Our Daily Dead

LA Times
Diane Knippers, president of the conservative Institute on Religion and Democracy and a vocal proponent of traditional Christian practice whom Time magazine recently named as one of the nation’s 25 most influential evangelicals, has died. She was 53.

Knippers, who battled colon cancer for more than a year, died Monday in a hospital in Arlington, Va.

NY Times
Dr. Saunders Mac Lane, a mathematician at the University of Chicago who helped to develop category theory, an abstract branch of algebra that has applications in computer science and other fields, died on April 14 at a hospice in San Francisco. He was 95.

The cause was internal bleeding, his family said.

NY Times
Clement Meadmore, a sculptor who wrestled hulking lengths of steel into abstract artworks of arresting fluidity and lightness, died on Tuesday in New York. He was 76 and lived in Manhattan.

The cause was complications from Parkinson’s disease, said Peter Rose, a New York art dealer who represented him.

A native of Australia who moved to the United States in the 1960’s, Mr. Meadmore was renowned internationally for for his massive outdoor pieces made of square-sided steel beams bent or coiled into sinuous forms. Monumental in scale - some were 25 feet tall, others 45 feet long - his sculptures can be found on college campuses, at corporate headquarters and in the collections of major museums around the world.

Sam Donaldson
suggests we place network news On Deck
, and we will oblige. Anyone remember when Sam decided to do a weekly feature television show live, the first one of which was a tour of the White House with Barbara Bush? Walking down the hallway of the White House, in a shot of Sam and Barbara framed from the waist up, Sam was seen to hesitate for a moment, jerk a bit to his right, and then continue on. Barbara said, ‘Sam, did you just kick Millie?’ Millie
being the Bush’s Springer spaniel dog who once did the gypsy’s kiss
thing on Donaldson’s shoes’in front of the Washington press corps (there’s no humiliation like public humiliation). At first Sam denied it, but Barbara kept after him, ‘Sam, you kicked Millie!’ All subsequent shows were taped.

Today’s obituaries have some wonderful names. If you took college algebra, you may well have used one of Saunders Mac Lane’s textbooks. If you walked on a college campus, and saw a massive metal sculpture, it may have been created or inspired by Clement Meadmore. If you saw an inspiring woman evangelist, it might have been Diane Knipper.

Finally, to hopefully put to rest this whole recent kick we ODDfellows have been on concerning resurrection, we note that there is some scientific basis to hope for human hibernation
. ‘Bears do it, bats do it, you do it too.’

We can’t afford U2 tickets, so we’re off to kick the dog.

NY Times
RALEIGH, N.C., April 19 (AP) - William Foster Carl, a co-founder of the Golden Corral restaurant chain, died at his home here on Saturday. He was 63.

The cause of death was not released by the company.

Mr. Carl and his friend James H. Maynard opened a steakhouse in Fayetteville, N.C., in 1972 called the Golden Steer, which was later renamed Golden Corral.

Golden Corral, based in Raleigh, has 485 restaurants in 39 states, employs 13,000 people and served 172 million customers last year.

NY Times
CORPUS CHRISTI, Tex., April 19 (AP) - Laura Canales, the “grande dame of Tejano music” who blazed a trail for other women, like Selena, who became stars in the genre, died here on Saturday. She was 50.

The cause was complications of gallbladder surgery, said a family spokesman, Javier Villanueva, chief executive of the Tejano hall of fame in Alice, Tex.

Ms. Canales was one of the biggest stars of Tejano, dance music that developed along the Texas border with Mexico and is now commonly heard at festivals throughout the state. She was known as the “Barbra Streisand of Tejano music” and the “queen of the Tejano wave.”

Looking back on yesterday (John Fred) and then at today (William Carl), we seem to have an ODD-run on dead people with two first names. Could this really be a coincidence, or should Woody Allen, Jerry Lewis, John Kerry, Martha Stewart, and James Taylor, just to name a few within striking distance of the ol’ Grim Reaper, be extra careful, since we know, bad things come in threes
.
Anderson Cooper
should be okay, since he has two last names. (Isn’t he just too precious? Some bad things come in ones)

There will be some black crepe on the Golden Corrals because of the death of founder William Carl. The company would not release the cause of death. Don’t suppose it was diet-related heart disease do you? Laura Canale, the ‘Barbara Streisand of Tejano music’ died from complications of gallbladder surgery
. Yikes, that surgery’s done through a little-bitty hole.

