RIP: To remember those lost to us, whether close or at large

[mamselle]

Medievalist Paul Szarmach, on April 27th.

For many years, he ran the International Conference on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, until 2006.

In that year he became a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America for his scholarship in early English literature, and its Executive Director until his retirement in 2011.

I've never heard a bad word spoken of him. He always had a twinkle in his eye and was willing to listen to and encourage new research and new researchers.   

M.

[wareagle]

Olympia Dukakis. 

Johnny Crawford, whom I believe was one of the original Mouseketeers, in addition to his role in The Rifleman.

[traductio]

Eric Carle, author of The Very Hunger Caterpillar, died today.

He was the author of one of my favourite opening sentences of any book I have ever read (it's such a peaceful sentence): "In the light of the moon a little egg lay on a leaf."

[mamselle]

I loved his bold use of color and whimsy...page cut-outs and glittery fish fins among them.

RIP to one who created so much cause for joy.

M.

[mamselle]

This tribute to him is fitting:

   https://www.wbur.org/npr/970974320/eric-carle-creator-of-the-very-hungry-caterpillar-has-died

M.

[mamselle]

Right now, the names of a few hundred indigenous children who died at one of several mandated educational institutions are known, but thousands may have been buried in unmarked graves in other locations as well:

   https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57325653

Your people stewarded the land for generations, and this is how you were repaid...not only in this one place, but in many, throughout the globe.

Reparations for lost young lives are impossible, may we all, in all places, learn to do and be better.

M.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

I just found out that one of my colleagues passed yesterday. He was only 67.

[fishbrains]

Ned Beatty died a couple of days ago. Deliverance was the first R-rated movie I ever saw. Probably wasn't a good first choice for me. He was good as Dan's dad in Roseanne as well. [sigh]

[AmLitHist]

I just found out that one of my colleagues passed yesterday. He was only 67.

So sorry to hear this, EPW.

[fishbrains]

Frank Bonner, the guy who played Herb Tarlek on WKRP in Cincinnati, died Wednesday at the age of 79.

[mamselle]

Donald Rumsfeld:

   https://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/transcript-rachel-maddow-show-6-30-21-n1272874

M.

[secundem_artem]

Donald Rumsfeld:

   https://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/transcript-rachel-maddow-show-6-30-21-n1272874

M.

Quel dommage.  Not.

I saw a biography of Rummie a number of years ago.  It was clear he'd been an a-hole since he was out of diapers. 

[namazu]

João Gilberto.

[mamselle]

This is delayed, I thought I had posted it in June, but had only made a note to myself to do so:

On June 12, 1963, fifty-eight years ago, the nonviolent NAACP leader, activist Medgar Evers, was shot in the back in his own driveway, on a day the police and FBI protection being afforded him in response to credible threats did not appear to escort him out.

A veteran of the French theater of WWII (Battle of Normandy), and honorably discharged as a Sergeant, he was buried in Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors. After three trials, his assassin was convicted and jailed in 1994.

I recall this event personally because, at the age of ten, seeing the article in the newspaper, it was the first time I realized I disagreed with my father over something significant, and I was puzzled about it.

My dad had helped found an interracial fraternity, Akerima, at Ohio State and had forced my mom's folks to accept the fact that his black army buddy (one of them had carried the other off a field in Germany, he never said which) was going to be one of his groomsmen. Or there wouldn't be a wedding.

But when I showed him the article, he was weirdly subdued, muttered something like "that's not the way to go about it," and wouldn't discuss it further.

Now, many years later, my sibs and I, putting recollections together, have concluded he had a longstanding PTSD-related depression, and I am guessing it muted what might in other moments have been outrage over Evers' death.

But I recall then, and still believe now, that the assassination was eerily responsive to JFK's Civil Rights speech of the day before. A kind of war had been declared, and Evers wasn't the first casualty, but a significant one.

A graduate of Alcorn, there's a statue of him on their campus.

RIP.

M.

[fishbrains]

Actor Ed Asner died yesterday at 91.