February 2 2008, Earl Butz Died, age 98

Warning ( contains a qoute from 1976 that oulines a lude comment that cost his job) Lived from July 3 1909- Feb 2 2008. Born in Albion, Indiana, Butz was an alumnus of Purdue University where he was a member of Alpha Gamma Rho Fraternity. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture in 1932, and then a doctorate in Agricultural Economics in 1937. He was the uncle of NFL player Dave Butz.

In 1948, Butz became vice president of the American Agricultural Economics Association, and three years later was named to the same post at the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers. In 1954, he was appointed Assistant Secretary of Agriculture by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. That same year he was also named chairman of the United States delegation to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. He left both of the aforementioned posts in 1957, when he became the Dean of Agriculture at his alma mater, Purdue University. In 1968, he was promoted to the positions of Dean of Education and vice president of the university's research foundation.
In 1971, President Richard Nixon appointed Butz as Secretary of Agriculture, a position in which he continued to serve after Nixon resigned as the result of the Watergate scandal in 1974

The racist Remark In 1976

Earl Butz, the secretary of agriculture, resigned after it was widely publicized that he had made a racist remark. Butz's statement had been: "I'll tell you what the coloreds want. It's three things: first, a tight pussy; second, loose shoes; and third, a warm place to shit." Most people watched Butz make his exit without knowing exactly waht he had said. The Associated Press sent out the uncensored quotation but, according to Columbia Journalism Review , only two newspapers printed it: Wisconsin's Madison Capital Times and Ohio's Toledo Bladem . Other newspapers said Butz had derogatorily described blacks' "sexual, dress and bathroom predilections," or that he had said "a tight [obscenity] ... a warm place to [vulgarism]," or otherwise cleaned up the language. ("Courageously." David Shaw of the Los Angeles Times commented, "...no editors dropped 'shoes' from Butz's remarks and substituted 'an article of footwear.'") Two newspapers provided ways for readers to see Butz's uncensored remarks. The Lubbock Avalanche Journal in Texas announced that the original statement was available in the newspaper office, and more than two hundred people came to read it. The San Diego Evening Tribune offered to mail a copy to anyone who requested it, and more than three thousand people did so.

It has been reported that Earl Butz simply died as a result of complications of age.

January 27 2008 , Gordon B Hickley 97' Morman Prophet, Church of Later Day Saints Dies

SALT LAKE CITY - Thousands of believers were in mourning Monday following the death of Gordon B. Hinckley, the humble head of the Mormon church who added millions of new members and labored long to burnish the faith's image as a world religion. An announcement of his successor was not expected for days

Hinckley is famous for having a less than supportive view on dressing up like ghost and goblins celebrating holloween. The LDS insists that Holloween could be somthing so much nicer than images of the dead and tombstones. The LDS church discourages wearing any Goolish masks on this day. A neighbor of the president made this interesting display on his opinion. Possibly the nieghbor is indicating they enjoy the mischief of Hollween with this pumpkin butt scare crow.


Hinckley, the 15th president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, died Sunday of complications arising from old age, church spokesman Mike Otterson said. He was 97.
In a statement, President Bush praised Hinckley as a "deeply patriotic man."
"While serving for over seven decades in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Gordon demonstrated the heart of a servant and the wisdom of a leader. He was a tireless worker and a talented communicator who was respected in his community and beloved by his congregation," Bush said.

Mitt Romney Mormon Presidential Candidate 2008

The church presidency is a lifetime position. Before Hinckley, the oldest church president was David O. McKay who was 96 when he died in 1970.
Hinckley, a grandson of Mormon pioneers, was president for nearly 13 years. He took over as president and prophet on March 12, 1995, and oversaw one of the greatest periods of expansion in church history. The number of temples worldwide more than doubled, from 49 to more than 120 and church membership grew from about 9 million to about 13 million.
Dozens of mourners gathered Sunday night outside Mormon church headquarters to honor Hinckley. College students sang hymns by the light of their cell phones. On Monday, Kelly Ford, 28, of Kaysville stared at a painting of Hinckley in the church visitor's center as a snowstorm swirled outside and recalled how he took time to speak to teens.
"He was a complete optimist. ... He talked about our potential and what the Lord expects of us," Ford said. "He was the greatest optimist I've ever known."
Hinckley became by far his church's most traveled leader in history. And the number of Mormons outside the United States surpassed that of American Mormons for the first time since the church, the most successful faith born in the United States, was founded in 1830.
Hinckley worked to show that his faith was far removed from its peculiar and polygamous roots. Still, during his tenure, the Roman Catholic Church, Southern Baptist Convention and United Methodist Church — the three largest U.S. denominations — each declared that Mormon doctrines depart from mainstream Christianity.
"The more people come to know us, the better they will understand us, Hinckley said in an interview with The Associated Press in late 2005. "We're a little different. We don't smoke. We don't drink. We dont have sex before marriage. We do things in a little different way. That's not dishonorable. I believe that's to our credit. This is where the term came from when reffering to "bad habits" being turned down as seen in this photo of a girl sporting a t-shirt.

