RIP

[Martina]

He sure paid the price for freedom of speech. Another reason to treasure it.

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituari...,3519449.story

Nguyen Chi Thien dies at 73; poet, Vietnamese prisoner
Poet Nguyen Chi Thien, a familiar figure in Orange County's Little Saigon, wrote about democracy and his persecution in North Vietnam. He died Tuesday at 73.

By Anh Do, Los Angeles Times

October 5, 2012
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The poet was a familiar figure, striding through Little Saigon, sipping tea, sharing wisdom, his head covered with his trademark fedora. He liked to read through the night, not too tired to dissect a bit of homeland politics.

He lived simply, renting rooms in other people's homes, wearing the same suits for appearances, offering thanks for gifts of fruit and books. Early Tuesday, he died just as quietly in a Santa Ana hospital after suffering chest pain. Nguyen Chi Thien, 73, the acclaimed author of "Flowers From Hell," was revered for his modesty and creativity, thriving through 27 years of imprisonment, much of it in isolation.

"For him to live that long, in an existence that dramatic, is precious," said Doan Viet Hoat, a friend and fellow democracy activist.

"I think his whole life has been a lonely life, and it touched his thinking," he said. "It made him the person he is. And he is someone who understands humanity, society and the regime" in Hanoi.

In 1960, while working as a substitute teacher at a high school in his homeland, he opened a textbook stating that the Soviet Union triumphed over the Imperial Army of Japan in Manchuria, bringing an end to World War II. That's not true, he explained to students. The United States defeated Japan when it dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Nguyen, born in Hanoi on Feb. 27, 1939, paid for his remark with three years and six months in labor camps, charged with spreading propaganda, according to the online Viet Nam Literature Project.

In jail, Nguyen began composing poems in his head, memorizing them. Police arrested him again in 1966, condemning his politically irreverent verses, distributed in Hanoi and Haiphong, and sending him back to prison, this time for more than 11 years. He was released in 1977, two years after the fall of Saigon.

In 1979, he walked into the British Embassy in Hanoi with a manuscript of 400 poems, according to the Viet Nam Literature Project. British diplomats promised to ferry his poetry out of the country.

Jailed again, he spent the next 12 years at Hoa Lo prison — infamous as the Hanoi Hilton.

While he was locked up, his collected writings were published as "Flowers From Hell," initially in Vietnamese, then translated into English, which helped him win the International Poetry Award in Rotterdam, Netherlands, in 1985. An anthology of his poems later became available in French, German, Dutch, Spanish, Chinese and Korean.

"He represents a devotion to imagination and to intellect. He was very concerned with what I consider to be a great theme of Vietnamese literature — piercing beyond illusion," said Dan Duffy, founder of the Viet Nam Literature Project.

"He not only survived all those years" in captivity, Duffy added, "he glowed with special insight."

By 1991, as socialism crumbled in Europe, Nguyen emerged from prison with a worldwide following. Human Rights Watch honored him in 1995 — the same year he resettled in the United States.

"He couldn't sit still too long, for he had been forced to be still. His life became his work. He's still here. He's immortal," said Jean Libby, who launched vietamreview.net and who edited Nguyen's prison prose, "Hoa Lo/Hanoi Hilton Stories."

Nguyen was hospitalized at Western Medical Center in Santa Ana and underwent testing for lung cancer when he died. He had tuberculosis as a youth.

"He accepted the coming death. His mind and his spirit were always open," said author and human rights activist Tran Phong Vu, who remained at his friend's hospital bedside. The men had taped a TV cable show together on Vietnamese current events, sharing a final meal of My Tho noodles, just days before Nguyen's passing.

Nguyen never married and had no children.

But his work, stanzas that became as familiar as songs, keeping his soul alive in the darkness of confinement, continue to move the Vietnamese immigrant generation — and their sons and daughters. As translated by the journalist Nguyen Ngoc Bich, he wrote:

There is nothing beautiful about my poetry

It's like highway robbery, oppression, TB blood cough

There is nothing noble about my poetry

It's like death, perspiration, and rifle butts

My poetry is made up of horrible images

Like the Party, the Youth Union, our leaders, the Central Committee

My poetry is somewhat weak in imagination

Being true like jail, hunger, suffering

My poetry is simply for common folks

To read and see through the red demons' black hearts.

[Kobi]

DETROIT (AP) — Alex Karras was one of the NFL's most feared defensive tackles throughout the 1960s, a player who hounded quarterbacks and bulled past opposing linemen.

