Interesting Dead Person of the Day

[houseisland]

Wikipedia: Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau PC, CC, CH, QC, MA, LLD, FRSC] (October 18, 1919 – September 28, 2000)

Trudeau, love him or hate him, is both interesting and dead. Excerpts from Wikipedia:

"Trudeau was a charismatic figure who, from the late 1960s until the mid-1980s, dominated the Canadian political scene and aroused passionate reactions. 'He haunts us still,' biographers Christina McCall and Stephen Clarkson wrote. Admirers praise the force of Trudeau's intellect. They salute his political acumen in preserving national unity and enshrining a liberal civic Canadian identity by giving the Charter of Rights and Freedoms its current legal force. Detractors fault Trudeau for poor administrative practices, arrogance, and lack of understanding of Canada outside Quebec. They deplore his economic policies that increased the national debt, and criticize him for increasing a sense of political alienation in western provinces. Nevertheless, few would dispute that Trudeau was a towering figure who helped redefine Canada.

Trudeau led Canada through some of its most tumultuous times and was often the centre of controversy. Known for his flamboyance, he dated celebrities, sometimes wore sandals or a buckskin jacket in the House of Commons, was accused of using an obscenity during debate there, and once did a pirouette behind the back of Queen Elizabeth II.

....

As justice minister, Pierre Trudeau was responsible for removing laws against homosexuality from the Criminal Code of Canada, famously remarking: 'The view we take here is that there's no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.'

.....

Following his death and to the surprise of many, it became known that Trudeau was in fact deeply religious. He hardly ever missed Sunday mass and had required his wife Margaret to convert to Catholicism before their marriage. He had earlier in life broken up with a girlfriend over her growing agnosticism. He experienced a crisis of faith following the death of his son but he had reconciled himself with it by the time of his death.

Though his religious views seemed to have influenced his politics only insofar as they affected his zeal and work ethic, since he championed causes that were strongly opposed by his church, such as the abolition of sodomy laws and the easing of divorce procedures, his political philosophy was deeply affected by personalism and the thought of Emmanuel Mounier."

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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[street1]

They Said Sodomy!

[houseisland]

Back from the dead...

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Wikipedia: Blessed Giles of Assis

Giles/Egidius was the last member of Saint Francis's original apostolic group to join. He was also the last member of the apostolic group to die. Curiously he did both his joining and dying on the feast day of Saint George.

Giles is thought to have actively sought martyrdom in his youth, travelling to North Africa and provoking the Islamic authorities, much to the horror of the North African Christian community who apparently co-existed quite peacefully within the Islamic community. Later he turned to a quiet and simple faith, focusing on duty, humility and manual labour. He was a mystic visionary. He was not a scholar or theologian. His modesty caused him to forbid his own canonization, should the Church have any thoughts in that direction after his death: the Church seems to have respected his wishes; he was beatified but never canonized. He was, however, regarded as a saint in his own lifetime and after. He was immensely popular throughout the middle ages, so much so that any references to Saint Giles are uncertain: there was a relatively minor Saint Giles from France, who is completely eclipsed by Blessed Giles.

There is a line in the Middle English alliterative poem, Gawain and the Green Knight, "Þe lorde sayde, 'Bi saynt Gile,/3e ar þe best þat I knowe!," which probably refers to Blessed Giles rather than Saint Giles, although a reference to the French Giles also has interesting ironies. (Note: the "3" in "3e ar þe best" represents the archaic character "yoch" which is no longer in our orthography.) Interpreting "saynt Gile" as Blessed Giles would go a long way to explaining the poem's curious association with the Order of the Garter. The Gawain poem is a major part of the body of Arthurian literature. St. Francis was steeped in Arthurian romanticism; he refered to his apostolic group as his Knights of the Round Table. St. George, who is the patron saint of England, figures largely in Gile's personal mythology. Garters figure largely in the stories of both St. George and Gawain. And the Gawain poem is about the human weaknesses of pride and cowardice, weaknesses to which Gawain succumbs. If there is a comparsion between Gawain and Giles, it is a modesty topos generated by the comparison between a mere human and a saint. Gawain is a paradigm of knighthood, but in comparison to a saint ...... Still "Bi saynt Gile, 3e ar þe best þat I knowe!" And as the motto says ... Honi soit qui mal y pense!



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Other reading:


http://www.saintpatrickdc.org/ss/0423.htm

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01170d.htm

http://www.franciscan-sfo.org/LFSF3.htm

http://www.americancatholic.org/Feat...nt.asp?id=1361


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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[CCT]

Frankie Laine 1913-2007;

A decent short bio and some music in his honour cortesy of

http://www.bigbobh.net/dowop/index.htm

Bye bye Frankie - High Noon was the best.


http://www.bigbobh.net/dowop/frankie.html


ps: Tex Ritter sang the movie version of the ballad - I liked Frankie's better. So sue me.

