Professor Gabriel Vahanian Dies at 85

Gabriel Vahanian, theologian, social criticism, 1961, "The Death of God: The culture of our post-Christian," gave a name to a movement apparently atheist but widely misunderstood theological, died August 30 at home Strasbourg, France.

His daughter Noelle Vahanian, confirmed his death.

Mr. Vahanian, a Presbyterian church attendance for all his life, he taught at Syracuse University, when a small literary publisher published "The Death of God," a scientific leaders who took the church to task for what is considered the trivialization of the Christian doctrine in secular era.

It has not been approved by Friedrich Nietzsche 1880-was the announcement of the death of God has received little attention outside of university departments of religion and newspapers like the Journal of Bible and Religion. (Guest reviews The Journal has established a dense read, but worth it. "Books like this should be written and read if the solutions are Christians," he said.)

But in 1966, Mr. Vahanian has reached a wider audience when Time magazine named the book as the forerunner of numerous works written in this period by scholars who belong to the world to call for the death of theology movement God. All have been struggling with some of the great questions of religion in world war II, said the center would have if people stopped believing? What religious values ??survive in a world postfaith?

Mr. Vahanian knew and corresponded with some of the others in the movement, including Harvey Cox of Harvard University, Thomas JJ Altizer at Emory University and William Hamilton, who was forced to leave his post to a faculty State of New York, after the Time article Rage seminar and later taught at Portland State University in Oregon. He died in March.

They were not atheists. Some felt uncomfortable with the name of their movement, as it is considered more of a rescue team in an attack team. They see their work as a continuation of research initiated by some of the greatest theologians of the twentieth century and the media, such as Paul Tillich, Karl Barth and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Mr. Vahanian, but distanced himself from the group and its aura Nietzsche, however, does not deserve.

"I had a completely different theological sensibilities of most of them," said Jeffrey Robbins, Mr. Vahanian son-in-law, who is chairman of the department of religion and philosophy at Lebanon Valley College in Annville, Pa. "It was an iconoclast and radical. But he is described as a permanent practice, disgusted Protestant Christian. "

Mr. Cox, professor emeritus of Harvard Divinity School and author of the bestselling 1965 book "The Secular City" - considered one of the fundamental texts of the death of God movement - Mr. Vahanian described as a "visionary" with a traditionalist vein.

"I do not like the idea about the claim that he could not know," Cox said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "He had too much respect for religious tradition."

In his book, Mr. Vahanian criticized efforts to modernize Christianity implicitly criticizes the Reverend Norman Vincent Peale, author of the 1950 self-help best-seller "The Power of Positive Thinking." Mr. Vahanian condemned the "positive thinking" and other doctrines that have reduced Christianity to what he described as "a tool for success."

Faith had higher goals, he said. And 'face was suffering, hydraulics awareness, addressing questions about God.

"God is not necessary, but inevitable," Vahanian, wrote in 1964 in "Wait Without Idols," sometimes displays a genomic test the patience of auditors (and leaving aside capital letters when referring to the deity). "It's totally different and totally present." S faith in him, the transformation of our human, cultural and existentially, is the question that is still upon us. '

Antoine Gabriel Vahanian was born January 24, 1927 in Marseille, France, one in four children Mestrop Vahanian Perouse. His parents settled there in the 1920's after fleeing ethnic cleansing campaign that has spread to areas Armenians in Turkey after World War I.

After completing his studies at the Faculty of Protestant Theology Paris in 1949, he received his Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary.

In 1958 he became professor of religion at Syracuse University, where he taught for 26 years and helped found the university's degree in religion.

He moved in 1984 to the University of Human Sciences in Strasbourg, a place considered most important theological chair of Protestantism in France.

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Jake Eberts dies at 71

Jake Ebert, the Canadian producer and founder of The Independent Films UK Reiet simple, revived the British film industry in 1980 with a series of films Oscar winners like "Gandhi" and "Chariots of Fire" died Thursday in Montreal. I 'was 71.

I 'was diagnosed in late 2010 with uveal melanoma, a rare cancer of the eye, who recently released his liver, said his wife, Fiona.

Over four decades in the world of film, Ebert financed or produced more than 50 films, including four who won the Oscar for Best Picture: "Chariots of Fire" (1981), "Gandhi" (1982), "A Walking Miss Daisy" (1989) and "Dances with Wolves" (1990).

He also produced "The Killing Fields" (1984), "The City of Joy" (1992), "The Legend of Bagger Vance" (2000) and the environmental documentary "Oceans" (2009).

Ebert was known for its focus on finance experts and creating films by supporting projects that appealed to him on an emotional level and deliver compelling stories free free sex, car chases and violence.

"It was really the master of Hollywood," said Jim Berk, Participant Media president, who has worked with Ebert on "Oceans" and other projects.

"Jake purpose in life was to try to create content that not only tell stories, but brings awareness and inspired people to do things that are beyond the norm. Way would be to have that touch this. especially to find stories. "

Ebert was a struggle, 33, an investment banker in 1974, when he was approached to arrange financing for a film animation harassed by a group of rabbits. "Watership Down" (1978), based on the novel by Richard Adams, became a box office and critical success and Ebert stuck to the film world.

