R.I.P.

[Crafty_Dog]

Mitch Mitchell, drummer for the Jimi Hendrix Experience, has died, apparently of natural causes at the age of 61

MM was an outstanding drummer.  In addition to seeing him play as part of the JHE in 1967, I also saw him sit in various times with the Jefferson Airplane at the Fillmore East.  There were strong connections between the JA and the JHE.  Jack Casady frequently played with JH (see e.g. "Voodoo Chile on Electric Ladyland", and a cut on "JH live at Winterland") and MM relates in his book on his years with JH that JH asked Jack to replace Noel Redding in the JHE but that Jack was loyal to the JA.  Anyway, MM would come sit in with the JA. 

The late show at the Fillmore began at 11:30 and usually had two bands before the JA, so the JA typically would come on stage around 0200 and MM would join in around 0400 with the set typically finishing around 0530 (which was cutting it close for me sneaking back into the house before my folks awoke).  This was not a problem when the JA drummer was Spencer Dryden, but Spencer's replacement Joey Covington apparently felt insecure--  one time a separate drum set was put out on stage for MM to play even as JC continued to play.  Eventually JC backed off and insincerely introduced "Our friend Mitch Mitchell" to the crowd. 

The rapport between Mitch, Jack on bass and Jorma on guitar (Paul Kantner doing fine on rythhm guitar too) was extraordinary.

Scary to see someone 5 years older than me dying of "natural causes"!

[Body-by-Guinness]

Dang, talk about an awesome piece of a power trio.

So while you were sneaking out to the Fillmore, I was sneaking in to Chicago blues clubs. . . .

[Crafty_Dog]

Magical moments that continue to inform my Life , , ,

The Adventure continues!

[rachelg]

  
  I have spent a lot of time in Chabad and they have been very helpful to me in my path. I don't agree with them on all the  issues  but Chabad is always very willing to be with you where you at and they always seem to base all their actions on love.
http://www.chabad.org/news/article_cdo/aid/773691/jewish/Mumbai-Jewish-Family-Killed.htm



Rabbi Gavriel, left, and Rivkah Holtzberg were killed in one of the worst terrorist attacks in Indian history. Here, they're seen attending to the wedding of a local Jewish couple.
By Joshua Runyan and Motti Seligson
Nov 28, 2008 11:00 AM

Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, the beloved directors of Chabad-Lubavitch of Mumbai, were killed during one of the worst terrorist attacks to strike India in recent memory.

Jewish communities around the world reacted with shock to the loss of the couple, who were killed Thursday at their Chabad House during an apparent standoff between Indian military forces and terrorists.

Their toddler son, Moshe, managed to escape with his nanny some hours before Indian commandos stormed their building, known as the Nariman House, in the popular touristy neighborhood of Colaba. The Associated Press reported that the boy was unharmed, but was wearing blood-soaked pants.

"Gabi and Rivky Holtzberg made the ultimate sacrifice," said Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, vice chairman of Merkos L'Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of Chabad-Lubavitch. "As emissaries to Mumbai, Gabi and Rivky gave up the comforts of the West in order to spread Jewish pride in a corner of the world that was a frequent stop for throngs of Israeli tourists. Their Chabad House was popular among the local community, as well as with visiting businesspeople.

"For five years, they ran a synagogue and Torah classes, and helped people dealing with drug addiction and poverty," continued the statement. "Their selfless love will live on with all the people they touched. We will continue the work they started."
.

The Holtzbergs arrived in Mumbai in 2003 to serve the small local Jewish community, visiting businesspeople and the throngs of tourists, many of them Israeli, who annually travel to the seaside city.

Gavriel Holtzberg, 29, was born in Israel and moved to the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, N.Y., with his parents, when he was nine. A prodigious student, Holtzberg was a two-time champion in a competition of memorizing the Mishnah, a compendium of rabbinical laws and enactments redacted in the second century C.E.

He studied at yeshivas in New York and Argentina, and as a rabbinical student served communities in Thailand and China under the Summer Rabbinical Visitation Program run by Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch, the educational arm of Chabad-Lubavitch.

His 28-year-old wife, born Rivka Rosenberg, is a native of Afula, Israel. Chayki Rosenberg described her sister as dedicated to helping Jews.

She “gives lots of classes for women at the Chabad House,” Rosenberg told The Jerusalem Post.

Friends described her as always having a positive outlook and a kind word for everyone.

