Who's Next To Croak?

[Alethia]

inspector gadget is dead.  oh goodness.  rip.

[modage]

i used to love get smart.  

[72teeth]

August Wilson died...im trying to find more details...

Here we go:

August Wilson, 1945-2005: Playwright gave voice to black experience

By JOE ADCOCK
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER THEATER CRITIC

August Wilson, whose cycle of plays capturing the African American experience in the 20th century made him one of the country's most admired playwrights, died Sunday at Swedish Medical Center surrounded by his family. He was 60.

Wilson, who had lived in Seattle for the past 15 years, was diagnosed with liver cancer in June.

Wilson's life ended shortly after he completed an immense task that he set for himself about 20 years ago -- writing 10 interconnected plays about the African American experience in the United States. Each play is set in a different decade of the 20th century.

The final work in the cycle, "Radio Golf," premiered last spring at the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven and played late summer at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.

Two of Wilson's plays, "Fences" and "The Piano Lesson," won Pulitzer Prizes -- in 1987 and 1990, respectively.[/i]

more here:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/theater/243163_wilsonobit03.html

[cine]

Good evening, I'm Charles Rocket. Here now the news.

I committed suicide Oct. 7 in Connecticut. I was 56.

I was the Weekend Update anchor on "Saturday Night Live" in 1980 and 1981, and was fired from the show after saying "fuck" on the air. I went on to make numerous appearances on TV shows and in features.

Born Charles Claverie in Bangor, Maine, I attended the Rhode Island School of Design. I was active in the burgeoning RISD arts scene, where I formed the band the Fabulous Motels and then became a newscaster under the name Charles Kennedy. I worked on newscasts in Colorado Springs and Nashville before landing much more irreverent SNL gig, where I also performed my own "Rocket Reports" skits.

I appeared in feature films including "Earth Girls are Easy," "Dances with Wolves," "It's Pat" and "Dumb and Dumber." My last film role was in the 2003 Sylvester Stallone film "Shade." On TV, I appeared on shows including "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," "Cybill," "Touched by an Angel" and "thirtysomething."

I played accordion in many bands, performing (with Debbie Harry and Chris Stein of Blondie) on a tribute album to Fellini composer Nino Rota.

I am survived by my wife, Beth and a son.

I'm Charles Rocket. Good night and watch out.

[72teeth]

oh...didnt see that one coming...

[72teeth]

he slit his throat! i wonder what could been so bad that it leads you to off yourself in such a painful way... It's Pat wasn't that bad...

[matt35mm]

I know not many people here know the band, but Dallas Cook from Suburban Legends (played trombone) died last night.  He was in a motorcycle accident--a hit-and-run with an SUV.  I happened to be wearing a shirt with his signature when I found out this morning.  It's been an "aware of everyone's and my mortality" day.

Lots of people loved him.  He'll be missed.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

R.I.P. - Rosa Parks

Civil Rights Pioneer Rosa Parks Dies at 92
By BREE FOWLER, Associated


DETROIT - Rosa Lee Parks, whose refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man sparked the modern civil rights movement, died Monday evening. She was 92.

Mrs. Parks died at her home during the evening of natural causes, with close friends by her side, said Gregory Reed, an attorney who represented her for the past 15 years.

Mrs. Parks was 42 when she committed an act of defiance in 1955 that was to change the course of American history and earn her the title "mother of the civil rights movement."

At that time, Jim Crow laws in place since the post-Civil War Reconstruction required separation of the races in buses, restaurants and public accommodations throughout the South, while legally sanctioned racial discrimination kept blacks out of many jobs and neighborhoods in the North.

The Montgomery, Ala., seamstress, an active member of the local chapter of the     National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was riding on a city bus Dec. 1, 1955, when a white man demanded her seat.

Mrs. Parks refused, despite rules requiring blacks to yield their seats to whites. Two black Montgomery women had been arrested earlier that year on the same charge, but Mrs. Parks was jailed. She also was fined $14.

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick said he felt a personal tie to the civil rights icon: "She stood up by sitting down. I'm only standing here because of her."

The Rev.     Al Sharpton called Mrs. Parks "a gentle woman whose single act changed the most powerful nation in the world. ... One of the highlights of my life was meeting and getting to know her."

Speaking in 1992, Mrs. Parks said history too often maintains "that my feet were hurting and I didn't know why I refused to stand up when they told me. But the real reason of my not standing up was I felt that I had a right to be treated as any other passenger. We had endured that kind of treatment for too long."

Her arrest triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus system organized by a then little-known Baptist minister, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who later earned the Nobel Peace Prize for his work.

"At the time I was arrested I had no idea it would turn into this," Mrs. Parks said 30 years later. "It was just a day like any other day. The only thing that made it significant was that the masses of the people joined in."

The Montgomery bus boycott, which came one year after the Supreme Court's landmark declaration that separate schools for blacks and whites were "inherently unequal," marked the start of the modern civil rights movement.

The movement culminated in the 1964 federal Civil Rights Act, which banned racial discrimination in public accommodations.

