May 7th, 2008
by Robert Starvation
Lost in the hustle and bustle of the last few days was the passing of Mildred Loving. It’s a name few are familiar with, but one that had an indelible impact on the social fabric of the United States. Mildred Loving was a black woman from Virginia with no great political or societal aspirations. She just happened to marry Richard Loving, a white man, in a time and a place where it was not only frowned upon, it was outlawed.
She became pregnant a few years later, she and Loving got married in Washington in 1958, when she was 18. Mildred told the AP she didn’t realize it was illegal. “I think my husband knew,” Mildred said. “I think he thought (if) we were married, they couldn’t bother us.”
But they were arrested a few weeks after they returned to Central Point, their hometown in rural Caroline County north of Richmond. They pleaded guilty to charges of “cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth,” according to their indictments.
(more…)
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Posted in In Memoriam, History | No Comments »
May 1st, 2008
by Robert Starvation
“If taken into custody, my physical safety and most probably my very life would be jeopardized. … Rape, beating, maiming, disfigurement and more than likely murder disguised in the form of just another jailhouse accident or suicide would await me.” —Deborah Jeane Palfrey
Not to sound paranoid, but can a person name as many powerful names as D.C. Madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey did and walk away unscathed?
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Posted in In Memoriam, Politics | 8 Comments »
April 30th, 2008
by Robert Starvation
From fucking old to fucking dead: Albert Hofmann, the “father” of Lysergic acid diethylamide, died in Switzerland yesterday at the age of 102. Hofmann was a passionate advocate for the careful medical use of LSD, strenuously objecting to the United States’ (and subsequently, other countries’) ban on the substance instated in 1966.
Hofmann maintained this was unfair, arguing that the drug was not addictive. He repeatedly argued for the ban to be lifted to allow LSD to be used in medical research.
Near the end of his life, though, Hofmann achieved a degree of success in his native country.
Last December, Swiss authorities decided to allow LSD for psychotherapy in exceptional cases.
“For me, this is a very big wish come true. I always wanted to see LSD get its proper place in medicine,” he told Swiss TV at the time.
It was a fitting parting gift before he took one last bicycle ride into the great unknown.
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Posted in In Memoriam | 1 Comment »
April 6th, 2008
by KK4
Little known fact: Charlton Heston actually had the ability to part the Red Sea. He just chose not to.
Charlton Heston, star of epic films such as The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur, which still capture the imagination after several decades in spite of advances in Hollywood special effects, was shaken loose of the mortal coil on Saturday night. Heston was 84 years old. He had become known late in his life as the voice of the NRA, where he used the bully pulpit to famously state that the right to keep and bear arms would have to be taken “from my cold dead hands.” He was later the victim of attempted character assassination at the hands of Michael Moore, whom I do not have a kind word for, in his film Bowling for Columbine.
Heston was more than a president of the NRA, however. He was committed to the rights of all people, and called the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. the Moses of his people. He was a strong supporter of civil rights and the Arts. Heston served as the president of the Screen Actors Guild, was a supporter of Ronald Reagan and was appointed by Reagan to the National Endowment for the Arts. Elected President of the NRA four times, beginning in 1998, Heston chose to step down in 2002 following being diagnosed with symptoms similar to Alzheimer’s disease.
Heston, who was born in the Midwest and served in the Army Air Corps in the Aleutian Islands during the Second World War, was often cast in larger-than-life roles where his granite character lent itself to his performances. In his 60 year career, he played a myriad of characters: A Biblical Patriarch, an Astronaut, a Cardinal and even three Presidents of the United States.
Good night, Mr. Heston. Your hands may now be cold and dead, but no one can dare take anything which you accomplished in your life away from you.
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March 19th, 2008
by Robert Starvation
Does writing science fiction prolong an author’s life? Arthur C Clarke died yesterday at the age of 90. 90. None of that Ernest Hemingway “I nuked my liver with booze, now I have to die” shit. Meanwhile, Clarke is 90 when his body finally gets around to dying, and another noted science fiction Author, Ray Bradbury, is goddamn 87. These scribes who dare to dream of impossible futures are near-immortal ubermensches.
But just because they create entire universes in their minds (making them, at the very least, demi-gods among mortals) doesn’t mean they were without failings. The British expatriate Clarke probably wasn’t, but was still accused of being a pederast in the UK’s Sunday Mirror tabloid. Charges were never brought against Clarke for Sri Lankan kid-diddling. You do not, apparently, fuck with the Arthur.
Worse still, 2001 and, I fear, 2010 were historically inaccurate lies. We didn’t get disembodied homicidal artificial intelligence, we got George W. Bush. I would would have preferred to take my chances with HAL. And the movie version of 2001 is damn near unwatchable. Some you will point out that Clarke didn’t direct 2001, and rightly so. Critically lauded director Stanley Kubric did - but the truth doesn’t make 2001 any more watchable.
Returning to an approximation of reality, Arthur C Clarke was most influential as a futurist. From his 1945 paper “Extra-Terrestrial Relays: Can Rocket Stations Give Worldwide Radio Coverage?” came the idea for geosynchronous satellites, which are in use today. From the wellspring of Clarke’s mind flowed idea after idea, which we can only hope are someday developed for widespread use (I’m looking at you, moondozer.)
(Hat tip to Wired for the above.)
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Posted in Science and Technology, In Memoriam | 3 Comments »
