Adviser to Presidents Paul W. McCracken Dies at 96

Paul W. McCracken, a moderate Republican who served as economic adviser to both Republican and Democratic presidents who led the effort and ineffective President Richard M. Nixon to the rising inflation of the late 1960's and early 1970 to tame, deceased on Friday in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was 96.

His death was announced by the University of Michigan, where he taught for most of his academic career. A great thinker, Mr. McCracken was part of a postwar generation of economists who believed that government should play an active role in moderating economic cycles, balancing inflation and unemployment, and help the disadvantaged.

His nearly three years in the White House coincided with a turbulent period marked by rising deficits, rampant inflation, the imposition of controls on wages and prices, and the distribution of fixed exchange rate system that had dominated the currencies of the world, World War II.

As a result, in early 1980, Mr. McCracken, like other economists, Keynesian in the question of the assumptions which were dominant after the war.

He concluded that the high inflation was the result of "cumulative paralysis our will" and called for greater fiscal discipline to the growth of public expenditure - a subject that still haunt Washington.

"The government has never in the course of 1970 can bring to the first condition for a successful policy of stabilizing prices to meet - namely that its policies simply do not consider" inflation, "Mr. McCracken wrote in 1980.

Indeed, at that time the Federal Reserve, under a new president, Paul A. Volcker, began to sharply increase interest rates, producing back-to-back recession in 1980 and 1982, which eventually broke the back of inflation, but cost painfully high unemployment.

Paul Winston McCracken was born December 29, 1915, in Richland, Iowa. His father, a farmer, and his uncle, economics teacher, encouraged him to study economics at William Penn College (now University) in Oskaloosa, Iowa. He graduated in 1937 and then taught for three years at Berea College in Kentucky, where he met Ruth Emily Siler, a student teacher.

They married in 1942, the same year that Mr. McCracken received a master's degree in economics from Harvard and went to work at the Ministry of Commerce in Washington. From 1943 to 1948 he was researcher at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, the completion of a doctorate, also at Harvard. Then the faculty at what is now the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.

Mr. McCracken was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Dwight D. 1956-1959 Eisenhower. He unsuccessfully argued for a tax reduction for a severe recession in 1957-58 caused, and said later that the administration hands-off approach to the economy had helped to lead to another recession, in 1960-61, and the cost Nixon , Eisenhower's vice president, presidential elections of 1960.

As a professor, Mr. McCracken served two Democratic presidents John F. Kennedy, a member of a task force for the domestic economy, and Lyndon B. Johnson as part of a committee on the budget accounts.

After winning the elections of 1968, Mr. McCracken Nixon a meeting in New York. He asked the chairman of his Council of Economic Advisers, Mr. McCracken said he would call his wife, but Nixon replied: "I have a press conference in a few minutes, and I have not much to say Why not just there to to announce. " .

The chairman, Mr. McCracken described as "a centrist, a man who is pragmatic in its economy."

Working for Nixon, Mr. McCracken was facing an inflation rate which had risen since 1965, a byproduct of the deficits that the federal government had gained during the Vietnam War.

In a speech in August of 1969, said that the inflation "caused considerable social and economic" and "has a social disintegration through its tendency to escalate tensions in the group."

He also called for extending unemployment insurance, labor training, the poor exempt from federal taxes and improving public transport reorganization - the positions that the dominant liberal consensus of the time display.

Mr. McCracken was a compromise between the directors of Johnson, who had invited him to fine-tuning "fiscal policy for regulating the economy, and the conservative, laissez-faire approach of the Chicago school, led by Milton Friedman.

The Mr. McCracken was the architect of a policy of gradualism, which has sought to slow inflation, with growth a bit, without a recession.

He hoped to slow price increases through a combination of a budget surplus, Johnson proposed as an additional tax is renewed and tighter monetary policy of the Fed, which would reduce speculation in the stock market and the wage demands of unions.

He warned the government not to "lock brakes so badly that the economy would be thrown into the ditch."

But the prices continue to rise despite a recession in 1969-70, and by mid-1970 Nixon had directed the Board of warnings of inflation to be issued "," identifying what Mr. McCracken later called "flagrant" of " inflation, including a big jump in taxi fares in New York City.

After an important weekend in the presidential retreat of Camp David, Nixon decided to wage and price controls to be imposed for the first time since the Korean War.

He has also unilaterally ended the Bretton Woods system, which the United States has agreed to sell gold to foreign governments in exchange for dollars at fixed exchange rates.

Controls were popular and probably a factor in Nixon's landslide reelection in 1972, Mr. McCracken said.

But the checks proved untenable, as Mr McCracken had warned in 1969, when he said they were "much less effective than many are now inclined to believe." They were abandoned in 1974. "Stagflation", a devastating combination of weak growth and high inflation, the U.S. economy continues to besiege until 1980.

Mr. McCracken further argued that gradualism worked ", but are slow and irregular and the political demands were not compatible." In fact, price controls presumably "strengthened and extended" inflation of 1970, wrote in an essay in 1996 Presidential Studies Quarterly.

Mr. McCracken back to Michigan in late 1971. Edmund Ezra Day was Distinguished Professor of Business Administration until his retirement in 1986.

He leaves two daughters, Linda and Paula Langer McCracken. His wife died in 2005.

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17:13 | 0 comments

TV producer Joan Stein dies at 59

Joan Stein, a Tony award winning theater and television producer who helped launch some long-term in Los Angeles theater productions, including "Love Letters", "Forever" Plaid Steve Martin and "Picasso at the Lapin Agile" is dead. He was 59 years.

Stein died Friday at Cedars-Sinai Hospital Medical Center in Los Angeles. A resident of Hollywood, was diagnosed four weeks ago with a rare type of cancer that affects the appendix, said her husband, Ted Weiant.

In 1999, Stein won a Tony Award as a producer of "Side Man" Broadway play, a drama set in the jazz world after the war. His other recent credits include producing the Broadway musical "Catch Me If You Can" and "9 to 5" and the 2002 revival of "The Elephant Man".

Stein and his producer partner, Susan Dietz, directed the Canon Theatre in Beverly Hills for 10 years. His first success was A.R. Gurney "Love Letters", which opened in 1990, and a rotating cast of celebrities. While Canon, Stein Laird has also produced "Forever Plaid" and Joel Paley and Marvin Stuart Ross musical parody of "ruthless!"

Stein left the Canon in 2000 to pursue a career in television and the theater closed in 2004.

"The enjoyment and we did a good job. She was a sister to me these 10 years," said Dietz.

Stein was also producer of "Picasso at the Lapin Agile," which opened in 1994 at the Westwood Playhouse, Geffen Playhouse now. Martin's work, which establishes a link between the artist and Albert Einstein at a bar in Paris, became a hit and ran over 300 performances.

"People say, 'You can not earn a living theater in Los Angeles,'" Stein told the Times in 1995 amid the success, "Picasso." 'Good', all dressed up in my office, driving a car, pay the rent. They are making a living in theater. "

After leaving the Canon Theatre, Stein created a television production company with Martin have collaborated on several projects.

