Obituaries for 2017

[Cripplecreek]

Gene Cernan, an early NASA astronaut who was the last man to set foot on the moon, died Monday, NASA announced in a tweet. He was 82.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/eugene-cernan-last-man-to-walk-on-the-moon-dead-at-82/ar-AAlVhOv?OCID=ansmsnnews11

[Cripplecreek]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roiZWgFHLDQ

[kevindavis007]

Space Ping!


@Oceander
@Sanguine
@Cripplecreek
@Freya
@EC
@Joe Wooten
@r9etb
@Just_Victor
@montanajoe
@Ghost Bear
@Free Vulcan
@Idaho_Cowboy
@geronl
@Scutter   

[kevindavis007]

Sad to say they are going to die off soon.. It would be a shame if we give up.  Bad enough Nixon and Fritz Mondale messed things up.

[Cripplecreek]

The last time we went to the moon.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ajcs9dP2dgw

[Wingnut]

Sad on several fronts.  His passing most importantly. And the fact that we have two generations now that have never seen us walk on the moon. 

[Cripplecreek]

Sad to say they are going to die off soon.. It would be a shame if we give up.  Bad enough Nixon and Fritz Mondale messed things up.

Jim McDivitt is 87. He retired from Rockwell in 95 so he's having a nice long retirement.

[Cripplecreek]

Sad on several fronts.  His passing most importantly. And the fact that we have two generations now that have never seen us walk on the moon.

Cernan was a great promoter of space exploration.

[Cripplecreek]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t16-KVZ_AJ8

[TomSea]

I have been to Allsups stores but did not know there was a connection.

Just in the family, I don't know if it was Tommy's immediate family.

------

Waylon, Waylon Jennings of course, was in the Crickets as well; he replaced someone from the original lineup but this is an anecdote he told of the crash:

After a show in Clear Lake, Iowa, Holly decided to charter a small plane for his band (consisting of himself, Tommy Allsup (guitar) and Jennings.Ritchie Valens and Tommy Allsup flipped a coin for the last seat, Valens won and took Allsup’s seat. Since the Big Bopper was sick, he asked Jennings if he could take his seat on the plane. Jennings said that as long as Holly was okay with it, he was too. When Holly found out Jennings was not going to be on the plane, he jokingly told him, “I hope your ol’ bus freezes up!” Jennings responded back, “I hope your plane crashes!” Those words would haunt Jennings for decades.

http://www.historybyzim.com/2012/06/buddy-holly-waylon-jennings/

So, an unbelievably ironic incident. Of course, friends often rib each other by saying things like this imo.

It's worth reiterating, if one missed it the first time, Tommy Allsup survived because he LOST the coin toss on whom was going to ride on the plane.

Tommy Allsup, Guitarist, Dies at 85; a Coin Toss Saved His Life
Tommy Allsup, a guitarist best known for losing a coin toss that kept him off the plane that later crashed and killed the rock ’n’ roll stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper, died on Wednesday in Springfield, Mo. He was 85.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/13/arts/music/tommy-allsup-guitarist-dies-at-85-a-coin-toss-saved-his-life.html?_r=0

Feb. 3rd, the day the music died, anniversary in a few weeks. I should try to remember it here. For the Big Bopper and Richie Valens too.

[Just_Victor]

Sad on several fronts.  His passing most importantly. And the fact that we have two generations now that have never seen us walk on the moon.

Gene Cernan was a solid Constitutional conservative, too.

[Cripplecreek]

Gene Cernan was a solid Constitutional conservative, too.

Check out the moon dust he brought back into the LM with him. He looks whooped too.

[Ghost Bear]

NASA Verified account
‏@NASA

We are saddened by the loss of retired NASA astronaut Gene Cernan, the last man to walk on the moon. http://go.nasa.gov/2iEFt4w

Listening to reports of his death on the radio this morning, I was reminded that Mr. Cernan wrote an autobiographical book about his experiences titled The Last Man on the Moon. The book was the basis for a documentary by the same name made in 2014, which Mr. Cernan participated in as a narrator. The documentary seems to be available for streaming from Netflix, for those interested.

[Ghost Bear]

Listening to reports of his death on the radio this morning, I was reminded that Mr. Cernan wrote an autobiographical book about his experiences titled The Last Man on the Moon. The book was the basis for a documentary by the same name made in 2014, which Mr. Cernan participated in as a narrator. The documentary seems to be available for streaming from Netflix, for those interested.

[Bigun]

Sad on several fronts.  His passing most importantly. And the fact that we have two generations now that have never seen us walk on the moon.

They don't make men like that anymore.  it takes some real stones to allow your friends to strap you in the point of a rocket and then drive three miles away before they light the fuse!

[Wingnut]

Listening to reports of his death on the radio this morning, I was reminded that Mr. Cernan wrote an autobiographical book about his experiences titled The Last Man on the Moon. The book was the basis for a documentary by the same name made in 2014, which Mr. Cernan participated in as a narrator. The documentary seems to be available for streaming from Netflix, for those interested.

Thanks.  Gonna check it out.

[Smokin Joe]

Sad to say they are going to die off soon.. It would be a shame if we give up.  Bad enough Nixon and Fritz Mondale messed things up.

From the video @ cripplecreek posted: "I think the next generation should see this as a challenge. Let's see them leave footprints like these some day."

Sad to say...

[Ghost Bear]

Miguel Ferrer, ‘NCIS: Los Angeles’ Actor, Dies at 61

Miguel Ferrer, the character and voice actor who appeared in shows including “NCIS: Los Angeles” and “Crossing Jordan,” and films such as “RoboCop” and “Iron Man 3,” died on Thursday of throat cancer. He was 61.

Ferrer was the son of top 1950s singer Rosemary Clooney and actor Jose Ferrer, and first cousin to George Clooney. He appeared on “NCIS: Los Angeles” for seven seasons.

