Favorite obits of the week
A New York Times obituary of Seymour Fromer, a collector of one of the largest collections of Judaica in North America, including archives documenting the history of Jews in the American West. Kind of interesting.
My favorite obits this week were of anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. He was terribly influential as a thinker, and leading proponent of structuralism. Practically every high-quality obituary page ran something on him, and this is just one sample from the Guardian.
This is cool article about the history of hula and one of the great hula masters, George Na’Ope.
I enjoyed this Wall Street Journal obituary of Qian Xuesen, a brilliant Chinese man who studied in the United States and became a leading rocket scientist, only to be forced back to China on fears that he was a spy. He went on to a distinguished career in China and received uncommon protection from Mao’s government. A quote by an anaylst, “[Xuesen] was Joe McCarthy’s present to the Chinese,” captures the irony of this interesting story.
Mr. Qian is one of the most respectable scientists in China and probably in the world. His contribution to modern China is far beyond words. I was really sad when I heard of his death — so did the whole nation. I found that there are several memorial pages honoring him on social networking sites after his death, on which I read even more stories about him. I read two print obituaries about him on both the Wall Street Journal and Chicago Tribune. I prefer the WSJ one because it gives more detailed information about Mr. Qian’s dramatic life, especially about how he was arrested and expelled from the States by unsubstantiated accusation and his further contribution to Chinese missile programs. It’s a dramatic, ironic and interesting story.
Lou Filippo was a renowned referee and fighter in the world of boxing who also appeared in five of the Rocky movies. Filippo, who judged 85 world championship fights, presided over the famous ‘Sugar’ Ray Leonard – ‘Marvelous’ Marvin Hagler split decision in 1987.