Who's Next To Croak?

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1666063,00.html

Gang killer 'Tookie' is executed

Tuesday December 13, 2005

The former Crips gang leader and convicted murderer Stanley "Tookie" Williams was executed by lethal injection in California today.
Last-minute appeals by his lawyers and a clemency petition to the state's governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, were unsuccessful. Amnesty International today condemned the execution as a "travesty of justice."

Williams, 51, was convicted in 1981 of murdering four people during robberies carried out in 1979.

He has always maintained he did not commit the murders, but did apologise for founding the Crips gang in Los Angeles in 1971. The gang has been blamed for hundreds of deaths during decades of fighting with rival gangs.

Mr Schwarzenegger said he could not justify overturning the decision of the courts.
"Stanley Williams insists he is innocent, and that he will not and should not apologise or otherwise atone for the murders of the four victims in this case," Mr Schwarzenegger wrote in his published decision.

"Without an apology and atonement for these senseless and brutal killings, there can be no redemption."

Officials at San Quentin state prison said Williams was composed and cooperative before being taken for execution. He did not request a final meal.

Guards struggled for about 12 minutes to place the needle in a vein in Williams' left arm; "Still can't find it?" he joked at one point.

Williams often raised his head to look at his supporters, particularly Barbara Becnel, the editor of his anti-gang books. As he died, Ms Becnel and other supporters gave what appeared to be black power salutes.

"The state of California just killed an innocent man," they said. He was pronounced dead at 12.35am local time (0835 GMT).

The stepmother of one of Williams' victims also attended his execution. "I believe it was a just punishment long overdue," Lorna Owens told ABC television.

The high-profile case has generated renewed rows over the death penalty.

Williams wrote a number of anti-gang books for children and dedicated his 24 years on death row to educating young people about the dangers of gang life. His supporters said this showed he had changed his views, but Mr Schwarzenegger did not agree.

Amnesty International today condemned Williams' execution.

Kate Allen, director of Amnesty International UK, said: "This is yet another sad milestone in the history of the US justice system.

"Williams' violent past was well known but he had become a textbook version of rehabilitation and his execution was a travesty of justice."

At the Vatican, Pope Benedict XVI's top official for justice matters denounced the death penalty for going against redemption and human dignity.

"We know the death penalty doesn't resolve anything," Cardinal Renato Martino told Associated Press. "Even a criminal is worthy of respect, because he is a human being. The death penalty is a negation of human dignity."

Around 2,000 death penalty protesters gathered outside the prison today where the Rev Jesse Jackson, a supporter of Williams, addressed the crowd and folk singer Joan Baez performed on a temporary stage.

"Tonight is planned, efficient, calculated, antiseptic, cold-blooded murder and I think everyone who is here, is here to enlist the morality and soul of this country," said Baez.

Williams' cause also attracted supporters such as rap star Snoop Dogg, a former Crips member; actor Jamie Foxx, who played Williams in a film, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Mr Jackson met Williams yesterday, and told protesters outside the prison that he thanked them for their support.

"He said 'Don't cry, let's remain strong,'" Mr Jackson told Reuters. "He smiled, you know, with a certain strength, a certain resolve. I think he feels a comfort in his new legacy as a social transformer."

Mr Schwarzenegger has rejected three appeals for clemency by death row prisoners.

[Gamblour.]

What Would Tyler Durden Do had a really funny response to celebrities clamoring for clemency: http://www.wwtdd.com/index.php?type=one&i=367

[Find Your Magali]

LOS ANGELES — John Spencer, who played vice presidential candidate Leo McGarry on NBC's "The West Wing," died of a heart attack Friday, his publicist said.

Spencer, 58, died at a Los Angeles hospital, said publicist Ron Hofmann.

Hofmann released no other immediate details.

Spencer's work on the show earned him an Emmy Award for supporting actor in a drama series in 2002, as well as a Golden Globe nomination.

Before appearing on the hit political drama, Spencer played the quirky and charismatic New York attorney Tommy Mullaney on "L.A. Law."

