RIP

[Dr Sardonicus]

Zura Karuhimbi

Hotelier Paul Rusesabagina's exploit during the Rwandan genocide was made into a movie, Hotel Rwanda.

I hadn't heard of this woman's heroics before, though.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Sister Wendy Beckett

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

Zura Karuhimbi
I hadn't heard of this woman's heroics before, though.

Very moving! Wonderful woman. I also hadn't heard about her before. I laughed and cried a bit, in the same time, reading the article, and that happens to me very seldom...

[pinhodecarlos]

Amos Oz.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Richard Overton

[a1call]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

Richard Overton

He told the press he didn't take any medicine,

That does say a lot about many medications that are worse than disease.
But I wouldn't want to get started on that.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Around Christmas I heard a choral piece on the radio for which I heard the announcer give the title as Lux Aeterna. I hadn't heard it before, but was sure I'd heard something else with that title. I did a bit of searching, and learned a few things.

First, "Lux Aeterna" is a part of the Requiem Mass, a fact I was not familiar with, but which gives me an excuse, however feeble, to post musical renditions of it to this thread as the year draws to a close.

Here is the relevant part of the Requiem Mass:

Lux Aeterna

Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine:
Cum Sanctis tuis in aeternum:
quia pius es.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine:
et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Cum Sanctis tuis in aeternum:
quia pius es.

May light eternal shine upon them, O Lord,
with Thy Saints for evermore:
for Thou art gracious.
Eternal rest give to them, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine upon them:
With Thy Saints for evermore,
for Thou art gracious.

Some versions translate quia pius es as for Thou art merciful.

I was successful in finding the work I heard. It is a work by Morten Lauridsen. It is almost half an hour long. A Youtube video, with (alas) an ad at the beginning, a fine recording, and a slide show of NASA images as background, may be found here.

Commentary on this work may be found here.

The most ethereal choral rendition I have heard (and which is the work with the same title I had heard before) is Lux Aeterna by György Ligeti. It may seem familiar to some of you, because it was used in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

What are they singing? All is revealed in a different recording of György Ligeti - Lux Aeterna with score (which, alas, has ads you may have to fight off with a stick)

[ewmayer]

Originally Posted by Dr Sardonicus

Richard Overton

He was almost old enough to have served in WW!, although IIRC blacks were more or less foreclosed from serving in that earlier war.

Re. your Lux Aeterna post, the article you link to also cites some great older works. One of my favorite CDs is a 1964 George Szell/Cleveland Orchestra live recording of Ein Deutsches Requiem - it's a bit rough in places due to the live-audience noise, but overall fabulous. Another favorite in this genre is Mozart's Great Mass in C Minor - I have the 1960 Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra recording listed in that Wikipedia article. Even after hearing it numerous times and not being religious myself, Et Incarnatus Est still gives me the shivers.

[LaurV]

Roy Glauber

He was one of the atomic pioneers at Los Alamos, when he was still a college student, then later became a Harvard physics professor, and in 2005 was awarded a Nobel Prize in physics. You might want to read our little tribute to Roy on the announcement, in 2005, that he was being awarded a Nobel Prize “for his contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence.” Roy discovered more about light—what light is, and how it behaves—than almost all the rest of humanity combined had managed to do.
(I was tickled when Roy phoned me shortly after his return home from the Nobel ceremony in Stockholm. He said, with great Glauberian joy, that all the reporters there had showed more interest in him than in any of the other new Nobel laureates. Then Roy paused. A long pause. “But all they wanted to ask about,” he said, with a probably unique blend of pride, bitterness, and amusement, “was that damn broom and the paper airplanes.”)

We didn't know him or his name before (shame on us!), but we love him already. Rest in peace.

[Dr Sardonicus]

Originally Posted by ewmayer

He was almost old enough to have served in WW!, although IIRC blacks were more or less foreclosed from serving in that earlier war.

Black men did serve in WWI. A number of them who survived the war failed to survive their homecomings during the Red Summer of 1919.