Stein recent theater projects such as "Motherhood Out Loud", which took place in the primary stages of New York and the Geffen Playhouse in 2011 with the title "In the words of the Mother." He also produced "standing for the ceremony," a series of works on gay marriage, which took place in Largo Coronet Theatre in Los Angeles.

Her stage career includes a stint as the CEO of Berkshire Theatre Festival in Massachusetts.

Stein was born June 7, 1953 in New York. He graduated from State University of New York at Albany, after majoring in English.

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17:10 | 0 comments

Maker of water-drop tanks William H. 'Bill' Mensing dies at 88.jpg-20120802

William H. "Bill" Mensing, owner of a commercial aircraft sheet metal the best drop of water tanks to helicopters to the Los Angeles Fire Department in early 1970, he published, he is dead. He was 88.

Mensing died July 26 at home in Santa Paula, after a brief illness, his family said.

A veteran of World War II, Mensing opened a business called Precision sheet metal Sheetcraft Northridge in 1960 and became known for his ability to make new parts for damaged planes and helicopters.

In 1970, he was offered a different type of work by Los Angeles County Fire Department, which in 1957 had been a pioneer in the use of water tanks fall into the bellies of helicopters fire.

Reconstructors aircraft, the company that had tanks for firefighters, was no longer in business and the Department wanted to replicate the business of the last tank Mensing.

Working with Doug Matthews, director of the helicopter fire, Mensing made a series of innovative changes in the tanks of 360 liters, began production for the department.

"When Mensing understood, we have continued to improve," the now retired Mathews, recalled Thursday. "He came with a lot of ideas, but came up with some ideas."

Mensing has not only made the Gavarra-tank to internal changes, but they change a tank of a single drop of a drop-tank separation: instead the pilot drop the whole load of water , can be downloaded half a load at once.

"It's commonly known as the tank or tank Sheetcraft Los Angeles," said Mathews, adding that the U.S. Forest Service, the State of California, Los Angeles City Fire Department and the Ventura County Department Firefighters are among the most Mensing later began using tanks.

"He was a pioneer in the production of helicopter drop water tank and did a great job improving," said Mathews.

During the next 30 years, the product has come to dominate the activities Sheetcraft Mensing, with its tanks in use as far as Sardinia, Italy, China and South Korea.

Mensing, who has moved his operation from Whiteman Airport in Pacoima, Santa Paula Airport in 1975, he retired a few years ago.

He was born April 25, 1924, in Calexico, and later moved with his family in North Hollywood.

After graduating from high school in 1942, he joined the Navy and spent most of his time of service as aviation mechanic. After his release in 1948, he attended the School of Mechanical Mensing Aviation in Glendale California.

Leaves his wife, Alice, his children, Lisa Morgan, Kelly Mensing, Mindy Foley, Robert Moore and Barbra Mensing, her sister Prudence Safady, 19 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

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11:22 | 0 comments

Historian John Keegan Dies at 78

John Keegan, an Englishman widely considered the eminent military historian of his time and author of over 20 books, including the masterpiece "The Face of Battle," died Thursday at his home, Kilmington, England. He was 78 years.

His death was announced in The Telegraph, where he served as director of military affairs. No cause of death was given, although Coughlin, executive director of the foreign newspaper, said in an email that Mr Keegan had died after a long illness.

Keegan has never served in the army. At 13, he contracted tuberculosis and spent the next nine years received surgical treatment for this, five of them in a hospital, where he used the time to learn Latin and Greek by a priest.

As recognized in the introduction of "The Face of Battle", which "was not a battle, or about one, or a sense of distance, or have seen the consequences."

But he said that he learned in 1984 ", and battlefields are physically repulsive" and "how it feels to be scared" when the Telegraph was sent to Beirut, Lebanon, to write about the Civil War.

The body of Mr. Keegan working distance through the centuries and continents, and, overall, has followed the evolution of war and its destructive technology, while recognizing their constant: the terrors of combat and cargo psychological soldiers immediately.

He had a strong interest in the United States, receiving a grant to visit Princeton, writing meditations on war in North America and briefing on President Bill Clinton in preparation for the 50 anniversary of the invasion of Normandy in 1994.

Keegan was particularly concerned with the cultural roots of the war, asking, "Why do men fight" in his classic 1993 study of "A History of the war," said the military conflict was a ritual in which the cultural modern concept of total war, as in the First World War was an aberration.

His subjects include Henry V of England, Napoleon and Hitler's military machine, but also deal with the war in the nuclear age, which ends in "The Face of Battle" that war is almost unthinkable. "The suspicion grows that the battle has already abolished," he wrote.

In "The war in Iraq," published in 2004, followed by the technological revolution in warfare with the introduction of computer-guided "smart weapons". He also made a political judgment, to conclude - even with the recent war and not yet transformed by sectarian conflict and the increase in U.S. troops - that the invasion of Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein was justified.

Probably none of his books was the most admired "The Face of Battle," which was published in 1976. The Cambridge historian JH Plumb called "very creative, original, so" and "the most brilliant." A successful publisher, who launched his career as a popular historian Keegan.

He examined the book in three battles: Agincourt in 1415, Waterloo in 1815 and the Somme in 1916, all relating to the British. His story is dark and compelling tale of what happens in the heat of battle, including the execution of prisoners.

He was not above a personal note. In describing the horrors of the Somme, where his father was gasejat seems to grow melancholy, pausing to reflect on how the shadow of war was even 70 years later.

He speaks of "the military historian, who, as has been said by the extinction of this courageous effort, or what, falls a terrible state of lethargy, the keys of his typewriter, touch leadenly guidelines of the card printing, as waves of a battalion of Kitchener does not make their goal, more and more slowly toward the bottom of the page. "

John Desmond Patrick Keegan was born May 15, 1934, in London. During the German bombing in 1940, was evacuated with other children in Taunton, England, far from the targets of the bombers of the Luftwaffe. "I had a good war," he wrote, "a boy in London, closed the first cry of the sirens."

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11:18 | 0 comments

Editor on the Pentagon Papers Gerald Gold Dies at 85

Gerald Gold, editor of The New York Times who helped oversee the Herculean task to sift through a secret of 2.5 million words the story of Defense Department of the Vietnam War, later known as the Pentagon Papers to produce papers showing that officials had lied to the war, died Wednesday at a hospice in Melville, New York 85 years.

The cause was heart failure, his daughter Madeleine said Golden.

After Neil Sheehan, a Times reporter, received 47 volumes of top secret documents, the filling of 7,000 pages, he and Mr. Gold was found in a hotel suite in Washington to evaluate the material. Once it had given its usefulness, he traveled to New York publishers for the best short, buy a house for documents to keep in sight.

The Times has published the first of a series of articles in newspapers on 13 June 1971. The documents showed, among other things, that the Johnson administration "systematically lied" to Congress and the public on "a subject of transcendent national interest and importance," he told The Times in 1996.

After two articles appeared, the government has won a court order that restricts the subsequent publication.

On June 30, the Supreme Court decided in favor of The Times, voting 6-3 to allow the resumption of the publication.

The Pentagon Papers episode was hailed as a great victory for press freedom and has raised skepticism that the new government. But before all that, someone had to do hours of hard work and careful preparation of articles and excerpts of documents for publication. Mr. Gold, assistant editor of Foreign Affairs, shoulders much of the burden.

