Obituaries for 2025

[verga]

Pope Francis passed away 7:35 am Monday morning.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/pope-francis-died-cardinal-kevin-075353546.html
Pope Francis, the 266th leader of the Roman Catholic Church who ushered in a progressive era for the Vatican, died Monday.He was 88.

Francis’ death follows a five-week hospitalization in February and March, initially for bronchitis and then also for pneumonia in both of his lungs. He was released March 23 and had just celebrated Easter Mass on Sunday.

[jmyrlefuller]

Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve "Mongo" McMichael dies at 67

McMichael, a defensive tackle, spent the majority of his career with the Chicago Bears, including on the team that won Super Bowl XX in early 1986. As gregarious as he was fearsome, McMichael had a brief professional wrestling and coaching career after his retirement, and a stint in sports talk radio.

In 2021, McMichael was diagnosed with amyotropic lateral sclerosis. By the time of his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2024, he had been almost completely incapacitated by the disease, from which he died April 23, 2025.

https://wgntv.com/sports/bears-report/bears-great-steve-mongo-mcmichael-dies-at-age-67/

[mountaineer]

ALS is so very devastating. Sad.

[jmyrlefuller]

Comedian and gospel singer Lulu Roman dies at 78

Roman, who began her career as the fat comic relief in some Dallas strip clubs owned by Jack Ruby (yes, that Jack Ruby who killed the guy who killed JFK), was discovered by Buck Owens and became a "Hee Haw Honey" (or, in her case, a "Hee Haw Homely") on the TV show Hee Haw. Drug addiction derailed her career for a time in the early 1970s, but she recovered and embraced Christianity, becoming an acclaimed gospel singer (as a natural talent with no formal musical training) and toning down her previously bawdy act. She returned to Hee Haw and stayed with it until the show ended its run in 1993.

https://www.newschannel5.com/news/singer-comedian-hee-haw-star-lulu-roman-dies

[mountaineer]

She had a rough life. Put into an orphanage and pretty much abandoned by her family at age 2-1/2, she didn't leave until her high school graduation. She overcame drug addiction and was on Hee Haw for decades.

Variety:

“You have to choose to be a forgiver,” Roman said about finding a way to release her birth family from the animus she held against them from abandoning her at 4. “Then I had to forgive myself for all the stupid choices I made in my life… You can allow the blood of Jesus to define who you are, and in that is freedom.”

[deb]

She had a rough life. Put into an orphanage and pretty much abandoned by her family at age 2-1/2, she didn't leave until her high school graduation. She overcame drug addiction and was on Hee Haw for decades.

Variety:

She finished strong. Rest in peace, sister in Christ.

[jmyrlefuller]

Stan Love, pro basketball player and Beach Boys relative, dies at 75

Stan had a four-year career in the NBA during the 1970s, though his son, Kevin Love, had a much longer career.

He also had a few other famous relatives, including his older brother Mike, who was in a little group called the Beach Boys with their cousins, Carl, Dennis and Brian Wilson.

https://www.miamiherald.com/sports/nba/miami-heat/article305204821.html

[Fishrrman]

https://pjmedia.com/rick-moran/2025/04/30/former-marxist-conservative-icon-david-horowitz-dead-at-86-n4939366

Former Marxist, Conservative Icon David Horowitz, Dead at 86
Rick Moran | 9:52 AM on April 30, 2025


David Horowitz, born into a Communist family, raised to be a revolutionary, who eventually had "Second Thoughts" about the New Left and became one of conservatism's most eloquent champions, died on Tuesday at the age of 86.

The long, strange intellectual journey taken by Horowitz in the 1970s and '80s mirrored the road taken by millions of Baby Boomers who also grew up liberals and were shaken by the failures of Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" and liberalism's "riot of conciets," as R. Emmett Tyrrell described liberalism in the 1980s in his book "The Liberal Crackup."

For Horowitz, it was the murder of a close friend by the Black Panthers that shocked the "Radical Son" and forced him to re-examine the foundations of his beliefs. Horowitz was friends with Black Panther leader Huey Newton and suggested that he hire Betty Van Patter, who was working for Horowitz at the radical left journal "Ramparts Magazine." When Van Patter turned up dead a few weeks later, Horowitz began to rethink his radical beliefs.

