This is the time when it’s nice to look back and remember the people we’ve lost in the previous year. This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive list, so feel free to add your favorite dead person of 2008.

Anyhow…

January

Jan 1: Salvatore Bonanno, son of Mafia boss Joe Bonanno, died of a heart attack at the age of 75. And the last known German WWI vet, Erich Kästner, died at the ripe old age of 107.

Jan 7: “Competitive Eater” Bozo Miller passed away at the age of 89, from natural causes.

Jan 11: Sir Edmund Hillary, first white guy to reach the top of Mt. Everest, dies of heart failure at the age of 88.

Jan 12: Anti-violence activist Terrell Rogers was murdered at the age of 39.

Jan 17: Chessmaster Booby Fischer died from kidney failure. He was 64.

Jan 19: Syracuse alum (well, one semester, anyway) Suzanne Pleshette died of respiratory failure at the age of 70. John Stewart of the Kingston Trio died of a stroke the same day. He was 68.

Jan 22: Heath Ledger died of an accidental prescription drug overdose. He was only 28 years old.

Jan 29: Harry Truman’s daughter Margaret passed away at the age of 83.

February

Feb 1: Speaking of Harry Truman, former Secret Service agent Floyd Boring, who helped foil a plot on Truman’s life, died at the age of 92.

Feb 5: Bluesman Schoolboy Cleve passed away at the age of 82.

Feb 17: 1988 Kentucky Derby winner Winning Colors was put down at the tender age of 23.

Feb 25: Jackie Chan’s father Charles Chan (honest), died of prostate cancer at the age of 93.

Feb 27: William F. Buckley, Jr. passed away from emphysema at the age of 82.

Feb 28: Dave Clark 5 keyboard player Mike Smith died of pneumonia. He was 64.

March

Mar 2: Guitarist Jeff Healey died way too young of lung cancer, at the age of 41.

Mar 16: Hogan’s Heroes star and accomplished director Ivan Dixon passed away at the age of 86.

Mar 19: Author (among other things) Sir Arthur C. Clarke died of heart failure at the age of 90.

Mar 25: The inventor of the Egg McMuffin, Herb Peterson, died at 89.

April

Apr 16: One of my mom’s favorites, Irish tenor from the Lawrence Welk Show Joe Feeney died at the age of 76.

Apr 30: Ling Ling, the oldest Giant Panda in Japan, passed away at the age of 22.

May

May 4: The inventor of the Pringles can, Fred Baur, died at the age of 89. Another inventor – Colin Murdoch, who invented both the disposable hypodermic syringe and the tranquilizer gun – died of cancer. He was 79.

May 8: Country music singer Eddy Arnold died at the age of 89.

May 15: Composer Alexander Courage (among his many accomplishments is the theme to Star Trek – and damn near every other film and teevee show theme that WG Snuffy Walden didn’t do), died at the age of 88.

May 26: Film director Sydney Pollack died from stomach cancer at the age of 73.

May 29: The great Harvey Korman passed away from an abdominal aortic aneurysm. He was 81.

June

Jun 1: French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent died of brain cancer at the age of 71. Anti-gun activist Pat Regan (age 53) was stabbed to death.

Jun 2: Bo Diddley passed away from heart failure at the age of 79. Actor Mel Ferrer also died. He was 90.

Jun 7: Whether it was the final agony of defeat or the ultimate thrill of victory, I don’t know, but Jim McKay passed away at the age of 86.

Jun 11: Former Buffalo Bill Mitch Frerotte had a heart attack and died at the age of 43. I would say that, being a Bill, it’s surprising he didn’t choke to death, but that would be inappropriate.

Jun 12: Speaking of Buffalo, Timmy Potatohead, Tim Russert, dropped dead at the age of 58.

Jun 22: The great George Carlin passed away from heart failure at the age of 71. Wait, no, he didn’t “pass away,” he fuckin’ died. Dody Goodman died the same day. She was 93. Oh, and Tim Russert was still dead.

Well, that takes care of the first half of 2008. I’ll do the second half of the year (including anybody who dies today) tomorrow.

If you’re going out to whoop it up tonight, stay safe!

Bleh. Back to work today after damn near a week off. Even worse, I have to sit through a meeting. And winter is back again, with 40-50 mph winds, more snow on the way, and just general suckiness. Oh well, at least I have the Twilight Zone Marathon to look forward to.

The dogs are lucky today. Since I don’t have to work, they get to go the park and don’t have to spent the day alone. In fact, I think they get somebody home every day this week as we head into 2009. Assuming there is a 2009, that is. Things are (once again) looking pretty bleak in the Middle East. Oh well, at least gas prices are low.

It’s Sunday, but not a bad one, ‘cuz I took tomorrow off. I have to work Tues, Wed, and Fri, so I figured I owed it to myself to not have to deal with a Monday this week.

On Press the Meat today, it’s Obama senior adviser David Axelrod, plus a roundtable on the achievements of the outgoing Bush administration, and the failure of the Obama administration with the National Review’s Rich Lowry, Vanity Fair’s Todd Purdum, the Washington Post’s Michelle Singletary & Newsweek’s Richard Wolffe.

Last week on Faze the Nation, it was a New York kinda day, with Gerry Ferraro (isn’t her 15 minutes – her second 15 minutes, in fact – up already?), Democrat Gary Ackerman, Republicans Peter King and Tom Reynolds (token Upstater, from Sean’s neck of the woods), NYC Schools Chancellor Joel Klein (be interested to hear Sue’s opinion of him), and NY1 news guy, Dominic Carter (who- at the time – was the only person to have gotten an interview with her highness, Lady Caroline of Kennedy, so far). This week? Beats me, they don’t bother to update their website. Maybe Katie Couric is paying off Bob Schieffer’s web guy or something.