Two years ago, the Holtzbergs raised funds to purchase the current location of the Chabad House, a five-story building in Mumbai’s Colaba market area known as Narimon House. A trained ritual circumciser and slaughterer, the rabbi also conducted weddings for local Jewish couples in addition to teaching Torah classes and visiting with tourists.

His last known phone call was to the Israeli Consulate to report that gunmen were in his house. In the middle of the conversation, the line went dead.

The Holtzbergs joined the more than 125 people who were killed in the Wednesday night through Friday attacks, which saw dozens of suspected Islamic terrorists come ashore in Mumbai near the Gateway of India monument. The terrorists, carrying assault rifles and grenades, quickly fanned out to a central train station, the Chabad House and other tourist locations, including several popular hotels.

According to security services, the Chabad House was a pre-selected target.
Rivkah Holtzberg cuts the ribbon at the grand opening of a Jewish ritual bath in Mumbai.

A team of 15 Chabad-Lubavitch representatives in California, New York, Washington, Israel, India and Bangkok worked the phones throughout the crisis, spending long, sleepless nights awaiting any morsel of information and working to confirm at-times conflicting reports from the field. Hundreds of thousands of Jews around the world prayed for the Holtzbergs, saying Psalms in their merit.

The local police in Mumbai and the highest reaches of the Indian government got involved, but military assault teams first concentrated their efforts on the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels, where hundreds of foreign tourists were either holed up or being held hostage. When they finally entered the Chabad House on Friday, they found that the worst had occured.

Rivky Holtzberg's parents, Rabbi Shimon and Yehudit Rosenberg arrived in Mumbai early Friday morning to bring their now-orphaned grandson home to family.

To contribute to a fund established to aid relief efforts in Mumbai, go to www.ChabadIndia.org.

[ccp]

Very sad.
One just asks the same question asked forever during the turbulent history of humanity - why?

[Crafty_Dog]

Thank you for that Rachel.

If you have a free moment to continue fleshing out my meager Jewish education on a suitable thread (perhaps The Power of Word) with regard to Chabad, I would be grateful for it.

[rachelg]

 
This is not the 2 year old son who was saved by his nanny in India  He thankfully does not have the same genetic disease that killed his two older brothers.     

The four-year-old son of Gavriel and Rivak Holtzberg, who were killed in the terror attack on the Chabad house in Mumbai, has died of a severe genetic disease overnight.

 
Dov-Ba'ar Holtzberg's funeral will be held at 10 am in Jerusalem.


http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3647029,00.html

[bigdog]

This is the story of a particular police officer, William Vize.  There is a subtext of the article that deals with the difficulty of policing, and the impact on the officers' lives.  A story worth reading, in my opinion.

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/article_0166a14c-fef0-5b3d-b0f5-110292423e84.html

[ccp]

Search All NYTimes.com
     U.S. World U.S.
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Frank Buckles, Last World War I Doughboy, Is Dead at 110
 

By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN
Published: February 28, 2011
Frank Buckles, who drove an Army ambulance in France in 1918 and came to symbolize a generation of embattled young Americans as the last of the World War I doughboys, died Sunday at his home in Charles Town, W. Va. He was 110.

His death was announced by a family spokesman, David DeJonge, The Associated Press said.

He was only a corporal and he never got closer than 30 or so miles from the Western Front trenches, but Mr. Buckles became something of a national treasure as the last living link to the two million men who served in the American Expeditionary Forces in France in “the war to end all wars.”

Frail, stooped and hard of hearing, but sharp of mind, Mr. Buckles was named grand marshal of the National Memorial Day Parade in Washington in 2007. He was a guest at Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans Day 2007 for a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknowns. He was honored by Defense Secretary Robert Gates at the Pentagon and met with President George W. Bush at the White House in March 2008.

United States Senators played host to him at the Capitol in June 2008 for the impending 90th anniversary of the World War I armistice. And he appeared before a Senate subcommittee in December 2009 to support legislation named in his honor to bestow federal status on a World War I memorial on the National Mall built in the 1930s.

Sought out for interviews in his final years, Mr. Buckles told of having witnessed a ceremony involving British veterans of the Crimean War, fought in the 1850s, when he was stationed in England before heading to France. He remembered chatting with General John J. Pershing, the commander of American troops in World War I, at an event in Oklahoma City soon after the war’s end.