Forget it man, she cant because shes mormon...

Republican Mitt Romney, who is trying to become the first Mormon elected president, said Monday he would miss the humility and wisdom of Hinckley and plans to attend his funeral. He also said Hinckley was pleased he was endeavoring to become the first Mormon elected president.
"He smiled and said it would be a great experience if you won and a great experience if you lost," Romney said.
Born June 23, 1910, in Salt Lake City, Hinckley graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in arts and planned to attend graduate school in journalism. Instead, a church mission took him to the British Isles.
Upon his return, he became executive director of the newly formed Church Radio, Publicity, and Mission Literature Committee at $60 a month. Hinckley always worked for the church, except for a brief stint during World War II as a railroad agent.
Hinckley was an apostle in 1978, when the church reversed its policy that prevented black men from holding the priesthood.
He began his leadership role in 1995 by holding a rare news conference, citing growth and spreading the Mormon message as the church's main challenge heading into the 21st century.
Hinckley's grandfather knew church founder Joseph Smith and followed leader Brigham Young west to the Great Salt Lake Basin. He often spoke of the Mormon heritage of pioneer sacrifice and its importance as a model for the modern church.
By tradition, at a church president's death, the church's most senior apostle is ordained within days on a unanimous vote of the Council of the Twelve Apostles. The longest-serving apostle now is Thomas S. Monson, 80.
The vote is not likely to occur until after Hinckley is laid to rest. At least twice in the past the naming of a new president has lagged for several years, but in modern times the announcement has come within a week.
Monson, Hinckley's likely successor, was one of the youngest men ever called to the highest levels of church leadership, named a church apostle at age 36. Before that he spent three years in Canada overseeing church missionary work. Prior to serving as Hinckley's First Counselor, Monson was Second Counselor to two previous presidents.
A storyteller at heart, Monson in known among Mormons for his folksy humor, delivered in speeches and parable-like stories during the twice-yearly church conferences in Salt Lake City. He's also known for making frequent, unannounced visits to patients in local hospitals to offer encouragement and prayer.
Outside the church his professional life included stints in newspaper advertising for the church-owned Deseret Morning News, later becoming general manager of the Deseret News Press, one of the West's largest commercial printing companies.

January 27 08, Suharto of Jakarta,Indonesia Dies at 86 years old on sunday

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Former dictator Suharto, an army general who crushed Indonesia's communist movement and pushed aside the country's founding father to usher in 32 years of tough rule that saw up to a million political opponents killed, died Sunday. He was 86.The health of former Indonesian dictator Suharto took a sharp downturn Sunday, and his doctors said he was unconscious, breathing through a ventilator, and in "very critical" condition.

Dozens of doctors on his medical team were rushed to the Pertamina Hospital in the capital after his blood pressure fell suddenly Saturday night.
Suharto, 86, was admitted to a hospital on Jan. 4 and has been in intensive care with lung, heart and kidney failure. Over the past week his physicians had spoken of a recovery, but that had changed dramatically by Sunday.
"This morning his condition is very critical," said Dr. Marjo Subiandono, chief presidential physician. "This is the lowest point ever."
Doctors "continue to do everything they can, but the rest is up to God," Subiandono said.
Suharto also slipped out of consciousness for the first time in more than three weeks of treatment, doctors said. Attempts were being made to help Suharto breathe on his own and he remained on a dialysis machine.
"He had multiple-organ failure, but his heart is still beating," said another doctor, Joko Raharjo. "We have been trying to increase his blood pressure since last night, but it has not worked. He is not in a coma, but is unconscious."
Suharto led a regime widely regarded as one of the 20th century's most brutal and corrupt for 32 years until he was toppled in May 1998 amid massive pro-democracy street protests. Since then, he has lived a reclusive life in a comfortable villa in downtown Jakarta.
Historians say up to 800,000 alleged communist sympathizers were killed during his rise to power from 1965 to 1968 and his troops killed another 300,000 in military operations against independence movements in Papua, Aceh and East Timor. No one has been punished over the killings.
Corruption watchdog Transparency International has said Suharto and his family amassed billions of dollars in stolen state funds, allegations they are fighting in court.