He has organized a suite at the Hilton New York on Avenue of the Americas, where, Mr. Sheehan and Mr. Allan Siegal, another deputy editor of Foreign Affairs, started the project. Over time, their makeshift office grew to nine rooms.

There were enough computers and copiers - just piles of paper.

Mr. Gold and Mr. Siegal, who later became assistant executive director of The Times, and decide which best reflects the values ??underestimated the fact-rich documents.

They also use titles to address the reader to extract a specific document, which Mr. Gold is described as a kind of footnote.

In an interview Thursday, Mr. Sheehan said Gold rejected the idea of ??a manager to do the job in a motel in New Rochelle, New York, saying. "We were crazy top" Mr. Sheehan said their gratitude to Mr. Golden for his reassuring presence as Mr. Sheehan stayed three days and two nights to finish the second and third series. "Stay with it, man, they do," said Gold is saying.

Gerald Gold, who lived in Beechhurst, Queens, was born January 11, 1927, in Brooklyn. After serving in the Navy in World War II, he earned a degree in English Literature at the University of Long Island.

He earned a master's degree in English literature from New York and earned a doctorate in Elizabethan literature at Columbia, but went unfinished work in his thesis Times.

In the paper, which began as an editor on the desktop of the city before joining the foreign desk. He later worked as art editor, specializing in classical music.

Besides his daughter, Mr. Gold is survived by his wife of 62 years, the former Gloria Daniels, a former school teacher in New York, daughter of another, Gueldenzopf Audrey, a son, Martin, and four grandchildren.

Mr. Gold wrote in Times Talk, an internal company publication, during the 10 weeks that was closed with the Pentagon Papers, he returned home only five times. A neighbor asked Ms. Golden if they had divorced, explaining that "'s so seldom at home, and every time you remove a suitcase."

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11:14 | 0 comments

Singer Tony Sly Dies at 41

Tony Sly, the frontman of the punk rock band, based in Northern California, died for reasons not yet revealed. He was 41 years.
"E" with great sadness that we say goodbye to Sly of No Use For A Name Tony, "read a statement on the website of his label.
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"We received a call the day of his death, I am devastated and have lost an incredible talent, friend and father, one of the truly great [Producer] Fat Mike said the following: .." One of my closest friends and favorite is songwriters gone too soon. Tony, you are sorely missed. "

Sly joined the band in 1989, replacing founding member John Meyer, and Incognito have released the following year.

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No Use for a number of past members, as they became less hard and more in tune with the years, Sly and the group was the longest service of veterans at the time of his death.

"We covered Chasing Rainbows No Use For A Name in our set today as a tribute," wrote guitarist Ryan Mendez of Yellowcard. "RIP Tony Sly, which were a big influence on us all."

"We are truly sad news of the death of our friend Tony Sly" banda de punk Twitter race against the rise of Chicago. "It was an amazing songwriter and an amazing person. RIP Tony Sly."
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Bad Religion Twitter: "Goodbye to a good friend, Tony Sly."

The Atari, wrote: "Tony Sly, wrote some songs sound when we were starting with generosity we crashed in the lounge of the hotel plant man gold .... good luck"

"It is very sad to hear of the passing of Tony Sly. One of the best players in history. Our thoughts are with his family and friends. It will make out very mancanza.-N," Noodles of The Offspring Twitter.

His last studio album of Fat Wreck Chords label was 2008's record year of good feeling, and Sly had said in 2010 that he was writing songs for a new release.

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02:23 | 0 comments

Character Actor Norman Alden Dies at 87

Norman Alden, a character actor who played a roll in soda "Back to the Future", a camera of Tim Burton's "Ed Wood" and the title role in the first film directed by cult of Richard C. Sarafian, the "Andy," died Friday in Los Angeles. He was 87 years.

His death was confirmed by Thieben Linda, his partner of 30 years.

Mr. Alden acted in television and film for 50 years, appearing regularly on programs such as "The Legend of Wyatt Earp," "The Untouchables" and "My Three Sons".

His career in television has led to parts in films like "Tora, Tora, Tora!" E "I never promised you a rose garden." He also voiced many cartoon characters, including the brother of the aging King Arthur, Sir Kay, Walt Disney's "The Sword in the Stone" and Kranix, a robot that is able to escape destruction by Unicron, the voice of Orson Welles in the 1986 animated film "Transformers."

In turn Mr. Alden star came in 1965, rogue "Andy." Andy, 40, a mentally disabled son of Greek immigrants in New York, was exhibited for the last night of seedy adventures before their parents participate in a kindergarten.

"Norman Alden as the hero, gropes his clumsy way, giving a feeling of great power button and the childish and gross failure of the unfortunate man," wrote Bosley Crowther in The New York Times.

Adelberg Norman was born in Fort Worth, Texas, September 13, 1924. He attended Texas Christian University and served in Europe during World War II, before he began acting on radio and performing stand-up comedy. He also appeared in commercials, in particular, as the mechanic Lou advertising AC Delco.

Besides his wife, Mrs. Thieben, Mr. Alden will survive one son, Brent, and daughter, Ashley, from a previous marriage, two stepchildren, Randy and Kevin Thieben, a stepdaughter, Sherri Thieben, a granddaughter and a step grandson.

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02:17 | 0 comments

Pioneer in Cognitive Psychology George A. Miller Dies at 92

The psychological investigation was in a sort of slot in 1955 when George A. Miller, a Harvard professor, presented a report entitled "The magical number seven, plus or minus two", which helped to trigger an explosion of new ideas and thinking about opening a new field of research known as cognitive psychology .

The dominant form of psychological study, while behaviorism, had rejected Freud's theories of "mind" as too intangible, vaguely mystical and verifiable. Its researchers have studied the behavior in the laboratory, observation and recording of the test subjects' responses to stimuli administered with care. Mainly, we studied mice.

Dr. Miller, who died July 22 at his home in Plainsboro, New Jersey, for 92 years, has revolutionized the world of psychology, which shows in his article that the human mind, although invisible, can also be observed and tested in the laboratory.

"George Miller, more than anyone, deserves credit for the existence of the modern science of mind", the Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, and the author said in an interview. "He certainly was one of the most influential psychologists of the XXI century experimental 20".

Dr. Miller borrowed a test pattern of the emerging science of computer programming in early 1950 to demonstrate that the short-term memory in humans, when faced with the unknown, could absorb around seven new things at once.

When asked to repeat a random selection of letters, words or numbers, he wrote, people are stuck "somewhere in the neighborhood of seven years."

Some may remember the new list items, some less than seven years. But part of what they remember, words color words, foods, numbers with decimal numbers, no decimals, the consonants, vowels, seven was the average statistics for the short-term storage. (Long-term memory, cognitive formula that has followed another, was almost unlimited.)

Dr. Miller could not say why he was seven. He suggested that survival may have helped early humans could keep "some information about a lot of things" rather than "a lot of information about a small segment of the environment."

But this, he concluded, was the point. He had expressed an idea that became a touchstone for cognitive science: that whatever the brain, was an information processor, to systems that obey mathematical rules, which could be studied .