But who cares about CBS anyway, when Fux News Sunday and Weaselface Wallace have an exclusive interview with Pickles Bush, on to answer the rumors that she’s signed a 7-figure deal to be the next Zoloft spokesperson. Plus, a different bunch of fuxheads than usual, but fuxheads nonetheless.

Over on the Goebbels network, George Snufalufagus is on vacation, so ABC News schmuck Jake Tapper will be taking over the duties (by the way, Tapper isn’t his real name; it’s a nickname he earned back during his days as an aviation reporter in Minneapolis). Speaking of tappers, Jake is joined by Republican Bob Corker of Tennessee. Also on will be Sherrod Brown of Ohio, incoming White House press secretary Robert Gibbs (who will get some advice from the likes of Dana “Cuban Missile Whut?” Perino, snotty Scotty McClellan, and Joe Lockhart). Plus, it’s the first :jerk: -less roundtable in recent memory, with PRI Studio 360’s Kurt Andersen, Slate’s John “don’t call me Emily” Dickerson, NPR newsbabe Alison Stewart, and David Brody of the Jesus Channel.

It’s a Late Emission year-end retrospective at CNN, as U-Boat commander Wolf Blitzer has past interviews with Barack Obama, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Bill Gates, Condoleezza Rice “and a lot more.” More than Condi and Caribou Barbie? How is that even possible?

Later, on 60 Minutes, the entire hour is devoted to the campaign and election of Barack Obama, with 60 Minutes segments, interviews with Obama, his family, and advisers, and “never before seen footage” (like, what, Obama with Bigfoot or something?).

Have a good Sunday everybody.

The weird weather continues here. It’s supposed to be in the fifties today, and damn near sixty tomorrow. Otherwise, not much going on here, really. Except I hear the post-Christmas sales are outrageous. And here I already have everything I need. Oh well.

Granny’s off to work today (lucky her), so I’m home with the boys. Looks like the holiday shopping season was “dismal” this year. That’s not too surprising, but it does make that big pile of shit Barack Obama’s inheriting in 25 days a little bit higher. I guess I’d better help out and do some online shopping today or something.

Yesterday’s warm weather has put a real dent in our snowpiles here, which, I suppose, is a good thing, since – with over 5 feet of snow already this year – it was getting a little hard to find a place to put the snow.

Whatever you happen to have going on today, have a good one.

Well, it is Christmas eve and very happy holidays of your choosing again to all of you. I don’t really choose to celebrate any of them being a lapsed xtian who took his business noelsewhere but I enjoy dabbling with others who do.

:menorah: :santacool:

This was the day a year ago that Roxie S. Grant, better known here as roxieseattle, left this life. She had already disappeared from ours a few months earlier after revealing that she had something suddenly going wrong in her head. We did not find out about her passing until a few months later. I think everyone already expected the worst.

There is little I know of her final months but I hope they were not miserable but rather a grand exit. I am sad that she did not want to share any of them with us but I understand. I was able to learn a bit more about her when I was trying to figure out what happened including her 60s involvement in Seattle activism and alternative press. One of her ‘pals’ wrote a book about those days that sbluheron tracked down and generously procured copies of for a number of us.

I found the following notice in her pharm school alumni letter I think may have posted earlier this year.

Roxie Grant, ’95, passed away on
Dec. 24, 2007 at the age of 60 from brain
cancer. Roxie was born in Missoula, Mont.
She graduated from high school in Spokane
and moved to Seattle in the late 1960s. In
the 1970s Roxie worked as an office manager
and bookkeeper at the Seattle King County
Council on Alcoholism and at a social
services agency that served homeless youth
in the university district. She was very active
in the social justice and antiwar movements
and together with her sister, Sharma Oliver,
helped friend Walter Crowley found the
Helics, a publication that gave voice to
these movements. She worked hard and
overcame many obstacles to attain her
goal of attending college. She graduated
from pharmacy school at the age of 48.
Roxie worked as a night pharmacist for the
twenty-four hour Rite Aid at the Factoria
Square Mall in Bellevue. Her patients and
colleagues greatly appreciated her tremendous
dedication as a pharmacist as well as
her friendliness, kindness and great sense
of humor. Roxie was also very active in
animal rescue and nursed many animals
back to health. Roxie is survived by her
sister Sharon Kilburg and nieces, Angela
Oliver and Katherine Stearns.

I still miss her and regret that I never really met her. I am sorry I never got the Richard and Mimi Farina disc together that I wanted to send her.

:jesus: 🙁 :gate:

This has been a long, long, week, but just one more day to get through, and then I’m off until next Tuesday. Looks like we get a little break from the snow today (after another foot or so yesterday and overnight), plus it’s going to be warm today – all the way up to 28. And tomorrow it’s supposed be around 40 and rain. Hopefully we’ll still have a little snow left for x-mas.

I didn’t bother to shovel this morning. Let’s hope we can get out of the driveway.

Monday, bleh. But at least it’s a short week; I only need to make it through two days. More snow today, they say, but not too much. Depending on which way the wind blows (and it’s blowing at about 30 mph right now, which means it’s a little brisk out there this morning), we might get up to 4 inches by quittin’ time, and then another batch overnight. I might have to get Granny a new shovel for x-mas.

Happy first day of of Chanukah (or, I guess it actually started at sundown last night; forgive my ignorance, but the only reason I know when xmas is, is that I can’t get the hell away from it, and that damn music everywhere. It’s like being stuck in an elevator from Halloween ’til MLK Day). Anyhow, keep your shamash lit.