Goldcrest Films was formed in 1976 with the support of the British publishing giant Pearson. Goldcrest first big hit was "Chariots of Fire", the drama of two runners in the Olympic Games of 1924, which was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won four.

Goldcrest products in quick succession "Gandhi," the epic of K. charismatic of India Mohandas Gandhi, political and spiritual figure who led a campaign of nonviolent resistance Historical against British colonial rule, and "The Killing Fields," a compelling story about Cambodia's brutal Khmer Rouge regime told from the terms of two journalists.

"The film had touched his heart," said her husband Ebert Fiona Friday. "He 's gone by instinct many of them," Gandhi "," director Richard Attenborough had tried to do for 20 years to finally find his angel Ebert. The film won eight Academy Awards and launched the career of actor Ben Kingsley, who played Gandhi.

When Goldcrest came on the scene, the two British EMI and Rank, were in decline. "Jake has been in the business of making great films popular," said Terry Illott, an English writer who covered the media industry for the Financial Times and co-authored a book in 1990 on high with Regulus and Ebert Fall called "My indecision is final."

"Goldcrest was ambitious, confident of this and that failure entrepreneur who launched the business and creative range and EMI relief," said Illott. "People in the industry in the UK has begun to look at Goldcrest model, as they have done since."

Goldcrest Ebert left in 1984 to work at the Embassy of photos, but was drawn back a few years later.

The company was on the brink of collapse, having sunk millions to some problems, tormented films like "Revolution," a sweeping 1985 drama about the American Revolution starring Al Pacino. Ebert could not avoid disaster and the company was sold in 1987.

After leaving Goldcrest, Ebert founded Allied Filmmakers, an independent film development and production company based in London and Paris.

In late 1980, he was approached by producers Richard and Lili Fini Zanuck, designing a grumpy old maid in Atlanta and her black chauffeur had been rejected by every major U.S. studios. But Ebert liked the story and put in $ 3.25 million, which attracted an additional 4.5 million Warner Bros. "Driving Miss Daisy" was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won four.

"No Jake Ebert," said Richard Zanuck the New York Times in 1990, "'Miss Daisy' should never be done."

The son of a director of Alcan Aluminum, Ebert was born in Montreal July 7, 1941.

He trained as a chemical engineer at McGill University, but discovered it was not very good at it. In 1966 he received an MBA from Harvard University and worked on Wall Street for three years before joining an investment house in London in 1971.

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Hip hop manager Chris Lighty Dies at 44

Hip Hop Chris Lighty died Thursday after a heated argument with his ex-wife in the Bronx, police sources told the Daily News.

Lighty - a veteran manager who has worked with artists such as 50 Cent, Busta Rhymes, Diddy, Ja Rule and Mariah Carey - Dismissed after declaring "I'm tired of this," before sticking a bullet in the head behind the South Riverdale home at around 11:30 pm, the sources said.

The police found Lighty, 44, founder and CEO of Violator Management, lying face up in the courtyard of the basement in a pool of blood with a 9 mm. pistol at his side, the sources said.

Suicide surprising after a savage fight between Lighty and his 36 year old wife, Veronica, who asked for a divorce last year.

Moving truck was at home, as the veteran music director ready to leave the residence of three floors, the sources said.

Judicial sources said Lighty is the wife of seven years, told police that he was facing financial problems, including $ 5,000,000 debt with the IRS. However, The Associated Press reported that Lighty had paid more than the sale of an apartment in Manhattan for U.S. $ 5.6 million in October.

Lighty who still owed more than $ 330,000 in federal and state taxes to the PA. And in April, was sued by City National Bank does not pay after he had discovered in his account to $ 53,584.

His 17-year-old daughter and a son 5 years old, were in the house 232 W. St. and left when the argument broke out. They were in a park near Lighty, H has three children, went out and pulled the trigger, the sources said.

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Busy Diplomat Reginald Bartholomew Dies at 76

Reginald Bartholomew, a diplomat and ambassador who has served four presidents, negotiated nuclear disarmament with the Soviet Union and for the protection of U.S. military bases in Europe and survived an assassination attempt when he was ambassador to Lebanon in 1984, died Sunday in Manhattan.

The cause was cancer, said his wife, Rose Anne.

Mr. Bartholomew had spent 15 years advising presidents and secretaries of state, and parachuting in places like Moscow and Cyprus to extinguish fires diplomatic when he received his first assignment as ambassador in 1983, in Lebanon.

It was a refined political detachment. The day after arriving this October, the Marine barracks was bombed by terrorists, killing 241 people. Mr. Bartholomew was shot the scene the next day, his job complete.

The violence increased pressure from the U.S. to withdraw its troops. Mr. Bartholomew argued strongly against the idea. President Reagan delay the deportation order until February 1984.

In the same year, terrorists bombed the U.S. Embassy in East Beirut about new construction that was built to replace a bombed last year. Nine people were killed. Mr. Bartholomew was removed from the rubble, but not seriously injured, needed stitches and a cast on his arm.

