Deaths in the news

Just saw on Yahoo that J. D. Salinger has died at the age of 91. Famous for his writing, especially for "Catcher in the Rye", he later became infamous for hiding out from the world. Basically, I think it got to the point where he hated his fellow human beings. He refused to give interviews, and more than once went to court to block publications that were "unauthorized" by him. Makes one wonder what will happen now that he's not here to block people. Bet he'll be spinning in his grave. Did anyone actually like CITR? All I can remember about it were the "dirty" words :-)

Louis Auchincloss also passed on - he was 92. He died Tuesday after a stroke. He wrote all sorts of stuff in both fiction and nonfiction. I've never read anything by him, but I know his name.

Howard Zinn also died, at the age of 87. He wrote the leftist "A People's History of the United States". The book was taught in high schools and colleges. Very progressive at the time, because it was extremely left-wing, claiming that Christopher Columbus and fellow explorers were guilty of genocide, blasting presidents, and celebrating workers and feminists. I can't for the life of me remember if we had this book in my school system. Probably not - my little home town was very conservative. I imagine there would have been quite the uproar if they'd taught from that text!

And finally, to all the fans of the movie "Poltergeist", join me in a moment of silence for Zelda Rubinstein. Yep, our pint-sized psychic has died at the age of 76. She was the one who kept yelling about "go into the light", and let me tell ya - I found it creepy the way she called out to Carol Anne. But that's just me. She'd recently had a heart attack. Even if you don't know who she is, I bet you'd recognize her voice. I loved her as the sloshed organist in "16 Candles", the one who played at Molly Ringwald's sister's wedding. She was so funny in that!

2010 is not off to a good start, friends. January isn't over yet, and we've had several deaths already. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come...