Our Daily Dead

from the Independent Online
Lennart Meri, who in 1992 became the first president of Estonia after the country regained its independence from the Soviet Union, said, as he handed over the presidency to his successor Arnold Rüütel in 2001, “Estonia is now a normal, boring country.”

As with any remark made by an intellectual brought up in the Soviet Union, this could be taken not only at face value. While it was a positive review of what Estonia had achieved in the previous decade, it was also a none-too-subtle dig at the failings Meri perceived in his successor. Earlier in the same speech, he had said that “every country must have a face, a voice and a way of making jokes”. Meri was certainly that face and that voice and the jokes would come thick and fast, often at the expense of his political opponents.

Being 6ft 4in and fluent in six languages, he could not fail to stand out at any international function. Whether he talked in English, French, German or Finnish, few would have realised how much of his background knowledge had come from books hidden during Soviet occupation or from listening illegally to short-wave radio stations.

He won the 1992 presidential election convincingly, but not overwhelmingly. Pressing the flesh around the country was never Meri’s strong point, nor was small talk, so his opponents such as Rüütel eagerly exploited this weakness. It would never be possible to regard Meri as a “bloke” and he realised that attempts to cultivate such an image would probably have lost him more support than he would have gained.

Technorati Tags: Lennart Meri, president, Estonia

Oh, but you are dressed as one! Well, ok, there actually isn’t any bit about dressing as a witch in Rosemary Kooiman’s obituary. She could however perform handfastings - akin to weddings if you will. And, as yet another ODD public service, we thoughtfully dug up this handfasting planning guide for you. And no, it DOES NOT say anything about handcuffs either during or after the ceremony. Perhaps as a gift for the happy couple….

Drink up me hearties!. Seems red wine may help you keep your teeth - at least red wine could hold the key to preventing and treating serious gum disease, research suggests. And FYI - our own highly regarded an enormously ODD and expensive study indicates that red wine will not keep you from losing teeth one whit if you insist on fighting after drinking of same.

~~The ODDones for OurDailyDead.com

Technorati tags: Rosemary Kooiman, handfastings, handcuffs, red wine, teeth, gum disease

from People.com
Stage, screen and TV actress Maureen Stapleton, who was often as colorful in real life as she was when performing, died Monday from chronic pulmonary disease in Lenox, Mass., where she lived, said her son, Daniel Allentuck. She was 80.

Her son said Stapleton had been a lifelong smoker, the Associated Press reports. Friends also knew Stapleton as a very strong drinker – and an outspoken personality.

Among her more famous comments – publicly uttered when she accepted the New York Film Critics Award for her role as Emma Goldman in the 1981 movie Reds – was that the only reason she ever went into showbiz “was because I wanted to f— (actor) Joel McCrea.”

Stapleton also won the Oscar for that film. Her other memorable screen roles included playing Dick Van Dyke’s comically overbearing mother in the 1963 movie musical Bye Bye Birdie (despite only being six months older than Van Dyke); the wife of the suicide victim in 1970’s Airport; and the lonely widow in the 1975 TV movie Queen of the Stardust Ballroom.

Hell of a Life

Technorati Tags: Stage, screen, TV, Maureen Stapleton

from StellarMag.com
LAKE PLACID, N.Y. (March 12)—Swedish snowboarder Jonatan Johansson died Sunday as a result of injuries suffered from a fall in training for an International Ski Federation (FIS) World Cup snowboardcross (SBX) competition at Whiteface Mountain, authorities said. The FIS competition jury canceled the event.

Johansson, who turned 26 last Tuesday, was on course alone and fell within the field of play on the mountain’s Boreen trail during training, around 9:20 a.m. He was wearing a helmet, as mandated by FIS rules. Doctors and paramedics were with him immediately and treated Johansson on the scene before being transported by ambulance to the Adirondack Medical Center in Lake Placid where a helicopter was prepared for emergency transport.

Boreen is a green rated trail (easier), which had special SBX features constructed for competition.

Adirondack Medical Center staff said Johansson was pronounced dead shortly after arrival. An autopsy to determine the cause of death was expected Monday.

Johansson, of Sollentuna, Sweden, had been competing at the World Cup level since 2000. He had finished 12th in the debut Olympic SBX last month in Italy and was the reigning Swedish and Finnish national SBX champion.

Technorati Tags: snowboarder, Jonatan Johansson, snowboardcross

from the LA Times
On a press bus in New Hampshire during the 1968 presidential campaign, writer Bill Cardoso told Hunter S. Thompson, “Don’t worry, [the other reporters] are all so square they won’t know what you’re doing.”