Mr. Bartholomew has been in Lebanon for two years and was often forced to leave for security reasons. His followers often met firearm during a trip to the country with their personal safety "militia" as he and the name of his wife, leaning over the car windows with automatic weapons to return fire.

George P. Shultz, secretary of state at the time, of which Mr. Bartholomew as "the best" in the diplomatic corps.

In 1986, Mr. Bartholomew was appointed ambassador to Spain, where he led negotiations to maintain a military presence greatly reduced. He had worked in similar negotiations before and after would, in its final place, Italy, where he served as ambassador in 1993 and 1997.

"It's been very difficult," said Leslie H. Gelb, a former New York Times reporter, who also worked with Mr. Bartholomew Departments of Defense and State. "We wanted the basics, and foreign leaders wanted to prove that they were tough. They do not want their people to believe in the United States of its property."

He added, referring to Mr. Bartholomew:. "It would have been impolite, and a lot of diplomats are not so clumsy said:" I know you have your political problems, but try to find ways to keep the bases and deal with their political problems. '"

In 1964 took positions in government and in European education at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Mr. Gelb was teaching there at the time, and they became friends.

Mr. Gelb went to work as a political consultant for the Pentagon in 1967, and convinced Mr. Bartholomew to join them next year. Both then moved to and from different departments in different roles, with Mr. Bartholomew works at the National Security Council during the Carter administration and was succeeded by Mr. Gelb as director of political-military affairs at the Department of State.

Mr. Bartholomew has played a key role in the SALT II arms limitation with the Soviet Union in 1979. After his stay in Spain, he returned to Washington to serve as Secretary of Security Affairs with Secretary of State James A. Baker III.

Years before, Mr. Bartholomew was an assistant secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger. A senior military official said Mr. Kissinger requested Mr. Bartholomew meetings in European politics.

"I realized quickly," the official said in an email to Mr. Gelb, "was an indispensable man."

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A Shaper of Channel 13 Robert Kotlowitz Dies at 87

Robert Kotlowitz, author and publisher, who reluctantly became manager of public television in 1971 and has continued to develop the line of homegrown and imported shows - including "The Report MacNeil / Lehrer," "Live at the Met" "Dance in America" ??and "Brideshead Revisited" - which represent a high point of American television, died Saturday at home in Manhattan.

The cause was prostate cancer, his son Alex said.

Mr. Kotlowitz had just resigned as editor of Harper, in a battle with the new owners for editorial control, when John Jay Iselin, the new president's main public television stations in the country, Channel 13 in New York, offered job.

"Like what?" I've never been in a TV studio, "said Kotlowitz asked in an interview with Channel 13. Mr. Iselin said, he replied:" You will be the editor. "

"Why?" Mr. Kotlowitz hesitant to ask.

"We'll see," said Iselin.

Mr. Kotlowitz, who was senior vice president of programming and distribution, and has remained on channel 13 until his retirement in 1990, was known as a kind of minister of Culture and home to some of the most ardent advocate Mr. Iselin's most ambitious decisions.

Ist proposed an evening news half an hour with Jim Lehrer and Robert MacNeil in 1973, after the couple had anchored public television coverage of Senate Watergate hearings.

The agreement has been difficult, but largely thanks to the tenacity of Mr. Kotlowitz met two years later as "The Report MacNeil / Lehrer." The program, which was seen across the country since December 1975, now known as "PBS NewsHour."

In 1981, when Channel 13 had financial problems, Mr. Kotlowitz convinced Mr. Iselin invest $ 500,000 in a series produced by Granada Television in England. The series "Brideshead Revisited," based on the novel by Evelyn Waugh, has become one of the most successful television audiences.

Mr. Kotlowitz played a similar role in introducing the audience to "Monty Python Flying Circus", a live performance at New York City Ballet and the Philharmonic Orchestra of New York, "Bill Moyers Journal" and "Nature".

Mr. MacNeil, who became a friend, said Mr. Kotlowitz aesthetic sensibility deeply influenced PBS programming. "He had innate good taste, and a deep familiarity with literature and art in all its forms," ??said MacNeil said in an interview.

Before the advent of cable, when public television was one of the only alternatives to the speed of the network in many small towns, he added, "Bob was what brought people to opera, ballet The New York Philharmonic. "

In a review in the Washington Post Book World "Somewhere Else," Michele Murray that Mr. Kotlowitz by Isaac Bashevis Singer. "He made the best singer in 'The Manor' and 'The Farm', he wrote," to explain what is essentially the same story of the breakdown of the traditional life of communities isolated Jewish shtetl in Poland. "

In addition to his son, Alex, Mr. Kotlowitz survivors include another son, Dan, a sister, Elaine Magarill, and four grandchildren. His wife, Billie Kotlowitz Leibowitz, who died in 1994.

Mr. Kotlowitz told interviewers that while he was not looking for a job in public television, glad that he was ahead. The work, he said in the interview with Channel 13, took him to the arena of the great pleasures of life: music, art, books, nature, history, current events.

