December 14, 2006
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Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew W. Clark, 22, of St. Louis, Mo.; assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, III Marine Expeditionary Force, Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii; died December 14 due to injuries sustained from enemy action in Anbar Province, Iraq. Also killed was Lance Cpl. Luke C. Yepsen.


Marine Lance Cpl. Luke C. Yepsen, 20, of Kingwood, Texas; assigned to 1st Tank Battalion, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Twentynine Palms, Calif.; died December 14 due to injuries sustained from enemy action in Anbar Province, Iraq. Also killed was Lance Cpl. Matthew W. Clark.


Army Staff Sgt. Theodore A. Spatol, 59, of Thermopolis, Wyo.; assigned to the 1041st Engineer Company, Rock Springs, Wyo.; died Dec. 14 of a non-combat related illness in Thermopolis.

December 15, 2006
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Army Staff Sgt. Henry K. Kahalewai, 43, of Hilo, Hawaii; assigned to the 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division (Stryker Brigade Combat Team), Fort Lewis, Wash.; died Dec. 15 at Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, of wounds sustained Nov. 21 when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Stryker vehicle in Baghdad.


Army Pfc. Paul Balint Jr., 22, of Willow Park, Texas; assigned to the 1st Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, Friedberg, Germany; died Dec. 15 of injuries sustained when his unit came in contact with the enemy using small arms fire during combat operations in Ramadi, Iraq.


Army Staff Sgt. Joseph E. Phaneuf, 38, of Eastford, Conn.; assigned to the 1st Battalion, 102nd Infantry Brigade, Hartford, Conn.; died Dec. 15 of injuries sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Humvee during combat operations in Mehtar Lam, Afghanistan.

December 16, 2006
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Marine Lance Cpl. Nicklas J. Palmer, 19, of Leadville, Colo.; assigned to the 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, 1st Marine Division, I Marine Expeditionary Force, Camp Pendleton, Calif.; killed Dec. 16 while conducting combat operations in Anbar province, Iraq.


Army Pfc. Joe L. Baines, 19, of Newark, N.J.; assigned to the 1st Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas; died Dec. 16 of wounds sustained when an improvised explosive device detonated near his Humvee at Taji, Iraq.


Army Staff Sgt. David R. Staats, 30, of Pueblo, Colo.; assigned to the 1st Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas; died of injuries sustained when his Humvee struck an improvised explosive device while on mounted patrol Dec. 16 in Taji, Iraq. Also killed were: Spc. Matthew J. Stanley and Pfc. Seth M. Stanton.


Army Spc. Matthew J. Stanley, 22, of Wolfeboro Falls, N.H.; assigned to the 1st Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas; died of injuries sustained when his Humvee struck an improvised explosive device while on mounted patrol Dec. 16 in Taji, Iraq. Also killed were: Staff Sgt. David R. Staats and Pfc. Seth M. Stanton.

December 17, 2006
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Army Pfc. Seth M. Stanton, 19, of Colorado Springs, Colo.; assigned to the 1st Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas; died Dec. 17 in Balad, Iraq, of injuries sustained when his Humvee struck an improvised explosive device while on mounted patrol Dec. 16 in Taji, Iraq. Also killed were: Spc. Matthew J. Stanley and Staff Sgt. David R. Staats.

December 18, 2006
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Army Staff Sgt. Brian L. Mintzlaff, 34, of Fort Worth, Texas; assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, Texas; died Dec. 18 from injuries sustained when his Bradley Fighting Vehicle rolled over in Taji, Iraq.


Marine Capt. Kevin M. Kryst, 27, of West Bend, Wis.; assigned to the Marine Light-Attack Helicopter Squadron 267, Marine Aircraft Group 39, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, I Marine Expeditionary Force Camp Pendleton, Calif.; died Dec. 18 from wounds sustained while conducting combat operations in Anbar province, Iraq.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Renowned photographer Ruth Bernhard, whose black-and-white images of compelling shapes from female nudes to seashells was regarded as still-life art, has died. She was 101.

Bernhard, who was born in Germany, died Monday in her San Francisco apartment, according to the city Medical Examiner's Office.

In 1953, Bernhard moved to this city, where she befriended and worked with some of her greatest contemporaries including Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Wynn Bullock and Dorothea Lange.

