Anne McCaffrey (1926-2011)

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un.

I am sorry to read that science fiction author Anne McCaffrey, one of my favorite writers, passed away three days ago (on the 21st) of a massive stroke. She was 85.

I've read Anne's work for many years now. I'm not sure exactly what year I began reading her novels, but it was around 1980. While I didn't care much for her non-Pern work (and some of her series, such as the Crystal Singer books, I've never read), I have read most of her Dragonriders of Pern series. (I've only read one of her books co-written with her son, Todd, Dragon Kin, which I didn't find that good.)

In the early 90s, I found out that Anne would be visiting a bookstore near Arizona State University; the only problem was, she was visiting on a Sunday and the Phoenix area at that time had no mass transportation on Sundays. All I had to get around town at that time was a bicycle. Now riding the bike that distance (about 13 miles) was no big deal for me... except that it was a very hot summer's day. So I rode down to the bookstore and arrived fairly sweaty, which Anne couldn't help but notice ("for the run in the sun"). :) Anne was gracious enough to autograph one of her books for me (the above image), which I've kept all these years. So, thank you, Anne, for many hours of reading pleasure all these decades. Insha'allah, I will continue to re-read your books and introduce them to my daughter when she's a little older.

Links for 16 May 2009

Politics:
Countdown: WTF!! Texas Still Wants to Leave the Union (Countdown on Texas's Governor Perry still thinking about seceding from the US)

Rachel Maddow Show: Tracing Torture's Trail (A time line for how torture was used in the run up to the invasion of Iraq and to justify the invasion after the U.S. had already gone in.)

Dennis Kucinich: We're Moving From Industrial Capitalism To Financial Capitalism To Crony Capitalism!

Australian Press Releases Abu Ghraib Photos

Gore: Cheney is in no position to talk ‘about making the country less safe.’

Steele: We Need Guns To Defend Ourselves Against ‘Terrorists’ Coming To ‘Our Communities’ More stupid from the GOP; no doubt lacking any real terrorists, redneck gun owners will kill indiscriminately local innocent Muslims instead.)

Yes, it’s that bad for the GOP (Includes The Colbert Report video, "Stephen's Sound Advice - How to Re-Brand the GOP.")


Economics:
Industrial Production Drop Worse Since WW II

CPI Report (See also Bonddad's post.)


Islam/Muslim Blogs:
The Boys' First Portraits (Abu Sinan's two younger boys had formal portraits taken; those two kids are sooo good looking!)

White privilege and the white convert (An excellent essay by Indigo Jo; on the longish side, but "must read" material.)

Islamic Calligraphy Art of Four Qul (The "Four Qul" being Surahs 109, 112, 113 and 114.)


Miscellaneous:
M97 - The Owl Nebula

C&L's Late Night Music Club with Wayman Tisdale, 1964-2009 (Sadly, Tisdale died the other day, most likely from bone cancer. It was a pleasure to watch him play with the Phoenix Suns for three seasons, from 1995-98. Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un.)

Rochester Institute of Technology's Domino Madness! (If you like watching large sets of dominoes fall, this video will satisfy.)

New Look: Show A Little Leg ("Evidently the New Look is similar to the I Have Polio Look.")

Saturday Morning Matinee: Reach (Cute animation. Check it out!)

Star Trek Movie Quick Recognition Chart (Can't decide which Star Trek film to watch tonight? /film ("Slashfilm") has an interesting flow chart to help you make the right decision!)

Links for 6 May 2009

Politics:
The Daily Show: Republicans, the Lost Party

Countdown's Worst Person: Laura Ingraham

US Airstrike Kills Dozens; Christian Proselytizing in Muslim Afghanistan (Juan Cole has a number of links to the continuing controversy over American troops passing out Bibles as "gifts" in Afghanistan; moreover, that one of the soldiers had pulled the same stunt in Iraq.)

The Georgian Mutiny That Wasn't

You’re only a whore if you show nipple (This is one reason why I'm glad I don't live in the U.S., where the masses and the media obsess over truly trivial people.)