And he proudly held a sepia-toned photograph of himself in his doughboy uniform when he was interviewed by USA Today in 2007. “I was a snappy soldier,” he said. “All gung-ho.”

Frank Woodruff Buckles was born Feb. 1, 1901, on a farm near Bethany, Mo. He was living in Oakwood, Okla., when America entered World War I and he tried to enlist in the Marine Corps at age 16, having been inspired by recruiting posters.

The Marines turned him down as underage and under the required weight. The Navy didn’t want him either, saying he had flat feet. But the Army took him in August 1917 when he lied about his age, and he volunteered to be an ambulance driver, hearing that was the quickest path to service in France.

He sailed for England in December 1917 on the Carpathia, the ship that helped save survivors of the Titanic’s sinking in 1912. He later served in various locations in France, including Bordeaux, and drove military autos and ambulances. He was touched by the war’s impact on the French people.

“The little French children were hungry,” Mr. Buckles recalled in a 2001 interview for the Veterans History Project of the Library of Congress. “We’d feed the children. To me, that was a pretty sad sight.”

Mr. Buckles escorted German prisoners of war back to their homeland after the armistice, then returned to America and later worked in the Toronto office of the White Star shipping line.

He traveled widely over the years, working for steamship companies, and he was on business in Manila when the Japanese occupied it following the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. He was imprisoned by the Japanese, losing more than 50 pounds, before being liberated by an American airborne unit in February 1945.

After retiring from steamship work in the mid-1950s, Mr. Buckles ran a cattle farm in Charles Town, and he was still riding a tractor there at age 104.

In April 2007, Mr. Buckles was identified by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs as one of the four known survivors among the more than 4.7 million Americans who had served in the armed forces of the Allied nations between April 6, 1917, when the United States entered World War I, and the Armistice of Nov. 11, 1918.

Two of the four — J. Russell Coffey and Harry Landis — had served stateside in the American Army. Mr. Coffey died in December 2007 at 109 and Mr. Landis died in February 2008 at 108. John Babcock, who was Canadian born, served in Canada’s army in Britain in World War I and held dual American and Canadian citizenship, died in Spokane, Wash., in February 2010 at 109.

The last known veterans of the French and German armies in World War I, Lazare Ponticelli and Erich Kästner, died a few months apart in 2008; Harry Patch, the last British soldier, died in 2009. A former nurse and a former sailor, both English, are thought to be the only two people still living who served in any capacity in the war.

Mr. Buckles is survived by his daughter, Susannah Flanagan. His wife, Audrey, died in 1999.

More than eight decades after World War I ended, Mr. Buckles retained images of his French comrades. And he thought back to the fate that awaited them.

“What I have a vivid memory of is the French soldiers — being in a small village and going in to a local wine shop in the evening,” he told a Library of Congress interviewer. “They had very, very little money. But they were having wine and singing the ‘Marseillaise’ with enthusiasm. And I inquired, ‘What is the occasion?’ They were going back to the front. Can you imagine that?”

[ccp]

He would have been around 8 yo.  Doesn't appear to have had speaking role.  I remember parts of this movie:

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

[DougMacG]

One of a many who interrupted their young adult lives to go defeat Adolf Hitler and Nazism, he served under General Patton behind front lines in a medical crew- in England, France and Germany including the liberation of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp.  I didn't know until now, looking for dates and info in his documents, that his unit received a long list of awards and medals. 

Joining his own father in dental practice, he served generations of patients for 63 years and taught in the University Dental School for a quarter century.  He skied in the mountains and played golf and tennis with us through age 88.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/startribune/obituary.aspx?n=george-d-macgibbon&pid=167737425&fhid=4427

[bigdog]

With bowed head and respect in my heart, Doug.

One of a many who interrupted their young adult lives to go defeat Adolf Hitler and Nazism, he served under General Patton behind front lines in a medical crew- in England, France and Germany including the liberation of the Buchenwald Concentration Camp.  I didn't know until now, looking for dates and info in his documents, that his unit received a long list of awards and medals. 

Joining his own father in dental practice, he served generations of patients for 63 years and taught in the University Dental School for a quarter century.  He skied in the mountains and played golf and tennis with us through age 88.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/startribune/obituary.aspx?n=george-d-macgibbon&pid=167737425&fhid=4427

[Crafty_Dog]

"The wood is consumed but the fire burns on."

Respect!

[ccp]

Sorry about your father Doug.

