Category Archives: obituary
Hanoi Hilton Guest
Click St. Pete to enlarge
Can’t speak for Senator McCain but I have to think his finest hour – actually his finest five and a half years – was his time at the Hanoi Hilton. The North Vietnamese shot him down and captured him with two broken arms, a broken leg and a broken shoulder. When they found out his father was an admiral they offered to release him. McCain refused, denying the North Vietnamese propaganda points. His refusal earned him more torture for the next five and a half years in prison.
Billy Graham Joins Stoneman Douglas HS Kids
As news of the death of Billy Graham broke, friends and family of the Stoneman Douglas high school shooting victims gathered at the White House. It was tough to watch but I thought the kids and parents did a great job. The president listened respectfully with no tweeting. But he did encourage teachers to pack heat.
Here’s an editorial tribute to Rev. Graham from the WSJ (you might need a subscription). And here’s a less admiring one by George Will. John Kass of the Chicago Tribune has a good one here about the politics of guns and abortion.
Charles Manson Pallbearers
Charles Manson died this week, in a hospital. He was 83.
He and his cult of followers, the Manson Family, committed the Tate – LaBianca murders near Los Angeles in 1969. They killed 7 people including actress Sharon Tate. She was 8 1/2 months pregnant.
After killing Tate they smeared the word pig on the walls with her blood. Then they sat down to a “family” dinner.
Pallbearers
Kevin Williamson reminds us that Bernardine Dohrn, Jerry Rubin and other ’60s people thought Manson was cool. Dohrn is the wife of Obama pal Bill Ayers. She went on to become a law professor at Northwestern University. Here’s what she had to say about the murders:
“First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach. Wild!”
No, that’s not Jonathan Livingston Seagull in the picture.
Cartoon Magazine Publisher Hugh Hefner Dies
Hugh Hefner was a frustrated cartoonist, so he pursued other interests and founded Playboy magazine.
You probably only read Playboy for the fiction. But I read it for the cartoons. Hefner chose the cartoons for each issue.
Cartoon Magazine Publisher Hugh Hefner
I think he also chose the other pictures that appeared in his magazine. And he developed the “Playboy Philosophy” to help him with that task.
But the world of internet porn and political correctness made things difficult for Playboy. An obit in The Atlantic argues that what Playboy offered was “sanitized – Hefner wanted the centerfolds to exude clean-cut charm rather than exotic allure.”
What it should have offered was more cartoons.
Hef was 91 when he died on Wednesday.