January 26 2008 Christian Brando Dies 49 at L.A. Hospital

The troubled son of Marlon Brando Dies from pneumonia at a Los Angeles hospital, an attorney said Saturday. He was 49

Christian Brando (who was named after French film director Christian Marquand) was born in Los Angeles, California on May 11, 1958, the product of an affair between Marlon Brando and Anna Kashfi, an actress. Marlon and Kashfi met in 1955, and Kashfi became pregnant in 1957. They married in 1958. Marlon later claimed that he had married Kashfi only because of the pregnancy and that he had other romantic relationships during the marriage. Kashfi was an abuser of barbiturates and alcohol.

The couple divorced a year after Christian's birth.
Christian was shuttled between his mother and father. His parents became increasingly hostile and abusive towards one another. The author Nellie Bly claimed that “When the Brandos quarreled, Anna displayed a ‘frightening’ rage,” and that “Anna left baby Christian alone in her car parked on Wilshire Boulevard while she confronted (Marlon) Brando in his office, ‘beating at him with her fists, in a frenzy of rage.”



Kashfi and Marlon engaged in a protracted custody battle. Marlon eventually won custody of Christian, who was then 13 years old, after Kashfi took their son out of school to travel to Mexico.
Marlon was a distant father and spent little time with young Christian, who was raised by nannies and servants. Christian moved between Hollywood and his father's private island near Tahiti. Marlon continued to have relationships with multiple women by whom he fathered numerous children. Years later, while commenting on his childhood, Christian said that: “The family kept changing shape, I'd sit down at the breakfast table and say, "Who are you?"”.
As a child, Christian had two small roles in movies: in The Secret Life of an American Wife and I Love You, Alice B. Toklas!, both released in 1968. He appeared in four other films and four made-for-TV productions, sometimes using the alias Gary Brown between 1980 and 1990

Christian pleg guilty to manslaughter in plea bargain for 10 years in prison begining 1990.

January 24 2008, Heath Ledger 28

January 24 2008, Heath Ledger found dead in his home on the floor from uknown causes.

A massage therapist who discovered a lifeless Heath Ledger in his Manhattan apartment made her first call to actress Mary-Kate Olsen, according to an in-depth timeline police released Wednesday of the moments surrounding the Australian-born actor’s death.
According to The New York Times, New York City police officials said the massage therapist, Diana Wolozin, called Olsen, a friend of Ledger’s, twice before calling 911.

Short Biography-

When a young, hunky 20 year old heart-throb Heath Ledger first came to the attention of the public in 1999, it was all too easy to tag him as a "pretty boy" and an actor of not much depth. He has spent the past five years trying desperately to sway this image away, but this has indeed been a double-edged sword. But that comes much later in his story. Heath Ledger was born on the fourth of April 1979, in Perth, Western Australia. As the story goes, in junior high it was compulsory to do one of two electives, either cooking or drama, and as Heath could honestly not see himself in a cooking class, he tried his hand at drama. Heath was talented, there was no denying that. However, the rest of the class did not acknowledge his talent, possibly out of jealousy. When he was 17, he and a friend, decided to pack up, leave school, take a car and rough it to Sydney. Heath believed Sydney to be the place where dreams are made, or at least, where actors can possibly get their big break. However, upon arriving in Sydney with a purported 69 cents to his name, Heath tried everything to get a break. His first real acting job came in a low budget movie called Blackrock (1997), a largely unimpressive cliché; a teen angst film about one boy's struggle when he learns his best mate raped a girl. He did not have a large part in this movie. In fact, it was a very small one. The only thing of notice in his role is you get to see him get his lights punched out. After that small role, Heath auditioned for a role in a TV show called "Sweat" (1996) about a group of young Olympic hopefuls. He got offered one of two roles, one as a swimmer, another as a gay cyclist. Heath accepted the latter because he felt to really stand out as an actor one had to accept unique roles that stood out from the bunch. It got him small notice, but unfortunately the show was quickly axed, which led him to look for other roles. He was in "Home and Away" (1988) for a very short period, in which he played a surfer who falls in love with one of the girls of Summer Bay. Then came his very brief role in Paws (1997). Paws was a film which existed solely to cash in on guitar prodigy Nathan Cavaleri's brief moment of fame, where he was the hottest thing in Australia. Heath played a student in the film, involved in a stage production of a Shakespeare play, in which he played "Oberon". A very brief role, this did nothing other than give him a small paycheck, but nothing to advance his career. Then came Two Hands (1999). He went to America trying to audition for film roles, showcasing his brief role in "Roar" (1997) opposite then unknown Vera Farmiga. He could not find any American roles but then Australian director Gregor Jordan auditioned him for the lead in Two Hands (1999), which he got. An in your face Aussie crime thriller, Two Hands (1999) was outstanding and helped him secure a role in 10 Things I Hate About You (1999). After that, it seemed Heath was being typecast as a teen hunk, which he did not like, so he accepted a role in a very serious war drama The Patriot (2000).What followed was a stark inconsistency of roles, Heath accepting virtually every single character role, anything to avoid being typecast. Some met with praise, like his short role in Monster's Ball (2001), but his version of Ned Kelly (2003) was an absolute flop, which led distributors hesitant to even release it outside Australia. Heath finally had deserved success with his role in Brokeback Mountain (2005), for which he was nominated for an Oscar and a BAFTA.