Adams once called her "the greatest photographer of the nude."

One of her most famous photographs, "In the Box, Horizontal, 1962," shows a sleeping woman stretched sensuously in a rectangular box, wearing only a headband.

Born in 1905 as the daughter of noted type designer Lucian Bernhard, she immigrated to New York in 1929. She bought a box camera, and soon started making a living doing commercial photography.

A few years later, she moved to Los Angeles, where a chance encounter on the beach with photographer Edward Weston in 1935 changed the direction of her career. He remained her mentor for years.

"I understood the craft of photography when done by an artist is art," she said in "Illuminations," a 1988 documentary about her life.

As her reputation grew, she returned to New York. A whole issue of Natural History Magazine was devoted to her photos of seashells.

Bernhard, who returned to California after World War II, also was a respected teacher, remembered affectionately for the warmth and optimism she exhibited during a party held in honor of her 100th birthday.

"She was like this little sparrow, this little tiny thing, but she was enrapturing," said Sandra Phillips, senior curator for photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which has Bernhard's work in its permanent collection. "She had people spellbound when she talked to them."

Bernhard is survived by two brothers, Karl of Afton, New York, and Alexander of London.

TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. (AP) - Actor Mike Evans, best known as Lionel Jefferson in the TV sitcoms "All in the Family" and "The Jeffersons," has died. He was 57.

Evans died of throat cancer Dec. 14 at his mother's home in Twentynine Palms, said his niece, Chrystal Evans.

Evans, along with Eric Monte, also created and wrote for "Good Times," one of the first TV sitcoms that featured a primarily black cast.

Michael Jonas Evans was born Nov. 3, 1949, in Salisbury, N.C. His father, Theodore Evans Sr., was a dentist while his mother, Annie Sue Evans, was a school teacher.

The family moved to Los Angeles when Evans was a child.

He studied acting at Los Angeles City College before getting the role of Lionel Jefferson in 1970s situation comedy "All in the Family."

Evans kept the role of Lionel when "The Jeffersons" launched in 1975. The hit show was a spinoff featuring bigoted Archie Bunker's black neighbors in Queens who "move on up to the East Side" of Manhattan.

Evans was replaced by Damon Evans (no relation) for four years, then he returned to the series from 1979 to 1981.

He also acted in the 1976 TV miniseries "Rich Man, Poor Man" and made guest appearances on the TV series "Love, American Style" and "The Streets of San Francisco." His last role was in a 2000 episode of "Walker, Texas Ranger."

In recent years he had invested in real estate in Southern California

SEATTLE (AP) - Kathryn Fleming, a leading audiobook reader and actress, died Thursday. She was 41.

Fleming died at Harborview Medical Center after a torrent of rainwater poured into her windowless basement studio during the windstorm that devastated the Seattle area. She was trying to save the equipment in her basement.

Fleming grew up in Alexandria, Va., and graduated from the College of William and Mary with a degree in religious studies.

She founded the book recording company Cedar House Audio in 2004 and recorded more than 200 novels under the name Anna Fields. Authors she recorded included Louise Erdrich and Ruth Ozeki.

In 2004 Fleming won an award for her reading of Ozeki's novel "All Over Creation."

to steve... u were the best friend i ever had... wish u were here.

R.I.P to the Godfather


James Brown
[Edited 12/25/06 6:38am]

James Brown, the legendary singer songwriter known as the "Godfather of Soul", passed away in Atlanta in the US state of Georgia, his agent said early on Monday. He was 73.

Brown was taken to hospital on Sunday at Emory Crawford Long Hospital with pneumonia and died around 1:45 a.m. on Monday (0645 GMT), said his agent, Frank Copsidas, of Intrigue Music.

Longtime friend Charles Bobbit was by his side, Copsidas said.

Along with Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan and a handful of others, Brown was one of the major musical influences of the past 50 years.

His hit singles include such classics as Out of Sight, (Get Up I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine, I Got You (I Feel Good) and Say It Out Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud, a landmark 1968 statement of racial pride.

Brown won a Grammy award for lifetime achievement in 1992. He triumphed despite an often unhappy personal life.

Brown, who lived in Beech Island near the Georgia line, spent more than two years in a South Carolina prison for aggravated assault and failing to stop for a police officer.