Limbaugh Mocks Recession During Speech To Wealthy Right-Wing Donors

Dodd: Torture investigations may need to go as high as Cheney’s office.

Q: Even if it goes up as high as — A lot of this stuff seems to point toward Cheney’s office.

DODD: You gotta go where you gotta go.

Business:
20 resumes and 40 business cards FREE from Staples (For everyone in the US unemployed during this recession, now might be a good time to go visit Staples.)

Branding: The Psychology of Color


Economics:
You Are Here (That second graph puts the whole stock market into perspective, doesn't it?)

James Galbraith remarks (A similar post about Galbraith's speech was posted on Economist's View on May 2nd.)

There is a difference between then and now?

What a shame we let ourselves be talked into the “creative destruction” of the rail system, an asset that represents $3.3 trillion dollars in unskilled wages. That's a lot of labor just gone. It represents a relative share of GDP bigger than our actual current GDP! It makes you think about who has managed their wealth better; the US? or Europe who did not creatively destroy their original investment, but built upon it and thus saved themselves from having to generate as much income as we have had to in order to have our now killing us (war for oil?, pollution, resource waste, etc), personal transportation system. I guess that is why we don't get to have 6 weeks vacation for all, we have to work to rebuild what we had.

Islam/Muslim Blogs:
What do you get (Naeem's amusing account about being on "The Road to Mecca." :) There's an interesting overhead photo of al-Masjid al-Haram from his hotel window.)


Miscellaneous:
Cosmos/The Matrix Mashup (Someone with too much time on their hands has overdubbed "Agent Smith" with Carl Sagan's voice from "Cosmos" in a scene from the first Matrix movie.)

Actor, comedian Dom DeLuise dies at 75 (Below, Dom in Mel Brook's "Blazing Saddles" - The French Mistake:)

Movie Sunday: Harvey Korman, RIP

I just read that Harvey Korman died Thursday, May 29th, due to complications from a rupture of an abdominal aortic aneurysm. Instead of doing our normal focus on one movie today, I thought I'd pay tribute to Korman by showing two clips of his work. Perhaps like many people, I remember Korman best for his work on The Carol Burnett Show and for his role as "Hedley Lamarr" in the Mel Brooks comedy, "Blazing Saddles." [Unfortunately, the quality of this first clip isn't terribly good, but I thought the material was funnier than some of the other clips available.]

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un.

Taggart: What do you want me to do, sir?

Hedley Lamarr: I want you to round up every vicious criminal and gunslinger in the west. Take this down.

[Taggart looks for a pen and paper while Hedley talks]

Hedley Lamarr: I want rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists.

Taggart: [finding pen and paper] Could you repeat that, sir?

Hedley Lamarr: Repeat after me: I...

Men: I...

Hedley Lamarr: ...your name...

Men: ...your name...

Hedley Lamarr: [to himself] Shmucks. [continues aloud] ... do pledge allegiance...

Men: ...do pledge allegiance...

Hedley Lamarr: ...to Hedley Lamarr...

Men: ...to Hedy Lamarr...

Hedley Lamarr: That's *Hedley!*

Men: That's Hedley.

"I Told Him So"

It's going to be a little odd this summer when The Dark Knight comes out in July, considering that Heath Ledger played "The Joker" for this film. No doubt his recent death will stir up a lot of publicity when the film comes out. According to Ledger's IMDB page (the link above), Ledger was the lead star for one other movie currently filming, Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. One suspects that they may need to start from scratch.

