Famous People Who Died

I thought he was already dead until I read the news this morning

A lot of people did. Someone recently wrote to the LA Times on Evangelicals' support of Trump, saying "Billy Graham must be spinning in his grave." When I remarked to several of my friends that Billy Graham didn't have a grave, they said, "Oh, was he cremated?" I then informed them that he was still alive. When I told this to my 33-year-old stepson, he asked, "Who's Billy Graham?" Sic transit!

It doesn't seem fair to Billy Graham to single him out for being a crony of Nixon. He was on cordial terms with all the presidents and many other world leaders of his era. Unlike so many of these big-name evangelists, there was never a hint of personal scandal attached to his name (at least as far as I know). A remarkable and admirable man, even if I probably wouldn't agree with much of his theology.
 
Billy Graham 99 years old. Came to Britain in 1950s when Christianity still prevalent.

He also came in the mid-1980s, I happened to have saw him at Anfield football ground. Quite bold of him considering his anti-Beatles stance.

It doesn't seem fair to Billy Graham to single him out for being a crony of Nixon. .

Was Nixon that bad? He got you out of Vietnam. A brilliant and flawed President, just ask Roger Stone:



roger stone.png
 
"A brilliant and flawed president" is a good way to characterize Nixon. I would perhaps characterize him as a president of "failed greatness." He was certainly more pragmatic and centrist in many ways than much of later "conservatism."

On the subject of evangelists, I got to thinking, in contrast to the noble Billy Graham, of the Rev. Dr. Billy James Hargis. Many of you may not know of him now, but in the early 1960s he led a movement called the Christian Crusade (a rather redundant name on reflection). Anyway, he was extremely fundamentalist, racist and violently anti-communist, which latter was his main schtick. Sometime later he founded an institution called American Christian College. However, he came to grief when a newly married coed at the college, wanting to make everything thing right before the Lord and with her groom, confessed that she'd had sex with Dr. Hargis, whereupon the groom confessed that he too had had sex with Dr. Hargis! What makes this especially gross and hilarious is that Billy James Hargis was a hideous fat man. His (sort of) rival George Lincoln Rockwell used to refer to him as "Hoggis." In one of his publications, Rockwell commented that he would derive a certain wry amusement when the Jews, their takeover completed, executed all the nice Christian conservatives. "Poor Hoggis," he quipped, "the Jews will probably have to use an elephant gun on him." (In case you don't know or remember, Rockwell was the founder and leader of the American Nazi Party until he was murdered by an ex-follower, who had joined a faction that considered Rockwell a soft-hearted pantywaist because he didn't want to exterminate all the Jews on biological grounds. Their publication was entitled Kill.)

Hargis left the American Christian College in disgrace and the institution folded a few years later although Hargis/Hoggis continued evangelizing for some years afterward. I was surprised to hear him on the radio sometime in the mid-80s.
 
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Ken Dodd. Aged 90.

Comedian and old style chart-topping singer.

Always lived in the family house in Liverpool. Not a professional Scouser though.
 
Ken Dodd. Aged 90.

Comedian and old style chart-topping singer.

Always lived in the family house in Liverpool. Not a professional Scouser though.

But he certainly was from the school of great Liverpool stand-up comics. The professional scouser never really worked compare and contrast Arthur Askey to Alexis Sayle. The 80s comedy has dated extremely badly, considering they were arrogantly liberating us from the Two Ronnies and Benny Hill.

A couple of my great uncles and aunts use to speak in the vernacular of Arthur Askey. Not the hard harsh Liverpudlian accent that we often hear today.
 
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Yes he was a good comic who kept going for hours in live performances. Clean non-political routine too.

Askey and Ted Ray did not sound Wayne Rooney Scouse.

Bishop is another useless scouse 'comedian'.
 
Professor Stephen Hawking. R.I.P.

Profoundly disabled but still managed to be a top scientist. Count your blessings.
 

I've just been a tad freaked out by that. I have just finished watching an interview of Thomas Sowell and my mind wonder to Tom Wolfe who was a similar age and every bit as sprightly. After the interview ended I flicked the the browser tab to the BBC website and the breaking news banner at the bottom of the page appeared saying that Wolfe had died!

Big fan of Wolfe, more so his journalism / essays than his novels though. His acerbic, mocking style was more suited to the essay form in my opinion. At is best he was brilliant.

A sad loss.
 
I've just been a tad freaked out by that. I have just finished watching an interview of Thomas Sowell and my mind wonder to Tom Wolfe who was a similar age and every bit as sprightly. After the interview ended I flicked the the browser tab to the BBC website and the breaking news banner at the bottom of the page appeared saying that Wolfe had died!

Big fan of Wolfe, more so his journalism / essays than his novels though. His acerbic, mocking style was more suited to the essay form in my opinion. At is best he was brilliant.

A sad loss.

Quite agree on all points.
 
I still recommend "Mau-Mauing the Flack Catchers" to aspiring activists.
 
From the days when ‘We are Catholic’ was enough to see off pesky Mormons and Jehovahs Witnesses who rang on your doorbell
I still say that - usually with a haarsh Belfast accent - to any proselytising devil-dodgers trying to hand me a pamphlet.
 
Oh, I thought a lot of right-wing people used to refer to (ex) President Barak Obama as "that Mau-Mau Maoist Muslim from Kenya"!
 
“No-one will miss Jeff Goldblum more than me. he was not only a friend and mentor, but he was also me. Jeff Goldblum’s performances combined the muscularity of (Marlon) Brando, the pathos of (Meryl) Streep and the musky sensuality of a pride of baboons” Goldblum said.
 
I see that noted novelist Phillip Roth just died. Never read any of his novels, but then I read very few novels (except for Sir Walter Scott).
 
Tom “The Mongoose” McEwen. Seems like all those races against Prudhomme were just yesterday.
 

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