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Death

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Death / Celeb The AP Is Reporting That Whitney Houston Is Dead

Posted by Paul Constant on Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 5:04 PM

She was 48. Just this morning, the big news was that Houston was approached to be a judge on The X-Factor. Sad news. Read more here, and on Line Out.

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Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Death Got Mold in Your Dreadlocks?

Posted by Bethany Jean Clement on Wed, Feb 8, 2012 at 7:40 AM

Here GROSS is GROSS how to GROSS GROSS GROSS kill it GROSS!!!!!

Thanks a lot, Jill.

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Monday, February 6, 2012

Death Meanwhile in Milwaukee

Posted by Christopher Frizzelle on Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 4:50 PM

A real-estate agent walks into home that's been foreclosed on and finds a man who evidently killed himself four years earlier.

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Ben Gazzara—the actor best known to '50s audiences as Brick in the original Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and best known to '70s audiences as part of the Cassavates team, and best known to '80s audiences as Road House supervillain-in-scrunchy-boots Brad Wesley—died Friday. Here's the New York Times obituary.

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Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Death / Life / Teh Internets Kids These Days

Posted by David Schmader on Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 3:46 PM

All the messiness of contemporary young identity captured in one long, brilliant New Yorker story about the suicide of Tyler Clementi and the trial of Dharun Ravi, written by Ian Parker.

Amazing. Read it now (or print it out and bring it to the Silent Reading Party tonight at the Sorrento.)

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Death / Books Wislawa Szymborska

Posted by Paul Constant on Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 1:52 PM

The Polish poet, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996, has died. She was 88. You can read some of her poetry here. I especially like this one.

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Death Don Cornelius' Golden Years

Posted by Charles Mudede on Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 8:02 AM

Why did I think Don Cornelius was immortal? Why did I think he would live for a 1000 years?

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Monday, January 30, 2012

Crime / Death / Politics Because Nothing Says "America" Like Hanging a Few Doctors

Posted by Goldy on Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 1:17 PM

Hey, remember when George H. W. Bush called for a "kinder, gentler nation," and "a thousand points of light"...? Remember when that was the new face of Republicanism?

Well... not so much anymore, at least according to Republican North Carolina state Representative Larry Pittman, who sent the following email to every member of his state's General Assembly:

"We need to make the death penalty a real deterrent again by actually carrying it out. Every appeal that can be made should have to be made at one time, not in a serial manner," Pittman wrote in the email. "If murderers (and I would include abortionists, rapists, and kidnappers, as well) are actually executed, it will at least have the deterrent effect upon them. For my money, we should go back to public hangings, which would be more of a deterrent to others, as well."

Yeah, I know. It's just one wacko Republican from one southern state. But don't kid yourselves. If Republicans ever got the one-party state for which they breathlessly long, this would become the political mainstream, and we'd soon be hanging obstetricians in the public square.

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Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Death / Books Happy Birthday, Virginia Woolf

Posted by Christopher Frizzelle on Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 5:39 PM

Sorry about everything.

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Monday, January 23, 2012

Death / Life / Hetero / LGBTQITSLFA If You Know Your Gay Kid Is Being Brutally Bullied At His School...

Posted by Dan Savage on Mon, Jan 23, 2012 at 1:04 PM

...err on the side of overreacting. Err on the side of doing something drastic. Err on the side of turning your own life inside out. Because you don't want to find out the abuse was more than your kid could bear when it's too fucking late to do anything about it:

A Gordonsville, Tennessee, boy's parents say bullying caused their son to take his own life. Phillip Parker, 14, died this week. His parents said he was constantly bullied for being gay.... "He was fun, he was energetic, he was happy," said Gena Parker, Phillip's mother. To his many friends, Phillip was known as the boy who told everyone they're beautiful. "He kept telling me he had a rock on his chest," said Ruby Harris, Phillip's grandmother. "He just wanted to take the rock off where he could breathe."

Phillip's family said they reported their concerns over their son's bullying to Gordonsville High School on multiple occasions, but the bullying by a group of students just got worse... "That's my son," said Phillip Parker, Phillip's father. "I love him. I miss him. He shouldn't have had to kill himself to be brought to life."

Straight parents: If you know your gay kid is being brutalized in his school and you've complained and it's gotten worse, get him the fuck out of there. Homeschool him. Homeschool him and sue the school. Move away. Move someplace more tolerant. Move someplace better. If you can't move away—or if you can't move right away—send your son to live with relatives in another city, a better city. Send him to live with relatives in a state where the elected officials aren't bullying kids like yours from the fucking statehouse. (Maybe a state where elected officials are working to make things better.)

And straight parents? Once you realize your kid is gay—which parents of gay kids usually realize long before their gay kids realize it themselves—take a long, hard look at the community in which you live. Take a long, hard look at the church where you worship. Take a long, hard look at the schools your kid will be forced to attend.

