Tribute To Colleen Hufford

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Colleen Hufford (far right) is pictured with her husband KC, daughter Kelli and granddaughter Riley

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2774477/Pictured-Smiling-grandmother-beheaded-Muslim-convert-Oklahoma-just-months-losing-home-tornado.html#ixzz3Enh58ZfG
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Mrs Hufford, with her daughter and granddaughter

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2774477/Pictured-Smiling-grandmother-beheaded-Muslim-convert-Oklahoma-just-months-losing-home-tornado.html#ixzz3EnhtOizZ
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See this photo essay for more photos and additional details.

RIP: Richard Matheson (1926-2013)

Richard Matheson (1926-2013), author of the macabre and science fiction, inspired Stephen King, Anne Rice, and Ray Bradbury.

Matheson's works include the novel I Am Legend, the short story "Duel" (made into a 1971 television movie directed by Steven Spielberg), the Twilight Zone episode "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," and other works.

The Washington Post obituary is HERE.

In Memory of Alex Münch

Our good friend Alex has passed away.  He was a frequent commenter here at IBA and a regular participant in the chat room at The Gathering Storm Radio Show on Blog Talk Radio.

I just got off the phone from speaking to his son Amnon. Of course, I offered my condolences.

I was crying then, and I'm crying now.

Alex was a good friend to Mr. AOW and me. When Mr. AOW was in the nursing home, nobody called him there - except for Alex, who phoned all the way from Israel to speak to my husband.

"Courage from Israel!"  he stated emphatically.

Alex also phoned our home several times after Mr. AOW came home. Mr. AOW loved those calls.  They meant a lot to him and to me as well.

Amnon asked me to post an announcement here on the web as Alex's family didn't know all the Internet acquaintances and friends that Alex had made.

Tough as I am, I am typing this post through tears.

I will miss Alex.  He was a rock - and lots of fun too.

RIP Roger Williams (Pianist)

Obituary HERE. His signature piece:


Many more HERE.

In high school, I loved this one and also bought the LP vinyl:


Listen to those words in "Born Free." No wonder I'm such an infidel! My brain is imprinted with freedom, left brain and right brain. When I first heard the song, I had zero idea about the film Born Free and interpreted the words in a completely different context.

RIP NANCY WAKE (30 August 1912 – 7 August 2011)

slushy:

RIP NANCY WAKE (30 August 1912 – 7 August 2011)

Ms Wake, who has died in London just before her 99th birthday, was a New Zealander brought up in Australia. She became a nurse, a journalist who interviewed Adolf Hitler, a wealthy French socialite, a British agent and a French resistance leader. She led 7,000 guerrilla fighters in battles against the Nazis in the northern Auvergne, just before the D-Day landings in 1944. On one occasion, she strangled an SS sentry with her bare hands. On another, she cycled 500 miles to replace lost codes. In June 1944, she led her fighters in an attack on the Gestapo headquarters at Montlucon in central France.

Work began earlier this month on a feature film about Nancy Wake’s life. Ms Wake, one of the models for Sebastian Faulks’ fictional heroine, Charlotte Gray, had mixed feelings about previous cinematic efforts to portray her wartime exploits, including a TV mini-series made in 1987.

“It was well-acted but in parts it was extremely stupid,” she said. “At one stage they had me cooking eggs and bacon to feed the men. For goodness’ sake, did the Allies parachute me into France to fry eggs and bacon for the men? There wasn’t an egg to be had for love nor money. Even if there had been why would I be frying it? I had men to do that sort of thing.”

Ms Wake was also furious the TV series suggested she had had a love affair with one of her fellow fighters.She was too busy killing Nazis for amorous entanglements, she said.

Even before she escaped to Britain, through Spain, in 1943 to train as a guerrilla leader, Nancy had beentop of the Gestapo’s French “wanted” list. With her husband, she ran a resistance network which helped to smuggle Jews and allied airmen out of the country.

Nancy recalled later in life that her parachute had snagged in a tree. The French resistance fighter who freed her said he wished all trees bore “such beautiful fruit”. Nancy retorted: “Don’t give me that French shit.”

Amy Winehouse RIP

The following is a repost of an article "Culturist Amy Winehouse" originally published here in Nov of 2009.

Today I heard Amy Winehouse heard for the first time. That is, I have seen her many times, but I never saw a performance that grabbed me more than it just illustrated  her tragic wastiness. But her version of Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard it Through the Grapevine,” with Paul Weller of the Jam, was a stunning virtuoso performance. She missed nothing, but remained both vicious and wild, yet controlled to the point of perfection in pitch, with  clever metered vocal fills. And even the fade-outs from her competent co-vocalist happened at the prescribed time. But her final intonation of the chorus, when she went quiet, it was like hearing the subtle twang of Mae West in her prime.

With reason, many could conclude that Winehouse is deleterious to the success of western civilization. She is a role model of potentially disastrous impact. She makes drugs and the refusal to go to rehab sexy. And culturists know that youth follow those with status. That is why we need values leadership from positive and popular role models. I would much rather those who took care of their families and diligently pursued their studies in the name of western civilization getting glamorized. I would much rather see the artistic elite banish junkies for shame's sake. But that would cost us the Rolling Stones, Billie Holiday, and many other artists. It would make the West much more like communist China. And that, I would not like to see.

Winehouse brings a very interesting cultural mishmash to the table. She is definitely Jewish, her music is clearly derivative of African – American soul tradition ala Motown, she has the biker chic that tattoos bring, and – most of all – she embodies that ennobling yet defiling self-destruction, Ziggy Stardust-style tragedy of the burn out and crash of the chosen one, the rising star style. While she presents no role model, she represents a vamp, a type, a trope, that we can all share joy in. In her way, if teachers want to use her for edification, she even ties us back to the 19th century romantic tragedy of the romantic Goethe's Lotte who died for love. She is a sacrificial lamb to our deep cultural longing for bonding through her familiar formulaic romantic cultural mish mash. 


Unlike the more electronic pop idols, Winehouse reminds us of the jewels of western culture and the romance of the individual self. And, perhaps, in a multicultural world where the divided West refuses to see it has a culture to protect and offending Islam may soon become a crime, her drunken iconic presence is a culturist good.

www.culturism.us