R.I.P. The thread of death....celebrity or otherwise

[Jaymann]

Wasn't there some controversy where Leakey was accused of being a charlatan?

Not that I'm aware of, but I didn't follow his life very closely. What are you thinking of?

This:

Co-Discoverer of Turkana Boy and Homo ergaster

Homo ergasterIn 1972, Leakey led a team to northern Kenya to the Lake Turkana region, where they discovered a Homo rudolfensis fossil (sister species to Homo habilis). It created tremendous controversy. It was dated to 1.9 million years old. See the fossil at efossils.org:

There is much debate as to whether or not Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis are the same species.

Seemed like a bigger flap at the time.

[Holman]

Wasn't there some controversy where Leakey was accused of being a charlatan?

Not that I'm aware of, but I didn't follow his life very closely. What are you thinking of?

This:

Co-Discoverer of Turkana Boy and Homo ergaster

Homo ergasterIn 1972, Leakey led a team to northern Kenya to the Lake Turkana region, where they discovered a Homo rudolfensis fossil (sister species to Homo habilis). It created tremendous controversy. It was dated to 1.9 million years old. See the fossil at efossils.org:

There is much debate as to whether or not Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis are the same species.

Seemed like a bigger flap at the time.

Was that a willing charlatanism or just the usual scientific debate over what prehistoric evidence means?

[Jeff V]

Paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey is dead at 77.

His discoveries made clearer the ancient ancestry of homo sapiens (and its predecessors) and the origins of humankind in Africa.

I'm surprised to learn that he was only in his 70s. I remember watching his documentaries in junior high in the early 1980s.

There are too few celebrity scientists. He and his parents Mary and Louis were 3 of them.

[Holman]

Paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey is dead at 77.

His discoveries made clearer the ancient ancestry of homo sapiens (and its predecessors) and the origins of humankind in Africa.

I'm surprised to learn that he was only in his 70s. I remember watching his documentaries in junior high in the early 1980s.

There are too few celebrity scientists. He and his parents Mary and Louis were 3 of them.

The Leakeys did a huge amount to normalize a vision of humanity's deep Darwinian history. They were probably the most important proponents of evolution since the Scopes trial.

[Alefroth]

He was also a staunch conservationist and played a large role in saving African elephants from poachers.

[Kraken]

Wasn't there some controversy where Leakey was accused of being a charlatan?

Not that I'm aware of, but I didn't follow his life very closely. What are you thinking of?

This:

Co-Discoverer of Turkana Boy and Homo ergaster

Homo ergasterIn 1972, Leakey led a team to northern Kenya to the Lake Turkana region, where they discovered a Homo rudolfensis fossil (sister species to Homo habilis). It created tremendous controversy. It was dated to 1.9 million years old. See the fossil at efossils.org:

There is much debate as to whether or not Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis are the same species.

Seemed like a bigger flap at the time.

Was that a willing charlatanism or just the usual scientific debate over what prehistoric evidence means?

As I remember it, he was accused of self-aggrandizement at the expense of other, lesser-known scientists' reputations and careers. He didn't like to share the limelight. But I haven't thought about that in, like, 50 years, so maybe I remember it wrong.

[Isgrimnur]

Telegraph

Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff - identical and enigmatic twin brothers who have been an object of fascination in France for decades, partly due to their extreme cosmetic surgery - died within six days of each other at the age of 72.
...
Neither had been vaccinated against Covid, their friend Luc Ferry, a former education minister, said last week.

Mr Ferry told Le Parisien newspaper that he had urged both of them to get vaccinated "countless times" but they refused on the basis that they were "very sporty, without an ounce of fat".

[AWS260]

The oldest living WW2 veteran is no longer the oldest living WW2 veteran.

Lawrence Brooks, the oldest World War II veteran, died Wednesday at 112 years old in his native Louisiana.

Drafted in 1940, Brooks served in a segregated U.S. army as part of the mostly Black 91st Engineer Battalion where he climbed the ranks to Private 1st Class. Originally from a small village outside of Baton Rouge, Louisiana he often recalled the freedom he experienced while part of the battalion stationed in Australia, New Guinea and the Philippines.

“I was treated so much better in Australia than I was by my own white people. I wondered about that,” he once said, according to NBC News.

[A nonny mouse]

Peter Bogdanovich, director, dies.

Very sad.

[hepcat]

Wow, I honestly forgot he was still alive. His book of conversations with Orson Welles is one of my favorite books of all time. He was on the Gilbert Gottfried podcast a while back and regaled Gilbert with tales of living with Welles that had me in stitches. RIP to a great director and writer!

[McNutt]

I had a job where I had to attend board of education meetings. There was a man on this board that I told my coworker, "That guys looks exactly like Peter Bogdonavich."
"Who?"

Rest in peace, good sir.

[Holman]

RIP, Sir Sidney Poitier, age 94.

An utterly impressive actor (and the first black man to win the Academy Award for it), he was also a powerful voice for Civil Rights and other important causes.