Then decide if staying put is worth your child's life.

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Sunday, January 22, 2012

Death / Sports It Was Always Hard to Imagine Penn State Without Joe Paterno, or Vice Versa

Posted by Goldy on Sun, Jan 22, 2012 at 9:54 AM

Of course, it was lung cancer, or the "complications" thereof, that is the official cause of death. But we all know that Joe Paterno really died of a broken heart.

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Friday, January 20, 2012

Death Etta James, Dead at 73

Posted by Cienna Madrid on Fri, Jan 20, 2012 at 10:10 AM

Celebrated singer Etta James died this morning at Riverside Community Hospital from complications of leukemia. Here's how the NYTimes remembers her:

Ms. James was not easy to pigeonhole. She is most often referred to as a rhythm and blues singer, and that is how she made her name in the 1950s with records like “Good Rockin’ Daddy.” She is in both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Blues Hall of Fame.

She was also comfortable, and convincing, singing pop standards, as she did in 1961 with “At Last,” which was written in 1941 and originally recorded by Glenn Miller’s orchestra. And among her four Grammy Awards (including a lifetime-achievement honor in 2003) was one for best jazz vocal performance, which she won in 1995 for the album “Mystery Lady: Songs of Billie Holiday.”

Regardless of how she was categorized, she was admired. Expressing a common sentiment, Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote in 1990 that she had “one of the great voices in American popular music, with a huge range, a multiplicity of tones and vast reserves of volume.”

I loved her voice but what I'll really miss is her eyebrows.

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Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Death / Life Heyyyyy! Nobel Prize Winning Bra Doesn't Come in A or Double-D Cup Sizes?

Posted by Kelly O on Wed, Jan 11, 2012 at 12:44 PM

But who will save the A's and Double-D's?

Kelly O
But who will save the A's and Double-D's?

What about this lady (right)? And, dammit, what about me?!? I don't want to die!

Read more about the Emergency Bra on Nerve.com.

And all you B, C, and D-cup ladies can buy the life-saving boulder holder right here.

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Sunday, January 8, 2012

Death / Life Birthday DEATHMATCH: Elvis Presley vs. David Bowie!!!

Posted by Grant Brissey on Sun, Jan 8, 2012 at 11:52 AM

Weigh in on these musical icons here!

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Death Gun-Crazy Country: The Story of a Navy SEAL

Posted by Charles Mudede on Sun, Jan 8, 2012 at 10:28 AM

WaPo:

Navy officials have confirmed that a Navy SEAL who accidentally shot himself in the head has died.

San Diego police were called on Thursday after the accident. Police say [Petty Officer 3rd Class Gene “Geno” Clayont, Jr.] had gone to a bar and brought a woman back to his apartment and was showing her guns when he put a pistol to his head, believing it was unloaded, and pulled the trigger.

The date came to an end.

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Friday, January 6, 2012

Death Homo Sapiens: Funeral Director

Posted by Brendan Kiley on Fri, Jan 6, 2012 at 12:09 PM

The San Diego Zoo had to euthanize two sick, older elephants (ages 43 and 56) this week. Afterwards, they organized a funeral for the others:

Cha Cha, estimated to be 43 years old, was euthanized Wednesday. To allow other elephants to see her a final time, her lifeless body was lifted on a forklift and taken to where other elephants in the Elephant Odyssey exhibit are kept.

Amazing. I'd heard of elephantine funerals—but is this the first time in history that human beings played funeral director?

Also:

Elephant Odyssey, one of the more popular exhibits at the zoo, was closed temporarily but was reopened Friday. But elephant keeper interactions with the public have been cancelled to provide time for them to mourn, officials said.

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Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Death / Politics Deadly Weapons

Posted by Goldy on Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 2:42 PM

I didn't take my driver's test until January 2, 1980, more than eight months past my 16th birthday. Not having a car, I didn't much see the point, plus, I figured a drivers license would merely be an invitation to my parents to have me cart my younger sister around. But mostly, I was just terrified of the other drivers.

As a young driver I would fantasize about those early scenes in Charlton Heston's 1971 classic sci-fi flick, The Omega Man, in which Heston drives blissfully through the deserted streets of post-plague Los Angeles. If only driving was always like that, I'd think to myself, but no, my roads and highways were constantly filled with stupid-fucking rude/angry/drunk/incompetent assholes.

Driving is easy. Avoiding the other drivers is not. And while my generally cautious and defensive driving style helped me through the next 32 years without a single traffic accident, I've had plenty of close calls, both as a driver, a passenger, a cyclist, and a pedestrian.

And that is why I oppose permissive gun laws.

