... "Stuart always emphasized that the world is a good place, full of good people, trying to do their best. He believed in people’s extraordinary capacity for love and generosity. And he had faith in our ability to work together for the common good...."
Tyrone Tootoosis. His funeral was today.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/tyrone-tootoosis-death-1.3979349
It is with deep sadness that the Vinyl Cafe family announces that Stuart McLean passed away today, February 15th, 2017, at age 68.
Very sad to hear that as well. I never met him, but he was an important figure in fostering Indigenous and in particular Cree culture.
http://aptnnews.ca/2017/02/14/cree-activist-actor-tyrone-tootoosis-58-di...
Former Vancouver East MP Margaret Mitchell:
http://www.nationalnewswatch.com/2017/03/09/ndp-stalwart-social-activist...
From the linked article about Ms. Mitchell:
"When Mitchell raised concerns about domestic abuse 35 years ago in the Commons, her comments were met with laughter."
Anybody know if PET joined in the "hilarity"?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/richard-wagamese-obit-1.4020899
Ojibway author Richard Wagamese dead at 61|CBC
Award-winning author and journalist Richard Wagamese, an Ojibway from the Wabaseemoong First Nation in northwestern Ontario whose work was deeply influenced by Indigenous experiences in Canada's residential school system, has died.
Wagamese, 61, called himself a second-generation survivor of the government-sponsored schools, attended by his parents and extended family members.
Oh dear. I have a very personal connection with him, through relatives. I'm not surprised that he died relatively young, but still, it comes as a shock.
Just so unfair and sad.
Award-winning Ojibway author Richard Wagamese dies at age 61
The one, the only, King of Rock n Roll, Chuck Berry.
http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/7728700/chuck-berry-dead?utm_sour...
Oh. My. God. Chuck Berry!
May his music resonate forever in heaven as on earth.
He seems to have had a hiccup or two in his long career. But I'll never NOT smile listening to "My Ding-a-ling".
I'll always consider Johnny B. Goode to be the quintessential Rock n' Roll song. It doesn't get much better than this. RIP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFo8-JqzSCM
Veteran Canadian comedian Bob Robertson dead at 71
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bob-robertson-dead-1.4033337
Veteran Canadian comedian Bob Robertson has died at 71.
Robertson and Linda Cullen have been called the funniest married couple in Canada.
They met in Vancouver at CKNW radio where both worked — Robertson as a weatherman on the Frosty Forst morning show where he used his knack for vocal impersonations to spoof many a public figure.
Together Robertson and Cullen created the popular CBC Radio series Double Exposure, which launched in 1987 and ran for over 10 years.
I was a huge Double Exposure fan back in the early 90s. My brother and I had piano lessons at 12 and 12:30 respectively, and my mom and I used to sit in the car and listen to Double Exposure while my brother had his lesson.
Bob Robertson did the best Jean Chrétien impression. It was so good it was often indistinguishable from the real thing.
Before there was Triumph, The Insult Comic Dog, or Ed the Sock, there was Don Rickles.
"Goodbye, Dummy!"
Walter Becker of Steely Dan.
Tom Petty.
There are now reports that Petty is still physically alive, though brain-dead.
I was surprised to see the retraction about Tom Petty. Still, 66 years is too damn young. Just Jeff Lynne and Bob Dylan left of the Traveling Wilburys.
Tom Petty did, in fact, die at 8:40(Pacific time) Monday night, as confirmed on his Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/tompetty/photos/a.191936770904.124578.197035809...
Rafe Mair Leaves Extraordinary Legacy
Politician, broadcaster, advocate died today at 85
Most of the summer I like to wander around my yard in long pants and no shirt, and I sometimes call it "doing a Mr. Lahey." No, I have no Randy, and I don't put the word "shit" in front of everything I say, but still.
RIP, Mr. Lahey.
ed'd to add: I guess I had it wrong all these years. Why did I think Mr. Lahey was shirtless too? Ah well, RIP anyway.
At least you weren't wandering around in a long shirt and no pants-that I know of, anyway.
Gone too young with still lots say. Taken away by an eigth ball a day. Rock'n roll ain't hear to stay as the media brushed your sad tears away. Piss on their words and piss on their banners piss on everything they say, it's not you it's not me it's the ones that the people don't see that have faded away!
This guy fronted the most Canadian band and too bad he was white, he should have been African or Cree, but would he be what he became to be?
RIP Brother!
One of the good ones!
https://www.straight.com/blogra/982706/tragically-hips-gord-downie-dead-53
Adding the BBC link on this as well.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41669610
I know most of Canada has taken this very personally. You'd known it was coming but that couldn't have made it easier. And let me take this opportunity to say, as I say often on hearing of those taken by this disease: "Fuck YOU, Cancer!"