We only have one;  and when he leaves a part of his child(ren) goes with him and a part of him stays with his child(ren).

The world lost another hero.

Thanks for sharing.

[ccp]

Occasionally some of his remarks were over the top but 95% of the time he got it right from my point of view.  He loved America.  I saw him give a talk once.  Must have been around 1989 at some synagogue in North Jersey somewhere. 

He was Italian.  He was always a friend of Israel.

OF course his controversial remarks will be the headlines and anything rational logical and pro American will be ignored by the MSM.   He was far more objective than any of those on the far left.  For example he recently (about a year ago) praised Cuomo for doing a good job in NY.   How is that for crossing party lines?   Has anyone from the NYT or MSNBC EVER given a good word for a Republican?

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/01/03/conservative-radio-host-bob-grant-dies-at-84/

[ccp]

True love for family.  Teachings of a 9 yo boy:

http://news.yahoo.com/ny-boy-hailed-saving-6-honorary-firefighter-211520670.html

[ccp]

“On the occasion of Mahatma Gandhi's 70th birthday. "Generations to come, it may well be, will scarce believe that such a man as this one ever in flesh and blood walked upon this Earth.”

― Albert Einstein

Gandhi was murdered by Hindu extremists.

Gandhi - one of the greatest human beings to have walked the Earth.

(I will add we do not see anything like it today in American leaders.)

[ccp]

http://www.indianchild.com/mahatma_gandhi.htm

[ccp]

She was active in Republican politics and liked military men.  I didn't know she was only 85.  She was history as long as I can remember.  She started so young:

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

[DougMacG]

http://www.startribune.com/obituaries/detail/14025661/?fullname=nancy-l-macgibbon

[Crafty_Dog]

The wood is consumed but the fire lives on.

[bigdog]

With condolences and respect, my friend.

http://www.startribune.com/obituaries/detail/14025661/?fullname=nancy-l-macgibbon

[ccp]

Doug,

My condolences as well. 

Judging from your kindness on the board all these years.  She must have been a great mother.   I was lucky like that too.

[DougMacG]

Thank you guys for the kind words, support and friendship!

[ccp]

greatest Jewish baseball player behind Hank Greenberg and Sandy Koufax:

*****
Baseball

Al Rosen, Who Missed Triple Crown by a Hit, Dies at 91

By RICHARD GOLDSTEINMARCH 14, 2015
 
 Al Rosen in 1956. He led the American League in home runs twice and in 1978 was picked by George M. Steinbrenner to run the Yankees. Credit Ed Widdis/Associated Press 

Al Rosen, a slugging third baseman for the Cleveland Indians who was unanimously named the American League’s most valuable player in 1953, when he came within a hit of winning the batting triple crown, but whose career was cut short by injury, died Friday in Rancho Mirage, Calif. He was 91.

Rosen, whose death was announced by his family, was also president of the Yankees in the late 1970s and president and general manager of the Houston Astros and San Francisco Giants, helping to build their 1989 pennant winner.

In the early and mid-1950s, Rosen, a muscular right-handed batter, joined with the lefty-swinging Luke Easter and Larry Doby to provide the punch in Cleveland’s lineup. Rosen led the league in home runs twice and runs batted in twice and played in the All-Star Game every year from 1952 to 1955. He was best remembered for the summer of 1953, when he led the league in home runs with 43, and runs batted in with 145, while batting .336.

Going into the final game in 1953, Rosen was battling Mickey Vernon, the Washington Senators’ first baseman, for the batting title. In Rosen’s last at-bat, against the Detroit Tigers at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium, he hit a slow grounder to third base and seemed to have beaten the throw on a close play.

“Everybody on the bench thought I was safe,” Rosen told Baseball Digest in 2002. But the umpire, Hank Soar, called Rosen out, and he agreed.

“I tried to leap to first base,” Rosen told Baseball Digest in 2002. “But I did a quick step and missed the bag.”

Had Rosen been safe, he would have won the battling title and the triple crown. But Vernon edged him for the batting championship, finishing with a .337 average.

Despite being hampered by a broken finger, Rosen hit .300 in 1954, helping the Indians win the pennant with a then league-record 111 victories, ending the Yankees’ streak of five consecutive pennants.

Ralph Kiner, the future Hall of Fame slugger who joined the Indians in 1955, came to admire Rosen. As Kiner told Danny Peary in “We Played the Game,” an oral history of 1950s baseball, “He was the leader of the team and the best all-around player I ever played with.”