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Liberal Party Power Broker Raymond Harding Dies at 77

Raymond B. Harding, former leader of the Liberal Party of New York, which has advanced the careers of mayors and governors, but fell into disfavor in the corruption scandal that toppled the state comptroller, Alan G. Hevesi, died Thursday in the Bronx.

The cause was cancer, said his son Robert.

Mr. Smith came to the Balkans, as a child, a Jewish refugee during the war, the father was beaten by the Nazis. His family survived the camps and a dangerous journey across the Atlantic with a gauntlet of attack submarines.

As a teenager, he got his new American name of a favorite radio program, "said David Smith, CounterSpy." He is a lawyer and became a protégé of Alex Rose, the legendary founder of the Liberal Party.

And from his rise to power in 1977 to his political death, when the Liberals lost their ballot line in 2002, Mr. Smith was one of the corridors of power entrepreneurs of the state, with his party small, but influential in helping to elect Mario M. Cuomo as governor, Rudolph W. Giuliani as mayor, Mr. Hevesi as the city and the state controller, and many other public officials.

Instead, Mr. Smith, a brave, smoking a cigarette behind the scenes tactics approval remained alive long after his party critics called irrelevant, has gained power and patronage. Taking advantage of his influence in City Hall and in Albany, said a high profile, government jobs to his allies, including his two sons, and builds extraordinary profits for themselves.

In 2009, however, pleaded guilty to charges of receiving $ 800,000 for favors to Mr. Hevesi - a fictitious agent for members of the driver to get lucrative contracts to manage $ 141 billion state pension fund and intrigues for a seat in the Assembly of State for the son of Mr. Hevesi.

Mr. Smith has worked with the state investigation that led to the arrest of Mr. Hevesi and others. The criminal charges against Mr. Smith fell, and his own conviction in 2011 in a unique crime number was saved from prison and allowed to remain with the money he had taken. But it was a stunning humiliation for one of the last political leader of New York days old.

Like his predecessor, Mr. Rose, Mr. Smith helped the Republicans and Democrats elected, taking advantage of the small liberal party members - only 1 percent of the electoral lists - something more important: a second place to vote for candidates who thus acquired an undeserved approval times as progressives. It also gave voters a disgruntled liberal Democrat and Republican, to appease their consciences.

Since New York is one of the few states that allow a candidate the votes are added as a candidate, the parties have little influence beyond all measure, because supporting candidates or get support.

In turn, are guaranteed a line to the next statewide ballot, if they receive at least 50,000 votes. Playing both ends against the middle, Mr. Smith might be a maker of kings and the orchestration of the survival of his party.

For students of politics, watching the maneuver Harding was a rite of the season in New York elections. He took the crown of tin capo political flavor: an overweight chin, with heavy eyelids, fingers stained yellow from unfiltered Camel, a booming voice, the eyes with sunglasses that many are intimidating. He was suddenly, and often spoke as if the writing aloud titles Tabloids - "LP" for the game, "libs" for the faithful.

Harding was a collaborator of L. Governor Hugh Carey 1975-1977. He became the leader of the Liberal Party after the 1976 death of Mr. Rose, who founded the party in 1944 with a program to keep Republicans and liberal Democrats honest.

The party helped the election of Democrat Robert F. Wagner and Republican John V. Lindsay, as mayors, Republican Jacob K. Javits as senator, Democrat Edward I. Koch as a young congressman, and Mr. Carey and Mr. Cuomo, both Democrats, as governors.

Mr. Smith has never been elected to any office and has had little use for ideology. An old joke was that the Liberal Party was neither liberal nor a party. He carried out without primary or convention and its candidates had a few.

Harding has decided that the Democrats or Republicans, to support in order to earn your patronage and rewards. His title was also a fiction: the vice president with absolute power, the president of being a figurehead.

His smartest decision that was said to have been his first embrace of Mr. Giuliani, a Republican, Democrat, David N. Dinkins for mayor in 1989. Mr. Dinkins won that election, but after Mayor Giuliani won in 1993.

Mr. Smith took advantage of a pressure group and employment guarantees for their children, Robert, as director of budget and the deputy mayor, and Russell, as Head of Housing and Development Corporation, although he was a deserter from the university with no experience in housing. But in 2005, Russell Smith was sentenced to five years in prison for embezzling $ 400,000 from the agency.

Asked about criticism from Democrats for backing Giuliani, Mr. Smith said: "Political parties serve a purpose The purpose of the Liberal Party at that time was to save and restore this great city, and has done so. Ask the leadership of Giuliani. "

The leader of the Liberal Party, was born Helen Marie Branko Hochwald Hochwald and January 31, 1935, in Herzegovina. While World War II he moved through the Balkans, the father was attacked by the Nazis and the family fled to Italy in 1941, taking refuge in a refugee camp in Calabria.

Jewish immigration in times of war the U.S. has been virtually banned in 1944 but were among the 1,000 Jewish refugees Hochwald granted safe haven by President Franklin D. Roosevelt - the only large group of Jews admitted during the war - as told in the book "Haven", a press photographer Ruth Gruber.

