Obituaries
This page lists the obituaries of people who made news during their lifetimes. Obituaries of historians can be found here.
SOURCE: NYT(11-30-10)
Stephen J. Solarz, a nine-term Democratic congressman whose concerns went beyond traffic lights and beach erosion in his Brooklyn district to nuclear weapons, the Middle East and his revelation that Imelda Marcos owned 3,000 pairs of shoes, died Monday in Washington. He was 70 and lived in McLean, Va.
His death, at a Washington hospital, was caused by esophageal cancer, his wife, Nina, said.
When he was elected to the House in 1974, Mr. Solarz finagled a seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee with the idea that he could appeal to his largely Jewish district by attending to the needs of Israel. He immediately threw himself into foreign policy issues, visiting leaders of Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Syria in his first month on the job. He soon became a leading voice in the House on foreign affairs.
Mr. Solarz was defeated in a Democratic primary in 1992 after being caught up in a scandal involving the bank operated for House members and after his district had been redrawn to facilitate the election of a Hispanic candidate. (A Hispanic candidate, Nydia M. Velázquez, went on to win the primary and the general election.)...
His death, at a Washington hospital, was caused by esophageal cancer, his wife, Nina, said.
When he was elected to the House in 1974, Mr. Solarz finagled a seat on the Foreign Affairs Committee with the idea that he could appeal to his largely Jewish district by attending to the needs of Israel. He immediately threw himself into foreign policy issues, visiting leaders of Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Syria in his first month on the job. He soon became a leading voice in the House on foreign affairs.
Mr. Solarz was defeated in a Democratic primary in 1992 after being caught up in a scandal involving the bank operated for House members and after his district had been redrawn to facilitate the election of a Hispanic candidate. (A Hispanic candidate, Nydia M. Velázquez, went on to win the primary and the general election.)...
2010-11-30 14:25
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SOURCE: John Nichols at The Nation(11-22-10)
[John Nichols, a pioneering political blogger, has written the Beat since 1999. His posts have been circulated internationally, quoted in numerous books and mentioned in debates on the floor of Congress.]
With one word, "blowback," Chalmers Johnson explained the folly of empire in the modern age.
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, true American patriots—as opposed to the jingoists and profiteers whose madness and greed would steer a republic to ruin—needed a new language for a new age.
They got it from Johnson. His 2000 book, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (Macmillan), gave currency to the old espionage term—which referred to the violent, unintended consequences of covert (and sometimes not so covert) operations that are suffered even by superpowers such as the United States—and became an essential text for those who sought to explain the attacks and to forge sounder and more responsible foreign policies for the furture.
Johnson, who has died at age 79, was no liberal idealist. He was the an old Asian hand who had chaired the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of California-Berkeley from 1967 to 1972 and then served as president and co-founder of the Japan Policy Research Institute. In other words, he was a man of the world who knew how the world worked. And what he tried to explain, to political leaders and citizens, was that the old ways of empire building (and maintaining) no longer worked in an age of instant communications, jet travel and doomsday weaponry....
With one word, "blowback," Chalmers Johnson explained the folly of empire in the modern age.
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, true American patriots—as opposed to the jingoists and profiteers whose madness and greed would steer a republic to ruin—needed a new language for a new age.
They got it from Johnson. His 2000 book, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (Macmillan), gave currency to the old espionage term—which referred to the violent, unintended consequences of covert (and sometimes not so covert) operations that are suffered even by superpowers such as the United States—and became an essential text for those who sought to explain the attacks and to forge sounder and more responsible foreign policies for the furture.
Johnson, who has died at age 79, was no liberal idealist. He was the an old Asian hand who had chaired the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of California-Berkeley from 1967 to 1972 and then served as president and co-founder of the Japan Policy Research Institute. In other words, he was a man of the world who knew how the world worked. And what he tried to explain, to political leaders and citizens, was that the old ways of empire building (and maintaining) no longer worked in an age of instant communications, jet travel and doomsday weaponry....
2010-11-23 13:35
SOURCE: NYT(11-9-10)
BUENOS AIRES — Emilio Massera, a leader of the military junta of Argentina’s bloody dictatorship and the former head of the country’s most notorious political prison, where an estimated 5,000 people were tortured and killed, died here on Monday. He was 85.
His death, at a naval hospital, was caused by a cerebral hemorrhage, an army spokesman said. Mr. Massera had been mostly bedridden since 2002, when he had a stroke. He had been treated for a heart condition and dementia for years.
Mr. Massera, along with Jorge Videla and Orlando Agosti, formed the military junta that, on March 24, 1976, ousted President Isabel Perón, widow of Juan Domingo Perón, the founder of the country’s populist movement....
His death, at a naval hospital, was caused by a cerebral hemorrhage, an army spokesman said. Mr. Massera had been mostly bedridden since 2002, when he had a stroke. He had been treated for a heart condition and dementia for years.
Mr. Massera, along with Jorge Videla and Orlando Agosti, formed the military junta that, on March 24, 1976, ousted President Isabel Perón, widow of Juan Domingo Perón, the founder of the country’s populist movement....
2010-11-10 09:48
SOURCE: NYT(11-8-10)
Michael Seifert had settled into a quiet retirement in Vancouver, British Columbia, living in a little white stucco house, gardening in the backyard. A former lumber mill worker, he had a seemingly pristine, if prosaic, background.
But Mr. Seifert, who died Saturday, had concealed another identity that emerged only after a researcher in 1995 began collecting oral histories and photographs from Jews, political prisoners and others who had been incarcerated at Bolzano, the Nazi concentration camp in northern Italy, during World War II.
There, Mr. Seifert had been known as the “Beast of Bolzano,” for his brutality as a guard.
The researcher, Carla Giacomozzi, who was head of the historical archives for the Bolzano region, had heard story upon story about two guards, Misha and Otto, who had committed heinous cruelties, including rape, torture and murder....
But Mr. Seifert, who died Saturday, had concealed another identity that emerged only after a researcher in 1995 began collecting oral histories and photographs from Jews, political prisoners and others who had been incarcerated at Bolzano, the Nazi concentration camp in northern Italy, during World War II.
There, Mr. Seifert had been known as the “Beast of Bolzano,” for his brutality as a guard.
The researcher, Carla Giacomozzi, who was head of the historical archives for the Bolzano region, had heard story upon story about two guards, Misha and Otto, who had committed heinous cruelties, including rape, torture and murder....
2010-11-09 09:22