In the meantime, there's an odd story about Jack Nicholson having warned Ledger about the rigor of taking on the role of The Joker:

Jack Nicholson has hinted he warned tragic Heath Ledger against taking on the role of The Joker in the new Batman film. Ledger, 28 - who was declared dead at 3:30pm at his Manhattan apartment on Tuesday - publicly declared himself exhausted and sleep deprived in November following the grueling shoot for The Dark Knight. He also revealed in an interview with the New York Times he'd resorted to taking sleeping pills - an overdose of which is believed to be the cause of his death - in a desperate bid to catch up on rest. And Nicholson, who famously portrayed the menacing Joker in Tim Burton's 1989 movie Batman, implied to the waiting crowd outside plush London restaurant The Wolesley on Tuesday night he spoke to Ledger about his role in The Dark Knight - and warned him about the pitfalls of taking on such a demanding challenge. When asked by the London crowds for his reaction to Ledger's untimely demise, a defeated Nicholson simply replied, "I told him so." Batman Begins prequel The Dark Knight is due to be released in July.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un

Odd Stories from Asia

I picked up a copy of Asia Weekly yesterday; this is a small magazine published in Hong Kong, made up primarily of news stories about Asia from newspapers and magazines worldwide. In a recent issue (#40; December 10th-16th), there were a number of short but very odd stories that are worth sharing.

First, in the "Would You Believe It?" section, a couple of stories from China:

Health requirements are so strict for women hoping to enter the People's Liberation Army that some recruits try to make up for deficient oral health by replacing their rotten gnashers with dog teeth, reports China's Shenyang Evening News. According to an "unnamed military expert," one recruit from a recent class of 268 young women in Shenyang "failed her physical check last week because she had canine [dog's] teeth."

Doctors in China admit they are baffled after a man began to perspire green sweat. Cheng Shunguo, 52, of Wuhan, says his sweat turned green in the middle of November. "I noticed that my underwear and bed sheets were all green," he said, reports Ananova. Doctors carried out blood tests on Cheng, but found everything to be normal. "We cannot find the cause," admitted a spokesman for the hospital, which reported the case to media in the hope of finding a solution. In 2004, a similar case was reported in China's Guangdong province.

A migrant worker from Chengdu has suffered from a "strange affliction" since 1996, reports China Daily. When suddenly gripped by bouts of the unknown illness, the middle-aged woman is only able to walk backwards. Doctors have been unable to find the cause.

The next story comes from a two-page feature, "My Own Private Korea," which is a selection of excerpts from the writings of George Clayton Foulk, an American naval officer who was an intelligence officer attached to the US Embassy in Korea in the early 1880s (and who was fluent in Korean). The following excerpt comes from the forthcoming book, Inside the Hermit Kingdom: The 1884 Korea Travel Diary of George Clayton Foulk (which sounds fascinating):

A private encounter with two female entertainers:
At one place, two rather pretty girls came in. As usual at first, they were scared out of their wits at the sight of a man with short hair, and "red" (brown) at that. But after I had showed them a mirror, some photographs, &c., and had talked a while, they became quite at home. They sang for me, and told me stories. Suddenly one of them, the prettiest too, reached behind her and brought out a brass bowl, the Korean chamber pot, which girls of caste and officers always carry with them (by a servant) when they go away from home. Without moving an inch from her position, three feet from me, she put this under her clothes, and while she made the pot ring, went on with her conversation as if nothing at all unusual was going on! Great Caesar! I have been to strange lands, but I never experienced anything like this!

Finally, an obituary for a Malaysian policeman who had plenty of chances to die while on duty but finally passed away at home:

To most of his colleagues, as well as the criminals he was chasing, Kulasingam Sabaratnam, or "Kula," might have well been the toughest person they knew on the Royal Malaysian Police Force, says The New Straits Times. He was known for taking risks and surviving them. "Since you all have wives and families, let me go first," he usually told his officers before an action. "I'm not married." Kulasingam's fierce dedication to his work helped to bring about the demise of 25 secret societies and several of the most notorious criminals active in Malaysia during the 1970s, such as the "infamous" robber Botak Chin. In his 35 years on the fource, Kula was spashed with acid, shot, attacked by an axe-wielding psychopath and nearly crushed by a falling tree. In the end, he died after slipping in his bathroom and fracturing a hip. He was bedridden after hip-replacement surgery and died November 29 at the age of 77 after contracting pneumonia. Over 200 people paid their last respects to the former Johor Criminal Investigation Department chief at his funeral.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raje'un.

