MetaFilter posts tagged with death and cancer

Goodbye, Teddy

ocherdraco — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 22:40:58 -0800

Edward M. Kennedy, Senator from Massachusetts, has died at age 77. After a rocky youth (including scandals of cheating and reckless driving), Kennedy followed his brothers into politics, making health care his cause, and eventually went on to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Anticipating his own death, he had been trying to create a quick transition for his replacement as a vote on health care reform rapidly approached.

Richard Jenson

thisisdrew — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:45:35 -0800

Getting Off The Mat - After losing 15 years of his life to drug addiction and prison, Richard Jensen was reborn as a 36-year-old college wrestler.

To Live

Iridic — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 20:17:16 -0800

American audiences remember Akira Kurosawa as the genius of the samurai epic, a past master who used the form both to revise and revive Western classics - Shakespeare with Ran and Throne of Blood, Dostoevsky with Red Beard and The Idiot, Gorky with The Lower Depths - and to give splendid and ultimately immortal life to new archetypes, as in The Seven Samurai, Rashomon, Yojimbo. But Kurosawa also made films of his own time. His masterpiece, in fact, was the quiet story of a gray Japanese bureaucrat dying in post-war Tokyo, and of his attempt to do something of lasting good before he leaves. The film is Ikiru ("To Live"; 1952). Bonus Kurosawa: Stray Dog.

Cigarette sales would drop to zero overnight if the warning said "CIGARETTES CONTAIN FAT."

TedW — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 08:34:25 -0800

Harvard professor Allan Brandt has a book out, The Cigarette Century, detailing the rise of the cigarette in 20th century America and its continuing spread worldwide. Excerpted here, reviewed here. The same title was used on a very similar work in American Heritage magazine in 1992 that is also worth a look.

Tammy Faye says goodbye

parmanparman — Thu, 10 May 2007 15:09:37 -0800

Tammy Faye Messner Bids Her Fans Goodbye. Down to 65 pounds and unable to continue treatment for cancer, Tammy Faye Messner, one of the most colorful figures in religious broadcasting, has posted a goodbye letter to fans on her Web site.

Warnings

tellurian — Wed, 17 May 2006 19:21:52 -0800

The Australian cigarette health warnings have pretty much filtered down to every retail packet that's bought now. They're pretty gruesome and some smoking acquaintances cover them up with stickers. I thought I'd have a look around and see what other countries warnings were like. None of them were pulling any punches except for Uruguay.

Sinner — Wed, 20 Feb 2002 13:13:27 -0800

Josh Clayton-Felt, lead singer of 90's alterntive rock band School of Fish spent the last few years of his life battling his record company (A&M cum Universal) and his last few weeks fighting a highly aggressive cancer that rendered him comatose just weeks after its December, 1999 discovery. When he lost his fight with cancer in January, 2000, the rights to the third re-recording of his final album had just been returned to him. Dreamworks released it earlier this month to favorable reviews. It can also be heard in its entirety here.

galachef55 — Tue, 03 Jul 2001 09:31:45 -0800

Mordecai Richler dead at 70. Noted Canadian man of letters, political commentator, frequent imbiber and author of "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz," "Solomon Gursky Was Here," "Oh, Canada! Oh, Quebec!," and "Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang." He was undergoing cancer treatment.