Albert Leonard Rosen was born Feb. 29, 1924, in Spartanburg, S.C., where his grandfather, a Jewish immigrant from Poland, ran a department store. When he was a youngster, his family moved to Miami, where, he recalled, he was sometimes taunted over his religion. So he took up boxing and showed the grit he would later display on the baseball field.

“I wasn’t starting trouble in those days, but when it came to me, I wanted to end it, and damn quick,” he told Roger Kahn in “How the Weather Was.”

Rosen also played fast-pitch softball and then turned to baseball in prep school. He later joined the Indians’ organization and made his major league debut in 1947. He played briefly for the Indians’ 1948 World Series champions but did not become a regular until 1950, when he hit a league-leading 37 home runs.

The lingering effects of his 1954 finger injury, incurred fielding a grounder while playing first base for a time, and an injury from an auto accident brought on Rosen’s retirement, at age 32, after the 1956 season. He had a career batting average of .285 with 192 homers and 717 R.B.I.

Continue reading the main story Continue reading the main story

After working as a stockbroker and casino executive, Rosen embarked on a second baseball career in 1978 when the Yankees owner George M. Steinbrenner named him the team’s president. Steinbrenner had known Rosen from his years as a shipping executive in Cleveland, and Rosen was already a minority owner of the Yankees.

“George tapped me on the shoulder and said he wanted me to run the Yankees,” Rosen once told The Akron Beacon Journal. “It’s like having a tiara put on your head.”

In midseason 1978, Billy Martin departed as manager and was replaced by Bob Lemon, the former pitching star who had been Rosen’s teammate with the Indians. The Yankees overtook the Boston Red Sox on Bucky Dent’s memorable home run and went on to win the World Series.

But Rosen’s “tiara” did not stay on long, following a familiar pattern in the tumultuous years when Steinbrenner’s Yankees became known as the Bronx Zoo. He quit in midsummer of 1979 amid conflicts with Steinbrenner and Martin, who had returned as manager.

He was president and general manager of the Astros from 1980 to 1985 and the Giants from 1986 to 1992.

He is survived by his wife, Rita; three sons, Rob, Andy and Jim, from his marriage to his first wife, Teresa, who died in 1971; two stepchildren, Gail Evenari and David Loewenstein; four grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Rosen was known for his determination and intensity. He fielded hundreds of ground balls in drills to improve his fielding, and as Yankees Manager Casey Stengel told Time magazine in 1954: “He’ll give you the works every time. Gets all the hits, gives you the hard tag in the field.”

Rosen once told USA Today: “I worked hard at it. I wasn’t as talented as many. I didn’t have a long career, but I thought I had a good career.”

[ccp]

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-alfred-mann-obit-20160226-story.html

[ccp]

http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2018/06/10/holocaust-survivor-gena-turgel-consoler-of-anne-frank-dies/

[ccp]

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Cesar+Cuauhtemoc+Gonzalez+Barron+video&t=osx&ia=videos&iax=videos&iai=AKj2loc7IQE

[ccp]

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/ken-starr-investigator-probed-clinton-203518265.html

[Crafty_Dog]

She Was the Best of Us
In an era of profound geopolitical challenges and social transformations, Britons could always rely on the decency, common sense and courage of Queen Elizabeth II, writes Andrew Roberts.

By Andrew Roberts
Sept. 9, 2022 9:40 am ET


We British like to believe that we have the virtues of duty, decency, good humor and tolerance as part of our national DNA. There might be some self-delusion in this, and it is certainly not always true, but it is a strong part of our self-defining myth as a people. Of one Briton, however, it genuinely was true, and for 70 years we have known that because of her virtues we would always be proud of her wherever she went—and thus proud of our country too. She was a fine lifelong role model for millions in Britain, the Commonwealth and around the world.

The complete certainty that—whatever the rest of her family might say or do—Her Majesty The Queen would never embarrass us on the world stage, but would always perform her duties with the utmost professionalism and unflappable calm, made her the soft-power equivalent of an aircraft carrier when it came to international relations. However much our other national institutions might let us down, we always knew that The Queen would never put a step out of place or say a single word that would make us cringe.

