Tag Archives: obituary

James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano) Died Today

Apparently of a heart attack while in Italy. He was 51. Here’s a bit from The New York Times’ obituary: James Joseph Gandolfini Jr. was born in Westwood, N.J., on Sept. 18, 1961. His father was an Italian immigrant who … Continue reading

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Christopher Hitchens’s Opiate: Not Religion, But Alcohol

Marx was right. Religion is an opiate. But Sophocles was right as well. In the furnace of this world, it’s understandable if, Oedipus-like, a person avoids too naked and persistent a confrontation with the world by plucking out her eyes. … Continue reading

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Born in 1915, Barbara Billingsley (the ‘Leave It to Beaver’ mom) has died

And she spoke two languages: suburban 1950s house mom and superfly 1970s jive. Here she is in her mid-60s in the 1980 film, Airplane:

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Two dead babies found wrapped in Los Angeles Times newspapers from the 1930s

According to the Los Angeles Times today, a human tragedy that quietly played out perhaps more than 70 years ago, is being investigated: LAPD Chief Charlie Beck promised a vigorous investigation after the remains of two babies believed to have died … Continue reading

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George Carlin on God and the Problem of Suffering

In memory of George Carlin (1937-2008), that Prometheus who stole comedy-fire from frowning heaven, and brought it to earth, relieving humans, if for only an hour, of their suffering, wherever God would not or could not. In one of his stand-up routines he … Continue reading

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