[dbt1949]

Great actor. Especially loved him in To Sir with Love and In the Heat of the Night.

[A nonny mouse]

RIP, Sir Sidney Poitier, age 94.

An utterly impressive actor (and the first black man to win the Academy Award for it), he was also a powerful voice for Civil Rights and other important causes.

I had to look the knighting up. I wonder why, out of modesty or just the way things are done here, that he never used the "sir". And even in most of the obit blurbs they don''t even mention it.

[Jaymann]

It was only 40 years from Guess Who's Coming to Dinner to Guess Who Got Elected to the White House.

[TheMix]

I'll put this one under "I didn't know he was still alive". Pretty solid run, apparently. Still, RIP. I was never disappointed when watching his performances.

[Daehawk]

Sidney Poitier is a name that stands out and on its own. Everyone probably knows it. Simple words from the unknowing cant come close to eulogizing him. A man an actor a maker of emotions in others. Rest well dear Sidney.

[hepcat]

Wow, Bob Saget was just found dead in his hotel room.

I did not see that coming. They haven’t released a cause of death yet.

[Carpet_pissr]

Whoa, only 65 years old, too.

[Isgrimnur]

ARISTOCRATS!

[dbt1949]

And for us olde folk Dwayne Hickman died today too.

[hepcat]

ARISTOCRATS!

He and Gilbert Gottfried were the highlights of that movie.

[Isgrimnur]

And for us olde folk Dwayne Hickman died today too.

RIP, Dobie.

[Daehawk]

Dont really know Dwayne Hickman. But RIP

Big RIP to Bob Saget though. Never watched Full House but knew of him from various other things. Didn't know he was that old.

[Rumpy]

Wow, Bob Saget was just found dead in his hotel room.

I did not see that coming. They haven’t released a cause of death yet.

And there goes another icon from my childhood. Dang.

He was apparently touring a lot and I wouldn't doubt it if it were Covid related at this point.

[Hyena]

He liked the party scene...but he was a funny bastard. RIP

[YellowKing]

I'm trying to figure out how to break the news that Danny Tanner is dead to my Full House obsessed daughter...

[hepcat]

I’m reading some of the responses from celebrities and realized that Norman Lear is not only still alive, he’s going to be a hundred this year.

[hepcat]

At the end of one of the articles on his death, there's a note to contact the Suicide Prevention Hotline if you or anyone you know is thinking about suicide. I wonder if that's just shitty journalism, or if they've just not released info that he took his own life. I hope that's not true as I hate thinking that someone who seemed so full of life and happy could actually have done so.

[Octavious]

I heard he recently got the booster and that he's going to vote in the next election. I really need to just delete all my social media. I think it's unlikely that it was suicide. Just the day before he posted about how much fun he's having with the standup and promoting future shows.

[hepcat]

Betty White apparently got the booster right before she died too, according to some equally idiotic jackasses on social media.

[Octavious]

I mean it's really weird for a 99 year old lady to die of natural causes. So they totally have a point.

[Daehawk]

I got the booster too. SO if I die in the next 20 or so years you'll know why.

[hepcat]

For you, it will be the butterscotch flavored, jalapeno jerky you're raving about, or whatever other odd food you've fallen for at the time, that does you in.

[Unagi]

Wow, Bob Saget was just found dead in his hotel room.

I did not see that coming. They haven’t released a cause of death yet.

And there goes another icon from my childhood. Dang.

He was apparently touring a lot and I wouldn't doubt it if it were Covid related at this point.

I’d be pretty surprised if he died in his hotel room of COVID.

[Rumpy]

At the end of one of the articles on his death, there's a note to contact the Suicide Prevention Hotline if you or anyone you know is thinking about suicide. I wonder if that's just shitty journalism, or if they've just not released info that he took his own life. I hope that's not true as I hate thinking that someone who seemed so full of life and happy could actually have done so.

Likely just a leftover from a template .

I’d be pretty surprised if he died in his hotel room of COVID.

I wouldn't. The guy's been touring, and during a surge no less, which isn't really the smartest thing to do. He might have had his booster, but there have also been plenty of breakthrough infections. In most cases, they recover quickly, but there could have also been complications. But then, they haven't released any details to the cause.

[Unagi]

Sex, drugs, or suicide is what happens in hotel rooms, with their share of random heart attacks/brain aneurisms (i.e. sudden natural death) thrown in.

IMO.

For it to be COVID, he would have had to have been a very big exception to the trend and also and idiot for not checking in, etc.

I just don’t see that.

[Rumpy]

Sure, but over here, if you're infected and you've been travelling, they'll tell you to self-isolate in your hotel room.

[paulbaxter]

I just saw that Bob Saget tweeted from his hotel less than 12 hours before his death related to upcoming plans/tour dates.

Any of us can go at any time.

[Daehawk]

And the older you are the easier it is to die. Little things that never bothered you much when young can kill you suddenly in old age.