Horowitz was not an instant convert to the right. But once he began questioning the essence of his beliefs, the journey had only one logical destination.

Millions of young Americans conducted similar re-examinations of their beliefs individually. I was one of them. At the time, I was far too Midwestern and Roman Catholic to be much of a radical, but I played one on campus. After college, I entered the real world. I saw the results of the Great Society and the McGovern revolution in identity politics. Even then, we could see where it was going.

For Christmas in 1978, my father gave me "The Conservative Mind" by Russell Kirk. The lightbulb went off, and I began paying attention to the thinkers and writers revitalizing conservatism. 

Horowitz tried to hide his conversion from his leftist friends. He knew the consequences of apostasy, so it wasn't until 1984 that Horowitz and his fellow leftist apostate Peter Collier came out as supporters of Ronald Reagan.

In 1987, Horowitz hosted the "Second Thoughts Conference." The conference marked the 20th anniversary of the New Left's October 1967 march on Washington. Horowitz reflected on the moment he realized his entire life had been a Marxist lie.

More at URL above...

[Free Vulcan]

Mad respect for that man. He stood tall when it was not the least bit popular to be conservative, and exposing the globalist Left when almost no one else was, and in many ways dangerous to do so.

RIP and Godspeed good sir.

[Bigun]

Mad respect for that man. He stood tall when it was not the least bit popular to be conservative, and exposing the globalist Left when almost no one else was, and in many ways dangerous to do so.

RIP and Godspeed good sir.

Same! He deserves the utmost respect! 

[Smokin Joe]

That was a long and difficult road. RIP, Mr. Horowitz.

[verga]

Mad respect for that man. He stood tall when it was not the least bit popular to be conservative, and exposing the globalist Left when almost no one else was, and in many ways dangerous to do so.

RIP and Godspeed good sir.

Absolutely, he spoke with a very clear voice and really knew his stuff.

[jmyrlefuller]

Jill Sobule, a 1990s one-hit wonder for her "I Kissed a Girl", dies at 66

Sobule's song is not to be confused with the Katy Perry song of the same name, which triggered a profane outburst that Sobule later admitted was a joke.

Sobule died in a house fire this morning.

https://www.thewrap.com/jill-sobule-dead-fire-i-kissed-a-girl/


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUi11Cz4ZUg

[jmyrlefuller]

Ruth Buzzi has passed at 88.

In the words of Matt Drudge, "Developing..."

[mountaineer]

Ruth Buzzi has passed at 88.

In the words of Matt Drudge, "Developing..."

That's a shame. She was a real social media aficionado, and very funny.

[Wingnut]

Ruth Buzzi has passed at 88.

In the words of Matt Drudge, "Developing..."

Those "Dirty Old Man" park bench skits on Laugh-In with Artie Johnson use to kill me.

[mountaineer]

Ruth Buzzi, who was so hilarious as the lonely spinster Gladys Ormphby, the lady who swung her handbag as a lethal weapon, on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, has died. She was 88.

Buzzi died Thursday of complications from Alzheimer’s at her home near Forth Worth, Texas, her longtime rep, Mike Eisenstadt, told The Hollywood Reporter. In July 2022, her husband, actor Kent Perkins, revealed that she was “bedridden and incapacitated” after suffering a series of strokes.  ...

Early on in her career, Buzzi had a comedy act with Dom DeLuise in which he played the incompetent magician Dominic the Great and she his assistant, Shakuntala.

Buzzi was one of producer George Schlatter’s first hires for Laugh-In in 1967 and remained with the show for its entire run through March 1973. She played many characters — drunk Doris Swizzle, gossip columnist Busy Buzzi, hooker Kim Hither and silent movie diva Laverne Blossom — but it was her Gladys that remains unforgettable. ...

Survivors include her husband, whom she married in December 1978. The couple left Hollywood 15 years ago to live on a 600-acre cattle and horse ranch in Erath County in Texas. ...
Hollywood Reporter via Yahoo

[DCPatriot]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBP0I3Px6E0