uh, not so fast

June 6, 2003 10:43 PM

Rumors of his death are greatly exaggerated. Well, not greatly, exactly...

My hometown paper blows it out their collective nether aperture. (News media keep obits of the famous ready to use; here's one that detonated prematurely.) From the Smoking Gun via Drudge. And I cringe, yet again, that I live in this lousy town with its crummy newspaper.)
posted by alumshubby (14 comments total)

I'd kinda like to see my own obit, almost like attending your own funeral (not that you wouldn't be at your own funeral but you know what I mean)
posted by zeoslap at 10:49 PM on June 6, 2003

zeoslap died today. zeo left behind 37 links and 248 comments. Remembered by some as a MetaFilter member . . .

How's that?
posted by yerfatma at 10:55 PM on June 6, 2003

Aw, come on now alumshubby. Columbia ain't that bad. Five Points was all right. At least it was back in 1994. I lived there for four years. Having grown up in Greenville, SC, Columbia was fondly known as the armpit of the state. It had this name for many reasons, one being it's always 5 degrees hotter there than anywhere else in the state on any given day (or so it always seemed).
posted by josephtate at 10:57 PM on June 6, 2003

josephtate, if you grew up in the city where Bob Jones University is located, I guess Columbia would seem like somewhat of an improvement.
posted by alumshubby at 11:06 PM on June 6, 2003

Would you really consider Strom Thurmond "South Carolina's Greatest Politician", though? I mean, that's pretty frickin' sad, innit? (Although I hear that Trent Lott fella quite likes 'im.) I can think of (after seven seconds' googling) like two claims to fame he has: One, running for president--and losing--on a "two lynchings in every garage, and a segregation in every pot" platform, and two, being really, really, reeeeeally frickin' old. Capital "O", capital "L", capital "D" old. Surely an entire state o' the union has somebody better than that to call their own? Like maybe Andrew "Twenty Bucks" Jackson?

(as far as the premature obit thing goes, I was under the impression that was standard practice for aging celebrities/politicians. Suppose I wrote an obit for Bob Hope today, and he died five years hence--99% of the obit would still be accurate, it's not like "The Road to Casablanca" or "Bob Hope's USO Spectacular Grenada '82" is gonna stop existing in a couple years or anything.)
posted by arto at 4:07 AM on June 7, 2003

Or US Sen. John C. Calhoun, even? Nullification didn't work out as he hoped, and he's largely forgotten today -- but in his day he was one of the major figures on America's political landscape.
posted by alumshubby at 6:53 AM on June 7, 2003

as far as the premature obit thing goes, I was under the impression that was standard practice for aging celebrities/politicians.

The key point they forgot is that when you write an obit for a living person, YOU DON'T UPLOAD IT TO A LIVE SERVER!
posted by planetkyoto at 7:03 AM on June 7, 2003

I thought he was dead. Like with Bob Hope recently, I was surprised to hear he was still alive. I'm pretty sure Reagan's still around, right?
posted by birdherder at 8:15 AM on June 7, 2003

One of the more festive gatherings I've held was a wake for Jesse Helms, at which attendees took the opportunity to mourn his life. Instead of complaining, why not just run with the Thurmond obituary, and proceed as if he is dead? It would make most folks a lot happier, I think.
posted by stonerose at 8:28 AM on June 7, 2003

just another example of luddite dorkuses carelessly leaving things laying around a publicly accessible web server which dutifully serves them up. goddam internet. goddam google. "there oughtta be a law..." said Sen Strom Thurmond. and then, there was...
posted by quonsar at 8:58 AM on June 7, 2003

Of course, they could regain journalistic credibility by doing the old buzzard in. It would make the obit more accurate insofar as he'd actually be dead.
posted by trondant at 9:09 AM on June 7, 2003

It's not as if they couldn't find some takers if they offered to outsource the job, either. He's not universally beloved in his own state, given his history.
posted by alumshubby at 10:43 AM on June 7, 2003

When the bastard does finally buy the farm, I hope they don't sugar-coat the fact that he was a racist.
posted by drstrangelove at 8:37 PM on June 26, 2003

I wonder if it was the Supreme court decision today that
did him in?
posted by thedailygrowl at 12:28 AM on June 27, 2003