Raymond graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1953 and City College in 1957 with a degree in political science. After his military service as an infantry officer, he earned a degree in law at the University of New York in 1961.

Besides his sons, Mr. Smith is survived by his wife of 55 years, the former Elisabeth Einhorn, and two grandchildren.

He practiced law for five years between 1966 and 1969 was the city attorney, research inspectors damaged buildings. In 1975, he joined the staff of Governor Carey as disaster coordinator, military adviser and legislative liaison.

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Dr. James West Dies at 98

James W. West, a surgeon struggle with alcohol led him to develop treatments for addiction and, ultimately, to become medical director of the Betty Ford Center, died July 24 at home in Palm Desert, California was 98.

His death was confirmed by his son Bill.

Dr. West has begun to focus on addiction. In 1950 he attended Dr. Richard H. Lawler and Dr. Raymond P. Murphy in the execution of the first kidney transplant.

The recipient of the organ, a woman named Ruth Tucker 40 years, suffered from polycystic kidney disease. His body rejected the new organ, after several weeks not rejection drugs had been developed - but the transplant will be the moment of his other kidney to start working enough, Dr. West said later that in interviews. Mrs. Tucker lived five years.

Over time, the interests of Dr. West turned to the study and treatment of addiction driven by his own alcoholism.

"There had been a DUI, and he never showed up for surgery under the influence," said John Schwarzlose, president and CEO of the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif. "I watched him and his colleagues say 'You're not an alcoholic. "He said,' My illness has not played like it did with others who may have problems with alcohol and other drugs, and not the slums. ' ".

Bill West, said his mother, Shirley, had told his father "had to ask for help, and has heard of this."

Dr. West, who had received his medical degree from Loyola University and has begun to study psychiatric disorders and addictions.

He said that at some point, the research showed that nearly one in nine doctors suffered some kind of addiction, and began teaching at the university faculties of psychiatry.

In 1975, he and Msgr. Ignatius McDermott, who worked with the homeless in Chicago, founded Haymarket Center, a treatment plant for non-profit alcoholism and drug addiction.

The West retired to Palm Desert in 1982, but retirement did not last long. This year, Dr. West began as a volunteer in a clinic for outpatients for alcohol abuse in the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage.

Meanwhile, Betty Ford, Former Prime lady who openly fought addiction to alcohol and prescription drugs, and Leonard Firestone, former ambassador to Belgium and the son of the founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, opened the Betty Ford Center. Dr. West joined the staff of the same year.

Mr. Schwarzlose Dr. West described as "medical addiction before the term even existed." He recalled the opening of Dr. West with other doctors about their treatment programs.

"It was not really used the drug, other people were using," said Schwarzlose. "He is the attitude and the look says. '... Is how they treat alcoholics and drug addicts always feel like nobody wants to try make us feel as if you had come to the right place" He said: 'My doctors and nurses to treat people with love. "I know it sounds corny, but the truth."

Dr. West moved to a part-time role in 1989 and retired in 2007.

Ward, James West, was born March 29, 1914, in Chicago. His first wife, the former crew of Shirley, died in 1997. In addition to his son Bill, He is survived by his wife, Maureen Clark, who married in 1998, another son, Raymond, four daughters, Vicky Dingli, Judith West, Pamela Byrne and Penny West, two stepchildren, Marquis Cheryl Clark and sand, a sister, Catherine Ann McClelland, five grandchildren, stepchildren, grandchildren, great grandchildren 04:05.

Dr. West was not a good student in his early years. His parents, when he said he had to repeat his first year in high school, sent to Campion High School, a Jesuit school in Prairie du Chien, Wis.

He attended school in a shelter where he challenges students to plan their careers, and decided to become a doctor.

"Thereafter, it was easy for me to be a doctor," he said in 2003, recalling his experience in retirement. "I was in my mind. Everything else was just an obstacle between you and the DM"

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Former Times foreign correspondent Nick Williams Jr. dies at 75

Although Nick B. Williams Jr. would forge a successful career as an editor and foreign correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, had first to overcome the "junior" at the end of his name.

I 'joined the newspaper in late 1960, when his father, Nick B. Mr. Williams was editor of the Times, and prestige in this one.

"When Nick Junior has been added to the template, a number of people most cynical - he said. He is the son of the editor What the heck will" It is hoped that if 20 minutes, they discovered it was a great editor and an extraordinary journalist, "George Cotliar, a former executive editor of The Times said Wednesday.

Williams, who was a foreign correspondent for the Times on Southeast Asia and the Middle East in 1980 and 1990, died Wednesday in a house in Gainesville, Texas, from complications of care fromAlzheimer disease, said his daughter Nan. He was 75.

After starting the Metro copy desk at The Times, Williams became an editor of national and foreign banks in 1970 and 1980.

"It was a wonderful editor and popular," said Robert Gibson, editor of Foreign times when Williams Department. "It was very important in their relations with foreign correspondents, who felt they had a sympathetic ear and get your copy of" respect "."

After years in charge of Foreign Affairs, Williams "wanted his chance in the field," said Alvin Shuster, the former Director of Foreign Affairs that the time has been given. "It was a first-class desktop publisher, and I knew it would be a first class correspondent. Some said it was a game of chance, including Nick, but clearly was not."