Dr. Miller, who was trained in behaviorism, was the first of many researchers and theorists to question the scientific principles in 1950. He and a colleague, Jerome S. Bruner, has named the new field of research, when he established a laboratory of his own psychology, the Center for Cognitive Studies at Harvard in 1960. Only the word "cognitive", considered a taboo among the behaviorists, that marked a break with the old school.

"Using" cognitive "was an act of defiance," Dr. Miller wrote in 2006. "For someone raised in respect of reductionist science," cognitive psychology "has made an accurate statement. This meant that I was interested in the mind."

This new approach to psychological research has come to be known as the cognitive revolution.

The first and most long-term interest as a scientist, Dr. Miller was the language. His first book "Language and Communication" (1951), is widely considered a key work in psycholinguistics, the study of how people learn, invent and use language.

He has worked with the linguist Noam Chomsky's revolutionary papers on mathematical language and computer problems involved in interpreting the syntax.

He conducted some early experiments on how people understand words and phrases, the speech of the information technology-based recognition. "Plans and the structure of behavior" (1960), written with Eugene Galanter and Karl H. Pribram was an attempt to synthesize the research of Amnesty International with psychological research on how humans act - essentially, a book on how to build better robots.

Since 1986, he oversaw the development of WordNet, an electronic database of reference designed to help computers understand human language.

His colleagues said they had a role in many of his boldest thoughts of the time on the human mind and artificial, in general, then moved to other projects.

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02:14 | 0 comments

Acerbic Writer Gore Vidal Dies at 86

Gore Vidal, the elegant, bitter versatile man of letters who has presided over a sample of what is called the end of American civilization, died Tuesday at home in the Hollywood Hills section of Los Angeles, where moved in 2003 after years of living in Ravello, Italy. He was 86 years.

The cause was complications of pneumonia, his nephew Burr Steers, said by telephone.

Vidal was at the end of his life, a figure of August, which is believed to be the last of a breed, and probably was right. Few writers of Latin America have been more versatile and has more kilometers of driving talent.

He has published about 25 novels, two memoirs and several volumes of the fashion, master tests. He also wrote plays, television dramas and movies.

For a time he was also a writer contract with MGM. And he could always count on an aphorism of stimulus-of-the-moment, or contempt vigorous critique of U.S. foreign policy.

Perhaps more than any other American writer Norman Mailer and Truman Capote exception, Mr. Vidal has the pleasure of being a public figure.

He worked here twice - in 1960, when he was the Democratic candidate for Congress in District 29 in New York state, and in 1982, when California was campaigning for a Senate seat and, although he lose sometimes, often acted as a kind of shadow president is not chosen. Once said: "It is a human problem that could not be solved if people just do what I recommend."

Mr. Vidal was an occasional actor, appearing, for example, in the form of cartoon "The Simpsons" and "Family Guy" in the film version of his own play "The Best Man" and Tim Robbins Bob Roberts, "where he performed a version of himself aging hermaphrodite. was more than an occasional guest on television programs, on balance, the spirit and the charm is turned into a regular Johnny Carson was offered a job as host of "Tonight Show".

Television is a natural for Mr. Vidal, who was often cold and distant, as it was in his prose. "Gore is a man without unconscious," his friend, the Italian writer Italo Calvino once said. Vidal said of himself: "They show up just like me There's a warm person, loving inside In my cold outside, once you break the ice is cold ..."

Mr. Vidal loved all kinds of conspiracy theories, especially those who are supposed to center, and was a famous fief, held on the screen in conflict with his Mailer, Capote and William F. Buckley Jr.

Mr. Vidal does not suffer fools lightly - a category which for him includes a wide swath of humanity, chosen in particular - and that was not a sentimental or romantic. "Love is not my bag," he said.

At the time I was 25 years, I had over 1,000 sexual encounters with men and women, boasted in his memoir "Palimpsest." Mr. Vidal tends toward what he calls "the sex of the same sex," but frequently says that humans were inherently bisexual and that the labels as a homosexual (a term he liked very much) directly or were arbitrary and useless.

For 53 years, had a live-in companion, Howard Austen, a former advertising executive, but the secret of their relationship, often said, was that they never slept together.

Mr. Vidal sometimes claimed to be a populist - in theory, anyway - but it was not convincing as a. Both by temperament and was an aristocrat by birth.

Eugene Luther Gore Vidal Jr. was born on October 3, 1925, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, where his father, Eugenio, was an All-American football player and track star and returned as a flight instructor and assistant football coach.

An aviation pioneer, Mr. Eugene Vidal found three more airlines, including one that became TWA E 'was Director of the Bureau of Air Commerce under President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Mr. Vidal's mother, Nina, was an actress and socialité and the daughter of Thomas Pryor Gore, Democrat Senator for Oklahoma. (Mr. Vidal was related to the former vice president Al Gore.)

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06:53 | 0 comments

Writer Maeve Binchy Dies at 72

Maeve Binchy, a journalist turned best-selling novels, the large portrait of the women of Ireland to all kinds of adversity, died Monday in Dublin. He was 72.

His death, after a short illness, was announced by the Irish Times, his former employer.

In a statement, Prime Minister of Ireland, Enda Kenny said, "all over Ireland and the peoples of the world are celebrating and mourning Maeve Binchy." He added: "It is always a great loss stories of love, hope, generosity, and can be read and loved."

Ms. Binchy of 16 novels, which have been translated into dozens of languages, has sold tens of millions of copies. His best known are the first, "Light a Penny Candle", published in Britain in 1982, "Circle of Friends" (1990), became a 1995 feature film starring Minnie Driver and Chris O'Donnell and "Tara Road" (1998), a major event of the Book Club, which became a movie starring Andie McDowell and Olivia Williams 2005.

Caring for the weight limit of the door - closer to 600-pages of Ms. Binchy books generally focus on the lives of Irish women in mid-century.

Reviewers praised its strong characterizations; cleareyed portrayal of female friendships and the evocative settings, often with the life of the Irish people in all their social stratification.

Even if your pages have spread among the infidels love, alcoholism, unwanted pregnancy and even murder, Ms. Binchy resisted being described as a romantic writer. First, he stressed, his heroines were less likely to win attractive hero who had to learn to live, very cleverly, no.

"Today, women realize they are dealt a hand of cards to play God," he told the Chicago Tribune in 1999. "There are changes image in my books. The ugly duckling becomes a beautiful swan. Become a duck can safely assume their life and their problems."

In addition, his novels were much less water. "There is tremendous interest in sex and write about a very graphic," said Ms. Binchy the London Daily Mail in 2007. "But I will not do it - not because I am a Holy Joe, all that not because I'm very moral, very far from it, but I fear that bad ..."

He added: "Look, I've never been in an orgy and I do not know where would be the legs and arms should be."

Ms. Binchy books once worried about friendship, often following the course of a turbulent relationship idyllic childhood to adulthood. "Light a Penny Candle" follows two childhood friends, one Irish and one in English, in recent decades, through love and marriage failed.

"Circle of Friends" is about the life and loves of three women coming of age in University College, Dublin, alma mater of Ms. Binchy.

In "Tara Road", an Irishman and an American woman, who faced the tragedy, the exchange houses for the summer, the life of every woman to open the other.

If critics believe Ms. Binchy a commercial rather than a literary novelist, then, on their own, not inconvenienced her.

