Posts Tagged ‘RIP’
Chuck Colson RIP
I’ve just seen the news that Charles Colson has died. He was most famous as one of President Richard Nixon’s henchmen but spent more of his life building a Christian evangelical ministry — which, long ago, was my only contact with him. From Slate: Watergate Figure Charles Colson Dies at 80… Charles Colson, often described […]
Whitney Houston RIP
Sad to hear today that Whitney Houston has died. What a magnificent gifted voice. RIP. -P
Steve Jobs RIP
Am so sad to hear this. – P
RIP Kerry Smith
I was saddened to hear yesterday that Kerry Smith had died. Like many, I’m sure, I liked her. As a broadcaster, Kerry was a true professional: warm, engaging, endlessly versatile and competent. As an actress she came across as wry and very funny at times, but, to me, always retained an edge of well-presented class. […]
RIP Tom Newnham
This hero of the anti-racist protest movement (and so much more) has died. Farewell indeed to Tom Newnham whose book By Batons and Barbed Wire, about the 1981 Springbok Tour and the popular social uprising that disrupted it — found its way into many homes, including mine. He was an activist in more ways than […]
RIP Merata Mita
Our household was sorry to hear of the death of NZ filmmaker and pioneer, the courageous Merata Mita yesterday. Merata was a contemporary, mate and colleague of many in what we used to call the ‘Maori Rights’ movement … but so much more. Her film Patu! about the civil disobedience protests around the 1981 Springbok […]
RIP Paul Reynolds
Farewell Paul Reynolds. A genuine ‘internet expert’ and a good and generous human being. He died on Sunday, unexpectedly. I was so sorry to hear this today. What a lion he was! I recall a seminar where Paul gently, quietly, affectionately, but oh-so-effectively pierced some hyperbole that had been released into the room by yet […]
Fearless: Margaret Moth RIP
Margaret Moth was the trail-blazing, globe-trotting photojournalist and camera operator whose jaw was blown away by a sniper’s bullet as she and her CNN news crew were traveling through Sarajevo’s infamous Sniper’s Alley in the early 1990s. Terribly injured, she recovered and eventually went back to work, doing what she did best with tenacity and […]
What new media needs to learn from old media
COURAGE . What journalism should be: Dogged and fearless Wise words from one of my former editors, Don Rood, reviewing Nothing but the Truth by Anna Politkovskaya on Radio NZ this morning. Yeah! Damn right. Dogged and fearless. To proudly call yourself ‘new media‘ and talk about freedom of speech is good. But recognise that […]
Farewell Charlie Gillett – Mr Eclectic
We’ve lost Charlie Gillett — longtime advocate-promoter-svengali of ‘world music’ … rock ‘n’ roll historian, and the supportive champion of so many different types of music. Not so much a gatekeeper as an enthusiastic enabler, Charlie helped so many careers and helped people get ‘heard’. I loved his BBC show. You never knew what you’d […]
Johnny Dankworth RIP
Jazz legend Johnny Dankworth dies aged 82 BBC 7 Feb 2010 Sir John Dankworth, a mainstay of the British jazz scene for over 60 years, has died. Saxophonist Sir John, 82, served as musical director to the likes of Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald. Sir John, known as Johnny, died in a London hospital […]
RIP JD Salinger
“There is a marvelous peace in not publishing,” J.D. Salinger told The New York Times in 1974. “Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure.” Farewell. The New Yorker has made his stories available. Good on them.
A loss of moral authority
There is added moral authority when someone who hasn’t had to struggle sounds a call to help those less privileged. Beyond mere noblesse-oblige, Teddy Kennedy became a leading voice of ‘liberal’ ideology, with an emphasis on equality and innate justice best expressed in the civil rights movement of the 1960s — but applied far wider […]
“Don’t focus on the scars, focus on the journey…”
Definitely speech of the day … Rev Al Sharpton Speech at Michael Jackson’s Funeral: “…He out-sang his cynics. He out-danced his doubters. He out-performed the pessimists. Every time he got knocked down he got back up. Every time you counted him out he came back in. Michael never stopped…” Wow. I was and am very […]
RIP Michael Crichton
Another hero has died. Michael Crichton had the grace to answer my correspondence, and share some advice for me as a writer in the mid 1990s. I was so encouraged. He was already famous, and I had read his books Andromeda Strain, Terminal Man in college. I’ve read almost everything he published, even the non-fiction. […]