And yet, to many people he will always be the lovable dad from the 1980s sitcom "Webster" or the big cowboy who famously punched out a horse in "Blazing Saddles"and delivered the classic line: "Mongo only pawn in game of life."

The rugged player, who anchored the Detroit Lions' defense and then made a successful transition to an acting career, with a stint along the way as a commentator on "Monday Night Football," died Wednesday. He was 77.

His death also will be tied to the NFL's conflict with former players over concussions. Karras in April joined the more than 3,500 football veterans suing the league for not protecting them better from head injuries, immediately becoming one of the best-known names in the legal fight. The family had not yet decided whether to donate Karras' brain for study, as other families have done.

Recently, his wife said Karras' quality of life had deteriorated because of head injuries sustained during his playing career. He was formally diagnosed with dementia several years ago and has had symptoms for more than a dozen years.

For all his prowess on the field, Karras may have gained more fame when he turned to acting in the movies and on television.

Aside from Blazing Saddles and Webster, Karras also appeared in the movies Paper Lion, Porky's, Victor/Victoria, Against All Odds, and portrayed the husband of famed female athlete "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias in the TV movie that starred Susan Clark, who later became his wife.

[Arwen]

Originally Posted by Kobi

I loved his role in Victor/Victoria. Really did a fine job of coming out and making it a sensitive thing even in the middle of the comedy.

[Kobi]

Gary Collins co-starred, with Jack Warden and Mark Slade, in the 1965 series The Wackiest Ship in the Army. He starred in the 1972 television series The Sixth Sense as parapsychologist Dr. Michael Rhodes and in the 1974 series Born Free as wildlife conservationist George Adamson.

Collins guest-starred on dozens of television shows since the 1960s, including Perry Mason, The Virginian, Hawaii Five-O, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Love Boat, Charlie's Angels, Friends, and JAG. He had roles in the 1969 Andy Griffith film Angel in My Pocket, and in the 1970 film Airport. He also played the heroic co-pilot in the 1977 film The Night They Took Miss Beautiful.

Collins hosted the television talk show Hour Magazine from 1980 to 1988, and co-hosted the ABC television series The Home Show from 1989 to 1994. He was the host of the Miss America Pageant from 1982 to 1990.

Collins was married to former Miss America, Mary Ann Mobley, from 1967 until his death.

[Stud_puppy1991]

Rest In Peace to Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes who died earlier this April

[Arwen]

Arlen Specter, a gruff, independent-minded moderate who spent three decades in the U.S. Senate but was spurned by Pennsylvania voters after switching in 2009 from Republican to Democrat, died on Sunday of cancer, his family said. He was 82.

[Kobi]

Originally Posted by Arwen

Arlen Specter, a gruff, independent-minded moderate who spent three decades in the U.S. Senate but was spurned by Pennsylvania voters after switching in 2009 from Republican to Democrat, died on Sunday of cancer, his family said. He was 82.

Specter rose to prominence in the 1960s as an aggressive Philadelphia prosecutor and as an assistant counsel to the Warren Commission, developing the single-bullet theory that posited just one bullet struck both President Kennedy and Texas Gov. John Connally - an assumption critical to the argument that presidential assassin Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. The theory remains contro versial and was the focus of Oliver Stone's 1991 movie "JFK."

In 1987, Specter helped thwart the Supreme Court nomination of former federal appeals Judge Robert H. Bork - earning him conservative enemies who still bitterly refer to such rejections as being "borked."

But four years later, Specter was criticized by liberals for his tough questioning of Anita Hill at Clarence Thomas' Supreme Court nomination hearings and for accusing her of committing "flat-out perjury." The nationally televised interrogation incensed women's groups and nearly cost him his seat in 1992.

He took credit for helping to defeat President Clinton's national health care plan - the complexities of which he highlighted in a gigantic chart that hung on his office wall for years afterward - and helped lead the investigation into Gulf War syndrome. Following the Iran-Contra scandal, he pushed legislation that created the inspectors general of the CIA.

As a senior member of the powerful Appropriations Committee, Specter pushed for increased funding for stem-cell research, breast cancer and Alzheimer's disease, and supported several labor-backed initiatives in a GOP-led Congress. He also doggedly sought federal funds for local projects in his home state.



Specter was a colorful and interesting pita. I will never forget how he and Orrin Hatch bullied and belittled Anita Hill during the confirmation hearings in a disgusting display of male arrogance.