"I am primarily an airport author, and if you are trying to stop thinking about the trip, you will not read 'King Lear'," said the Irish Times in 2000. "I've seen a lot of people buy my books and then fall asleep on the floor soon after."

Ms. Binchy joined the staff of the Irish Times in 1968, working as a writer, editor and journalist, has also reported that the role of London before returning to Ireland.

For many years, she and her husband, Gordon Snell, live in a holiday home in Dalkey.

Survivors are her husband, a writer of children's books that were married in 1977, a brother, William, and his sister, Joan.

A posthumous novel, "A week in winter," is scheduled to be released this year.

Despite the wealth and fame of his books presented, Ms. Binchy was largely modest about his work. Until almost the end of his career with The Irish Times (retired it in 2000) has written profiles of authors renowned for their pages.

What caused to stop, said Ms. Binchy The Gazette of Montreal in 1998, was an interview he did with writer Mary Higgins Clark suspense.

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06:49 | 0 comments

Singer-Actor Tony Martin dies at 98

Tony Martin, one of the great names of singers, actors from the golden age of Hollywood musicals, has died. He was 98.

Martin, who toured for years with his wife Charisse, dancer and actress CyD, who died of natural causes Friday at home in Los Angeles, his former manager, Stan Schneider, told the Times.

It appeared in over 30 films, most memorable, like a thief in contrast with Commissioner Peter Lorre, in 1948, the elegant "Casbah", a movie musical that Martin helped transform into a star.

Twice, songs sung on screen by Martin received Oscar nominations: "To every man there is a woman" of the "Casbah" and "E" A blue world "from the 1940 film" The music my heart. "

Suffered as a singer of romantic ballads, continuing to play with them on stage in his 90 years.

With his powerful voice and captivating style, Martin was enormously popular in late 1930 to 1950 as a singer who has contributed to the norms of songs like "Stranger in Paradise", "La Vie en Rose," "fools fall in love A "," I see you in my dreams "and many others.

Although dozens of singers recorded Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine," Martin was so identified with that sometimes the jazz critic Leonard Feather old, once described the song as Martin in "virtual mirror".

"Martin recalls the time when the hearts used in the sleeves," wrote the pen in an analysis by The Times in 1970, a local of local actions. "Let the emotions all the time, reaching a crescendo of triplet, supported by a once in a lifetime" and singing "I Am in Love," as if it returns to Rita Hayworth in a tight close-ups, "in reference The star in the glamorous with whom he shared the big screen - and regularly escorted by the city.

His tenor voice earned him roles in films like the 1936 musical "Parade of the Boar," with Judy Garland and Betty Grable and the saga of "Banjo on My Knee" with Barbara Stanwyck river. Also co-starred in 1941 is extravagantly choreographed "Ziegfeld Girl," a serenade Garland, Hedy Lamarr and Lana Turner in "You walk in a dream."

In early 1960, the musical and film career as a singer was singing, and began traveling with Charisse in a cabaret act. He pulled a treasure of songs like "I Get Ideas" and "E" magic ", and his wife danced.

"For him, walking in a local ground is simple and natural as going to the kitchen for a glass of water," said Charisse in "The Two of Us", the joint autobiography with Martin wrote in 1976.

The couple marked 60 years of marriage in 2008, when he died at 86 years. A free-Martin, then 94, to pain, while playing live, and then said.

Although no longer a Belter, the rich timbre of his voice was "strikingly similar to what was in 1940 and '50," according to a 2009 New York Times review of a commitment for five nights in a club Night in New York.

Triggered by his pianist, 95 years, Martin sang versions of "fully contained" the songs associated with contemporaries such as Bing Crosby ("I Surrender, Dear") and "there is no tomorrow," said Martin, who be given to him by Perry Como, in its revised version.

Martin saw his style of performance as the heart, telling the Times 1960. "I think I look like a guy who always make a call through his music a sort of declaration of sincerity."

Alvin Morris was taken December 25, 1913, in San Francisco, according to birth records. His parents, Edward and Hattie Morris, were Jewish immigrants from Poland, who divorced when he was young, and he regarded his stepfather, a tailor, Myer Myers, his father.

He grew up in Oakland, took the saxophone after his grandmother gave him one when he was 10. The instrument - and later her singing - were "my passport out of poverty," he said.

In high school, he formed his first band, and after graduation he spent two years at Santa Maria College in Moraga, California, but he left to devote himself to music.

For several years he played and sang with bands in San Francisco, including the Orchestra of Girona Tom. When the legendary head of MGM studios, Louis B. Mayer listened to the radio, has led Martin to Hollywood in 1934 for a hearing.

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05:56 | 0 comments

French filmmaker Chris Marker dies at 91

Chris Marker, an enigmatic figure in French cinema, has avoided publicity and was reluctant to project their films, but is often ranked with his fellow Alain Resnais and Jean-Luc Godardas a teacher of art , died Sunday at home in Paris, on his birthday 91.

His death was reported by Agence France-Presse, but the cause did not occur.

Marker, who has worked well in the 80's, made over two dozen films over a period of six to ten year career. Known as a pioneer of film test, was most admired for "La Jetée" (1962) and "Sans Soleil" (1983), who explored the time, memory and history in a fascinating style and unconventional.

"La Jetée" ("El Embarcadero") was 28 minutes of film made almost entirely of still images that focuses on a man who travels between past and future to see a photo of his disturbing childhood.

The most surprising moment of the film is when, for a few seconds a few years, the stills to make way for moving images of a woman who sleeps with his eyes open, staring at the camera and flash.

Janet Harbord British film scholar, who wrote the 2009 book "Chris Marker: La Jetée," the movement causes a "shock near the erotic or religious experience, or perhaps both," and sends a while the magic and mystery of the half.

The critic Pauline Kael called "La Jetée", "quite possibly the film of science fiction, however, made larger." The critic and film historian David Thomson went further, declaring in a 2002 article in British newspaper the Guardian that "La Jetée" could be "the only film ever made is essential."

The topic may seem known by contemporary audiences as it has inspired a new version of Hollywood, "12 Monkeys". Directed by Terry Gilliam and starring Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt, in 1995 the film was generally considered by critics as less fundamental than the original.

Another masterpiece of marker, "Sans Soleil" ("no one"), is narrated by a woman who reads aloud the letters he receives from a camera in their nomadic travels in Japan, Iceland, Africa and other distant destinations. The letters describe beautiful places, like a blinding white desert, a musical scale and a temple dedicated to cats.

The cats appear throughout the film, and bearing the name of the marker in two: the documentary "A smile without a cat" (1977) and "The Case of the Smiling Cat" (2004). The first film that examines the movement of the New Left from the Vietnam war and the expulsion of Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973. This film documents the political mood in France after the attacks of September 11 and includes images of smiling cat graffiti began appearing in Paris and then. Unpublished photographs of the director general, show a slight man, bald behind the camera with her cat, Guillaume.

Policy markers were clear in other studies as well as "Cuba Yes" (1961), on Castro's Cuba, "Le Joli Mai" (1963), produced by 55 hours of interviews with French nationals on their attitude towards the Franco-Algerian war, and "The Last Bolshevik" (1993), conceived as a series of letters to the Soviet director Aleksandr Medvedkine.