In the full glare of the global media for seven decades, meeting hundreds of thousands of people one-on-one and untold millions in public events, traveling to over a hundred countries of the world, dealing with delicate diplomatic incidents that today are history but at the time could have produced strife, advising 15 prime ministers from Winston Churchill to Liz Truss, she knew just what to do. It seems almost superhuman; it was certainly the absolute acme of professionalism. Would to God that more of our leaders in public life had a fraction of her grace, her gravitas and, above all, her common sense.


Queen Elizabeth II, the longest lived and longest-reigning monarch in Britain’s history, has died at age 96. She was just 25 years old when her father, King George VI, died and she became head of the monarchy and the figurehead of a commonwealth of 2.4 billion people and over 50 countries. Photo: PA Images/Alamy

The Queen had an uncanny knack for encapsulating in a phrase what the rest of us think but rarely quite put into words, or at least rarely have the opportunity to say to the right person at the right time. “Why did no one see it coming?” she asked Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, about the 2008 Great Crash. “Why would anyone want the job?” she asked Boris Johnson when he became prime minister during the Brexit maelstrom. Then there was the sixth sense she had for what her people were feeling. When they were hurting financially during the Great Crash, she canceled her birthday party at the Ritz. And of course there was her choice of the apposite phrase. “Grief is the price we pay for love,” she said in the aftermath of 9/11, encapsulating precisely what the West was feeling.

Anyone who thought that she would put her personal comfort before what she saw as her duty doesn’t understand the character of The Queen, the last of the Greatest Generation.

Remember those words as we watch the long line of mourning Britons and her subjects from 15 countries across the globe next week, stretching from her catafalque in Westminster Hall. I strongly suspect that it will go down the Thames all the way to the City of London financial district in the east of the capital, as they pay their respects at her lying-in-state. They will come from across the four kingdoms and from around the world; they will wait patiently in line for very many hours on end; they will doggedly put up with the rain and cold winds all night; they will josh with the coppers and stay cheerful; they will bring their children and grandchildren who will one day be able to tell their own children and grandchildren that they paid their last respects to Queen Elizabeth II, Elizabeth the Good.


Everyone would have perfectly understood if Her Majesty had decided to appoint Liz Truss as prime minister by a Zoom call. She had missed the Braemar Highland Games and had been suffering ill health, and a personal meeting wasn’t strictly constitutionally necessary. As we now know—and as she herself might well have suspected—she only had two more days to live. But anyone who thought that she would put her personal comfort before what she saw as her duty doesn’t understand the character of The Queen, the last of the Greatest Generation. When she was shot at six times as she rode down the Mall at the Trooping of the Colour in 1981, she didn’t know the assailant was firing blanks, but she carried on the parade regardless. That is the kind of raw courage we took for granted from her.


Britain has undergone several extremely difficult moments over the past 70 years as it has been transformed in almost every conceivable way. The Suez Crisis, only four years into the Queen’s reign, forced us to come to terms with the loss of the largest empire in world history over the course of only a decade or so, yet we never responded to the imperial humiliation in the way that France did in Algeria, let alone the way Putin is doing in Ukraine. The 1970s saw the serious danger of Britain slipping into the position of a third-rank power, and the tough-love medicine that Margaret Thatcher imposed to reverse that trajectory in the 1980s led to violent strikes and riots, yet not to worse. The issue of race hatred is thankfully largely behind Britons now, but we must never forget that it occasionally caused civil unrest. The refusal of much of the Establishment to accept the result of the Brexit referendum toxified British politics for half a decade. British history since 1952 hasn’t been plain sailing.

Yet the knowledge that at the apex of our political system, our constitutional structure, our armed forces, our Commonwealth, our legal system and our national church stood a lady of irreproachable morals, who moreover confined her political involvement to advising, encouraging and warning but never to partisan politics, has exercised an inestimably positive influence on our public life. Liz Truss wasn’t exaggerating when she perceptively said that the Queen was “the rock upon which modern Britain was built.”

Although she was a small “c” conservative in many aspects of life, as many nonagenarians naturally are, The Queen was always exemplary in the way that she never interfered in politics, and Sir Keir Starmer’s public statement showed that the Labour Party admired her just as much as the large-c Conservatives. In a country that is being riven by extreme partisan politics at the moment, as Britons face a post-Covid future and inflationary spirals, admiration for her was one of the few things that united both frontbenches in parliament. Now even that has gone.