Excerpted, more at the link: http://variety.com/2017/tv/news/miguel-ferrer-dead-dies-ncis-los-angeles-1201964233/

[jmyrlefuller]

Left-wing journalist Wayne Barrett dies at 71



Barrett spent most of his career at the Village Voice, the alternative newspaper founded in New York City's Greenwich Village. A thorough journalist with a strong and admitted liberal lean (one that developed only during his Ivy League graduate school; he was largely a conservative Christian up through his college years), Barrett specialized in exposés of political and civic leaders, both Democrat and Republican. He devoted four full-length books to exposés of three public figures in particular: Ed Koch (whom Barrett would later admit to at least having some redeemable qualities), Donald Trump and two-time recipient Rudy Giuliani.

Barrett died of lung disease and had been diagnosed with cancer the previous year.

Obituary from the New York Times

Wikipedia

[corbe]

AP/ January 19, 2017, 9:52 PM

Wayne Barrett, NYC reporter who wrote book on Trump, dead at 71

NYC investigative reporter Wayne Barret in 2007.
  / CBS News 



Starting in the 1970s, there was no more dedicated muckraker than the gruff, relentless Barrett, a self-described “country boy from Lynchburg, Virginia” and graduate of Columbia University’s journalism school who evolved from founding a teen Republican group to becoming an impassioned leftist as an adult. Fellow journalists, many of whom tweeted tributes upon learning of his death, regarded him as a role model. Even some politicians, at times grudgingly, acknowledged his skills and integrity.

“I tell the young people still drawn to this duty that it is the most honorable one in America, and that I have never met a corrupt journalist,” Barrett wrote in his farewell column for the Voice, which laid him off at the end of 2010 after more than 30 years.

Bloomberg, the city’s mayor from 2002-2013, said in a statement that while no elected official always “saw eye-to-eye” with Barrett, he “respected his deep sense of moral purpose and encyclopedic knowledge of politics.”

“I had the chance to break bread with him on occasion, and behind the scathing pen he wielded was a good guy with a big heart who loved New York City,” Bloomberg said.

Barrett’s many scoops ranged from the criminal past of Giuliani’s father to the many votes missed by then-Sen. Alfonse D’Amato, who had accused the man who would defeat him for re-election in 1998, Democrat Charles Schumer, of similar lapses. Schumer would later say the revelation helped him win. D’Amato would call Barrett a “viper.”

“Mr. Barrett has become the unrivaled master of long, dense articles about the unsavory side of New York’s political culture,” The New York Times wrote of him in 2011. “He has passed decades digging through government archives, court transcripts, property records, police blotters and campaign filings, weaving tales of corruption and hypocrisy involving union leaders, neighborhood power brokers, real estate developers, mayors and governors.”

Few reporters knew Mr. Trump as well as did Barrett, whose death came on the eve of Mr. Trump’s swearing in as the country’s 45th president. He began covering the budding real-estate developer in the late 1970s and his expertise and the cache of records sitting in his basement drew dozens of reporters from around the world after Mr. Trump declared his candidacy in June 2015.

“The most remarkable thing is that the leading birther in the United States is succeeding this president (Obama), Barrett told “Democracy Now!” interviewer Amy Goodman shortly after Mr. Trump’s stunning defeat of Democrat Hillary Clinton. “It’s just - I mean, I just - I can’t imagine it.”

Barrett’s “Trump: The Deals and the Downfalls,” published in 1992, uncovered Mr. Trump’s ties to various unsavory characters involved with the construction of Trump Tower, investigated claims of bias against prospective black tenants in Trump buildings and prompted gaming officials in New Jersey to probe various Trump associations. Barrett also wrote books on Giuliani and another New York mayor, Edward I. Koch, co-authored with his Voice mentor, the late Jack Newfield.

<..snip..>

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/wayne-barrett-dead-nyc-reporter-donald-trump/

[corbe]

   He's not even sworn in yet and his adversaries are starting to drop like flies. reminds me of the Clintons.

[montanajoe]

Vince Foster...

[Wingnut]

The book was the basis for a documentary by the same name made in 2014, which Mr. Cernan participated in as a narrator. The documentary seems to be available for streaming from Netflix, for those interested.

Had some time last night so I watched it on net flix.  I enjoyed it very much.  It made me sad. 1st because of his passing and 2nd because of what happened to the space program after the 1972 buget cuts. 
Couple of things I wish the producers would have covered more of was:  More on the reasoning behind the crew switch/swap on Apollo 17.  More on why Director of Flight Crew Operations Deke Slayton did so.  It looked like Gene Kranz  was pissed about it.  (The info is out there on the web..so I did look it up just to know) and WTF was Cernan doing when he screwed the pooch in that helecopter?

RIP Gene.

[TomSea]

Kansas City Royals Pitcher Yordano Ventura killed in car wreck in his native Dominican Republic.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb/royals-pitcher-yordano-ventura-killed-in-car-crash/ar-AAm7eab?li=BBnb7Kz&OCID=ansmsnnews11

"Ventura’s death comes on the same day former Indians infielder Andy Marte was killed in a car crash in the Dominican. The accidents are unrelated. "

Andy Marte:

Former top MLB prospect Andy Marte died in car crash
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2017/01/22/former-top-mlb-prospect-andy-marte-died-car-crash/96921798/

Unrelated accidents, both in the Dominican Republic.

[TomSea]

Wayne Barrett:

Wayne Barrett, the legendary muckraker and teacher, has died; his beloved wife Fran telling media outlets due to interstitial lung disease. He was 71 years old.
https://www.longislandpress.com/2017/01/20/reflections-on-wayne-barrett-death-legendary-muckraker-inspiration/

Smoker?