He also produced "Far from Vietnam", a documentary made in 1967 in collaboration with Godard and Resnais, who opposed the U.S. intervention in Vietnam.

A marker of recent works, in late 1990, was an interactive CD-ROM called "Immemory", consisting of more than 20 hours of images, movies, music, text and sounds divided into several sections, including poetry, film, travel and photography.

Little is known about the life of the marker, which apparently was the same director, who called himself "the unknown author best known films," he wanted.

Most biographies say she was born Christian François Bouche-Villeneuve, in Neuilly sur Seine, France, 29 July 1921, and studied philosophy withJean-Paul Sartre at the end of 1930. It may be apocryphal, but some sources say that his love for the Magic Marker pen inspired him to change his name.

Doubts also surrounded his hometown. Marker said the film historian Thomson during a meeting in Berkeley in 1980 that Thomson "Biographical Dictionary of Film" was a mistake and in fact was born in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

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05:53 | 0 comments

Norco Ranch founder Harry Eisen dies at 95

Harry Eisen, a Holocaust survivor born in Poland, founded Norco Ranch Inc., in western Riverside County in 1950 and built one of the largest egg producers in the state, processors and distributors, has died. He was 95 years.

Eisen died July 19 of complications from pulmonary disease at home in Beverly Hills, said his daughter, Frances Miller.

When Eisen and his wife, of Polish origin, Hilda, who moved to Los Angeles in 1948, had no money and spoke no English.

Eisen had directed a sausage factory and three points in Warsaw before the Second World War, but his lack of English could only get a job cleaning the barrel of meat in a hot-dog factory in Vernon .

However, after saving the money to buy his first 100 chickens, has launched an operation of the depot in Arcadia and eggs sold in their neighborhood.

The language was a barrier to launch your new business. As Eisen jokingly told the Riverside Press-Enterprise in 1993: "I spoke to my Jewish and hens laid their eggs."

The Norco Eisen increasingly moved its operation in 1950.

In 2000, when he sold Eisen Norco Ranch Inc., based in Missouri Moark, had a workforce of around 450 people and a list of major clients including the division of Kroger, Ralphs, Vons Division of Safeway, Albertson, Costco and Trader Joe jack-in-the-Box.

"It's the American dream," said former alderman of the city of Norco Steve Nathan, a family friend Eisen, the Associated Press-Enterprise, at the time of sale. "It started with a small group of chickens, worked hard and became a billionaire."

Eisen was born May 15, 1917, in Izbica Kujawski, a small town in Poland. He left home at 13 and got a job in a sausage factory in Warsaw.

Selected in the Polish cavalry before the Second World War, was captured during the German invasion of Poland in 1939 and finally ended in the concentration camp Auschwitz, where he was put to work in coal mines.

"I was just a number" tattooed Eisen, who still wore his number - 144492 - left arm, told the Associated Press-Enterprise in 1993.

After the Red Army approached Auschwitz began, and the prisoners were forced into a "death march" toward the other camp in January 1945, Eisen, Abe and his brother and another man escaped .

After the war, Eisen returned to his village where he had gone to school with Hilda.

With the exception of his brother Moses and his brother Abe, the entire family was murdered Eisen of the Chelmno extermination camp.

Hilda, who had joined the Jewish resistance after persuading a Nazi guard to open the door of his ghetto of Lublin in 1942, has lost her parents and her six brothers and sisters in Nazi death camps.

The Eisen, who were married in Monaco of Bavaria in 1945, spoke about their experiences of the Holocaust with their four children in recent years, but not go into details.

"I do not feel comfortable uploading their children with horror stories," said Miller.

But, he adds, "they were able to take your pain and become very beneficial for him and very Zionist and very giving back. He felt lucky to be in the giving of charity, more than the receiving end. "

Eisen was a member of several organizations of Holocaust survivors and served as president of the California Lodz, a philanthropic group that survived the Holocaust.

The Eisen contributed financially to the construction of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1993 and attended the inauguration with family members.

Eisen spoke of his years at Auschwitz, in an interview recorded for the permanent collection of oral history.

"We are witnesses .... We went through hell," he said in an interview in 1993.

In addition to his daughter Frances, Eisen is survived by his wife of 67 years, his other daughters, Ruth Eisen and Maria Cramer, his son, Howard, eight grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

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04:49 | 0 comments

Rodeo Star Broc Cresta dies at 25

Broc Cresta, a California address Roper and rising star of the rodeo circuit, which was ranked No 12 in the world as a heel in team climbing pulley, Saturday was found dead in motor home at the Border Days Rodeo in Cheyenne Wyoming. He was 25 years.

Ridge, the son of a fighter for the meat expert of Santa Rosa, California, had competed Friday in the case of prestigious Cheyenne, held annually since 1897.

His body was discovered by his girlfriend, barrel racing champion Brittany Pozzi, when he tried to wake up Saturday morning, said his father, Daniel.

"The world of the rodeo is in shock," said Kendra Santos, director of communications for the Association of Professional Rodeo Cowboys. "My phone has been ringing on the wall all day with calls from Hall of Fame there are no children.

Broc is a fourth generation cowboy in California, and everyone loves it. It's very difficult to lose a good cowboy when is 90, but lost a talented person and very good at 25 is almost impossible .... The hesitation of the whole family hurts right now. "

In 2007, the association called Cresta Heels Rodeo Novice of the Year. Appropriate, linked together, is considered the only true detour in pursuit team, consisting of two Ropers: a header, ropes the calf first, and a heel that is second string and management of hind legs.

The event is scheduled with the clock stopping only when it remains in play arrangements of lambs and horses facing each other.

The case is more complicated than it seems, with the participation not only of strength and agility, but the moment is exquisite.

In the 10th round of the national final in Las Vegas in December, Cresta and partner Spencer Mitchell, a childhood friend, tied a calf in 3.6 seconds, which tied the fastest time of the round. They finished 10 th overall, five of the 10 roping calves in 21.3 seconds.

Cresta has collaborated with the sample header Turtle Powell, in 2010, and end with Logan Olson to win the Cheyenne in 2009.

Born January 2, 1987, Ridge raised on a ranch of 500 acres in Santa Rosa, California, his father and uncle fighting in the professional circuit. His grandfather, William, raised horses for the sport horse and took a sample of wrestling meat.

When Ridge 9 years, began to throw a rope around a variety of animals - horses, donkeys, horses and goats  in the ring in the ranch rodeo family.

At the time he reached high school, missed school to compete in both the rodeo has come to an independent study program that requires them to attend formal classes.

He has a degree from Santa Rosa High School in 2005 and became a professional two years later.

Ridge traveled 60,000 kilometers a year to rival rodeos across the country. With Mitchell has won several rodeos in California this year in Redding, Livermore, Modesto, Bakersfield and Marysville, and in Eugene, Oregon, retired from a return to Oklahoma City three months ago when he hurt his ribs, but was in good health, said his father.

Besides his father and grandfather, he survived by his mother, Kelline Cresta, Santa Rosa, and a brother, Brent, of Cloverdale, California

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04:47 | 0 comments

Engineer William Staub Dies at 96

Bans personal trainer and yoga paddle, before "Just Do It", Bill Staub read a book that changed his life. It was called "aerobic", published in 1968, and stated that a better life based on a better cardiovascular health.

