Sad News For JMG Community: Longtime Commenter Beeblemeyer Has Died
JMG reader Tone writes with the very sad news that longtime commenter David Lee Beebe, known to most of you as Beeblemeyer, has passed away from kidney disease. David was one of the earliest readers of this site and often sent kind emails and news tips, although those came far less frequently in the last year as he struggled with his advancing disease and his lack of insurance. David was also a big fan of Jonathan Mann, YouTube's "Song-A-Day Man", who wrote today's song for him.
Knut, the polar bear who as a cub captured the hearts of the world and sold millions in plush toys for the Berlin Zoo, died unexpectedly yesterday at the age of four.
"Everyone is just in shock here," said Claudia Bienek, a spokeswoman for Berlin Zoo where Knut shot to global fame in 2007 as a photogenic snow-white cub after being rejected by his mother and reared by hand. Knut, pulled dead from a pool in his enclosure he shared with three females on Saturday afternoon, was just four years and three months old, well below the average life expectancy for polar bears of around 35. The cause of Knut’s untimely death was not immediately known, said Heiner Kloes, in charge of bears at Berlin Zoo. Vets were due to conduct an autopsy on Monday. The BZ daily quoted zoo visitors as saying that Knut was sitting on rocks in his enclosure when his left leg began to shake. He then started walking around in circles before falling into the water.
I was in Berlin a few years ago during the height of the Knut craze and his likeness had been stamped on just about anything a tourist could carry. The one souvenir that made it into my suitcase was a small toy Knut for my nephew. He's going to be devastated.
If, wherever you were last night, you felt a sudden and distinct shudder in the gay universe, it's because the legendary, the incomparable, the beyond fabulous four-time Grammy winner Lena Horne passed away in Manhattan at the age of 92. Here's just the first couple of paragraphs of the New York Times' obituary.
Lena Horne, who was the first black performer to be signed to a long-term contract by a major Hollywood studio and who went on to achieve international fame as a singer, died on Sunday night at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital in New York. She was 92 and lived in Manhattan. Her death was announced by her son-in-law, Kevin Buckley.
Ms. Horne might have become a major movie star, but she was born 50 years too early, and languished at MGM in the 1940s because of the color of her skin, although she was so light-skinned that, when she was a child, other black children had taunted her, accusing her of having a “white daddy.” Ms. Horne was stuffed into one “all-star” musical after another — “Thousands Cheer” (1943), “Broadway Rhythm” (1944), “Two Girls and a Sailor” (1944), “Ziegfeld Follies” (1946), “Words and Music” (1948) — to sing a song or two that could easily be snipped from the movie when it played in the South, where the idea of an African-American performer in anything but a subservient role in a movie with an otherwise all-white cast was unthinkable.
Here's Lena's signature song, Stormy Weather, from the 1943 movie of the same name, followed by a couple of my personal favorites.
Ted Kennedy, friend and hero to LGBT folks, people with HIV/AIDS, minorities, the disabled, liberals, and progressives over his decades in the U.S. Senate, succumbed to brain cancer late Tuesday night at his home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. This is a tremendous loss for the nation, losing what many Americans, including myself, consider to have been the greatest elected official of our lifetimes. We salute you, Mr. Kennedy. Every gay person in America owes you our everlasting gratitude.
Sen. Ted Kennedy has been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor and will remain hospitalized for at least several days as he and his family determine his treatment options.
The Massachusetts Democrat suffered a seizure Saturday and has since been hospitalized at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He has been talking and joking with family and friends while undergoing a battery of tests that revealed the malignant tumor, a glioma in the left parietal lobe, according to the hospital.
"He has had no further seizures, remains in good overall condition and is up and walking around the hospital," Drs. Lee Schwamm and Larry Ronan said in a joint statement released by the hospital.
"The usual course of treatment includes combinations of various forms of radiation and chemotherapy," they said. "Decisions regarding the best course of treatment for Sen. Kennedy will be determined after further testing and analysis."
Is Ted Kennedy the greatest Senator of our lifetime? Who could rival him for that title?