More than a century separated the births of The Queen’s first prime minister, Winston Churchill, and her last, Liz Truss. Even more extraordinary, the 96 years of her life constitutes 39% of the existence of the United States as an independent country. Her love of the United States—her only incognito holidays were taken in Kentucky—was instrumental in keeping our most important alliance, the Special Relationship, as fresh as it is profound. We have only just begun to note the number of ways we are going to miss her, on both the international and the domestic stages.

A millennium-old monarchy is a book of many chapters. One unusually long and glorious chapter has closed, and a new one is now opening. If Britain today seems somewhat untethered, mournful of course but also apprehensive, it is because King Charles III has almost impossibly large boots to fill. Yet he has been waiting for 70 of his 73 years for the role to devolve upon him and is therefore supremely ready for it. There is something immensely spiritually right that a role such as this is assumed during a period of mourning. Politicians take power feeling like they have won the lottery; monarchs accede to thrones mournful at the death of their parent. Succession at a time of somber reflection rather than exultant triumph is part of the genius of constitutional monarchy.


We as a nation made The Queen do things that we would never, ever, even consider doing ourselves. We expected her to do her job to the age of 96, when we retire at 65, and to keep doing it up to two days before her death. We expected her to invite bloodthirsty dictators to stay in her home, because British foreign policy interests required it. We expected her, aged 86, to stand on a boat in the Thames in the freezing rain during the diamond jubilee, waving for hour after hour. We expected her to shake the hand of a former IRA gunman who approved the murder of her husband’s uncle. We expected her to smile and charm and shake hands cordially, whatever she might privately have been feeling inside about her family’s all-too-public traumas.

She did all of it, and in 70 years she never once complained. She was the best of us.


Mr. Roberts is the author, most recently, of “The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III” and a royal commentator for NBC News.

[ccp]

He was a mensch!!!

https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/ken-starr-trump-clinton/2022/09/13/id/1087330/

[ a real mensch - not the ones on the left who virtue signal ]

[DougMacG]

He was a mensch!!!

https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/ken-starr-trump-clinton/2022/09/13/id/1087330/

[ a real mensch - not the ones on the left who virtue signal ]

mensch:  "A person of integrity and honor"

He was Federal Appellate Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, U.S. Solicitor General, Dean of Pepperdine Law School and President of Baylor University.

He did a nice job on the Clinton episode.  Calm and thorough in the face of scandal and attacks.

[G M]

He was a mensch!!!

https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/ken-starr-trump-clinton/2022/09/13/id/1087330/

[ a real mensch - not the ones on the left who virtue signal ]

mensch:  "A person of integrity and honor"

He was Federal Appellate Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, U.S. Solicitor General, Dean of Pepperdine Law School and President of Baylor University.

He did a nice job on the Clinton episode.  Calm and thorough in the face of scandal and attacks.

Hillary thinks of him "As the one who got away".

[ccp]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Clary

played a Nazi on Hogans Heroes

was holocaust survivor
lost parents and 10 siblings

John Bannon also a European Jew who escaped in 1938 also played the Nazi sergeant :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Banner

[DougMacG]

I think he was Louis LeBeau, the Frenchman.

Col. Klink was played by a German-born Jew who...

"accepted the part only on the condition that Klink would be portrayed as a fool who never succeeded."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_Klemperer

[ccp]

"I think he was Louis LeBeau, the Frenchman."

Oh I didn't know
saw an image with him wearing German helmit

honestly I never watched Hogan's Hero though remember it being on as a kid

[ccp]

one of the duo warriors for OUR side
passed at 51 :

https://nypost.com/2023/01/10/diamond-hardaway-of-diamond-and-silk-fame-dead-at-51/

RIP

[Crafty_Dog]

I liked them and their spunky playfulness and courage in the face of Prog Fascism. 

Wishing well for the surviving one.

[ccp]

not a Republican and he certainly seemed snarky at times

but his life is exemplarily:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2023/11/28/charlie-munger-dead-warren-buffett-partner/71733139007/

[ccp]

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/02/the_silent_radio_a_third_year_without_rush.html

[ccp]

https://news.yahoo.com/hydeia-broadbent-lifelong-activist-hiv-001440133.html

"At the 1996 Republican Convention, Hydeia, then 12, told the crowd, "I am the future, and I have AIDS." Her fearlessness, representation, and bravery when it came to being visible with the disease inspired others with the illness, including Magic Johnson, who was HIV-positive as well"

39 is way too young.