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R.I.P. Tag

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 26, 2016 10 Comments
Earlier this month we brought news about Marine Pfc. George Traver, who was killed during the battle of the Tarawa Atoll in 1943. His body was only recently identified, and preparations made for his return to the U.S. and funeral near Albany, NY. I've learned since that original post that the return of those, like Pfc. Traver, who have been unidentified for several decades, is a project of the History Flight:
History Flight is a true non-profit charity in which 96% of donations go directly to pay for program costs to find and recover the 84,000 missing service members from America's wars of the 20th Century. History Flight is a non-governmental organization dedicated to finding, recovering and repatriating America's war dead to American soil. Over the last ten years History Flight has sent over 100 search and recovery teams all over the world to locate loss sites of missing servicemen and to recover them. History Flight deployed cutting-edge, multi-disciplinary remote-sensing methodologies to find MIA loss sites where more than 500 American Servicemen are still missing.
Through the efforts of History Flight, another fallen hero has returned, Dale Geddes of Grand Island, Nebraska. The Omaha World-Herald reported,  ‘Our boy is coming home:’ After 72 years, World War II Marine Dale Geddes will be buried in Grand Island:
The remains of U.S. Marine Corps Pvt. Dale Robert Geddes of Grand Island, who was killed 72 years ago during the World War II Battle of Tarawa, have been positively identified through DNA comparisons and dental records.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 14, 2016 11 Comments
I'd be surprised if any time is taken out from studying social justice warfare for school children or even college students to study the history of WWII other than to denounce the U.S. for dropping the A-bomb. So the Battle of Tarawa atoll likely means nothing to them. But to the generation that fought WWII and their relatives, and those of us who actually were taught history in school, the term Bloody Tarawa is bone chilling: Most of the Americans killed were gunned down on the beaches during the amphibious landing:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 06, 2016 9 Comments
Just breaking, more to follow. https://twitter.com/ReaganWorld/status/706522349571612672 https://twitter.com/ReaganWorld/status/706528130014580736

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 01, 2016 17 Comments
Andrew Breitbart died four years ago today:
Very sad news to report, just breaking. Andrew Breitbart is dead.... There are few people who are irreplaceable, but Andrew may have been one of those few.
I really can't add a lot to what I wrote the day of his death, A personal note on the death of Andrew Breitbart:
I only spoke once with Andrew Breitbart. He reached out to me, and we spoke by phone. The topic is not important, but I was shocked that he even knew who I was; but as I’ve come to learn, Andrew seemed to know who everyone was in the conservative blogosphere. He was just that way. Since my wife called this morning to let me know of Andrew’s death, it has been hard to focus on anything else. In her words, we don’t have that many bright media lights, and to lose him hurts.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 13, 2016 54 Comments
Just Breaking:
Associate Justice Antonin Scalia was found dead of apparent natural causes Saturday on a luxury resort in West Texas, federal officials said. Scalia, 79, was a guest at the Cibolo Creek Ranch, a resort in the Big Bend region south of Marfa. According to a report, Scalia arrived at the ranch on Friday and attended a private party with about 40 people. When he did not appear for breakfast, a person associated with the ranch went to his room and found a body. Chief U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia, of the Western Judicial District of Texas, was notified about the death from the U.S. Marshals Service.
Justice Scalia leaves behind 28 grandchildren: https://twitter.com/DouthatNYT/status/698629400900870145 A selection of our prior posts about Justice Scalia (apart from dozens of posts about Supreme Court rulings):

Scalia always was the Happy Jurist, and Warrior.

This CBS interview was excellent:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 28, 2016 2 Comments
Former Providence Mayor Vicent "Buddy" Cianci, Jr. has died, The Providence Journal reports. He was a lovable rogue, but definitely a rogue. He transformed Providence from a washed-out industrial blight to the jewel of New England. He was larger than life, and came to epitomize both the power and excesses of personality. My prior post about Cianci's 2014 failed run to serve a third (not consecutive) term summarized his history:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 12, 2015 16 Comments
Tibor Rubin passed away a few days ago at age 86. I didn't recognize the name when I saw some articles about his passing. Now I'm glad I've done some research. Tibor Rubin was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor by President George W. Bush in 2005. That would have been remarkable in itself, since the award is so rarely given. But the award was not for service in Iraq. It was for service in the Korean War.  Stars and Stripes reported at the time:
Just minutes after Tibor Rubin received his medal of honor at a White House ceremony Friday, he announced he still wanted to do more for his country. “I’m working on my second Medal of Honor,” the Korean War veteran said, smiling proudly. “This country has done so much for me. I never figured this was going to happen. I’m just as happy as I can be.” ....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 09, 2015 8 Comments
There I was, minding my own business on Twitter, when Kurt Schlichter retweeted this tweet and it hit me in the gut: What jumped out at me was not just that another American soldier was killed in Afghanistan. It was his hometown, Bristol, Rhode Island. As readers know, I used to live in Rhode Island (where we would be when law school was not in session) until two years ago, when we relocated full time to Ithaca. But Rhode Island emotionally is still home. It's a small state, and everyone knows someone who knows someone. Bristol was just two towns over from where we lived, and it was an easy bicycle ride on the East Bay bike path from Barrington. We often ate in Bristol, or cycled to Roger Williams University (where I taught for a semester) or along Poppasquash Point. Bristol has the oldest continuous 4th of July parade in the nation. While Bristol wasn't home, it was part of home. McKenna is a pretty common name in Rhode Island. So while we didn't know Andrew McKenna or his family, we probably knew someone who knew them.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on August 05, 2015 16 Comments
The British-American historian Robert Conquest died on August 3, 2015, at age 98. That name may not ring a bell to you, but it does to students of Soviet history, of which I was one in college. In the 1960s Conquest documented the extent of Stalin's terror, which outlets such as The NY Times had covered up as they were happening in the 1930s. For that, Conquest was hated. But eventually recognized, including the 2005 Medal of Freedom. The Wall Street Journal writes in its obituary:
Robert Conquest, an Anglo-American historian whose works on the terror and privation under Joseph Stalin made him the pre-eminent Western chronicler of the horrors of Soviet rule, died Monday in Palo Alto, Calif. He was 98 years old. Mr. Conquest’s master work, “The Great Terror,” was the first detailed account of the Stalinist purges from 1937 to 1939. He estimated that under Stalin, 20 million people perished from famines, Soviet labor camps and executions—a toll that eclipsed that of the Holocaust. Writing at the height of the Cold War in 1968, when sources about the Soviet Union were scarce, Mr. Conquest was vilified by leftists who said he exaggerated the number of victims. When the Cold War ended and archives in Moscow were thrown open, his estimates proved high but more accurate than those of his critics....

