Free Republic

Born and raised in Kentucky in 1963-a state that has been recently leaning toward more liberal values, we might add–Jamie, a divorcee, father, grandfather and proud owner of a few lots in the trailer park, had had enough and up and died on us on June 14th in order to avoid another Presidential stolen-election mishap in the near future. As a gluttonous eater of fried foods and snack cakes, as well as the occasional chili cheese dog, James, tried in vain to give up the ghost by clogging his arteries and having a stroke in 2015. His twin boys, Rocky...

Nichelle Nichols, an actress whose role as the communications chief Uhura in the original “Star Trek” franchise in the 1960s helped break ground on TV by showing a Black woman in a position of authority and who shared with co-star William Shatner one of the first interracial kisses on American prime-time television, died July 30 at 89.

[partial list] Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld … Singer B.J. Thomas … Eric Carle is best known for "The Very Hungry Caterpillar," … Edgar Harrell was the last surviving Marine of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis … Michael Collins was one of the three-person crew on the Apollo 11 mission to the moon in 1969… Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh … G. Gordon Liddy was a former FBI agent who engineered the burglary that led to the Watergate scandal… George Segal was best known as a comic actor… Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh started his radio career in 1971...

Much more important than Hershel’s numerous individual campaigns was his uncanny understanding of the American public’s endless fascination with old-fashioned “biblical archaeology.” And that was at the very time when many of us professionals were trying to separate the two disciplines of archaeology and biblical studies. Our purpose, of course, was to create a more serious dialogue, to move beyond the old amateur and sterile monologue. In time, we professionals accomplished our agenda, at least in part. But Hershel also accomplished his agenda. And he did it brilliantly, popularizing our complex excavations and esoteric research for a mass audience that...

Meanwhile, those among us who obsess for the Impeachment of Donald Trump insist on having the last word—even if it means using the obits of loved ones to push their not-so-magnificent obsessions You gotta’ dig deep down into the bag of spittle-flecked spite to use the obits of the dead to keep the burner under Trump hatred aflame. The dead don’t speak but their friends and relations , who blab, can fine tune their last words without fear of fact-checking or retribution.

The Montana Standard, Butte, Montana, has declared the U.S. Flag dead.

Lesley Blanch, who died on Monday aged 102, was the author of The Wilder Shores of Love, an enduringly popular account of the romantic fulfilment that four 19th-century European women found in Arabia; but her most romanticised creation was Lesley Blanch herself.Like the writer Pierre Loti, another of her subjects with whom she identified, Lesley Blanch preferred fantasy to truth and rarely distinguished between the two. She was an escapist; life was simply more entertaining as a product of the imagination. She revelled in the air of deliberate mystery around her, which was thickened by her remarkable account of her...

PLACENTIA, California (AP)-Brent Liles, a former bassist for the 1980s punk rock group Social Distortion, was struck and killed by a truck while riding a bicycle, authorities said Wednesday. He was 43.

G. Roger Crowningshield, a gemologist who helped revolutionize methods for judging the quality of precious stones and for spotting fakes, died on Nov. 8 in Hightstown, N.J. He was 87. He lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. His death was confirmed by a spokesman from the Gemological Institute of America; Mr. Crowningshield had been a fixture in the institute’s Manhattan laboratory since 1949, introducing ever more exacting methods for defining the color, cut and clarity of gems.

Ian Brunskill, editor GREAT LIVES A century in obituaries 684pp. Times Books. £20. 0 00 720168 0 Neither a memorial address nor a full-scale biography, the obituary notice is an underrated literary genre. To narrate the life, evoke the personality and assess the historical significance of someone who died only a day or so previously is no trivial task. Obituarists have to work quickly. They should avoid causing unnecessary pain to the living, but they must also be candid. They have to hazard an instant judgement, while recognizing that it may be overturned by later revelations. If they make mistakes,...

Lady Mills, the actress, playwright and novelist Mary Hayley Bell, who died on Thursday aged 94, wrote one of the West End’s most successful post-war plays, Duet for Two Hands, and a novel, Whistle Down the Wind, which was turned into a memorable film.Often drawn in her fiction to medical or psychological case histories, Mary Hayley Bell gave up a promising career as an actress in the early 1940s when she married John Mills. She became a dramatist on the ground that she could write where and when she chose to suit her family, whereas acting was bound to keep...

Don Adams, who gained worldwide fame and three Emmy Awards starring as Agent 86, Maxwell Smart, in the classic television comedy GET SMART, died at 8:02 p.m PDT, Sunday, September 25, 2005, at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Beverly Hills. He was 82. Although he had been in failing health for more than two years due to bone lymphoma, his death resulted from a sudden lung infection for which he was hospitalized the previous day. Born Donald James Yarmy on April 13, 1923 [correct, despite frequently reported erroneous dates] in New York City to Irish-Hungarian parents, Adams hoped for an engineering career....

