks like I'm here for the long haul ... but the road ahead does not look pleasant.

[hannah j]

you would be welcome here i say that in all seriousness. southeast kansas is low cost, good weather, garden and animal friendly.

thanks for responding at what is obviously a time fraught with dilemmas for you.

[Mouse]

Sounds nice. How about it Cal?

Can't recommend Surrey, the housing bubble is still inflating here, saw a small two bedroomed house on sale for £430,000. Eek.

[littleoldme]

Wouldn't suggest either Florida either, way too hot. Hannah, wasn't someone named Dorthy from there?

[pan]

Not sure I could recommend anywhere in the US right now.

Pocatello is a pocket of not-so-completely-conservativism in Idaho. It is beautiful here...