Braithless

Out of Braith

Or
Left
(Both props to Monty, no doubt gloating over the death of a liberal icon)
John Kenneth Galbraith, giant liberal economist, has stopped draining the economy at the age of 97. In a lifetime of public service, the economist, teacher and diplomat spent most of the last half century as the liberal finger in the dike holding back conservative hegemony with wit, eloquence and an ability to boil down complex concepts while also poking the establishment at every opportunity and challenging the “conventional wisdom,” a phrase he coined. With 33 books and countless articles, Galbraith was one of the most widely read authors in economics, but his work was more than Laffer curves and supply and demand. The Affluent Society (1958) was intended to force America to re-examine its values as the upper classes were becoming increasingly disinterested in lower classes or the public good. His 1996 follow-up The Good Society showed that the re-examination was flawed as the country had become a “democracy of the fortunate,” with lower economic classes outside looking in. His influence with the Democratic Party started with organizing price controls in World War II and speechwriting for Franklin Roosevelt. He ascended to serve as adviser to two-time Presidential loser Adlai Stevenson, advising John F. Kennedy and serving as his ambassador to India, he helped Lyndon Johnson develop the Great Society, but broke with him over the Vietnam War, opting to back Eugene McCarthy in the 1968 campaign. All along he served as one of the most popular professors at Harvard, a post he held at the time of his death.

Seven of us shared the 20 points he couldn’t take with him: Mark’s Beltway Boneyard III: Filibustering the Grim Reaper takes over 1st, Shawn’s Team One – Oldest, pulls into a tie at 6th, Monty’s DC Dead leaps into 11th while Craig’s Why Won’t You Just Die?, Kirsti’s You're as Young as You Feel, and You Feel Pretty Wrinkly, Michelle’s Faster, Pussycat, Die! Die! and my Better Dead than Red State cluster in the 7-way lanterne rouge at 23rd.

Mark tops the leaderboard for the first time since the Dudley Moore-Milton Berle murder-suicide pact of March 27, 2002. And with Craig’s hit, the what are you waiting for finger points to Jenni, sitting quietly since the Vatican called in the John Paulbearers on April 2, 2005.

Others I’ve been remiss in not including the last couple weeks…

Relieved

Or
Howe Long We’ve Been Expecting This
Steve Howe, the very definition of troubled athlete, was killed at the age of 48 when his pick-up truck overturned in a single-vehicle accident. Howe’s family appealed the coroner’s ruling, and the death has been overturned by arbitrator George Nicolau. Howe was NL Rookie of the Year in 1980, helped win the World Series in 1981 and was on the All-Star team in 1982. By 1992, he had been suspended for drug abuse seven times, including a lifetime ban that was overturned. Between suspensions, he compiled a career record of 47-41 with 91 saves and a 3.03 ERA with the Dodgers, Twins, Rangers and Yankees. He also had a stint with the Sioux Falls Canaries of the Northern League. He was suspended for the 1984 and 1986 seasons for cocaine, was released before the 1988 season because of alcohol, was arrested with a loaded .357 Magnum at JFK International Airport in 1996 and was nearly killed in a motorcycle accident in 1997 when he was drunk.

Proof, of Death

Or
He's in the pudding now...
(Props to master of the 5 words, Craig)
First Reason fell at the hand of George W. Bush, now Proof was gunned down in a nightclub shooting in Detroit. Proof, known to his moms as Deshaun Holton, member of D12 and close friend of Eninem, was gunned down in a nightclub along Eight Mile Road. Proof was the best man at Eminem’s wedding and appeared with him at concerts and public appearances.

Star-Crossed
The first person to fly twice the speed of sound, but he couldn’t outrun the Blue Ridge Mountains in this modern updating of the American Indian custom as Scott Crossfield died in a plane crash at the age of 84. Crossfield was part of the early envelope pushers including Chuck Yeager who laid the groundwork for the space program. On Nov. 20, 1953, Crossfield took the controls of a rocket-powered Douglas D-558-2 that had been dropped from a B-29 mother ship at 32,000 feet. He climbed to 72,000 feet, then dived to 62,000 feet, where his speed topped 1,320 miles per hour. In a later flight of the X-15, another rocket-powered craft, in 1959, he flew at 1,960 miles per hour — almost three times the speed of sound — and 88,116 feet above the earth.

Mother of television goes off the air
(Props to Kirsti)
Elma Gardner “Pem” Farnsworth, who helped her husband, Philo T. Farnsworth, develop the television and was among the first people whose images were transmitted on TV, has died at age 98. A number of inventors in the 1920s experimented with TV, but Farnsworth reached the breakthrough that has been babysitting America’s children for the last 25 years. The first broadcast was of a horizontal line in 1927, and it was 2 years before Elma and her brother became the first stars of the small screen, achieving a 100 share, albeit on the only receiver in existence. After RCA initially claimed the invention, Farnsworth was awarded the patent in the courts, but he and his wife spent decades trying to earn the recognition.

The Ultimate Market Correction
(More kudos for Mark)

Or
Now Trading at Zero
(Additional honorifics for Mark)

Or
Black Wednesday
(Props to Mark)

Or
Wall Street Corpse
(Monty mourns)

Or
Wall Street Weak
Louis Rukeyser, who felt financial matters weren’t hard enough to listen to and added pun-fueled essays to his weekly Wall $treet Week With Louis Rukeyser on PBS, died yesterday of multiple myeloma at the age of 73. The Princeton grad served as a foreign correspondent for ABC in the 1960s, then spent three years as the network’s first financial correspondent, before launching Wall Street Week from a Maryland PBS station. Deemed not sexy enough for the Friday night PBS audience, Rukeyser was fired in 2002 and took his crystal ball to his new home at CNBC, which does still exist, the next year.

My Name Was Earl
(Laudatories for Mark)

Or
Felled
(Tip o’ the cap for Mark)

Or
Stopping in Woods on Every Evening
(And since it seems appropriate for this obit, here’s a little something for your trouble, Mark)
Earl Woods, golf dad, has died at the age of 74. A catcher at Kansas State, Woods was the first black to play baseball in the Big Eight, but the apple fell far from the tree and his son pursued less honest athletic pursuits. He also served two tours in Vietnam as a Green Beret, preparing him to hack his way through the deepest roughs as Tiger’s caddy. Earl began oppressing his son at an early age, swinging a golf club as Tiger watched in a high chair.

Back in the studio with Otis and Duane
(Mark strikes again)

Or
Capricorn None
(Coen coins another)
Phil Walden, founder of southern rock label Capricorn Records, has died at the age of 66. Walden’s attention was the kiss of death, as he first championed Otis Redding, who died in a plane crash in Madison, Wisconsin. While still mourning Redding, Walden discovered Duane Allman, ensuring his death at the age of 24 in a motorcycle accident. Capricorn collapsed amid Walden’s mismanagement and drug abuse, but he rebounded to find Jim Varney, and served as his manager in the low-brow but lucrative Ernest movies until Varney’s premature death at the age of 50.

The Death of Great American Critics
(Can I get a whoop whoop for Joe?)
Jane Jacobs, who failed to realize that New York City is a depressing cesspool that deserves to be bulldozed into oblivion, has died at the age of 89. Her ashes were used to draw a line around a tree in New York to prevent its eventual removal. Jacobs gained notoriety when she stood in the way of Robert Moses Lower Manhattan Expressway, helping to kill the project and sparing many neighborhoods the same fate suffered when Moses forced through the Cross Bronx Expressway. She wrote one of the seminal books on urban planning, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which criticized urban renewal as a destroyer of communities.