Between 1985 and 1992, Williams reported the Asian region, while in Bangkok and in the Middle East, Nicosia, Cyprus. When going from an estimated 60% of their time on the road.

"Whether covering the Gulf war or a revolt in the Philippines, the unit was excellent," said Schuster. "He knew exactly what to do, and foreign correspondents did very well."

In an essay of 1992, his experiences in the field, Williams said that "framework" to make scenes that have been engraved in his memory.

Among those who have "the Shia Muslim women in black xador" out of an Iraqi prison, "laments heard screaming and waiting for me that their husbands and children were living inside the high walls that was better than expected.

That His men were imprisoned and not among the thousands of Shiite rebels shot down by military helicopters to Saddam Hussein's helicopter as it has re-established its control over the country. "

That same year, Williams was asked to return to Los Angeles. He was 55 years old and his family said it was "too old to dodge the bullets again." He said his years abroad were the best of his life.

He joined the office of international affairs section to change the World Report on the week and was assistant director of the editorial pages before retiring in 2002 after being diagnosed with withAlzheimer.

Nick Van Boddie Williams Jr. was born on 12 February 1937, in Santa Monica and grew up in Pasadena.

From what is now Claremont McKenna College, he earned a degree in business and married artist Gerri the Bauhaus in 1960. He worked in the newspaper San Diego Union-Sun and Timesbefore theChicago moving to Los Angeles in late 1966 to join the time.

The correspondent also excel in buying, Shuster said: If you are asked "for a plate of blue and white shopping for your next visit to Vietnam, he had a letter full of the history of the cup and costs $ 20 . "

Father Williams, who was editor of The Times 1958-1971, died at 85 in 1992.

Williams survived by his wife, Gerri, of Lake Kiowa, Texas, daughters Maggie Sykes of Lake Kiowa, and Nan Williams, Flat Top, Tennessee, two grandchildren and his sister Sue Williams of Trinidad, California, Ricky Davis and Arcata.

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Civic leader John J. Merrick dies at 93

When the Beverly Hills attorney, John J. Merrick was elected judge of the judicial district of Malibu in 1964, was considered only a part-time work: the population of the area stretching from sea to Calabasas does not guarantee full-time municipal judge.

While maintaining his law practice, Merrick cases heard Monday in a small court in Calabasas, which has doubled in a ballroom at night.

He spent the next four days a week, the benchmark in 1930-was the court of Malibu, Pacific Coast Highway.

But it could also be allocated to meet the municipal actions in places as far away as Glendale, Indio, Lancaster and Ventura.

"I was known as' Have Robe, Will Travel," she recalled in a 1986 times.

At present the population of the district court exceeded the necessary 40,000 in 1973 and became Merrick's first municipal court judge of the new Constitution in Malibu, has been handling more than 20,000 cases a year. He stayed on the bench in Malibu until his retirement in 1986.

Merrick, a resident of Malibu since 1940 and a local historian and civic leader, died of pneumonia July 31 at his home in Point Dumas, said his son Brian. He was 93 years.

When Merrick retired after nearly 22 years as a judge in Malibu, Richard Brand, a court commissioner who had worked with him for 12 years, told the Times: "We're losing an institution."

"Many people say that I am a very fair judge," Merrick said the Times in 1986. "I look to see both sides to exercise some compassion and punish those who need it."

Merrick on the bench during the time he signed the order to breach to enter the Spahn Ranch, home of the famous Manson family.

And with 50 MPs warn his court, Merrick presided over the preliminary hearing of Manson family member Susan Atkins, who was accused of the murder of musician Gary Hinman Topanga Canyon.

Merrick had sometimes the heat of some of his decisions in court.

When Topanga Canyon nudist club called Elysée opened in 1960 and a number of people have been arrested on charges of nudity in the context of an ordinance of the county 30 years of age, Merrick said that the ordinance was unconstitutional.

The decision that was upheld by the Court of Appeals of the State, has received wide publicity.

"Despite the fact that I am a deeply religious person who attends Mass every day," said Merrick The Times in 1986: "I was described as a pervert and has received a lot of hate."

As the judge in a show of world-famous enclaves, Merrick has chaired a number of celebrity weddings, including the high profile 1985 marriage of pop singer Madonna and actor Sean Penn on a promontory, Point Dumas.

"There were eight helicopters flying over the shooting on the roof with kids hanging doors, was like 'Apocalypse Now'" recalled Merrick 1986 Times interview. "The three of us knew more or less what we were doing. But all the others not to hear the noise."

As Judge Merrick was known for his sense of humor. "There are many occasions where people are very tense in front of you, and you can break the tension with some humor," he told The Times in 1969.

Those who passed through his classroom always, unintentionally humorous moments.

"I was a busboy for being drunk," said Merrick. "I explained the reasons for the different and then I asked him how he said he replied.. Very guilty, his lordship" "

On another occasion, Merrick asked if the defendant was employed.

"Yes, sir," replied the accused, "I am self employed."