Dan Fogelberg, RIP

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raje'un

This is a few days late, but I wanted to pay tribute to a great singer, Dan Fogelberg, who died of prostate cancer last Sunday, the 16th, at the age of 56. (Guys, if you haven't had a medical checkup in a while, now's the time!)

The following video is of Dan in concert, singing his 1981 hit, "Leader of the Band" (run time: 4:28), my favorite song of his.

Richard Jeni, RIP

Sadly, another obituary to report. Richard Jeni, the 49-year-old comedian, shot himself in the face on Saturday. The police are not sure at this time whether the shooting was an accident or a suicide attempt. He was still alive at his West Hollywood home when the police arrived, but died at a nearby hospital.

I hadn't seen Jeni perform in years, but I did like his act, especially "Platypus Man," both the comedy special and TV series on UPN. His "Clamato" joke was classic. (For those who don't know or don't remember, Jeni always wondered who could think up a product like Clamato, which is tomato juice with clam broth and corn syrup. He would pretend to drink a glass of tomato juice, then whistle and say, "Needs fish!" :) )

Cheers, Richard!

Brad Delp, RIP

Boston, Don't Look Back (Live)



ATKINSON, N.H. -- Brad Delp, the lead singer for the band Boston, was found dead Friday in his home in southern New Hampshire. He was 55.

Atkinson police responded to a call for help at 1:20 p.m. and found Delp dead. Lt. William Baldwin said in a news release that there was no indication of foul play.

"There was nothing disrupted in the house. He was a fairly healthy person from what we're able to ascertain," Police Chief Philip Consentino told WMUR-TV.

Delp apparently was alone at the time, Baldwin said.

The cause of death remained under investigation.

Delp sang on Boston's 1976 hits "More than a Feeling" and "Long Time." He also sang on Boston's most recent album, "Corporate America," released in 2002.

He joined the band in the early 1970s after meeting Tom Scholz, an MIT student interested in experimental methods of recording music, according to the group's official Web site. The band enjoyed its greatest success and influence during its first decade.

The band's last appearance was in November 2006 at Boston's Symphony Hall.

On Friday night, the Web site was taken down and replaced with the statement: "We just lost the nicest guy in rock and roll." [Note: This statement is still on the website as of the time of this posting.]

Maynard Ferguson: 1928 - 2006

From Allah (swt) do we come, and unto Allah do we return. I'm sorry to hear that Maynard Ferguson has passed away. He was 78.

For those of us in the drum corps activity, Maynard was a major inspiration. My corps in 1978, the Empire State Express, played Maynard's arrangement of "Scheherazade," from the "New Vintage" album. It's a great song, and very typical of Maynard's style, with the elongated, park-and-blow double high C. On the recording, Maynard holds that double high C for - oh - 45 seconds or so. Our lead soprano could only hold it for about 20 seconds at the most. Theories abounded as to how Maynard could hold the note for so long, the most popular being "circular breathing," where Maynard could somehow both breathe in and play the trumpet simultaneously. The article linked above suggests that Maynard credited yoga for his ability to sustain his notes.

Maynard: You will be missed.

Kirby Puckett (1961-2006)

I'm a little surprised and saddened to hear that Kirby Puckett died the other day in Phoenix. At 45, he was waaay too young to die (he was only a few months older than me). I'm not a Minnesota Twins fan, and I didn't get to see the Twins play much on TV (usually only when they were in the post-season). However, I do know what "Puck" meant to the fans of the Twins. My strongest memory of Kirby was actually when he wasn't playing, when he was in the middle of a contract dispute, and the Twins fans at the Metrodome began singing a variation on John Lennon's song: "All we are saying is give Puck the cash." Puckett did ultimately win the contract dispute, but his career ended soon thereafter due to his eye problem.

From Allah (swt) do we come, and to Him do we return.

Rest in peace, Kirby.