After taking her public stand for civil rights, Mrs. Parks had trouble finding work in Alabama. Amid threats and harassment, she and her husband Raymond moved to Detroit in 1957. She worked as an aide in the Detroit office of Democratic U.S. Rep. John Conyers (news, bio, voting record) from 1965 until retiring in 1988. Raymond Parks died in 1977.

Mrs. Parks became a revered figure in Detroit, where a street and middle school were named for her and a papier-mache likeness of her was featured in the city's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Mrs. Parks said upon retiring from her job with Conyers that she wanted to devote more time to the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development. The institute, incorporated in 1987, is devoted to developing leadership among Detroit's young people and initiating them into the struggle for civil rights.

"Rosa Parks: My Story" was published in February 1992. In 1994 she brought out "Quiet Strength: The Faith, the Hope and the Heart of a Woman Who Changed a Nation," and in 1996 a collection of letters called "Dear Mrs. Parks: A Dialogue With Today's Youth."

She was among the civil rights leaders who addressed the Million Man March in October 1995.

In 1996, she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded to civilians making outstanding contributions to American life. In 1999, she was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the nation's highest civilian honor.

Mrs. Parks received dozens of other awards, ranging from induction into the Alabama Academy of Honor to an NAACP Image Award for her 1999 appearance on CBS' "Touched by an Angel."

The Rosa Parks Library and Museum opened in November 2000 in Montgomery. The museum features a 1955-era bus and a video that recreates the conversation that preceded Parks' arrest.

"Are you going to stand up?" the bus driver asked.

"No," Parks answered.

"Well, by God, I'm going to have you arrested," the driver said.

"You may do that," Parks responded.

Mrs. Parks' later years were not without difficult moments.

In 1994, Mrs. Parks' home was invaded by a 28-year-old man who beat her and took $53. She was treated at a hospital and released. The man, Joseph Skipper, pleaded guilty, blaming the crime on his drug problem.

The Parks Institute struggled financially since its inception. The charity's principal activity — the annual Pathways to Freedom bus tour taking students to the sites of key events in the civil rights movement — routinely cost more money than the institute could raise.

Mrs. Parks lost a 1999 lawsuit that sought to prevent the hip-hop duo OutKast from using her name as the title of a Grammy-nominated song. In 2000, she threatened legal action against an Oklahoma man who planned to auction Internet domain name rights to http://www.rosaparks.com.

After losing the OutKast lawsuit, attorney Gregory Reed, who represented Mrs. Parks, said his client "has once again suffered the pains of exploitation." A later suit against OutKast's record company was settled out of court.

She was born Rosa Louise McCauley on Feb. 4, 1913, in Tuskegee, Ala. Family illness interrupted her high school education, but after she married Raymond Parks in 1932, he encouraged her and she earned a diploma in 1934. He also inspired her to become involved in the NAACP.

Looking back in 1988, Mrs. Parks said she worried that black young people took legal equality for granted.

Older blacks, she said "have tried to shield young people from what we have suffered. And in so doing, we seem to have a more complacent attitude.

"We must double and redouble our efforts to try to say to our youth, to try to give them an inspiration, an incentive and the will to study our heritage and to know what it means to be black in America today."

At a celebration in her honor that same year, she said: "I am leaving this legacy to all of you ... to bring peace, justice, equality, love and a fulfillment of what our lives should be. Without vision, the people will perish, and without courage and inspiration, dreams will die — the dream of freedom and peace."

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

It seems like no one cares about her death, and I almost got mad, then I thought about her accomplishment.

She was really just a tired woman, she wasn't doing something to put a ripple in history.

[mogwai]

when you mean that no one cares, is that here at xixax or the entire world? and by posting her death does that put you in a different light? no one of us was even alive when she did what made her famous. so quit acting like you knew her.

[Pubrick]

no one of us was even alive when she did what made her famous. so quit acting like you knew her.

haha, yeah. i don't think any black ppl even post at xixax. seriously.

i mean real black ppl.

[Gamblour.]

stefen is closest, i think.

[pete]

It seems like no one cares about her death, and I almost got mad, then I thought about her accomplishment.

She was really just a tired woman, she wasn't doing something to put a ripple in history.

yeah I remember a few years ago when that revisionist sentiment really caught on after she sued Outkast over their song.  But I also thought that was what was so great about her act of defiance.  I mean, why else should you sit down and refuse to get up?  But she did way more than most of them sit-in protestors who aimed to stir up history for their righteous causes.  Also, it would've been wicked self-important for her to say "I could've gotten up, but by sitting down I was standing up for all Americans".  Why did black people need an ideological reason to stay seated during that era when the white folks didn't?

[hedwig]

no one of us was even alive when she did what made her famous. so quit acting like you knew her.

haha, yeah. i don't think any black ppl even post at xixax.

I don't understand why you posted this in response to what mogwai said.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

when you mean that no one cares, is that here at xixax or the entire world? and by posting her death does that put you in a different light? no one of us was even alive when she did what made her famous. so quit acting like you knew her.

I was only saying that because you post Ernest Lehman dies, James Doohan dies, people are like "R.I.P. Man... Scotty will be missed" and Rosa Parks dies, and it's pushed down by lists and Horror movies discussion.

I guess I just expected anyone to acknowledge it.