[houseisland]

One of Canada's last WWI veterans dies

Lest we forget.... even if we don't seem ever to learn...

Video: Real Quicktime

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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[houseisland]

Here's one courtesy of Windrivers' front page, where I found it, and Tom's Hardware.


Tom's Hardware - Gear Digest: Beautiful Actress, Beautiful Mind, Hot Gadgets


Wikipedia: Hedy Lamarr

Very interesting woman.

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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[houseisland]

General Sir Arthur William Currie at Wikipedia

Wikipedia: "General Sir Arthur William Currie, GCMG, KCB (December 5, 1875 – November 30, 1933) was the first Canadian commander of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (a corps of four divisions) on the Western Front during World War I. Currie was among the most successful generals of the war; he is still considered one of the finest commanders in Canadian military history."

Wikipedia: "Under his capable leadership the Canadian Corps won a long series of battles, fighting as a unit for the first time in a major war. They soon earned a fierce reputation as some of the most effective troops on the Western Front."

Currie apparently was not willing just to send his troops "over the top" to meet their deaths. Concern for his men lead him to develop new stategies to break the stalemate of trench warfare. Perhaps the most radical of these was the briefing of the common soldiers, not just the officers.

Wikipedia: "Currie was largely responsible for the tactics and careful planning that led to the unexpected triumph by Canadian battalions at the Battle of Vimy Ridge in April, 1917. One of his most useful innovations introduced at this battle was the creeping barrage, which consisted of troops walking just behind an advancing line of shell fire from Canadian and British artillery, shielding soldiers as they approached the Germans. In addition, constant practice and new troop organization in which each platoon member was trained to carry out all platoon responsibilities, briefing of the frontline troops, the use of counter-battery fire measures and constant patrolling of the enemy defences all contributed to the effectiveness of the Canadian Corps at Vimy and for the rest of the War."

This Easter will mark the 90th anniversary of the battle of Vimy Ridge.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/vimy/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vimy_Ridge

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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[houseisland]

Kurt Vonnegut: BBC Obituary

BB: "One of the outstanding figures of modern US literature, Kurt Vonnegut, has died aged 84 in New York."

Vonnegut at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Vonnegut


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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[Platypus]

Johnny Hart, creator of the B.C. comic strip, died 7th April 2007

http://www.comics.com/creators/bc/

http://www.creators.com/comics/bc-about.html

[houseisland]

CBC: Second-last surviving WWI Veteran Dies

And so the The War To End All Wars begins to slip from living memory.

Interestingly none of the last three veterans (one still surviving) or their families wanted any part of a state funeral - a major disappointment for our current govt. which is looking for opportunities to tug at the nation's patriotic heart strings in order to drum up support for a certain overseas debacle we seem to have become immersed in -- a debacle quite out of keeping with the norms for Canadian military involvement overseas.
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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[Platypus]

Wally Schirra, the only astronaut to fly in the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs:

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/space/fea...r_schirra.html

"Schirra's NASA career began with his selection as one of the original seven Mercury astronauts in 1959 and spans the period from Americas first tentative steps into space to the missions to the moon."

[houseisland]

Charles Mingus at Wikipedia

One of the greatest American composers. One of the greatest composers of the 20th century.

Good bass player and OK piano player, too.

Massively and undeservedly underappreciated in his own country.


Sad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbz8jmTgwx4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRNlcZdsCsQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYNWD5H4GaE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cb5l59d1VCk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiN5nmAq8n8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4crEdHlnQns

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDHur9EFNzo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY6SrTWikc8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPFGMPIvIko

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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[houseisland]

BBC: Iceman 'bled to death on glacier'

"Oetzi probably died as the result of a fight: he may either have fled his attacker - who then shot him in the back - or been ambushed."

Oetzi is an interesting guy, and he is dead.

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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[houseisland]

Gunshot Victim at National Geographic

The victim is a Peruvian native thought to have been killed by Spaniards in the 1536 seige of Lima. He is the first known gunshot victim in the Americas.

Interesting story.

More interesting, however, is the politics of North American media in which no mention of native support of the colonial Spaniards is mentioned. Such mention would not be correct.



From the BBC -- Story --Speaking of other victims of the seige, Peruvian archaeologist Guillermo Cock 'said the nature of the injuries found on the bodies - made with indigenous weapons such as stone axes and arrows - indicated that the conquistadors would have had some kind of native support to help in their conquest. 'That really confirms... native support for the conquerors was very important. The chronicles do not acknowledge the participation of the natives... [they] tell you that a couple of dozen cavalry men defeated the Inca troops in Lima.'"

I miss the Squid's cynical take on such things.... sigh!




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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!

[houseisland]

Interactive Oetzi at National Geographic

Indulge yourself in a little forensic pathology.

More from National Geographic (click on image below):



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It is my pure and virtuous heart that
gives me the strength of ten!