Our Daily Dead

NY Times
John Fiedler, who played character roles in celebrated dramas on Broadway and in Hollywood but gained lasting fame among young audiences as the voice of Piglet in Walt Disney’s Winnie-the-Pooh films, died on Saturday. He was 80. His death was confirmed by his brother, James.

Mr. Fiedler had appeared in the Broadway production of “A Raisin in the Sun” and had played a juror on film in the drama “Twelve Angry Men” when, in the 1960’s, his voice earned him the role of Piglet, the kind-hearted worrier who is Winnie-the-Pooh’s best friend.

“Walt Disney heard it on a program and said, ‘That’s Piglet,’ ” James Fiedler recalled.

John Fiedler’s natural speaking voice was higher than most men’s, his brother said, but he still had to raise it considerably to achieve the high-pitch of the little pink pig. Mr. Fiedler continued to play this part in later life, most recently this year in “Pooh’s Heffalump Movie”; last year, he did “Winnie-the-Pooh: Springtime with Roo,” and in 2003, “Piglet’s Big Movie.”

John Donald Fiedler was born Feb. 3, 1925 in Platteville, a small town in southwestern Wisconsin, and was the oldest of three children born to Donald and Margaret Fiedler. When he was 5, his father, a salesman, moved the family to Shorewood, a suburb of Milwaukee.

There, John’s love of acting bloomed, his brother said. He staged productions in the family’s garage and cast them with neighborhood children.

He graduated from Shorewood High School in 1943 and enlisted in the United States Navy, serving stateside until World War II’s end. He made his way to New York City the following year, his brother said, and joined the Neighborhood Playhouse.

NY Times
Vera Komarkova, a botanist and mountain climber who was among the first women to scale some of the world’s highest peaks, died on May 25 in her home in Leysin, Switzerland. She was 62. The cause was complications of breast cancer, her family said.

In the fall of 1978 the American Women’s Himalayan Expedition left the United States for Annapurna in Nepal, the 10th highest mountain in the world. Dr. Komarkova and her climbing partner Irene Miller, now Beardsley, with the help of two Sherpa guides, became the first women and the first Americans to reach the summit.

“She was an incredibly strong, dedicated climber,” said Arlene Blum, who led the 10-woman expedition. “Vera was one of the strongest on our team.”

At the time, it was only the fourth expedition to reach the top, and Annapurna is now thought to be one of the most dangerous of the world’s 8,000-meter mountains, a class that includes Everest. Two other members of the team fell to their deaths in the attempt.

It was then generally believed that women were not physically and emotionally strong enough to endure such demanding climbs, and women had problems getting climbing permits or joining men’s teams, Ms. Blum and Ms. Beardsley said.

Most of the roughly $80,000 needed for their trip was raised by a T-shirt campaign with the slogan “A Woman’s Place Is on Top.”

In 1984, Dr. Komarkova led another successful Himalayan expedition, to Cho Oyu in Tibet, the world’s sixth highest peak. She and her partner were the first women to reach that summit, and it was her last major climb.

Vera Komarkova was born in Pisek, Czechoslovakia, in 1942. Her father was a scientist at Charles University in Prague, where she would earn a master’s degree in biology and chemistry in 1964. Throughout her youth, she climbed in Europe, scaling mountains in the Tatras, Carparthians, and the Alps.

Dr. Komarkova studied at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and earned a Ph.D. in biology in 1976. She later became an American citizen.

For her dissertation, Dr. Komarkova produced a detailed study of the alpine flora of the Niwot Range in the Colorado Rockies.

It was published as a two-volume book, “Alpine Vegetation of the Indian Peaks Area” (Cramer, Vaduz; 1979), and remains the definitive work on the subject, according to her adviser, Patrick Webber, now of Michigan State University.

Egads! (plural of course). First Tigger and now Piglet. First Paul Winchell and now John Fiedler. The ODD tapestry unravels one cherished thread at a time. (And if you are keeping a log at home it doth appear that Piglet left the Hundred Acre Wood first (Saturday) and then Tigger, but that’s only for the accountants in the group). You’ll have to admit that its hard to pooh-pooh the talents of these two fine gentlemen.

Vera Komarkova place was decidedly on top. By all accounts she was a powerful climber and held her own in the so-called man’s sport of mountain climbing. Women climbing were rather unheard of when she started and it was generally believed that women were not physically and emotionally strong enough to manage the demands of climbing. Vera could climb, but she also earned a PhD in Biology from the University of Colorado in Boulder. As her dissertation she wrote a detailed study of the alpine fauna of the Indian Peaks area of the Rockies that is still considered the definitive work on the subject. She could no doubt as easily hold up her end of the conversation as belay you. Mighty nice combination we think.

Out of the Hundred Acre Wood and into the alpine regions and higher we ODDly march. Since the summer season has descended on the northern hemisphere mayhaps this bloggeral will inspire you to get out, lace up your Lowas and practice your Daily OM outside. Of course we suggest wearing something appropriate too.

LA Times
Paul Winchell, the voice of Tigger in “Winnie the Pooh” features for more than three decades and a versatile ventriloquist who became a fixture in early children’s television along with his dummies Jerry Mahoney and Knucklehead Smiff, has died. He was 82.

Winchell died early Friday in his sleep at his home in Moorpark, Burt Du Brow, a television producer and close family friend, said Saturday.

Although he was a legendary ventriloquist and built a career attracting legions of followers of that dwindling art, Winchell’s most durable legacy may be his rich voice as Tigger and other animated characters on television and in motion pictures.