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06:52 | 0 comments

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

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

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

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

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

Philanthropist Dennis Avery dies at 71

Dennis Avery, who used part of a family fortune to fund philanthropic efforts worldwide and the Artistic Committee of replicas of prehistoric animals of an original sculpture garden in the desert of Borrego Springs, died. He was 71 years.

Avery died Monday at Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego. No cause of death was given.

Avery was an heir to the fortune of Avery Dennison Corp., which launched what is considered the first commercially viable marketing of self-adhesive, removable labels, the type of supplies are now essential for offices, schools and domestic use .

His father, R. Stanton Avery, a classic rags to riches success story American, founded the company in 1935 after a $ 100 loan to build a machine for making labels for spare parts.

When he died in 1997 at 90 years, his company based in Pasadena, which had merged in 1990 with Dennison Manufacturing in Framingham, Massachusetts, has 16,000 employees and annual sales of U.S. $ 3.2 billion.

Dennis Avery was born in Los Angeles October 23, 1940. After graduating from Cambridge University in England, graduating in law from California Western School of Law in San Diego, where he served as associate dean in 1980.

In 1970 he worked for the prosecutor's office of the City of San Diego and was one of the earliest advocates of consumer fraud.

His colleagues remember him as passionate about protecting consumers and not only interested in living their inherited wealth.

"He loved the law and his Harley Davidson motorcycle," said John Kaheny, who also worked in the office.

Avery and his wife lived for years in Borrego Springs, drawn from the open space and small town atmosphere of 90 miles of San Diego community.

With the eyes of his father for a good deal, Avery buy land where prices have plummeted because of the savings and loan debacle of 1980 and '90.

Although he chose not to follow his father into the business world, has followed his example of the use of wealth on behalf of public education, artistic and otherwise.

His father was a protector of what we might call the artistic creation of Southern California: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Huntington Library, Art Collections and the Arts Council of Los Angeles County Music Center, among others.

Artistic interest of the child leaned toward the more populist and unusual. The artwork he bought and set up was not in museums, but open to what he calls the Cookie Meadows estate in Borrego Springs.

Since he was owner of the property through Borrego Springs, sculptures dot the landscape of almost every corner. It soon became a tourist attraction, with great joy Avery.

Although it was a serious student of prehistory, has ignored the criticism that some of the creatures do not seem to comply with what scientists think they seemed.

For Avery, art should be both educational and entertaining. Sometimes delighted visitors to the garden of sculptures, giving his interpretation of the sounds produced by prehistoric animals.

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09:31 | 0 comments

President of Ghana John Atta Mills dies at 68

The president of Ghana, John Atta Mills, who promised that the oil reserves of the country used for the good of the people, died Tuesday shortly after you get sick, officials said.

Mills, who turned 68 on Saturday, had planned to apply for a second term as president in December.

According to reports from Ghana, Mills complained of pain on Monday and Tuesday has died in a military hospital in the capital, Accra.

No details were given, but was told he suffered from throat cancer.

Vice President John Dramani Mahamat, who was sworn in as president after Mills is now dead, said the country was "devastated" by death.

The people shouted in the streets of Accra, to know the news, the Associated Press.

Ghana, which has experienced strong growth in recent years, is seen as a beacon of democracy in West Africa.

Main export is cocoa in Ghana, but the country has started oil production two years ago.

President Obama has visited in 2009, six months after Mills took office.

When Obama has received the Oval Office in March, the President praised 'record' Mills as a leader.

Mills's predecessor, John Kufuor, has submitted his resignation after two presidential terms. Mills had run twice unsuccessfully for president against Kufuor first to capture power in 2008 after a vote that was the closest in history. Mills ran on a platform of change.

Born in 1944 in western Ghana, Mills had a degree in Law from the University of Ghana.

He received his doctorate from the London School of Oriental and African Studies before studying at Stanford University, Fulbright scholar.

Mills has been teaching at the University of Ghana for many years before entering politics. He also served as vice president of the military leader of Ghana, Jerry Rawlings, 1997 and 2001.

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08:34 | 0 comments

First American woman in space Sally Ride dies at 61

Sally Ride, first American woman to travel into space, died Monday after a battle in 17 months against pancreatic cancer, his company. He was 61 years.

Guided tour of the space in the space shuttle Challenger in 1983, when he was 32 years. After his escape, more than 42 American women have flown in space, NASA said.

"Sally was a national hero and a role model. Has inspired generations of girls to get the stars," said President Barack Obama in a statement.

The NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, a former astronaut, said Ride "has broken barriers with grace and professionalism -. It literally changed the face of the American space program"

"The nation has lost one of its best leaders, teachers and explorers," he said in a statement.

Volta was an author of five books of physical science for children and president of his company. He was also professor of physics at the University of California at San Diego.

It was selected as an astronaut in 1978, the same year he received his doctorate in physics from Stanford University. She beat five women to be the first American woman in space. Its first flight took place two decades after the Soviets sent into space in a woman

"The launch day, there was much enthusiasm and so going on around us in the crew area, even on the road to the launch pad," he recalled in an interview with the Walk of NASA for the 25 anniversary of his escape in 2008. "I really do not think too much right now - but I have come to appreciate what has been an honor to be selected to be the first to have the opportunity to go into space."