Well, time to get happy. Let’s start up the music. Do you realize that the top ten downloads this week on iTunes
contain six words that deal with death or destruction? That’s ~33% of all nouns, adjectives and verbs, and we didn’t even count ‘Garbage’. Do you care? Continuing on the theme of death and dismemberment, the free download this week on iTunes is ‘I predict a riot’ by the Kaiser Chiefs
. Appropriate since ‘Kaiser Chiefs’ take their name from a professional soccer team
. (Lose the ‘la, la, la, la”refrain boys.) Finally, Beck’s new album is called ‘Guero’ which we believe means ‘mediocre’ in the Laplansian dialect of Norwegian.

We’re off for a second trip to the salad bar. Please don’t lick the spoon and then put it back.

LA Times
Sam Mills, an undersized linebacker who became a Pro Bowl player with the New Orleans Saints and Carolina Panthers and was later an assistant coach for the Panthers, died Monday after fighting cancer for nearly two years, Panther officials said. He was 45.

Mills, who was diagnosed with cancer of the small intestine in August 2003 but continued to coach Carolina’s linebackers between chemotherapy treatments, died at his home in Charlotte, N.C.

“You would never know that he was a player who made Pro Bowls and had all this attention, because he treated everybody the same no matter who they were,” Carolina General Manager Marty Hurney said. “And [he] had a great ability to laugh at himself.”

LA Times
Wheeler Bryson “Johnny” Lipes, the Navy pharmacist’s mate who during World War II performed the first emergency appendectomy ever done aboard a submerged submarine, has died. He was 84.

Lipes died of pancreatic cancer Sunday in New Bern, N.C.

His historic surgery was one of the most famous lifesaving acts of the war.

” ‘They are giving him ether now,’ was what they said back in the aft torpedo rooms. ‘He’s gone under, and they’re ready to cut him open,’ the crew whispered sitting on their pipe bunks cramped between torpedoes,” was the opening paragraph of a story by war correspondent George Weller in the Chicago Daily News on Dec. 14, 1942.

NY Times
MERRILLVILLE, Ind., April 18 (AP) - George Molchan, who portrayed the Oscar Mayer mascot for more than three decades, traveling from town to town in the company’s Wienermobile to appear in parades and supermarkets, died on April 12. He was 82.

Mr. Molchan was a bookkeeper for the Pepsi-Cola Company when Meinhardt Raabe, who played a munchkin in “The Wizard of Oz,” persuaded Mr. Molchan to try out for the role of Little Oscar, the company’s diminutive mascot, according to Mr. Molchan’s brother Elmer.

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The character was created in the 1930’s by the company’s founder, Oscar Mayer, to help market its products. Mr. Molchan played Little Oscar for 36 years.

One of our ODDfans has fittingly taken us to task over failing to note the death of John Fred
. ‘Who is John Fred?’ you may ask. Well, you might as well ask, ‘What is Boogie Chillin?’
Anyway, here’s the story. On Sunday, John Fred’s passing showed up on the ODDland radar screen, but one of the ODDfellows was so obsessed with chicken resurrection
that the plan to post John Fred’s obituary died of loneliness. The offending ODDfellow has been forced to atone for this oversight by listening to the Melissa Etheridge tribute to Elvis (NO WAY WILL WE LINK TO THAT). So long, John Fred, ‘I’ll miss ya’ll.’

Today obituaries include Sam Mills who proved guts and skill could lead to an all-star NFL career, W.B. Lipes who proved you can do what you have to do if you have no choice, and George Malcha, who proved…who proved…well, give us your suggestions Contact Us. We know that Vikings were sometimes buried with their boats
; will George be buried with his wienermobile
?

Time to close. In the words of John Fred
:

‘Keep a-wearing your bracelets and your new rara
Cross your heart-yeh-with your living bra
Chimney sweep sparrow with guise
Judy in disguise with glasses’

We’re off to the submarine races.