Cardoso was referring to the marijuana joint he had just given Thompson, a freelance journalist of some notoriety who had earned admiring reviews for a book about the Hells Angels motorcycle gang. But Cardoso could just as well have been talking about something else he shared with Thompson: a vision of journalism that he later summed up in one spectacularly apt word: Gonzo.

He christened Thompson’s brand of writing in 1970, when Thompson was anxious about a piece on the Kentucky Derby he had written for Scanlan’s Monthly magazine. With his mind wasted on drugs and his deadline looming, Thompson desperately yanked the pages out of his notebook and turned those in, fully expecting that he would never be asked to write again. Instead, the editor asked for more.

When “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved” was published, congratulations poured in, including a note from Cardoso exclaiming that his buddy’s work had been “pure gonzo.” The adjective wasn’t in any dictionary, but “gonzo journalism” was born.

To the end, there was no greater fan of Cardoso’s writing than Thompson, who called The Maltese sangweech and other heroes “a fine, elegant little book.” He was particularly impressed by his friend’s Zaire tale, which had been written in a record three days.

Wrote Thompson: “I spent all afternoon weeping over [it].”

It was, in a word, gonzo.

Technorati Tags: writer, Bill Cardoso, Hunter S. Thompson, marijuana, freelance, journalist, Gonzo

from the LA Times
Rosemary Kooiman, 77, a self-described witch who won the legal right to perform pagan weddings in Virginia, died March 5 of a heart attack at her home in Laurel, Md.

Kooiman, a retired government worker and high priestess of a group she founded called the Nomadic Chantry of the Gramarye, sought to marry a Virginia couple in 1998. She was denied a clergy license after a Fairfax County judge ruled that the pagan Wicca group did not qualify as a religious organization. A judge in Alexandria, Va., also denied her a license.

With help from the American Civil Liberties Union, she applied for the license in Norfolk Circuit Court and received it in September 1998, allowing her to officiate at weddings — known as “handfastings” among pagans — in Virginia. She also performed weddings in Maryland and Pennsylvania, which do not require clergy to have a license, and was licensed to conduct weddings in Washington, D.C.

Technorati Tags: Rosemary Kooiman, witch, Wicca, handfastings, pagan

from the NY Times
KINGSTON, Jamaica, March 9 (AP) — Mortimo Planno, a philosopher regarded as a key figure in the development of the Rastafarian religion, died Monday at the University of the West Indies in Kingston. He was 85. His death followed complications from a thyroid condition, said Barry Chevannes, a longtime friend and anthropology professor at the university.

Mr. Planno was one of the most influential people in the development of Rastafarianism, a sect whose members mostly regard Africa as the promised land and Haile Selassie as a divine figure.

Though rejected by mainstream Jamaican society, the movement grew into a structured religion, in large part under Mr. Planno’s influence.

Some Rastafarians smoke marijuana as a sacrament, but others object to its use. Most Rastafarians preach a oneness with nature and grow their hair long and wear it in dreadlocks.

Mr. Planno taught the principles of Rastafarianism at his home in the Kingston ghetto of Trench Town to students that included the singer Bob Marley, perhaps the best-known adherent of the movement.

Technorati Tags: Mortimo Planno, Rastafarian, Haile Selassie, marijuana, dreadlocks, Trench Town, Bob Marley

from the NY Times
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav leader, who was branded ‘’the butcher of the Balkans’’ and was on trial for war crimes after orchestrating a decade of bloodshed during the breakup of his country, was found dead Saturday in his prison cell. He was 64.

Milosevic, who suffered chronic heart ailments and high blood pressure, apparently died of natural causes and was found in his bed, the U.N. tribunal said, without giving an exact time of death.

He had been examined by doctors following his frequent complaints of fatigue or ill health that delayed his trial, but the tribunal could not immediately say when he last underwent a medical checkup. All detainees at the center in Scheveningen are checked by a guard every half hour.

The tribunal said Milosevic’s family had been informed of his death, which came nearly five years after he was arrested, then extradited to The Hague.

His wife, Mirjana Markovic, who was often accused of being the power behind the scenes during her husband’s autocratic rule, has been in self-imposed exile in Russia since 2003. His son, Marko, also lives in Russia, and his daughter, Marija, lives in Serb-controlled half of Bosnia.

Technorati Tags: Slobodan Milosevic, Yugoslav, the butcher of the Balkans’