Obituaries

[Mongrel]

:(

[Thad]

Gene LeBell, Famed Stuntman and “Godfather of Grappling,” Dies at 89

Gene LeBell, the colorful judo champion, wrestler and stuntman who trained Bruce Lee, fought Elvis Presley and John Wayne in the movies and was an inspiration for Brad Pitt’s character in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, has died. He was 89.

LeBell died in his sleep early Tuesday morning at his home in Sherman Oaks, his trustee and business manager, Kellie Cunningham, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Affectionately known as the “Godfather of Grappling” and “Judo” Gene LeBell, he was a two-time AAU national judo champion early in his career. Later, he taught his masterful submission techniques to Lee, Chuck Norris, pro wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, MMA fighter Ronda Rousey and many, many others.

(links and italics not included in copy-paste)

[Mongrel]

Wow, that's a hell of a student list.

And now I miss Roddy Piper again.

[Thad]

Wow, that's a hell of a student list.

He also once choked Steven Seagal until he passed out and shit himself.

A true American hero.

[Mongrel]

A true American hero.

holy shit

Sir, wherever you are, thank you for your service.

[Büge]

Anne Heche.

[Niku]

i almost feel bad about the simpsons meme i made a couple of days ago

almost

[Friday]

Man, reading her wikipedia article is one hell of a trip

I do enjoy that the reasoning behind her being a liar about her dad is that she's trashy and mentally unstable

So the reason you don't believe that she was raped by her dad nonstop from ages 1-12 is that she's damaged goods and mentally unstable?

cool, cool cool cool cool cool cool cool

well let's look at the other person who says it didn't happen, her mom

okay her mom is a christian homophobe gay conversion therapy person

cool, cool cool cool cool cool cool cool

[Büge]

Wolfgang Petersen.

[Thad]

Gorbachev.

[Mongrel]

Kidding aside, you have to feel for the guy. He was an intelligent and extremely moral man, he tried his best and failed.

He wasn't stupid, he knew what was coming. He had variously described Russia as having "A slave mentality" and suffering a form of national "PTSD, which would eventually extinguish the spirit", and didn't mean them as insults, but as real descriptions of the problem he was trying to wrestle with while still Chairman. It was an error of degree, not choice.

I know things have become so ugly in Russia, and he bore an enormous amount of guilt and regret for decades. There should be no shame in an honest failure, but it was after all, one of the most spectacular failures in modern times; he never did and never was going to forgive himself.

In spite of that, I hope it was at least of some minimal comfort to him that millions and millions of people in central and eastern Europe largely owe their peaceful freedom to his refusal to use military force, that not everything he did was in vain or had no lasting positive consequences.

[Friday]

Yeah, realizing that the way my schools taught it (Reagan as the holy savior, Gorbachev as the evil communist Satan) was actually not only not true but sort of backwards (Gorbachev wasn't a holy savior exactly, but he wasn't all bad, and Reagan... uh... okay yeah Reagan was an evil capitalist Satan) was my first real glimpse of how big the lie of the Amercian School Narrative really was and is.

Columbus is of course probably the most well known example. That and "lol we totally won Vietnam!!!!!!!!!"

[Friday]

This is actually a thing that has always interested me. I'd love to sit down with people from every country in the world for like a week and just learn how their versions of history differ. I'm not specifically talking about how nations will naturally focus on their own involvement in global events (for example, in NZ, Australia and Turkey the Gallipoli campaign is a huge, huge deal, and I'd be willing to bet 1000 dollars that 9 out of 10 Americans have no idea what it even was) but actually just how different schools teach different versions of the same event.

For a random example, I remember when my teacher was talking about the first shot of the American revolution. She said "nobody knows which side shot first." I immediately quipped "oh, so we did then."

This annoyed my teacher a lot, but I've always wondered if in British schools they just teach that the Americans shot first because I mean, come on.

How does the Japanese school system teach WW1 and WW2? The Germans? Spain? Russia? What about smaller island nations that had no or very limited involvement in these affairs? I'm very very interested in that kind of shit. Hell, even learning how Canadians teach the French and Indian War would be interesting.

Of course, in the end, I just assume every single country is full of self-bias shit to a lesser or greater degree (and I absolutely assume America is one of the greaters) but it's still very fascinating to me.

[Thad]

I don't think we even got to Reagan and Gorbachev in my history classes. Seems like we stopped somewhere around Nixon's resignation.

The sense I got from the folks what raised me was pretty pro-Gorbachev and anti-Reagan. I think "Ronald Reagan is a fucking asshole" may have been my brother's first complete sentence.

[Friday]

I used to just think of Reagan as a fucking braindead idiot with incredibly stupid financial and tax policies, but after listening/watching this series as well as reading the article about his racist phonecall with Nixon, I have come to realize how truly and absolutely despicable he really was.

[Mongrel]

For a random example, I remember when my teacher was talking about the first shot of the American revolution. She said "nobody knows which side shot first." I immediately quipped "oh, so we did then."

The funniest thing about this is like, it's supposed to be an armed revolution against tyranny ("tyranny"). It's perfectly normal and moral to fire the first shot in that circumstance.

Yeah, we can talk about it actually just being a bunch of upper-middle class land & slave owners not wanting to pay taxes or face the looming end of slavery, or be held back in their desire to conquer indigenous land (not the British didn't sell them down the river anyway in 1814).

But, y'know, no taxation without representation is still a fair principle to stand on, and I don't expect "Baby's First American History" lessons in American classrooms are going to go that deep into that gritty stuff anytime soon, so you'd think American classrooms would be perfectly okay with Han(cock) Shot First.

[Thad]

I used to just think of Reagan as a fucking braindead idiot with incredibly stupid financial and tax policies, but after listening/watching this series as well as reading the article about his racist phonecall with Nixon, I have come to realize how truly and absolutely despicable he really was.

People quote "ketchup is a vegetable" like it was funny and charming instead of, you know, an actual justification provided by the President of the United States for not giving poor children access to nutrition.

[Mongrel]

Huh. Just yesterday but with nothing to do with this, Starr and I were actually talking about the details of how the food stamps program, sales tax exemptions on groceries, reduction in school funding, and Reagan all combined to produce that absurdity.

[Büge]

okay yeah Reagan was an evil capitalist Satan

Ayatollah Khamenei was right

[Mongrel]

*coughs*

Maybe if we're just talking in the sense that a broken clock can be right, sure.