"He said if you can run a mile in eight minutes, you will always be at the highest level of fitness," recalled Mr. Staub his son Thomas.

So Mr. Staub began to run - and soon gave way to the studio in Besco, the producer of his property in Clifton, New Jersey While employees on one side of the building made of engine injectors fuel from the aircraft and the wings of helicopters, was on the other hand, the construction of the first version of a device claimed that the book had the potential for many more Americans engaged and their so that the eight-minute mile.

The device is a treadmill, and the book's author, Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper never supposed to be available for home use.

Mr. Staub proven otherwise. His first models, built to mark PaceMaster, wooden rollers and had a simple on-off switch near the ground. They were more rudimentary than the doctors had started using in 1950, the stress tests, but were much cheaper, up to $ 399 in 1970.

"It was the pioneer for the use of the treadmill at home," said Dr. Staub Mr. Cooper. "He was away a lot of excuses people did not exercise. They do not have time to worry about security, or whatever. I do not know how long she worked for him, but I know he did not die soon . "

Mr. Staub died July 19 at home in Clifton. He was 96 years. His sons say he was walking in one of its mobile platforms not more than two months.

In the 1980 mid-year the company formed to manufacture, aerobics Inc., 2000 sold a treadmill in a nation increasingly willing to work in the recreation room. In the mid 90's, sales have reached 35 thousand a year. Innovation has become essential as more competition.

The new machines can be customized for different speeds, for heating and reuse, and reproduce the conditions mountainous or flat.

At first, the son of Mr. Gerald Staub designed an on-off switch could be mounted on the handlebars. His father was puzzled.

"My father told me: 'Well, why do I love you'," said Thomas Staub. "My brother said:" To make it easier for people. "And my father said: 'But it is an exercise device."

The aerobic brothers bought by his father in late 1990, then sold to a private equity firm, which moved production overseas.

The private equity firm filed for bankruptcy in 2010. With the help of an investor, the brothers tried to restart aerobics, but closed for good last fall.

Dr. Cooper, 81, and was one of the doctors responsible for monitoring the health of President George W. Bush said treadmill, in general, had a promising future.

He referred to a recent study suggests that older people who maintain a faster pace for longer life. "The next step is to use it to increase longevity," said Dr. Cooper treadmill. Cooper Aerobics racing, which has two fitness centers in Texas.

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21:15 | 0 comments

Artist Walter Pichler Dies at 75

Walter Pichler, an architect who became a prominent artist in the postwar avant-garde movement in Austria, with time away from creating art to move to a farm and construction work above himself Please, died July 16 at home in Burgenland, Austria. He was 75.

The cause was cancer, said his assistant, Alois Hörtl.

Mr. Pichler was a sculptor and illustrator works include a white, torpedo-shaped hull with a TV inside ("Portable Living Room"), a rusty bed frame supporting a humanoid form, divided by irregular sheets of glass, and many fantastic designs of underground facilities, including the cities and floating palaces.

His architectural drawings were not only the plans, there were also works of art in itself. More pictures - pictures of "dream" as he said - were dark and psychologically loaded. His figures are often skeletal, or robotics.

"In the 1960's was a small group of Austrian architects who have taken a visionary approach and made images of architecture that completely defied the status quo," said Barry Bergdoll, chief curator architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art, which owns 16 of the drawings of Mr. Pichler. The group also included the architects Hans Hollein and Raimund Abraham, who won international fame.

The group designs challenge the modernist architecture, which stressed the role and often produced crude buildings without ornaments and dominated by concrete and metal.

"They have begun to explore the emotional resonance of architecture," Bergdoll said. "A building can tell a story rather than a feature." Mr. Pichler liked the design of the buildings being built.

In an essay he wrote, "this is what you resume architectural functionalism that no longer works." He proclaimed. "What you ask is an architecture that fascinates"

Walter Pichler was born October 1, 1936, in New West, northern Italy. He studied art at the Hochschule für Architektur in Vienna and began working as an architect in 1950.

Mr. Pichler converted farm building to house the figure and then began altering the half-dozen other buildings, or for that property, the installation of one of his sculptures in each them.

One consists of two cylindrical containers of cement with a system of channels that collect water and wells. The sculptures and buildings that sheltered them has become his life's work.

The works were "very bright, dark, menacing, mechanical," said Gladstone, a comparison of a number of Darth Vader, the villain of Star Wars movies.

"He really built these statues to himself," said Mrs. Gladstone. "I did not want to jeopardize anything, and if he worked for himself, was not necessary."

Mr. Pichler is survived by his wife, Elves, and their daughter, Anna Tripamer.

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21:11 | 0 comments

Writer Suzy Gershman Dies at 64

"My heart is repeatedly every time I go into the closet-size shop, I've never seen so many bags that could not live without", Suzy Gershman has written one of the hidden gems that are in your search for "Born Buy in Hong Kong. "" These grants are not copies, just to see something happen ", as the bags in fashion magazines. "

In another finding, revealed in "Born to Shop New York", wrote: "This is the kind of small boutique on Madison Avenue, you could go without knowing that the site is 'a' the ladies of the Upper East Side who love the look euro-asian-art-Boho-hippie ".

Ms. Gershman was the author of 16 "shopping" Born guidelines, published more than 26 years and compiled over hundreds of kilometers to roam around the world and, often, the meanders of the new street .

You have become the standards that have been reviewed every two years - in New York, London, Paris, Hong Kong, France and Italy. In total, over four million copies of "Born to Shop" books, first published by Bantam and later this week, have been sold.

Ms. Gershman has died of cancer last Wednesday in San Antonio for 64 years, Sarah Lahey said in the past eight years has helped Ms. Gershman researching and writing books.

Buyers guide attention to local markets, boutiques and specialty shops outside the tracks with goods from the artisans. We recommend hotels at affordable prices and offer shopping tips. Ms. Gershman between the Ten Commandments for international purchases:

¶ "Buy local groceries, gifts not only for low cost, but for the objects of local manufacture and bring home a taste of the destination, mustard, ie, France, Texas BBQ sauce ".

¶ "Do not buy products cheaper abroad, especially if it is something that can not go back."

¶ "Do not buy the mania of the moment, that is, the national flag of a country transformed into a headscarf. I mean, really ...."

"The basic idea of ??the book," Ms. Gershman once said, "is that you must read, as we were eating breakfast and I said to my shopping day."

In fact, only this type of event has inspired the series. "He lived in Beverly Hills, where he worked as editor of the West Coast style of People magazine," Ms Lahey said. "She was having lunch with friends, and decided to write a guide to shopping in Beverly Hills. It was what he did the deed."

Suzy Kalter was born April 13, 1948, in San Antonio. She was "not a guy who had a merit scholarship," said Lahey, "but when he traveled with his family would explore local markets and buy sweets -. He always uses the word" was one of three children Gloria and SS Kalter, known as Sy.

His father was a research scientist for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and the World Health Organization.

Ms. Kalter graduated from the University of Texas in 1969 with a degree in journalism, then moved to New York to work in advertising and public relations.

