Friday Whatever

 Obit:  Darrell "Dash" Crofts, 87, part of the popular 1970s soft rock duo Seals & Crofts, died Wednesday.  He died of heart failure in a hospital, having had heart issues for years.

There is some "controversy" over just which year Crofts was born.  Most sources say he was born in 1938, while some say he was born in 1940.  He was older than his partner Jim Seals, who died at the age of 80 in 2022.

It is most likely he was born in 1938 because he met Jim when he was a senior in high school while Jim was in the eighth grade.  That would check out as Jim was born in 1942.

Regardless, both of them had been around in the music business for many, many years, starting in the late 1950s, before hitting the big time in the early 1970s.  Crofts was born in Texas just as Jim had been.

People:

Born in Cisco, Texas, Crofts began playing the piano at the age of 5 before taking up the drums by the time he turned 10. By high school, he played drums in a band, where he met Jim Seals, who was playing saxophone at the time.

After high school, Crofts and Seals relocated to Southern California and became members of The Champs from 1958 to 1965.

The duo began working together under the name Seals & Crofts in 1969 and by the '70s, they landed hits including "Summer Breeze" and "Diamond Girl."

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Thursday Reads

 That development should stop the most blatant forms of cheating in the Olympics.

The DSDs are a way bigger problem, but this had to be done.  Certain countries were blatantly recruiting males in order to gain an edge in female Olympic competition.

Thank goodness the travesty is over with.

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The right just won't give up on trying to overturn Obergefell, and this is as good a reason to just let marriage die the hell out.

They always use kids as the excuse, but it is really all about their shameless conformity and think everybody should live the way they do.

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Monday on the Obituary Page

 Today her close friend, Stacey Souther, announced that actress Valerie Perrine, 82, had died after battling Parkinson's disease for 15 years.  She had a highly successful career as an actress following a number of years being a Las Vegas showgirl, with her peak acting years during the 1970s.  She starred in a pair of Superman films and had been nominated for an Oscar for her performance in the biopic Lenny.  However, her career went south after being featured in one of the all-time worst films, Can't Stop the Music, where she was paired with then-Bruce Jenner as a romantic lead.  It was a stinker of a film, ideally watched in a double feature with the equally awful Xanadu.  Both flops were released in 1980 and have a cult following today among bad film fanatics.

Perrine when young.

Perrine said being featured in that turkey wrecked her career and she had moved to Europe in search of decent parts.  She eventually returned to the U.S. and continued her career  although on a much less prominent note until she couldn't work anymore following her 2011 diagnosis.  Despite having made a lot of money as an actress, every penny she ever saved went for medical expenses.  Souther now has a Go Fund Me to raise money to pay for her final expenses, including burial  so she can be laid to rest at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills.

Hollywood Reporter:

Valerie Ritchie Perrine was born on Sept. 3, 1943, in Galveston, Texas. Her mother, Renee, was a dancer from Scotland, and her father, Kenneth, was a career military man who would retire from the U.S. Army as a lieutenant colonel.

She spent her childhood following her father’s military postings, which took the family to Japan, Paris and many stops in between

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Actor Nicholas Brendan, 54, died over the weekend from natural causes.  He had battled ill health for years.

Snip:

After suffering a heart attack in August 2022, Brendon revealed months later in 2023 that he had been diagnosed with a congenital heart defect.

He also had cauda equina syndrome, which occurs when “an injury or herniated disk compresses nerve roots at the bottom of your spinal cord,” often causing pain, weakness and incontinence, according to the Cleveland Clinic. 

Here’s everything Brendon and his loved ones said about his congenital heart defect and cauda equina syndrome before his death. 

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Life sure as hell isn't fair.

Saturday Reads

 JD Vance continues to brag about his sex life with his wife instead of his rumored couch.

He still looks like a couch potato with a beard and moustache.

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Obituary:  Former FBI head Robert Mueller, who was the sixth director of that agency (thanks to J. Edgar Hoover hogging the job for 48 years (1924-1972) until his death), died yesterday.  He was 81, and while no cause of death was given, he had been dealing with Parkinson's disease for years.

Snip:

Mueller spent much of his adult life in public service. At a time when many young men were trying to avoid serving in Vietnam, Mueller not only volunteered for the U.S. Marines Corps after graduating from Princeton University, but spent a year waiting for an injured knee to heal so he could serve. He was awarded a Purple Heart after being shot while leading a platoon to rescue American soldiers under attack by the Vietcong.

Mueller later earned a law degree from the University of Virginia Law School. He worked as a litigator in San Francisco before serving in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Francisco, then as an assistant U.S. attorney in Boston.

A Few Reads for Friday

Yes, those who voted for him really are that stupid. 

They are just like their cult leader, and they identify with him.

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Obit:  Martial arts icon and actor Chuck Norris, 86, has died.  He just celebrated his birthday ten days ago.

I never saw his films or paid much attention to him, let alone paid much attention at all to his political beliefs.  He was a lightning rod in some quarters.

Snip:

Though a mostly non-verbal tough guy was his go-to role on screen, offscreen he established philanthropies for children and veterans, became a nationally-syndicated health and fitness columnist, got active in Republican politics, and wrote about 10 books including not just martial arts manuals, but two memoirs, two novels, and a conservative activist handbook called Black Belt Patriotism: How to Reawaken America.

At his home in Texas, he continued to work out and train well into his 80s. And though mostly retired in recent years, he was amused to find himself the subject of internet memes, "Chuck Norris Facts" that celebrated his supposed toughness with hyperbole and exaggeration.

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No cause of death was given.  He had been in good shape as recently as his birthday a couple of weeks ago, but he had a sudden hospitalization in Hawaii and died.

Some Thursday Reads

 Lots of people are still in denial about the late Cesar Chavez being a piece of shit rapist.

During his lifetime, he might have been the most politically powerful Latino in the United States and certainly one of the most visible.  It would have been impossible for any woman to have spoken out against him, especially Dolores Huerta, who was every bit as important a figure in organizing farm workers has Chavez.

There should be lessons to be learned from these allegations.

Snip:

It shouldn’t have taken 60 years for these women to be heard. It shouldn’t have taken decades for these women to feel as though their experiences could be validated. We certainly shouldn’t have waited until 30 years past Chavez’s death to learn of their abuse and their trauma—a point at which real justice and accountability are rapidly diminishing prospects. These women have watched as the country has venerated a man they knew to be their abuser and elevated him to the highest annals of our civil rights history. They should never have carried such a terrible burden for so much of their lives.

I can’t think of a single woman in my life who hasn’t been assaulted, manipulated, or groomed by men they’ve trusted. Just this last week, I have read through conversations of women detailing their own assaults, sharing deeply painful memories in an effort to get readers to understand how this culture of violence and manipulation invades every space we walk into. I, myself, have been assaulted by people I thought I could trust on numerous occasions since I turned 18. Just as was the case for Dolores Huerta, two of the assaults I suffered resulted in pregnancies. My most recent assault was in 2022. This happens with startling regularity.

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Wednesday Reads

 Peter Thiel is literally one of the biggest scumbags in the world, if not THE biggest.  Frank Schaeffer, in one of his podcasts, talked about the latest antics this batshit crazy billionaire of Palantir notoriety pulled in Rome.

By the way, Thiel has his degrees, including a law degree, from Stanford University (his Palantir partner in crime, Alex Karp, also has a JD from Stanford).   Not that it confers intellect, for it certainly doesn't in his case.

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Although long dead, Cesar Chavez has taken a beating as of late.  His reputation is probably shot to shit for good.

Dolores Huerta is an unimpeachable source.  Of course, there are many others.

NYT article

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