baldilocks

Michael Jackson

1958-2009. Heart attack.  He was exactly three years older that I am.

 I hope that he repented his sins.  Otherwise...

(Click photo for story)

This is how I'll always remember him.

UPDATE:  Holy crap!  Did the Onion predict the future?

UPDATE:  One of the Jackson 5's greatest songs, acapella.

Interview with Private William Long's Father

From a former Marine. Look and Listen.

But what of the young man's Commander-in-Chief?

(Thanks to Blackfive)

Tempelhof Airport

Tempelhof Airport, one of the points of destination for the post-World War Two Berlin Airlift, closed today. To read about its significance in the lives of millions and in my life, go here.

Goodbye, Old Friend.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

One of my heroes goes to his reward:

MOSCOW (AFP) — Russian writer and dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who shone a light on the inhuman world of the Soviet gulags, died late Sunday, the Itar-Tass news agency said, citing his son Stepan. He was 89.

The Nobel laureate died of heart failure at his Moscow home at 11:45 pm (1945 GMT), the writer's son said.

Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970 after writing harrowing works about the Soviet Union's system of labour camps, where he spent eight years from 1945.

Solzhenitsyn toiled obsessively to unearth the darkest secrets of Stalinist rule and ultimately dealt a crippling blow to the Soviet Union's authority.

The tough old buzzard survived Stalin's gulags, cancer and a ricin attack. Even though he had been in declining health, as is often the case for those of great age, I'm a little surprised to learn that he could die.

His most famous work:

and

Robert Anthony "Tony" Snow

I think that we all knew from watching the guy's seemingly swift physical deterioration that this day would come soon. At least the guy is out of pain.

After a long, candid and public battle with cancer, former White House press secretary and radio talk-show host Tony Snow died early this morning.

Immediate details were sketchy, but Fox News, his employer, reported the bulletin shortly after 7 a.m. Eastern time. Snow was 53.

He previously served as chief speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush and served as a frequent host on the Fox News Channel.

See ya later, Tony.

UPDATE: From President Bush:

All of us here at the White House will miss Tony, as will the millions of Americans he inspired with his brave struggle against cancer. One of the things that sustained Tony Snow was his faith - and Laura and I join people across our country in praying that this good man has now found comfort in the arms of his Creator.

Fox News Tributes here.

UPDATE:

The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies. Think of Paul, traipsing though the known world and contemplating trips to what must have seemed the antipodes (Spain), shaking the dust from his sandals, worrying not about the morrow, but only about the moment.

There's nothing wilder than a life of humble virtue—for it is through selflessness and service that God wrings from our bodies and spirits the most we ever could give, the most we ever could offer, and the most we ever could do.

--Cancer's Unexpected Blessing by Tony Snow

Reading that makes it difficult to be sad for him and all of the other believers who pass on. Their families and friends, however, need our prayers.

(Thanks to Michelle Malkin)

Coming Home

To Rest.

The Department of Defense announced the deaths of two soldiers previously listed as missing.

Fourteen months after they were kidnapped in Iraq, the remains of two American soldiers have been found.

The Pentagon said that the remains of Army Sgt. Alex Jimenez [r.] and Pvt. Byron Fouty were found Wednesday, south of Baghdad.

Jimenez was 25 years old at the time of his capture, Fouty was 19.

They were both kidnapped during an ambush in May of 2007.

Mildred Loving

Mildred Loving, who was one of the plaintiffs in Loving vs. Virginia, died on May 2nd. The other plaintiff was her husband, Richard, who died in 1975. From Wikipedia:

Mildred Loving (nee Mildred Delores Jeter, a woman of African and Rappahannock Native American descent, 1939 - May 2, 2008)[2][3] and Richard Perry Loving (a white man, October 29, 1933 - June 1975), were residents of the Commonwealth of Virginia who had been married in June 1958 in the District of Columbia, having left Virginia to evade the Racial Integrity Act, a state law banning marriages between any white person and a black person (there was no law banning marriage with other ethnicities as they were not seen to represent a significant enough population to be a problem). Upon their return to Caroline County, Virginia, they were charged with violation of the ban. They were charged under Section 20-58 of the Virginia Code, which prohibited interracial couples [consisting of one white person and one black person] from being married out of state and then returning to Virginia, and Section 20-59, which defined "miscegenation" as a felony punishable by a prison sentence of between one and five years. On January 6, 1959, the Lovings pleaded guilty and were sentenced to one year in prison, with the sentence suspended for 25 years on condition that the couple leave the state of Virginia. The trial judge in the case, Leon Bazile, echoing Johann Friedrich Blumenbach's 18th-century interpretation of race, proclaimed that

Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and He placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with His arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that He separated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix.

The Lovings moved to the District of Columbia, and on November 6, 1963 they filed a motion in the state trial court to vacate the judgment and set aside the sentence on the grounds that the violated statutes ran counter to the Fourteenth Amendment.

In the Wiki article, it is noted that several church hierarchies--from those which had centralized leadership--came forward to repudiate Bazile's ersatz race theology. Ultimately, the United States Supreme Court unanimously determined that anti-miscegenation laws violated the Fourteenth Amendment.

It would have been interesting to discover what Mrs. Loving thought of Barack Obama, Black Liberation Theology and how times and people have changed. However, she was probably just a regular woman ready to rest.

RIP, ma'am.

(Thanks to Clarence Page)

Wayne Fau

Consider this acknowledgment merely one last salute to a former commander and a good man who loved the Lord. See you There, sir.

Michael Monsoor

Another hero receives recognition.

Nice looking guy, no? He had an even greater heart. Meet the latest Medal of Honor recipient, Navy SEAL Michael Monsoor. Alas, he receives it posthumously. Click the photo to read the story.

Charlton Heston

Good night Mr. Heston.

Say ‘hi’ to the real Moses for us.*

*Pictured with Anne Baxter and Yul Brynner.