Thanks, Dad

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Monday, October 23, 2006

The recipient of the first baboon bone-marrow transplant

I did not name the patient for privacy's sake (the man deserves at least some privacy in eternity), but this man got a bone-marrow transplant in 1995, in the hope that this experimental procedure would help alleviate the effects of the AIDS virus in his system. The bone marrow must have worked... Sign in to see full entry.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Freddy Fender

Freddy Fender, whose most famous hit was Before the Next Teardrop Falls, died at age 69 of lung cancer. What interested me most when I read his obituary was that he'd been in kidney failure, and had gotten a kidney transplant. I don't know whether or not he was a heavy smoker, but I do know that we... Sign in to see full entry.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Iva Toguri D'Aquino

This name is unfamiliar to all but the most die-hard of history buffs. She was the woman arrested, convicted, and later pardoned of being the infamous Tokyo Rose, a woman famous for her anti-American radio propaganda during World War II. (The woman was given the nickname Tokyo Rose by soldiers "in... Sign in to see full entry.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Byron Nelson

Golf's courtly "Lord Byron" Nelson died at age 94, of natural causes. I don't know much about golf in general beyond a little about Tiger Woods, but apparently, from what I've been able to determine, Nelson set his share of golfing records in his time, retiring in 1946 at age 34 to spend more time... Sign in to see full entry.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Patricia Kennedy Lawford

Patricia Kennedy Lawford, JFK's sister and the former wife of actor Peter Lawford, died yesterday (9/18/2006) at age 82, of complications of pneumonia. According to the New York Times obituary about Mrs. Lawford, her father Joseph Kennedy was very upset at the idea of her marriage to Lawford, but... Sign in to see full entry.

Mickey Hargitay

Many of you have no idea who Mickey Hargitay was, but you know his daughter, Mariska, who plays Olivia Benson on Law & Order: Special Victims' Unit. His major claim to fame was as Mr. Universe in the mid-1950s, and he also was known as Jayne Mansfield's husband. (In fact, Mariska and her brothers... Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, September 15, 2006

Bobby Troup (reconstructed from Themestream)

Bobby Troup, songwriter, has been dead since February 7, 1999. He died of a heart attack, at 80. Many older people know Troup as the author of the song Get Your Kicks on Route 66. However, we Baby Boomers know him as kindly, diplomatic neurosurgeon Joe Early from the television show Emergency!,... Sign in to see full entry.

Julie London (reconstructed from Themestream)

Back when I was on Themestream, I wrote a tribute to the late Julie London, who died on October 18, 2000, of a long (and unspecified) illness, at age 74. She was famous as a "torch singer," her most famous hit being Cry Me A River (not the more recent popular song of the same name, but a Big... Sign in to see full entry.

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Gov. Ann Richards

Ann Richards was the former governor of Texas, and George W. Bush's immediate predecessor in that office. She has passed away, of throat cancer, in her mid-70s. I have no other information right now. UPDATE: It turns out that in March, Gov. Richards announced that she had esophageal cancer. Earlier... Sign in to see full entry.

Monday, September 11, 2006

Daniel Smith (Anna Nicole Smith's son)

This story was posted on the CNN website this morning. It was sent out by Reuters, the other major wire service. Daniel Smith, apparently visiting his mother Anna Nicole Smith in the Bahamas (where she recently gave birth to Daniel's sister), has died at age 20. Due to copyright restrictions on... Sign in to see full entry.

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