He became the lovable Tigger in 1968 for Disney’s “Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day,” which earned an Academy Award for best animated short film. Winchell continued to voice A.A. Milne’s imaginative little tiger on television and the big screen through “Winnie the Pooh: Seasons of Giving” in 1999. In recent years, Jim Cummings has voiced Tigger as well as Pooh.

Not to long ago we brought you news of the death of Jon Clarke who played brilliant sax for Loggins & Messina
, and we made the crack that he didn’t play in the insipid “House at Pooh Corner.” Well, today, the six degrees of separation
caught up with us. Paul Winchell, voice of Tigger in the Pooh cartoons, has left the honey tree
. Paul was a master ventriloquist
, now described as, “a dying art.” The ODDones say, “Oh contre, there are still Presidential speech writers
.”

Tigger was a friendly critter, but not so of the leopard that attacked the man in Africa. Bad choice for the kitty. The grandfather ripped out its tongue.

We ODDfellows have had an interesting day in Internet land. We were “off the grid,” then we got through to a techie for our ISP who actually said, and we quote, “Sorry, the problem was all on our end. We’ve recycled our servers, and things should be fine. Again, we apologize.” Take us now Lord.

TTFN

LA Times
Gen. Louis Hugh Wilson, a Medal of Honor recipient in World War II who was commandant of the Marine Corps in the post-Vietnam era — and made it harder to join and remain in the Corps — has died. He was 85.

Wilson died Tuesday at his home in Birmingham, Ala., the Marine Corps announced.

Moments after becoming their new leader June 30, 1975, Wilson said, “I call on all Marines to get in step and do so smartly.”

He planned to raise the requirements to join — he wanted at least 75% of enlistees to be high school graduates, because they had “already proved they can stick it through” — and required dropouts to earn the equivalent of an A on qualifying tests. In 1975, less than 50% of Marines had high school diplomas; by 1977 the portion was 69%.

When other branches of the military were letting hair creep toward the collar and allowing sideburns, Wilson would have none of it. He placed renewed emphasis on combat readiness, discipline and personal bearing.

“If I see a fat Marine, he’s got a problem, and so does his commanding officers,” a fit 55-year-old Wilson told Associated Press a month after being named commandant.

Even Marines who had served for years would be forced out if they didn’t shape up.

Then-Defense Secretary James R. Schlesinger told of an old “gunny” who lost 13 pounds just by keeping the commandant’s picture on the refrigerator door, according to a 2003 article on Wilson in Leatherneck magazine.

The rededication to what Wilson called the fundamentals of military training and deportment when the Marines were making a transition to an all-volunteer force is still felt within today’s Corps, in which 98% of enlistees are high school graduates.

NY Times
WASHINGTON, June 23 - Gen. Bernard A. Schriever, who oversaw the Air Force’s development of intercontinental ballistic missiles and other rockets that ushered in the space age and escalated the weapons race with the Soviet Union, died on Monday at his home in Washington. He was 94.

Gen. Bernard Schriever, a proponent of intercontinental ballistic missiles, oversaw development of the Atlas, Minuteman, Thor and Titan.
The cause was complications of pneumonia, said his wife, the singer Joni James.

General Schriever was the leading missile officer for the Air Force from the mid-1950’s until well into the 60’s.

He was named commander of the Air Force Western Development Division, a euphemistic code name for the top-secret I.C.B.M. development program that began in 1954. Then he headed the Ballistic Missile Division of the Air Research and Development Command and finally was chief of the Air Force Systems Command.

In what amounted to dual roles as general and industrialist, he oversaw research and development of the Atlas, Titan, Thor and Minuteman missiles as he shuttled from Air Force installations to contractors’ plants.

The I.C.B.M. program was an underpinning of American military policy at the height of the cold war with the Soviet Union, when closing the “missile gap” was a top priority.

The powerful missiles, feared for their potential to deliver nuclear weapons to targets thousands of miles away, also took on a peacetime role. Atlas rockets carried American astronauts into orbit in the Mercury program. The Titan was the workhorse of the Gemini space program.

Bernard Schriever (rhymes with beaver) so believed in missile development that, as a mere colonel in 1952, he dared to disagree with Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, the formidable commander of the Strategic Air Command. General LeMay championed the B-52 bomber as the best delivery vehicle for nuclear bombs. Colonel Schriever politely but firmly disagreed, witnesses said.

Although General LeMay remained a devotee of the B-52, the colonel had made his point. He also proved to be prescient about the space race.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0933852770/ourdailydeadc-20/103-2089834-7047058?%5Fencoding=UTF8&camp=1789&link%5Fcode=xm2

Now listen up you bunch of panty-waisted, snot sucking, maggots, some damn fine warriors are dead. By God, General Louis Wilson was a real Marine . He won the CMOH
, and then went on modernize the Corp. Why, you’re not even fit to suck on the exhaust pipe of his jeep.

Pay attention, you pitiful pack of evolutionary dead ends. General Bernard Schriver moved the Air Force from just bombers to ballistic missiles
. If you had half his brains, you’d be twice as smart as all the rest of your couch crushing, GameBoy
punching, Yoo-Hoo
swilling, puke-posse combined. Did your parents have any children that LIVED?

Now straighten up, take those freakin’ iPod
thingies out of your ears, and remember the words of Gen. George S. Patton
, “Men, this stuff that some sources sling around about America wanting out of this war, not wanting to fight, is a crock of bullshit. Americans love to fight, traditionally. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle.”
Ya genius, he said it on June 5, 1944. If you can read, you might take a look at this
. And remember, you can’t believe everything you hear on that whiney little liberal outlet for losers, the Fox News channel
.

I tell you, you’re denser than a singularity
.

That is all. Dis–missed !