A Few Reads for Friday

 The Christian reconstructionists are all about vengeance.  They can't stand it the vast majority of people don't subscribe to their crackpot beliefs.

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Obituary: Noted soul singer Jerry Butler, 85, who had hits like "Only the Strong Survive, has died.  He also had a career in politics.  Butler had had Parkinson's disease for some time.

Snip:

Born to a poor family in Mississippi and then raised in Chicago, Butler originally trained to be a chef – “Jerry could cook like somebody’s mama,” Smokey Robinson later said – but became an influential and versatile musician who came of age as soul music evolved out of doo-wop and mid-century pop.

He brought his gospel music background to bear on one of his earliest songs, For Your Precious Love – named as one of the 500 greatest of all time by Rolling Stone in 2004 – which he wrote and then performed with his group Jerry Butler and the Impressions, taking it to No 11 in the US charts in 1958.

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Later on, he spent many years in Cook County, Illinois, politics. __________________________________

Speaking of politics, I will also note the death of former Oklahoma senator, governor, and University of Oklahoma president David Boren,  He died at the age of 83.

Boren was born in Washington, D.C., on April 21, 1941, to former U.S. Rep. Lyle H. Boren, a Democrat from Oklahoma, and Christine McKown Boren.

He attended grade school in Seminole, Oklahoma, and Bethesda, Maryland, before earning a bachelor’s degree from Yale University in 1963. He majored in American history.

Boren received his master’s degree in philosophy, politics and economics in 1965 at Oxford University in England, where he was a Rhodes scholar.

In 1968, Boren graduated from the University of Oklahoma College of Law. He was named outstanding graduate in his class by the law school faculty.

He began his decades-long political career in the Oklahoma House of Representatives, where he served from 1966 to 1974.

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