After his release on in 1991, Brown said he wanted to "try to straighten out" rock music.

From the 1950s through the mid-1970s, Brown went on a frenzy of cross-country tours, concerts and new songs.

He earned the nickname "The Hardest Working Man in Show Business".

With his tight pants, shimmering feet, eye makeup and outrageous hair, Brown set the stage for younger stars such as Michael Jackson and Prince. (AP)

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon's scandal-shattered White House as the 38th and only unelected president in America's history, has died, his wife, Betty, said Tuesday. He was 93.

"My family joins me in sharing the difficult news that Gerald Ford, our beloved husband, father, grandfather and great grandfather has passed away at 93 years of age," Mrs. Ford said in a brief statement issued from her husband's office in Rancho Mirage. "His life was filled with love of God, his family and his country."

The statement did not say where Ford died or list a cause of death. Ford had battled pneumonia in January 2006 and underwent two heart treatments - including an angioplasty - in August at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

He was the longest living president, followed by Ronald Reagan, who also died at 93. Ford had been living at his desert home in Rancho Mirage, Calif., about 130 miles east of Los Angeles.

Ford was an accidental president, Nixon's hand-picked successor, a man of much political experience who had never run on a national ticket. He was as open and straight-forward as Nixon was tightly controlled and conspiratorial.

He took office minutes after Nixon flew off into exile and declared "our long national nightmare is over." But he revived the debate a month later by granting Nixon a pardon for all crimes he committed as president. That single act, it was widely believed, cost Ford election to a term of his own in 1976, but it won praise in later years as a courageous act that allowed the nation to move on.

The Vietnam War ended in defeat for the U.S. during his presidency with the fall of Saigon in April 1975. In a speech as the end neared, Ford said: "Today, America can regain the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam. But it cannot be achieved by refighting a war that is finished as far as America is concerned." Evoking Abraham Lincoln, he said it was time to "look forward to an agenda for the future, to unify, to bind up the nation's wounds."

Ford also earned a place in the history books as the first unelected vice president, chosen by Nixon to replace Spiro Agnew who also was forced from office by scandal.

He was in the White House only 895 days, but changed it more than it changed him.

Even after two women tried separately to kill him, the presidency of Jerry Ford remained open and plain.

Not imperial. Not reclusive. And, of greatest satisfaction to a nation numbed by Watergate, not dishonest.

Even to millions of Americans who had voted two years earlier for Richard Nixon, the transition to Ford's leadership was one of the most welcomed in the history of the democratic process - despite the fact that it occurred without an election.

After the Watergate ordeal, Americans liked their new president - and first lady Betty, whose candor charmed the country.

They liked her for speaking openly about problems of young people, including her own daughter; they admired her for not hiding that she had a mastectomy - in fact, her example caused thousands of women to seek breast examinations.

And she remained one of the country's most admired women even after the Fords left the White House when she was hospitalized in 1978 and admitted to having become addicted to drugs and alcohol she took for painful arthritis and a pinched nerve in her neck. Four years later she founded the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, a substance abuse facility next to Eisenhower Medical Center.

Ford slowed down in recent years. He had been hospitalized in August 2000 when he suffered one or more small strokes while attending the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia.

The following year, he joined former presidents Carter, Bush and Clinton at a memorial service in Washington three days after the Sept. 11 attacks. In June 2004, the four men and their wives joined again at a funeral service in Washington for former President Reagan. But in November 2004, Ford was unable to join the other former presidents at the dedication of the Clinton presidential library in Little Rock, Ark.

In January, Ford was hospitalized with pneumonia for 12 days. He wasn't seen in public until April 23, when President Bush was in town and paid a visit to the Ford home. Bush, Ford and Betty posed for photographers outside the residence before going inside for a private get-together.

The intensely private couple declined reporter interview requests and were rarely seen outside their home in Rancho Mirage's gated Thunderbird Estates, other than to attend worship services at the nearby St. Margaret's Episcopal Church in Palm Desert.

Anx's Grandmother.
http://www.prince.org/msg/100/212499

Beautiful Thread.

and to everyone here.

Here's to golden suns.

july said:

http://www.youtube.com/v/bA3Gjt_xfzw

Chris Penn rose to fame as a "Nice Guy".
But his acting career matched that of his more famous sibling Sean.
He died at his Santa Monica apartment the age of 40.

