RIP, famous person

[infinite monkey]

Michael Clarke Duncan, best known for The Green Mile, died from complications from a heart attack. He was only 54.

He also had a very awesome and funny but short-lived role as the father of the girl Jake was dating on Two and a Half Men.

RIP John Coffey

[Trilby]

that's one hell of a smile.

RIP.

[Gravdigr]

I liked the guy. First thing I saw him in was 'The Green Mile'. Good actor, and a great guy apparently. Craig Ferguson has had him on a lot, and they really let it hang out sometimes. Be interesting to watch Ferguson tonight (I think they tape a day ahead), I bet he makes a point to say something about Mr. Duncan's passing.

[Sundae]

I feel I should acknowledge the passing of Max Bygraves.
Dad has a couple of his albums, but mostly to annoy other people.
He used to put them on when his brothers came round.

Farewell then Max.
One of your best known songs was You Need Hands.
You don't any more.

[infinite monkey]

Bye bye Andy Williams. Gosh I remember his show. Remember Cookie Bear?

Thanks for so beautifully singing Mancini's Moon River, Andy. RIP.



Damn song makes me cry anyway.

[Gravdigr]

[infinite monkey]

HAGGIS

[Gravdigr]

Yahoo is reporting that Alex Karras has died.

I just read yesterday that his condition was deteriorating due to kidney failure. I believe he was also suffering from dementia. It's especially sad to see those big, nothing-can-harm-them-type guys go away.

RIP, Mongo.

[Gravdigr]

On a somewhat related note, I read a few weeks ago that one of my favorite feetball players of all time, Jim McMahon, quarterback for the Chicago Bears, one of the toughest qbs in history, is suffering the early stages of dementia.

At 53.

[Sheldonrs]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

On a somewhat related note, I read a few weeks ago that one of my favorite feetball players of all time, Jim McMahon, quarterback for the Chicago Bears, one of the toughest qbs in history, is suffering the early stages of dementia.

At 53.

Karas also suffered from Dementia related to his football days.
He was among those suing the NFL for not doing much regarding head injurys and concussions.

[ZenGum]

While he's not as famous as he deserves to be, I'm posting this here anyway.

John Jamieson Carswell 'Jack' Smart passed away on the 6th of October.

http://www.monash.edu.au/news/show/vale-j.-j.-c.-smart

J.J.C. Smart was one of the most influential professional philosophers in the English-speaking world in the second half of the twentieth century.

In the first place, he was extremely influential as an advocate of a theory in 'metaphysics’ concerning the nature of the soul or mind and its relationship to the human body. This theory, which Smart began defending in the early 1960s, was at first widely dismissed as “the Australian fallacy” (the English philosophers said that the poor fellow, having become Professor at Adelaide, had obviously had his brain addled by the Australian sun). But largely through Smart’s influence various species of Smart’s theory became extremely widely accepted among professional philosophers by the end of the century. The theory Smart launched was the theory that conscious experiences are identical with (and not just correlated with) brain processes. [It was later called "Australian Materialism" and now "Materialism" and is the predominant position today - ZG.]

Smart was also hugely influential as an advocate of a philosophical theory about the nature of time, closely related to Einstein’s theory of relativity. According to this theory time is a “fourth dimension” that is very much more similar than we normally realise to the familiar three dimensions of space. We normally think of things that are distant in space that they exist, even though they are not near to us; but we think of things that are distant in time as if they do not exist. Smart argued that science teaches us that this commonsense attitude to time is a mistake. He argued that although the past is distant from us it does still exist in exactly the same sense that things exist that are distant from us in space.
[New findings in quantum physics seem to require this approach - ZG]

Smart was also hugely influential as an advocate of grounding ethics in an attitude of universal benevolence. And he was influential as an advocate of atheism. Yet he was an atheist who never wavered in his sense of awe and wonder at the incredible beauty of the cosmos that science has discovered our world to be, governed as it is by astoundingly beautiful mathematical laws of nature. On top of that, he was a top bloke. His theoretical support of universal benevolence was accompanied by a genuine, heart-felt benevolence towards his family, friends, and colleagues. He was much loved and will be sorely missed. [I've heard that each year Jack would calculate the average income in Australia, keep that much of his salary fro himself, and give the rest to charity. And there are any number of anecdotes that begin "Jack took some visiting academics from US/UK/Etc for a hike, and ..."- ZG]

Even if he is right in his theory that his whole life does exist, though at a spatiotemporal distance from us, nevertheless the present and future parts of those who knew him, those parts that exist in the years after his death, will be pained by their temporal distance from him.

I had a little to do with him when I was a graduate student. Although he was well retired, he was still on the ball, and was pretty much the archetypical affable old professor type.

Although one time he knocked on my office door and asked for help with his computer, because there were cats running around on the screen and tearing holes in things. He got the idea of a screensaver pretty quickly for an octogenerian.

[BigV]

Smart was also hugely influential as an advocate of grounding ethics in an attitude of universal benevolence. And he was influential as an advocate of atheism. Yet he was an atheist who never wavered in his sense of awe and wonder at the incredible beauty of the cosmos that science has discovered our world to be, governed as it is by astoundingly beautiful mathematical laws of nature.

RIP, this is how I would like to be remembered too.

[Gravdigr]

John Jamieson Carswell 'Jack' Smart

If you got four names and go by a nick name, just change your fucking name. Any one or all of them.

And I've never understood getting 'Jack' from 'John' anyway, it's not shorter, it's not easier to say, so, WTF?!

[Lamplighter]

How's this for thread drift....

PDX TV just had an ad for an event in Seattle.

It's a display of King Tut's funerary items,
The ad says it's the last time these will be on display in North America

I took my family to see the exhibit that was here many years ago,
and we were completely taken by the beauty, and their age.
Although Steve Martin made Tut popular, that exhibit was better .

If you can, take the opportunity to see this display.
Seeing the real objects is so much better than any pictures.

[Spexxvet]

Larry Hagman. Goodbye JR, Major Nelson.