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Monday, January 2, 2012

Crime / Death Guns Were Banned in Mt. Rainier National Park Before 2010

Posted by Goldy on Mon, Jan 2, 2012 at 10:37 AM

An interesting side note to the tragic shooting of a Mt. Rainier park ranger yesterday, is that guns were not permitted in national parks until a National Rifle Association sponsored bill lifted the gun ban in 2010... a bill that had been widely opposed by park rangers and officials nationwide.

Now, I'll freely admit that the suspect being sought—who allegedly fled to the back country after an earlier shooting in Skyway, and then gunned down ranger Margaret Anderson in cold blood—is likely not the kind of person who would have been stopped by the old gun ban. But, for those who paradoxically insist that having more guns in parks makes us all safer... well... at least in this particular instance, clearly not.

And of course, if our gun laws weren't so permissive in general, the earlier shooting that sparked this confrontation, might never have happened. Because, you know, statistically, there is a clear correlation between the availability of firearms, and their illegal use.

Something lawmakers maybe should've thought deeper about before cynically attaching the gun-ban-lifting provisions to credit card reform legislation.

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Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Etiquette / Death / Oh, You Kids! / Nepotism / Drugs You may not believe this, but at least my family has some boundaries.

Posted by Chicago Fan on Wed, Dec 21, 2011 at 10:19 AM

But this takes the cake.

The headline kind of says it all:

"Man eats cocaine from brother's butt, dies."

As one commenter put it, "Crack kills."

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Monday, December 19, 2011

Death / Politics / The Ladies Katha Pollit on Christopher Hitchens

Posted by Dan Savage on Mon, Dec 19, 2011 at 12:37 PM

Writing in The Nation:

So far, most of the eulogies of Christopher have come from men, and there’s a reason for that. He moved in a masculine world, and for someone who prided himself on his wide-ranging interests, he had virtually no interest in women’s writing or women’s lives or perspectives. I never got the impression from anything he wrote about women that he had bothered to do the most basic kinds of reading and thinking, let alone interviewing or reporting—the sort of workup he would do before writing about, say, G.K. Chesterton, or Scientology or Kurdistan. It all came off the top of his head, or the depths of his id. Women aren’t funny. Women shouldn’t need to/want to/get to have a job. The Dixie Chicks were “fucking fat slags” (not “sluts,” as he misremembered later). And then of course there was his 1989 column in which he attacked legal abortion and his cartoon version of feminism as “possessive individualism.” I don’t suppose I ever really forgave Christopher for that.

It wasn’t just the position itself, it was his lordly condescending assumption that he could sort this whole thing out for the ladies in 1,000 words that probably took him twenty minutes to write. “Anyone who has ever seen a sonogram or has spent even an hour with a textbook on embryology knows” that pro-life women are on to something when they recoil at the idea of the “disposable fetus.” Hmmmm… that must be why most OB-GYNs are pro-choice and why most women who have abortions are mothers. Those doctors just need to spend an hour with a medical textbook; those mothers must never have seen a sonogram. Interestingly, although he promised to address the counterarguments made by the many women who wrote in to the magazine, including those on the staff, he never did. For a man with a reputation for courage, it certainly failed him then.

Read the whole thing. (Via Atrios.)

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Sunday, December 18, 2011

Death And What killed North Korea's Leader?

Posted by Charles Mudede on Sun, Dec 18, 2011 at 7:50 PM

You do not know the answer? You really do not know what killed Kim Jong I'll? It was overwork. What did you think it was?

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Death / International Kim Jong Il Dead at 70

Posted by Grant Brissey on Sun, Dec 18, 2011 at 7:26 PM

Bloomberg:

Kim Jong Il, the second-generation North Korean dictator who defied global condemnation to build nuclear weapons while his people starved, has died, Yonhap News reported. He was 70.
The news came in a radio broadcast at noon local time, Yonhap reported, citing North Korea’s official media. Kim probably had a stroke in August 2008 and may have also contracted pancreatic cancer, according to South Korean news reports.

The article goes on to say: "The potential succession of his little-known third son, Kim Jong Un, threatens to trigger a dangerous period for the Korean peninsula, where 1.7 million troops from the two Koreas and the U.S. square off every day."

I did not know that he was a chain smoker.

UPDATE: CBS says he was also believed to have diabetes, which I'm assuming meant Type 2, or adult onset, which means your pancreas still pumps insulin, just not enough of it.

h/t: Slog Tipper Branden M.!

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Death Vaclav Havel

Posted by Dan Savage on Sun, Dec 18, 2011 at 8:30 AM

Dead.

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Thursday, December 15, 2011

Death Christopher Hitchens

Posted by Dan Savage on Thu, Dec 15, 2011 at 9:20 PM

Dead.

UPDATE: Go read Christopher Buckley's heartbreaking eulogy for his friend Hitchens, just posted at the New Yorker.