[ProgWRX]

man that sucks   Even though i havent seen the newer seasons (only up to season 5) Leo was one of my favorite characters from The West Wing. Spencer had so much charisma and for some reason he reminded me a lot of my dad. RIP

[Gamblour.]

Fuck. I'm only on season 4 myself, but Leo is such a father figure and Spencer is such a great actor. He was always solid, I remember how they described his audition for the West Wing, they said you couldn't tell if it was Spencer or the manager for the Yankees. This really is sad.

[mogwai]

Character actor Vincent Schiavelli dead



'Ghost,' 'Cuckoo's Nest' actor claimed by lung cancer

ROME, Italy (AP) -- Droopy-eyed character actor Vincent Schiavelli, who appeared in scores of movies, including "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Ghost," died Monday at his home in Sicily. He was 57.

He died of lung cancer, said Salvatore Glorioso, mayor of Polizzi Generosa, the Sicilian village where Schiavelli resided.

Schiavelli, whose gloomy look made him perfect to play creepy or eccentric characters, made appearances in some 150 film and television productions, according to the Internet Movie Database.

Among the movies: "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," "Amadeus," "Batman Returns," and "The People vs. Larry Flynt." He was selected in 1997 by Vanity Fair as one of America's best character actors.

Schiavelli, who was born and raised in New York, studied acting at New York University's School of the Arts.

He also wrote three cookbooks and many food articles for magazines and newspapers, possibly inheriting his love for cooking from his grandfather, who had been a cook for an Italian baron before moving to the United States, according to IMDb.

"He was a great friend, a great chef and a great talker," Glorioso, who has known Schiavelli for almost four years, said in a telephone interview.

"With a smooth, witty conversation, he would make everything look more colorful. I've lost a brother," he said.

Schiavelli also had worked in Italy, including in 2001 when he directed a theater piece in Sicily based on nine fables.

A funeral service will be held Tuesday in Polizzi Generosa, Glorioso said.

[72teeth]

"Blue" from old school died....and somewhere in the world, "Dust in the Wind" is on....

[squints]

that guy was from Bartlesville, Oklahoma. His funeral was there recently. I wonder if any assholes showed up to play dust in the wind and yell "You're my boy blue!"

[Ravi]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4613660.stm

Oscar winner Shelley Winters dies



Two-time Oscar winner Shelley Winters has died of heart failure at the age of 85, her publicist Dale Olson has said.

She died at a Beverly Hills nursing home early on Saturday, having suffered a heart attack in October.

Winters, who won Oscars for The Diary of Anne Frank and A Patch of Blue, was best known for her role in 1972 disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure.

She was equally famous for her romances with some of Hollywood's leading men including Errol Flynn and Clark Gable.

Monroe's roommate

Winters' career spans six decades, beginning with an uncredited part in 1943's What a Woman!

A roommate of the young Marilyn Monroe, her ex-husbands include the actors Anthony Franciosa and Vittorio Gassman, with whom she had a daughter Vittoria.

Her other films include Stanley Kubrick's Lolita, Alfie with Michael Caine and The Night of the Hunter with Robert Mitchum.

Her last film appearance was in 1999's La Bomba.

But she continued working well into her 70s, starring as Roseanne's grandmother on the 1990s TV programme "Roseanne".

In the 1980s Winters wrote two autobiographies "Shelley, Also Known as Shirley" and "Shelley II: The Middle of My Century" in which she detailed her relationships with a string of Hollywood A-listers including, Marlon Brando, Burt Lancaster and William Holden.

The books became bestsellers, but her trademark frankness meant that talk show hosts "only want to know about my love affairs," Winters later said.

[Reinhold]

lou rawls died.

[Pubrick]

lou rawls died.

lou rawls lived.

[Pwaybloe]

lou rawls died.

lou rawls lived.

Great, now he's a zombie. 

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

Just like Jesus!

[Pwaybloe]

Hrm.  No. 

[polkablues]

Hrm.  No. 

Are you calling Jesus a vampire, then?  Because that's sacrilegious, you dirty son of a bitch.