Wednesday Reads

It is really bullshit, especially with regard to children.  Shriver will be no-platformed for the rest of her life.

No that was not her given name.  Her given name is Margaret Ann Shriver.  I guess that makes me guilty of "deadnaming."
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Obituary:  Actor Ken Kercheval, 83, died the other day.  He is known as one of the two actors--the other Larry Hagman--who stayed with the series Dallas from beginning to end.  He went even further and was in the 2012 reboot, which is very good, by the way, and appeared throughout that show  (Hagman died before the series ended).

Kercheval had lung cancer back in the early 1990s, with part of one lung removed.  He recovered and continued with his career.


After a stint at the University of Indiana, Kercheval began training as an actor in the mid-1950s at The Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City, making his Broadway debut in the 1962 play "Something About a Soldier." Multiple theater roles followed, including in "Cabaret" and, in 1966, as the title character in the original Broadway production of "Fiddler on the Roof."

His first TV roles were in soap operas such as "Search for Tomorrow," "The Secret Storm" and "How to Survive a Marriage." His film credits included "The Seven-Ups" with Roy Scheider plus "F.I.S.T." with Sylvester Stallone.

After "Dallas," Kercheval appeared in numerous other TV series, including "Kojak," "Starsky & Hutch," "L.A. Law," "Crossing Jordan," and "ER." In the 1980s, he appeared on the game shows "Super Password" and "The $25,000 Pyramid." In the 2000s, he appeared in multiple community theater productions.

An Indiana native, he lived there in his final years.
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Obituary:  Actress Fat McKenzie, known for her roles co-starring with Gene Autry, has died.  She died at the premature age of 101:


Ms. McKenzie made her screen debut in 1918, when she was 10 weeks old, cradled in Gloria Swanson’s arms in “Station Content,” a five-reel silent romance. Her last role was a cameo appearance with her son, Tom Waldman Jr., in “Kill a Better Mousetrap,” a comedy, based on a play by Scott K. Ratner, that was filmed last summer and has yet to be released.

In between, she appeared in five movies for the director Blake Edwards (in one instance playing the hostess of the title bacchanal in “The Party,” a 1968 madcap comedy written by her husband, Tom Waldman, and starring Peter Sellers); co-starred with Don Barry in “Remember Pearl Harbor” in 1942; and was cast in dozens of B-movies, revues and Broadway productions.

Despite her precocious start in motion pictures, she said she was discovered, in the Hollywood vernacular, only in 1941, when Herbert J. Yates, the president of Republic Pictures, spotted her in a bathing suit poolside at the home of her brother-in-law Billy Gilbert, the comedian renowned for his spasmodic sneezes.
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A white supremacist bit the dust in Texas tonight.

Given how few executions are performed in the United States anymore--I believe fewer than 25 per year--the death penalty should bite the dust as well.
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