Americans like a winner. If you lose, you’re nothing. I’m going to win, though. It’s good for the match that Spassky has a plus score against me. We’ve met five times. He’s won three times and we’ve drawn twice. But I’m a stronger player and a long match favors me. — Bobby Fischer Bobby Fischer died last week in Reykjavik, Iceland, the site of his greatest triumph — the 1972 World Chess Championship. He was 64 years old, one year for each square on a chessboard. For the first half of his life, his brilliance as a chess player mostly outweighed his irrational judgment and paranoia. For the second half of his life, it was the other way around. In the middle of the Cold War, he beat the Soviets at their own game. He became as famous as a rock star while playing a game that absolutely no one… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Death
The Peanuts Kids: Where Are They Now?
ANAHEIM — Authorities say a woman apparently jumped off an Anaheim freeway overpass Thursday and died. The Orange County Register reports that 50-year-old Sally Brown plunged to her death just after 11 a.m. from the East La Palma Avenue overpass onto the westbound 91 Freeway. Read more →
Another Difference Between Dogs and Cats
PULLMAN, Wash. — A 6-year-old border collie died in a house fire after waking up his owner out of a deep sleep to warn her of the blaze. Marilyn Harvey and her son, Brent, rushed out the basement door, but Sandler turned back. Marilyn’s husband, John Harvey, who was in Seattle at the time of the fire, thinks it was because Sandler wanted to save the family’s 17-year-old Australian shepherd, who was still inside the house. Both dogs died in last Friday’s fire, along with a bird named Kellogg. A cat named Raja escaped unharmed. — Associated Press Read more →
50 Years Ago Today
According to the Los Angeles Times: Red Sanders decided to stay on as football coach at UCLA instead of pursuing the football coach/athletic director job at Texas A&M, a job recently vacated by Paul (Bear) Bryant. (Sanders would have a heart attack and die before the start of the 1958 football season anyway.) A father of three killed himself in front of his wife after losing his job on Christmas Eve. Silent-screen star Norma Talmadge died in Las Vegas. The Times gave her age as 60; according to IMDB, she was actually 62. Read more →
Dan Fogelberg, 1951-2007
Among other accomplishments, Dan Fogelberg wrote “Longer,” one of the two worst songs I’ve ever heard, the other being “Sometimes When We Touch” by Dan Hill, who is unfortunately still alive. Aside from that, he seems to have been a very decent man. Read more →
Ike Turner, 1931-2007
Ike Turner, whose role as one of rock’s critical architects was overshadowed by his ogrelike image as the man who brutally abused former wife and icon Tina Turner, died Wednesday at his home in suburban San Diego. He was 76. — Associated Press The news of Ike’s death hit me like a slap in the face . . . Read more →
Death to Meetings
Regarding the negotiations to keep USC football in the Coliseum, Scott Wolf writes: USC’s Coliseum negotiations website implores fans to attend today’s commission meeting. It’s part of USC’s public-relations strategy to get the public to express outrage. So far, that ploy’s resulted in death threats against commission member Bill Chadwick and general manager Pat Lynch. A USC official just shrugged his shoulders at that little byproduct of the negotiations. Let’s see if I understand the cause and effect here. Encouraging people to attend a committee meeting resulted in death threats? OK, that’s understandable . . . I hate meetings myself. Read more →
Open Enrollment
One of the HR reps at my new company is explaining Accidental Death and Dismemberment insurance. “What if someone intentionally dismembers me?” I ask. “Could happen.” “Do you work in IT?” she asks. “Do a lot of people in IT get intentionally dismembered?” “Just something about your line of questioning . . .” Read more →
Evel Knievel, 1938-2007
On New Year’s Eve Day, 1967, Evel Knievel, some crazy son of a bitch from Butte, Montana, jumped his motorcycle 151 feet over the fountains at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. — EvelKnievel.com And that’s why, when I was a kid, every boy in my neighborhood grew up with a endless progression of scabs on knees and elbows from trying to jump Schwinn Sting-Ray bikes over every natural and man-made obstacle we could find. Farewell to an iconic figure . . . Read more →
More School Choice
