Category Archives: Last Words, Obits, Eulogies and Epitaphs
John Burns on Britain’s Oldest Warrior He was a 19-year-old private when he was struck by the burst of a German shell over the British trenches in September 1917 and sent home to recover from his wounds. Working as a plumber in Wells until his retirement, he lived to the age of 111 before he [...]
London Times Corazon Aquino was propelled into office as President of the Philippines in an extraordinary sequence of events which began with the assassination of her husband and culminated in the unceremonious ejection of a military dictatorship. In 1986 the country’s ruler, Ferdinand Marcos, declared himself winner of the general election, but the contest had [...]
“We learn history not in order to know how to behave or how to succeed, but to know who we are.” Leszek Kolakowski, Jefferson Lecture 1986 The Economist HIS life was learning—about history, about his times, about himself. Like some other erstwhile true believers, he became one of most cogent critics of his former faith. [...]
I’m really looking forward to the new movie Coco Before Chanel by Anne Fontaine starring the extraordinary French actress Audrey Tautou. It won’t be in the U.S. until September 25, but it’s being released tomorrow in the U.K, With it, press articles and trailers to whet our appetite and my desire to see how this [...]
This is the most moving, lyrical and funny encomium I ever read: The Great Convivium by Father Raymond De Souza, being the homily delivered at the funeral Mass for Richard John Neuhaus. In our first reading the prophet Isaiah has a vision of the Lord’s celestial mountain. In the translation we used we hear of [...]
New York Times John S. Barry, Main Force Behind WD-40, Dies at 84 John S. Barry, an executive who masterminded the spread of WD-40, the petroleum-based lubricant and protectant created for the space program, into millions of American households, died on July 3 in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego. He was 84. – [...]
The oldest man in the world, Air Mechanic Henry Allingham , British Veteran of World War I died on Saturday aged 113, in his sleep. John Burns writes the most lyrical obit in the New York Times An iconic figure to many in Britain, Mr. Allingham did wartime service including stints on land, in the [...]
Frank McCourt, author of the memoir everyone loved, Anglela’s Ashes, died of cancer in New York, age 78.. Lyrical, sad and laugh out loud funny, Angela’s Ashes won the Pultizer Prize and stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 117 weeks. Matt Schudel writes in the Washington Post Mr. McCourt, the oldest of [...]
Ah, such men. Another fascinating obituary from the London Telegraph, Major Victor Warren Major Victor Warren, who has died aged 90, commanded an Indian mule company which journeyed by train from the foot of the Khyber Pass to Karachi, sailed to Iraq and then made a 600-mile march through northern Syria to Tripoli in Lebanon; [...]
Movie critic A.O. Scott in an appreciation of Karl Malden, A Character Actor of Intensified Normalness Mr. Malden’s achievement as an actor was both substantial and modest. The paradox of great character actors is that they are at once adaptable and unmistakable, irreducibly individual yet able to be typecast. And Karl Malden, especially in the [...]