Posted by Miriam Elman on July 21, 2015 15 Comments
Louis (Lou) Lenart, an American fighter pilot during World War II who later helped to fend off an Egyptian advance on Tel Aviv during Israel’s 1948 War of Independence passed away on Monday (July 20) at his home in the central Israeli city of Ra’anana. Lenart is a legend in Israel, where he’s hailed as “The Man who Saved Tel Aviv”. https://youtu.be/6NH5FYlCrts?t=3m20s On May 29, 1948—just two weeks after the fledgling Jewish state was invaded by the armies of five Arab nations—Lenart led the newly-formed Israel Air Force’s (IAF) first combat mission, stopping a massive Egyptian army column less than 30 miles away from Tel Aviv. In what can only be described as one of the greatest fake-outs in military history, Lenart—who, as the most experienced pilot, led the assault—and his three buddies flew four junk Czech-built German Messerschmitt fighter planes for a country that had no actual airforce. Dropping 70 kilogram bombs on the Egyptian column and attacking them with gunfire, this bit of daring-do managed to convince the Egyptians that there was enough competition in the sky to warrant a retreat. There can be no doubt that Lenart helped to turn the tide of the war.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on March 01, 2015 12 Comments
On March 1, 2012, Andrew Breitbart died. My post upon hearing the news tried to capture what many of us were feeling, including reactions from friends and foes, Andrew Breitbart dead. We've tried our best to remember his death each anniversary: As well as his legacy: Later in the day on March 1, 2012, I wrote A personal note on the death of Andrew Breitbart. There's not much I can add to it now:
I only spoke once with Andrew Breitbart. He reached out to me, and we spoke by phone. The topic is not important, but I was shocked that he even knew who I was; but as I’ve come to learn, Andrew seemed to know who everyone was in the conservative blogosphere. He was just that way. Since my wife called this morning to let me know of Andrew’s death, it has been hard to focus on anything else. In her words, we don’t have that many bright media lights, and to lose him hurts.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on February 16, 2015 5 Comments
Lesley Sue Goldstein, better known as Lesley Gore, was featured for a week in our Video of the Day series in December. She's best known for "It's My Party" but that was just a part, and not even the best, of her music. Fox News reports:
Singer-songwriter Lesley Gore, who topped the charts in 1963 at age 16 with her epic song of teenage angst, "It's My Party," and followed it up with the hits "Judy's Turn to Cry," and the feminist anthem "You Don't Own Me," died Monday. She was 68. Gore died of lung cancer at New York University Langone Medical Center in Manhattan, according to her partner of 33 years, Lois Sasson. "She was a wonderful human being — caring, giving, a great feminist, great woman, great human being, great humanitarian," Sasson, a jewelry designer, told The Associated Press. Brooklyn-born and New Jersey-raised, Gore was discovered by Quincy Jones as a teenager and signed to Mercury Records. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College with a degree in English/American literature. Gore's other hits include "She's A Fool," ''Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows," ''That's the Way Boys Are" and "Maybe I Know." She co-wrote with her brother, Michael, the Academy Award-nominated "Out Here On My Own" from the film "Fame."
Here are two of my favorites:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 22, 2014 10 Comments
He died today. The BBC reports:
Singer Joe Cocker, best known for his cover of the Beatles' With A Little Help From My Friends, has died aged 70, his agent has confirmed. The Sheffield born singer-songwriter had a career lasting more than 40 years with hits including You Are So Beautiful and Up Where We Belong. His agent Barrie Marshall said Cocker, who died after battling lung cancer, was "simply unique". Sir Paul McCartney said he was a lovely guy who "brought so much to the world". Cocker's friend Rick Wakeman, keyboard player for the rock band Yes, called his rendering of With a Little Help From My Friends "sensational" and said: "He had a voice that was just unique."
He'll always be most remembered for his rendition at Woodstock of With A Little Help From My Friends: It was more than a rendition. It became something of a cultural icon:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 20, 2014 21 Comments
Mike Nichols has died at age 83. His accomplishments were many, and are reviewed in the ABC News video at the end of this post. But for me, his great accomplishment was directing The Graduate. There are few movies that had as much of an impact on me growing up as The Graduate. He was married to Diane Sawyer.

Posted by New Neo on August 12, 2014 20 Comments

Suicides, whether famous or not, leave behind a legacy of pain for their families and friends....

Posted by Mandy Nagy on May 17, 2014 6 Comments

Follows passing of Bush family dog Barney, who died last year....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 25, 2014 18 Comments

RIP, The Professor: TV’s Most Famous Professor Dies at Age 89 Because real life professors could not live up to The Professor: The Loss of Trust in Higher Education Nasty guy: Rural Schools Targeted by Obama Administration during Sequestration Don't rub it in: Job Prospects for College Grads in Two Charts Student Debt:...

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