Public View-

Heath Ledger is best known for his haunting, Oscar-nominated performance as Ennis Del Mar, one of the gay cowboys in 2005 ' s "Brokeback Mountain," Ledger was a massive young talent on the cusp of greatness when he died last week in New York. The native Australian, who is survived by his 2-year-old daughter, Matilda, had recently finished work on this summer's "Batman" sequel, "The Dark Knight," in which he plays a villain, the Joker. Christopher Nolan, the film's director, shared these memories:
One night, as I'm standing on LaSalle Street in Chicago, trying to line up a shot for "The Dark Knight," a production assistant skateboards into my line of sight. Silently, I curse the moment that Heath first skated onto our set in full character makeup. I'd fretted about the reaction of Batman fans to a skateboarding Joker, but the actual result was a proliferation of skateboards among the younger crew members. If you'd asked those kids why they had chosen to bring their boards to work, they would have answered honestly that they didn't know. That's real charisma—as invisible and natural as gravity. That's what Heath had.
Heath was bursting with creativity. It was in his every gesture. He once told me that he liked to wait between jobs until he was creatively hungry. Until he needed it again. He brought that attitude to our set every day. There aren't many actors who can make you feel ashamed of how often you complain about doing the best job in the world. Heath was one of them.

One time he and another actor were shooting a complex scene. We had two days to shoot it, and at the end of the first day, they'd really found something and Heath was worried that he might not have it if we stopped. He wanted to carry on and finish. It's tough to ask the crew to work late when we all know there's plenty of time to finish the next day. But everyone seemed to understand that Heath had something special and that we had to capture it before it disappeared. Months later, I learned that as Heath left the set that night, he quietly thanked each crew member for working late. Quietly. Not trying to make a point, just grateful for the chance to create that they'd given him.

Those nights on the streets of Chicago were filled with stunts. These can be boring times for an actor, but Heath was fascinated, eagerly accepting our invitation to ride in the camera car as we chased vehicles through movie traffic—not just for the thrill ride, but to be a part of it. Of everything. He'd brought his laptop along in the car, and we had a high-speed screening of two of his works-in-progress: short films he'd made that were exciting and haunting. Their exuberance made me feel jaded and leaden. I've never felt as old as I did watching Heath explore his talents. That night I made him an offer—knowing he wouldn't take me up on it—that he should feel free to come by the set when he had a night off so he could see what we were up to.
When you get into the edit suite after shooting a movie, you feel a responsibility to an actor who has trusted you, and Heath gave us everything. As we started my cut, I would wonder about each take we chose, each trim we made. I would visualize the screening where we'd have to show him the finished film—sitting three or four rows behind him, watching the movements of his head for clues to what he was thinking about what we'd done with all that he'd given us. Now that screening will never be real. I see him every day in my edit suite. I study his face, his voice. And I miss him terribly.Back on LaSalle Street, I turn to my assistant director and I tell him to clear the skateboarding kid out of my line of sight when I realize—it's Heath, woolly hat pulled low over his eyes, here on his night off to take me up on my offer. I can't help but smile.

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