In Norfolk, Virginia, a white mob attacked a homecoming celebration for African-American veterans of World War I. At least six people were shot, and the local police called in Marines and Navy personnel to restore order.

A new feature of the struggle for "equal justice under law" during the Red Summer was that in many instances, the targets of racialist pogroms fought back.

[Dr Sardonicus]

On December 29, 2017, my mother passed away. She was in her nineties.

For about two and a half years prior to that, I had been almost her sole caregiver. My younger sister was occasionally able to visit from a thousand miles away, and, in my estimation, was more help in the two weeks of her last visit while Mom was in her normal state of health, than my older sister, who lived about a mile away, had been in the previous two years. My older sister, to put it mildly, "has issues." She "had issues" with Mom. All three of us grew up in the same household, though, and for two of us, there was no question about doing right by Mom, "issues" notwithstanding. As a neighbor put it, "You will only ever have one mother."

It was fortunate that Mom "had all her marbles" right to the end. Her problems were physical, due in no small part to having been a long-term smoker. Lung problems. Heart problems. Circulation problems. Her hands were usually cold, often cyanotic. Disregarding the warnings and advice of her doctor, she kept on smoking. Until she suffered a sudden decline in health, and was put on oxygen. Though warnings about the consequences of smoking had failed to convince her to stop, she was terrified of setting herself on fire, and, after being put on oxygen, quit smoking immediately.

For a while, she was at so much risk of falling, her doctor ordered that she not be left unattended. Thanks to home nursing care and physical therapy, she did recover to a fair degree. She was able to prepare her own meals and dress herself. She was able to walk around the neighborhood, using a cane with one hand and holding my arm with the other. The exercise did her good.

Her health continued to decline gradually for several years, but we still "did" Thanksgiving and Christmas, featuring roast turkey. My older sister chose to absent herself the last few years, coming over a day or two later to stock up on leftovers.

On December 20 last year, Mom and I went to the grocery store to "buy Christmas." Turkey and other ingredients.

On the 23rd, I went out to get a couple of other things for Christmas dinner. I returned to Mom's house and found her on the floor. She had prepared her lunch, and was writing it in the log we kept, and the writing sort of trailed off. She said she had fallen, but she had in fact suffered a massive stroke. She was hospitalized, and the prognosis was not rosy.

On Christmas Day, my younger sister flew out. While waiting for her arrival, I cooked Christmas dinner. Me and my sisters ate a quiet Christmas dinner together.

The next day, I brought some of the dinner, pureed, to Mom's hospital room so she could have some. That day, or perhaps the day after that, while the three of us we were visiting, she said she wanted to watch the news. She wanted to know what was going on in the world. She asked, "Has anyone shot Trump yet? Has anyone shot Pence?" Around this time, the attending physician laid out the situation. Mom was very near the end of her life. We needed to decide whether to continue medical treatment or have "comfort measures" only. We chose the latter, knowing that this was her wish; she had also had an advance directive prepared for just this situation.

The day after directing comfort measures, we made decisions about arranging home hospice care (also in accordance with her wishes), in case she were to be discharged before a room in the hospice unit became available. Fortunately, when the time came to finalize these arrangements, the nurse who "assessed" Mom's condition decided that transport home would be traumatic. As a result, she stayed in her room, given palliative care only, until a room in the hospice unit became available, which turned out to be the next day -- the 29th.

The people in the medical-care ward did their best to make Mom comfortable, and did pretty well, but it was immediately clear that the folks in hospice are simply better at this sort of thing. At the same time, a hospice chaplain gave me guidance in making "the arrangements," and told me not to delay. Good advice. A few hours later, Mom was gone. The three of us were with her.

In the subsequent year, we have been dealing with her estate. It isn't quite done yet, but it's pretty close. Some years back, Mom, concerned by my older sister's increasingly alarming behavior, had removed her as executor and appointed her attorney. Thanks, Mom!

Rest in peace.