Dennis Banks, American Indian Movement activist, age 80:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/30/obituaries/dennis-banks-dead-american...
Civil rights activist Erica Garner, 27:
The official Twitter account of Erica Garner—the 27-year-old civil rights activist and daughter of Eric Garner—confirmed that she passed away Saturday after being hospitalized following a heart attack....
Erica, a mother of two, sought to raise awareness about police brutality following the death of her father, Eric Garner, who was put into a fatal chokehold by a New York City police officer on Staten Island in 2014. The incident was captured in a video that was widely circulated and contributed to the national discussion about police violence toward people of color. Her father's last words, "I can't breathe," have become a rallying cry for the racial justice movement.
That is not only very sad but downright strange at such a young age...
It was probably hurried along by the combination of grief, stress and legal frustration her father's murder subjected her to.
True, and she seemed to have had underlying circulatory problems, like the young athletes who drop dead during competitions. A terrible shame.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/30/erica-garner-dies
Abby Lippman, former McGill epidemiologist, dead at 78
Sad news, great loss, of a great feminist and human-rights activist. Unfortunately, the Gazette piece didn't choose to specify her pro-Palestine activism, among other causes:
Israeli, Palestinian Community Come Together to Protest Israeli Action in Gaza (2014)
“I am just so devastated by what is happening in Gaza, and the killing of Palestinians,” said Abby Lippman, research associate at Concordia’s Simone de Beauvoir institute and board member of The Centre for Gender Advocacy.
“I’m just so angry that Israel is committing these crimes, and I’m angry that people are saying that the Jews want this to happen. So I’m here as a secular jew, to show my protest,” she explained.
And just last month, in response to fraudulent accusations of "anti-Semitism" against the McGill Students Union:
May her memory and her activism inspire us always.
Yes, I was meaning to put that online. Thank you. Abby isn't the only person who was a regular at the weekly vigil outside the Israeli consulate here who has passed away...
Rezeq Faraj, almost ten years... Seems like I was talking with him yesterday:
http://rabble.ca/news/2010/06/rezeq-faraj-legacy-man-without-childhood
http://rabble.ca/news/lillian-robinson-troublemaker-extraordinaire
I remember Lillian attending the vigil in cold rain when she was already quite ill...
Christiane Sibillotte, radical nun and extraordinary woman, has died at 101. A long life well-lived!
http://www.ledevoir.com/societe/actualites-en-societe/516841/soeur-chris...
Dolores O'Riordan, lead vocalist with the 1990's Irish rock legends The Cranberries, dead suddenly at age 46:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/music/celebrity/cranberries-singer-dolores-ori...
Such sad news. I hope it wasn't an accidental overdose. She had been dealing with back problems.
The most recent I saw was "her death is not considered suspicious". Sometimes that just means that foul play has been ruled out, but sometimes when authorities say that, perhaps along with "and no suspects are being considered at this point" it's (open) secret code for "suicide".
Anyway, there'll never be another like her. She had a voice like a rusty homemade saw, except beautiful.
She was a Gaelic speaker, attending a "national school" where all subjects were taught in Gaelic. This shows through even when she was singing in English.
Thanks to Neil Richards, who passed away last weekend.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/u-of-s-houses-one-of-the-largest...
One thing about Dolores O'Riordan's passing that I'd like to throw in here is that, if it does turn out to have been a suicide, there will be a lot of efforts made to try to work out "why". With suicide, there isn't always a "why". It is an irrational choice even in a moment of despair, and it isn't always useful to try and pinpoint a cause. Far better for people to learn to watch for the signs that someone they know may be considering that course of action, and here is one list of signs to watch out for. I post it on the occasion of Delores' death, at a moment when we still don't know why she died, because that is the sort of occasion on which people are open to learning about this:
https://www.suicideline.org.au/resource/recognising-suicide-warning-signs/
With suicide, there isn't always a "why".
+1
I'd suggest that depression is sort of a non-fatal (notwithstanding suicide) "lite" version that similarly holds no easy answers for the rest of us.
"But why are you depressed? You have a lovely family, and a super job!!"
Whenever Richard Cory went down town,With suicide, there isn't always a "why".+1
I'd suggest that depression is sort of a non-fatal (notwithstanding suicide) "lite" version that similarly holds no easy answers for the rest of us.
"But why are you depressed? You have a lovely family, and a super job!!"
And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
'Good-morning,' and he glittered when he walked.
And he was rich - yes, richer than a king -
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
RIP Ursula. Great writer, great career. Was assigned the Dispossessed in university for a class and have read her stuff ever since.