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Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Death / Books Russell Hoban

Posted by Paul Constant on Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 1:03 PM

Click to enlarge.

The author of the great post-apocalyptic novel Riddley Walker is dead at age 86. If you liked The Road or Clockwork Orange, I'd encourage you to check Riddley Walker out.

But you might know Hoban's name because he also wrote one of Slog tipper Sarah's favorite books, Bread and Jam for Frances. (Like Sarah, I fondly remember Frances's lunch in that book, because it featured a hard-boiled egg with salt, and I had never heard of anything so outrageous when I was three years old. So I think Hoban might have inspired me to eat my first hard-boiled egg, too; books are weird and wonderful things.)

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Friday, December 9, 2011

Crime / Death Mother Allegedly Fakes Cancer For Money

Posted by Cienna Madrid on Fri, Dec 9, 2011 at 10:03 AM

Wow:

Martha Nicholas is charged with obtaining money by false pretenses. Hanover authorities say she lied about having cancer and took money from sympathetic donors, who gave — believing their donations would pay her medical expenses, and hardships related to her illness.

...Nicholas was very public with her personal testimonies and told inspiring made up stories, of surviving four bouts with cancer. Here, she's behind a banner celebrating life wearing a T-shirt that reads, 'Cancer Sucks'. Hanover investigators say they found no evidence of any cancer treatment anywhere.

Even Nicholas's two children were reportedly told that she had terminal cancer. If the allegations prove true, can you imagine what a mindfuck it'll be for these poor kids? It's a Christmas miracle—mommy doesn't have cancer any more! Mommy only lied about having cancer for the free vacations!

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Thursday, December 8, 2011

Death Guns Don't Kill People

Posted by Dominic Holden on Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 2:10 PM

Again at Virginia Tech:

Two people, including a Virginia Tech police officer, were dead after a shooting incident on Virginia Tech's campus in Blacksburg on Thursday, the university said.

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Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Death Death with Dignity

Posted by Dominic Holden on Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 2:25 PM

I know this is Northwest blasphemy and all, but good God, let the Kalakala sink already. How many more news stories can one decrepit boat be expected to float? I know, I know—we've all been told—the Kalakala was fucking exquisite back in her day. But now she's a listing graveyard of mossy bones. It's gonna take more than duct tape to fix her. And anyone who spends $50 million on the restoration budget right now for a machine that will never be truly useful again—when pictures will totally suffice for nostalgic purposes, and we have a functioning ferry system—has their priorities backwards. Kalakala's advocates are warning that she "needs repairs completed to keep her afloat." No! Let the poor thing die.

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Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Health / Death / 2012 If This Doesn't Become Rick Santorum's HPV Vaccine Gaffe...

Posted by Dan Savage on Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 1:12 PM

...then Michele Bachmann has a point about being treated unfairly by the media. Santorum was challenged by a student at a conservative Christian college today:

It started with a freshman who said he's been studying certain books of the Bible recently, which prompted him to ask about healthcare. "God is very angry toward societies that don't care for the poor," student Ryan Walters began. "If not for our social programs, how can we as a society care for our poor? ... With all due respect Sen. Santorum, I don't think God appreciates the fact that we have 50-100 thousand uninsured Americans dying due to a lack of healthcare every year."

"Dying?" Santorum shot back, seeming genuinely taken aback.

"I believe that is a statistic," Walters said.

"So 50 to 100 thousand Americans are dying due to lack of healthcare?"

"And preventable diseases, yes sir."

"Healthcare and preventable diseases? Where did you get that number?"

The student said he believed it was from "statistical evidence."

Santorum said people "don't get statistical evidence from thin air" and said, "I reject that number completely, that people die in America because of lack of health insurance."

That stat wasn't pulled out of thin air:

Research released this week in the American Journal of Public Health estimates that 45,000 deaths per year in the United States are associated with the lack of health insurance. If a person is uninsured, "it means you're at mortal risk," said one of the authors, Dr. David Himmelstein, an associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. The researchers examined government health surveys from more than 9,000 people aged 17 to 64, taken from 1986-1994, and then followed up through 2000. They determined that the uninsured have a 40 percent higher risk of death than those with private health insurance as a result of being unable to obtain necessary medical care. The researchers then extrapolated the results to census data from 2005 and calculated there were 44,789 deaths associated with lack of health insurance.

Hopefully there's a journalist out there who's half as brave as this student—a kid at a conservative Christian college (Santorum initial reaction to this student's line of questioning: "You go to Dordt College and ask me that question?")—who'll ask Santorum some follow up questions about his factually untrue statement. Santorum is entitled to his own opinions, as the saying goes, but not his own facts. Thousands of Americans are dying every year for lack of access to health care and Rick Santorum wants to make sure Americans keep dying for lack of health insurance. Santorum should be forced to make a case for our cruel and un-Christian health care system.

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