There he met Michael Gershman, who married in 1975. He died in 2000. Ms. Gershman survive him a son, Aaron, his brother, Steven, and a granddaughter.

The Gershmans moved to Los Angeles, where, while working for the people, Ms. Kalter (while continuing to be known) has become a regular guest on television programs. In 1986, when "Born to Shop" series began, he changed his name to Gershman.

For Ms. Gershman, much had something to share. In France, purchased by CIL Demasq case, around $ 5 per bottle. "It's a French eye makeup remover - CILS is French for eyelashes - called the product more beautiful than ever invented," said Ms. Lahey. "You are the uses and gave all his friends."

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20:58 | 0 comments

Retired Adm. James D. Watkins dies at 85

Admiral James D. Watkins was considered an "unlikely hero" after he was named his retirement in 1987 to achieve what many considered impossible - to lead a Council divided and besieged the presidential AIDS.

A former chief of naval operations, Watkins was deeply religious Roman Catholic father of six who was once called to the military ban on gays "good policy". But he was also known as an independent thinker and analytical.

When asked by the Reagan administration to formulate a national strategy to address the AIDS epidemic, the UN Commission under the direction of the new Watkins, the release of a report of 1988, which was widely praised for his ambitious health initiatives and compassion.

"It was a time Jim Watkins," Admiral William J. Crowe Jr., then head of the Joint Chiefs, told the Times in 1988. "He learned everything he could about it, analyzed and then divided into manageable areas. It's just the sort of thing does so well."

Watkins, 85, who was energy secretary to President George HW Bush, died Thursday at home in Alexandria, Virginia had been in declining health in recent years, said his brother, John.

After taking charge of the Secretary of Energy in 1989, Watkins has launched the first program to clean up nuclear plants in the national energy legislation and led to the administration.

Bush acknowledged that the choice Watkins in part because of a background in the field of nuclear energy, which includes a command to Admiral Hyman Rickover of the, who led development of Navy propulsion nuclear in early 1970. The two grew close, and when he died in 1986 Rickover Watkins gave the eulogy.

"The Navy has changed," said Watkins Times in 1988. "Rickover had a strong interest in participating with the best and brightest, and went hard .... I do understand the importance of education and do everything possible to measure the potential that God has given."

In the Department of Energy, Watkins has also developed a 10-point plan to strengthen environmental protection and waste management activities at the agency, and instituted the policy to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. He left the place in 1993.

During his naval career of 37 years, stood up to go to a naval officer and was known for developing a maritime strategy to deal with the Soviet Union and to improve the lives of those who serve in the Navy and their families, according to Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval operations.

"Watkins was an innovative thinker," said Greenert, "which made our Navy forward."

The sixth of seven children, David James Watkins was born March 7, 1927, at home in Alhambra.

His grandfather, George Clinton, Ward was president of the Southern California Edison in 1930, and his father, Edward Francis Watkins, owned by Southern California Wine Co. and grew grapes in what is now San Marino. After losing his ranch during Prohibition, the father went to work for Edison.

James Watkins said that when his mother, Louise, was a woman of 30 years before his time. In 1938, he unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination to the Senate.

After receiving a bachelor's degree from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1949, Watkins acted in submarines during the Korean and Vietnam wars. In 1958, he earned a master's degree in mechanical engineering from U.S. Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey.

In late 1970, Watkins was the commander of the 6th fleet in early 1980 and served as Commander in Chief Pacific Fleet.

At the Pentagon, was known as a free country, if conservative, the spirit that has been dubbed "Radio Free Watkins."

"He was strong. If you say something, you'd better have done his duty," said John, who is his last surviving brother and lives in Pasadena. "I heard, but it is better to know what were talking about."

In 2001, Watkins has started another presidential commission chaired, with the mandate to establish a comprehensive national ocean.

3 years later, the grim report of the U.S. policy on the Sea has nearly 200 recommendations to President George W. George W. Bush. Including asking the government to reduce pollution and control development in the coastal waters of nurses patients back to health.

"All agree that the oceans are in trouble," said Watkins Times in 2004, referring to the 16 panel members. "We know that if you do not move now, in 10 years may not recover."

In 1950 he married Sheila Jo McKinney, the daughter of an admiral. Her career, later said, to follow her husband around the world and raising six children, often only while moving 32 times during the year the Navy. He died of cancer 67 years in 1996.

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12:02 | 0 comments

Army Spc. Vilmar Galarza Hernandez Dies at 21

In 2009, parents Vile Galarza suffered when he said he wanted to join the army after high school in Salinas.

They wanted to go to college, and had to hand the letters of acceptance. If you had to join the army, he was told he could not choose a job that provides some "security working as a truck driver, perhaps, or a mechanic?

Galarza said they not only give high, but he wanted to be a soldier - to experience the tradition boasted of having boots on the ground.

"We especially wanted the infantry," said his sister, Rubi Galarza. "This is exactly the kind of person he was. Could not talk about it."

On May 26, shortly after starting a nine-month deployment, the soldier. Vilmar Galarza Hernandez, known as "Vile," was on patrol and stepped on a bomb Zharay, Afghanistan, in Kandahar province. He never regained consciousness, according to his family, and died shortly afterwards on the way to a hospital. He was 21.

Galarza was assigned to the 4 th Battalion, 23 Infantry Regiment, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, Second Infantry Division, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington was his second tour in Afghanistan, according his family, completed a six month tour in 2010.

Galarza was born in Yuma, Arizona, and moved at the age of 5 years in Salinas, where their parents work in agricultural fields in the region.

"Do not live in the best neighborhood," said Rubi Galarza. "I wanted to be able to move my family to this neighborhood."

Vile as Ruby and Galarza grew, they lost some of his friends to violence in prison and banda. Vile Galarza was determined to avoid this fate.

"I saw him move away from that, and I did the same," said Rubi Galarza, in a telephone interview from Peru, where he is studying for the summer. "I have always followed in his footsteps."

Due to the influence of his older brother, Rubi Galarza said, have received recognition from the University of Berkeley, which will enter its fourth year this fall, studying biology with the intention of going in medical school. Galarza was in Peru conducting research on medicinal plants.

"I was so proud of me," he said. "It's so sad that it will be my graduation."

Galarza is a graduate of Everett Alvarez High School Salinas in 2008. He was married two months before he was murdered.

He was buried with military honors at Garden of Memories in Salinas. In a panegyric at his funeral, the church, Brig. January Randal A. Dragon Galarza recalls as "a son, a husband, a brother, a soldier, a knight, a hero and a friend."

"It was a true American patriot and a man respected and wanted by all who were privileged to walk beside her," said the Dragon.

Captain Brandon Wohlschlegel, company commander of Galarza, called it "a model soldier."

"In some of the toughest conditions I've ever seen, the soldier. Galarza Hernandez was always doing the right thing," said Wohlschlegel. "It was a rock."

Galarza awards and decorations include the Bronze Star Medal, Purple Heart Medal Army Good Conduct Medal, National Service Medal Defense Medal Afghanistan Campaign with Campaign Star, Global War on Terrorism Medal, Army Service Ribbon and the Overseas Ribbon, the NATO medal and Jack Fight Credential.

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11:57 | 0 comments