Ride flew in space twice, both the Challenger in 1983 and 1984, logging 343 hours in space. A third flight was canceled when the Challenger exploded in 1986. He was in the commission of inquiry into the incident and later served on the panel for the 2003 Columbia shuttle accident, the only person on both boards.

The 20 anniversary of its first flight also coincided with the loss of Columbia, a bittersweet moment for the laughs, which are discussed in a 2003 interview with The Associated Press. He acknowledged that he was pushing to pass the anniversary of investigating the accident, which killed seven astronauts.

"But in another sense, it is a rewarding opportunity to be part of the solution and of the changes that will occur and improve the program," he said.

Later in the interview, focusing on science education and spoke of "being a role model and that is very visible."

"He was very intelligent," said former astronaut Norman Thagard, who was to walk the first flight. "We had a good time."

E 'was all the work on this first flight, with the exception of the first sprint in the space around the inside of the shuttle, Thagard invoked by telephone on Monday. I did not know who won.

One of the legacies Last Ride will allow high school students to take their own pictures of the Moon with cameras aboard the twin spacecraft of NASA Grail in a race for his business plan.

"Sally literally could do nothing with his life. He decided to dedicate his life to education and to inspire young people. For me, this is something very powerful. E incredibly admirable," said Maria Zuber , Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who heads the mission of the Holy Grail.

Office Ride, Tam O'Shaughnessy said he survived by his partner of 27 years, his mother, Joyce, his sister, Bear, a niece and a nephew.

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Former Egyptian spy chief Omar Suleiman dies at 76

Omar Suleiman, head of Egypt's former spy and confidant of ousted leader Hosni Mubarak, has died in the United States, months after his failed presidential attempt to restore the old guard to power after a revolution in national television, the state reported Thursday.

"He was fine. It came suddenly when he was in medical examinations in Cleveland," Hussein Kamal, a subsidiary of Suleiman, who did not give a cause of death, told Reuters.

Suleiman, 76, summed up the state police who suppressed Egypt for three decades. He was an ally of Washington in the fight against terrorism and a key negotiator with the Palestinians and Israelis.

Quickly appointed vice president in recent days the government of Mubarak, Suleiman was overwhelmed, unable to understand the ideals of the uprising that forced the military to seize power in February 2011.

Aftert that Suleiman disappeared from public view for months, the reconstruction as a presidential candidate in the race remains polarized by the Islamists and the Mubarak regime.

His campaign ended in April, when the National Electoral Commission has determined that it had enough authorized signatures on their registration form.

Much of his campaign focused on warning that the Islamists wanted to turn Egypt into a religious state. Mohamed Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood candidate, was elected president in June.

A good way of spying that has been credited with saving his life in an assassination attempt against Mubarak in Ethiopia in 1995, Suleiman has been criticized by human rights groups for allowing his vast intelligence network Intelligence of torturing suspected Islamic militants. He had close ties with the CIA, especially after the attacks of 9/11 United States.

"When we asked other nations to assist in intelligence operations, Suleiman mukhabarat [intelligence agency] has been willing to take custody of people and the question of Egypt Egypt, and these interrogations have included torture, "said John Sifton, a former researcher at Human Rights Watch who has specialized in issues related arrests and renditions to Egypt, told The Times last year.

"He is directly involved in [the torture], both as a member of the regime and led mukhabarat."

Suleiman was born poor in the Egyptian city of Qena. He attended a military academy and distinguished himself in the Arab-Israeli wars in 1967 and 1973. Appointed head of military intelligence in 1991, when Egypt has cooperated with U.S. forces to expel the Iraqi army of Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. He became head of security of Egypt in 1993 and was essential for Mubarak, who trusted him with the negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians and other international diplomacy and sensitivity.

It was frequently mentioned as a possible successor to Mubarak. This discourse faded in recent years as Mubarak's son, Gamal, now on trial on charges of financial corruption has often been called the heir apparent.

Some analysts suggest that Suleiman, despite their years in the armed forces, can be removed from the military and its commander in chief, Mohammad Hussein Tantawi quarterback.

"Suleiman was always a bridge between the military wing of the regime and the civil wing. It was the military that was more accepted among the civilian elite," said Ziad AKL, senior analyst at Al-Ahram Center for Studies Political and Strategic Cairo.

But sometime during the 18 days of the revolution, he said, there was a point of conflict between Suleiman and Tantawi and the predominance of the military finally took over.

"The acceptance of Suleiman as president was highly unlikely for the military. The military may have felt betrayed that Suleiman, somehow comparing Gamal Mubarak, the business," said AKL.

In his brief tenure as vice president, Hosni Mubarak, only, Suleiman appeared often uncomfortable, a spy forced to the forefront of a revolution could not stop.

And "when he appeared pale and trembling before a microphone 11 February 2011, Mubarak announced that he had resigned. He offered to become interim president, but was rejected, and the army has taken control.

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