Celebrity Death Watch: Charles Evers was the mayor of Fayette, Mississippi and brother of Medgar. Joan Feynman was an astrophysicist who did a lot of work re: space weather, including auroras. Bo Black directed Summerfest, a major music festival in Milwaukee. Rene Carpenter was the ex-wife of astronaut Scott Carpenter who became a columnist and ( Read more... )

Shiva Call: No matter how old I get, it never gets easier to pay shiva calls. But I do appreciate the importance to mourners of people offering condolences. I was glad I went Tuesday evening, because one of Bob’s daughters told me how much Voices in the Glen (the storytelling group I knew him from) meant to him.

Embassy of India: I went ot an ( Read more... )

I am busy at work and busy at home since I am going on vacation soon and in the usual pre-vacation mad rush. I have a few other things to write about due to the three unexpected things meme, but that will be a separate entry (or maybe more than one).

Celebrity Death Watch: Roger Hirson was a writer, primarily for television, but also of the book ( Read more... )

Dinner in Sweden: The MIT Club of Washington had its annual meeting at the House of Sweden last night. The buffet dinner had reasonable variety and everything was quite tasty. The menu included roasted vegetable grain salad, potato salad with herbs, green salad, turkey meatballs with lingonberry sauce, salmon with cucumber and tartar sauce, ( Read more... )

I have political rants to inflict on people, but let me first speak of what I have been up to.

Celebrity Death Watch: Sachio Kinugasa was a Japanese baseball player who played in 2215 consecutive games. Alice Provensen illustrated (and later wrote) children’s books. Larry Harvey founded Burning Man. Judith Leiber designed handbags (and died the ( Read more... )

Celebrity Death Watch: Vladimir Voevodsky was a mathematician. Tom Alter was in over 300 Bollywood films. Ralphie May was a comedian. Joseph Schmitt designed spacesuits for the earliest astronauts. Nora Johnson wrote The World of Henry Orient. Armando Calderon Sol was the first president of El Salvador after their civil war. Edna Dummerth ( Read more... )

I've been busy for most of the past week.

Celebrity Death Watch: Ara Parseghian coached football for Notre Dame and appears in crosswords fairly often. Judith Jones edited cookbooks. Ernst Zundel was a Holocaust denier. Darren Daulton played baseball, largely for the Phillies. Don Baylor also played baseball, including a stint with the Red ( Read more... )

Celebrity Death Watch: Glenna Sue Kidd played for a number of teams in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. William Baumol was an economist and came up with a theory about why services will always increase in price, unlike goods. William David Brohn arranged and orchestrated music for a number of Broadway musicals, notably ( Read more... )

I have thoughtful brilliance to write, but this ain't it. However, I have done a few things lately...

Celebrity Death Watch: William Peter Blatty wrote The Exorcist. Alan Jabbour was a fiddler and founded the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. Dick Gautier is best known for having played Hymie the Robot on Get Smart, but I ( Read more... )

Celebrity Death Watch: This was a bad time for transgender performers, with the deaths of both The Lady Chablis and Alexis Arquette. Other notable deaths are of children’s book author Anna Dewdney, electronics retailer and embezzler "Crazy Eddue" Antar, and ska musician, Prince Buster, who has now gone "One Step Beyond."

Embassy of Costa Rica: My ( Read more... )