I do while perusing the morning Internet is read the military obituaries in the British press, mainly The Daily Telegraph. Invariably, these write-ups mark the passing of a veteran of World War II in the kind of scope and detail, as critic James Bowman has noted, rarely found in an American paper. Sometimes, I feel compelled to save them in a file. Last summer, there was Wing Commander David Penman, 85, one of five Lancaster bombers pilots (out of 12 who started on the mission) to return in 1942 from a daring, low-flying, daylight raid on a German engine plant;...

WING COMMANDER GERRY McMAHON, who has died aged 81, was serving as a flying officer rear-gunner when his four-engine Short Stirling bomber was shot down inland from the Normandy beaches on D-Day; after being taken prisoner McMahon reversed the situation, capturing 62 German soldiers and marching them to the Allied lines. On the night of June 5 1944, McMahon's Canadian skipper, Flt Lt Gordon Thring, was briefed to drop paratroopers near a canal crossing, later famous as Pegasus bridge. He was then to return to RAF Fairford, take a troop-carrying glider in tow and release it in the invasion zone.Encountering ...

Bach, Concerto Number One, in A, for Violin, BWV 1041 First Movement, Allegro Second Movement, Andante Third Movement, Allegro Assai     Bach, Concerto Number Two, in E, for Violin, BWV 1042 First Movement, Allegro Second Movement, Andante Third Movement, Allegro Assai Bach, Concerto in D for Two Violins, BWV 1043 (with Itzhak Perlman) First Movement, Vivace Second Movement, Largo Ma Non Tanto Third Movement, Allegro Beethoven, Concerto in D for Violin, Opus 61 First Movement, Allegro Ma Non Troppo Second Movement, Larghetto Third Movement, Rhondo Allegro Beethoven, Triple Concerto in C, for Violin, Cello, and Piano, Opus 56 (with ...

BRIGADIER "GEORDIE" ANDREWS, who has died aged 91, was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in 1944 having commanded 2nd Battalion, Seaforth Highlanders, from Normandy to the Reichswald. As part of the 152nd (Seaforth and Cameron) Brigade, itself part of the 51st (Highland) Division, the 2nd Battalion had landed in Normandy on D+1 (June 7), and had immediately been thrown into the battle to break out from the bridgehead. After taking part in the unsuccessful Operation Goodwood, the battalion was ordered to capture Tilly-la-Campagne as part of Operation Totalize, which finally achieved the breakout.It was a hard-fought battle against an enemy ...

GROUP CAPTAIN CHARLES GREEN, who has died aged 88, led a wing of rocket-firing Hawker Typhoon fighter-bombers which helped to destroy vital German armour in the Falaise Pocket in August 1944.Green played an important role in overcoming the Typhoon's teething problems in 1942. He later mastered low-level flying ("hedge-hopping") and took out tanks, transport and troop concentrations that were holding up the Allied advance from the Normandy beachheads into north-west Europe.Previously, Green had questioned the proposal to fit the Hawker Hurricane fighter with rockets, and won his argument that the Typhoon not only performed better but also had a superior ...

GANJU LAMA, who has died aged 75, was awarded a Victoria Cross in Burma for his action on June 12 1944 when B Company, 7th Gurkha Rifles, were checking a Japanese attack, supported by tanks, in the Imphal and Kohima area.Although the Japanese had failed in their attempt to break through the British lines and move on into India, they still had the resources to mount fierce attacks. On June 12 they had put down an intense artillery barrage on the Gurkha-held position north of the village of Ningthoukhong, knocking out several bunkers and causing heavy casualties.They followed this up ...

GREGORY HEMINGWAY, who has died aged 69, was the youngest son of the writer Ernest Hemingway; a champion game shot as a boy, he later became estranged from his father, wrestled with his sexual identity and spent his last five days in the women's section of a prison in Miami. Gregory Hancock Hemingway was born at Kansas City on November 12 1931, the son of Ernest Hemingway and his second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer. Hemingway senior recalled his new son as being built like the Battling Siki, the West African fighter - all shoulders, long arms, big feet. "Very black hair. ...

MARIAN HOLMES, who has died aged 80, was one of the small team of secretaries working for Winston Churchill during the Second World War; she kept a remarkably pithy and revealing diary at the time, and more recently gave her reminiscences to a number of radio and television programmes, including Churchill, made by his biographer Sir Martin Gilbert.In a letter to Gilbert in 1985, Marian Holmes recalled how Churchill required the highest standards and could be impatient if anything less were forthcoming. "But in all his moods - totally absorbed in the serious matter of the moment, agonised over some ...