And if you want your kid to know what to do when the principal says “Code Blue” over the intercom, move to Cleveland: Students said they took cover in closets after the school principal announced a “Code Blue” on the intercom. I just asked my own high school-age son if he knows what “Code Blue” means and he doesn’t know. In a health care setting, it means cardiac arrest, or more generically, imminent loss of life. So the day your kid comes home and tells you he learned what to do when the principal says “Code Blue” over the intercom is a good day to start looking for a new school. Read more →
People I Thought Were Dead
Earl Butz – U.S. secretary of agriculture Oral Roberts – preacher Updates Earl Butz – died 2/2/2008, age 98 Oral Roberts – died 12/15/2009, age 91 Read more →
An Open Letter to My Former Employer
No hard feelings, but I’m looking at the company president’s new employment agreement on EDGAR . . . the stock’s down 50 percent, the bond rating’s been lowered to junk, you laid off 400 people end of July and announced plans to lay off 1,000 more, and yet shareholders will still be paying for a really fabulous set of benefits for this lout: luxury automobiles, first-class air travel, $35,000 a year for financial planning services, and not one, but two, country club memberships. The rest of the peasants — er, employees — have to pay for their own cars, green fees, financial planners, etc., which is even tougher when you’ve been laid off thanks to my man’s (lack of) stewardship at the mortgage bank. Let them eat cake! I challenge you post a link to the employment agreement on the company web site and see if he isn’t guillotined within… Read more →
Follow Your Heart
Man died doing what he loved most — Orange County Register He loved being hit by trucks? Read more →
The Hard Way
Death of Esperanza coach brings team together — Orange County Register This couldn’t have been accomplished with a barbeque or a pizza party? Read more →
Naked People on a Glacier
In this image supplied by Greenpeace, U.S. artist Spencer Tunick and Greenpeace Switzerland present hundreds of naked people to symbolize the vulnerability of glaciers under climate change. Is that what it’s supposed to symbolize? What did it symbolize when he photographed hundreds of naked people in Venezuela, France, Britain, etc., etc., etc. Isn’t anyone else bored out of their minds with this idiot yet? He’s like that miscreant who dresses up Weimaraners, and everyone else who has one limited idea and keeps repeating it over and over and over. I don’t claim to be a great artist, but let me tell you how this glacier shoot should have been done: You put the hundreds of people on the glacier, at which time they discover to their dismay that they’re stuck there like a tongue on a lamppost. You leave them there to slowly starve to death and decompose. It reeks… Read more →
Ingmar Bergman, 1918-2007
Ingmar Bergman died today, age 89. I swear to God I though he was already dead. Read more →
Lady Bird Johnson, 1912-2007
7-Eleven marks 80 years with free Slurpees — Dallas Morning News, July 11, 2007 Former first lady Lady Bird Johnson dies — Dallas Morning News, July 11, 2007 She was 94 years old. I actually thought she was already dead. I hope she got her free Slurpee . . . Read more →
He Looks Almost Lifelike!
The annual ACM Awards banquet was held last month in San Diego. Recipients were afforded the singular honor of being photographed next to the embalmed corpse of ACM President Stuart Feldman (left): Read more →
Another Reason I Never Put My Kid in Day Care
A day care worker in Tulsa, Okla., was looking after eight children ages 7 and younger. One of the kids, a 2-year-old boy, would not be quiet for nap time, so she bound his hands and covered his mouth with masking tape. That silenced him — permanently. The boy died after several days on life support. I never did trust people enough to have them raise my kid. Never did. Now if you were to respond that the average day care worker is no less capable than the average American mom of raising a child without killing it, I’d say — you’re probably right! I’m just talking about my kid . . . Read more →
The Old Game
I came up with a new game-show idea recently. It’s called The Old Game. You got three old guys with loaded guns onstage. They look back at their lives, see who they were, what they accomplished, how close they came to realizing their dreams. The winner is the one who doesn’t blow his brains out. He gets a refrigerator. — Confessions of a Dangerous Mind Read more →