Gene Pitney Sixties singing sensation Pitney was best known for his 60s hit Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa. He enjoyed a career revival in 1989 when he hooked up with Marc Almond for their chart-topping version of Something's Gotten Hold Of My Heart. The 65-year-old performer was found dead in a Cardiff hotel room from natural causes while on tour in the UK.

Jack Wild will always be best known for his role as The Artful Dodger in the classic 1968 film Oliver! The 16-year-old landed himself an Oscar nomination for the part but his acting career failed to take off. He dabbled with music, releasing three albums but spent the 70s and 80s.

Jack Wild was an English actor who achieved fame for his roles in both stage and screen productions of the Lionel Bart musical Oliver!. For the latter performance playing the Artful Dodger, he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the age of 16, but the Oscar went to Jack Albertson for his performance in The Subject was Roses.

It was at the premiere of the 1968 film version of Oliver! that he met brothers Sid and Marty Krofft, who thought Wild would make a good lead for a show they were developing called H.R. Pufnstuf. Wild starred in this American family TV series that launched in 1969, and also in the spin-off movie. He also embarked on a recording career, cutting one album for Capitol Records and two for Buddah Records in the early 1970s.

In 1988, he returned to the big screen in a few minor roles, such as in the 1991 Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. He was also reported to be developing a TV situation comedy with Suzi Quatro around the same time, but those plans never materialised in an actual series. For the most part, though, Wild spent the remainder of his career working in theatre.

Wild died on March 2nd 2006, at the age of 53.

Aaron Spelling was one of America's most successful producers.
He was the man behind hit TV shows like Starsky and Hutch, Fantasy Island,
Love Boat, Charlie's Angels and Charmed. As well as holding the Guinness World Record
for most prolific television producer he also brought the shoulder pad to our screens in Dynasty. He was 83.

Dana Reeve, a non-smoker, died of lung cancer at the age of 44. An actress and singer, her life changed after her husband, actor Christopher Reeve was paralyzed in 1996 in a horse riding accident. Together they created the Christopher Reeve Foundation, which raised and distributed over $55 million in research grants for stem-cell treatment research.

Mike Douglas was the popular talk show host of "The Mike Douglas Show" which aired from 1961 to 1982. Mixed with lots of big band music and singing, the show was filled with comedians, other musicians, sports figures, political personalities including seven former, sitting and future presidents. Considered TV's greatest talk show, Mike Douglas did close to 6,000 shows, most of which lasted for 90 minutes!

Until her death in September of 2006, Nellie Connally was the last survivor of the four dignitaries in the presidential limousine which carried John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Her husband John Connelly sustained a bullet wound in the shooting that would take the life of President Kennedy. As her husband slumped over in the front seat, Mrs. Connally hugged him tightly to her, helping to stop the drastic loss of blood, undoubtedly saving his life. Mrs. Nellie Connally was an active fund-raiser for breast cancer and diabetes

Retired Brig. Gen. Robert L. Scott, 97. World War II ace, wrote "God Is My Co-Pilot." Feb. 27.

Patsy Ramsey, 49. She was thrust into media spotlight
by the unsolved slaying of her daughter JonBenet. June 24.

Mickey Spillane, 88. Macho mystery writer who wowed millions of readers. July 17.

Buck Owens, 76. Flashy rhinestone cowboy who shaped country music. March 25.

Glenn Ford, 90. Actor who played strong, thoughtful men. Aug. 30.

June Pointer, 52. Youngest of hitmaking Pointer Sisters ("I'm So Excited.") April 11.

Daniel Smith, 20. Anna Nicole Smith's son; sudden passing made headlines worldwide. Sept 10.

Alexander Litvinenko, 43. Former Russian spy who criticized his homeland's government. Nov. 23.
[Edited 12/28/06 16:53pm]
[Edited 12/28/06 16:53pm]

Broadcasting pioneer Frank Stanton, Dec. 24
Frank Stanton, a broadcasting pioneer and CBS president for 26 years who helped turn its TV operation into the network and built CBS News into a respected information source, died in his sleep at his Boston home on Dec. 24. He was 98. During his long association with CBS founder William S. Paley, the psychologist helped build the company from a modest chain of radio affiliates into a communications empire.
(AP/CBS)