RIP, “Iconic Swamp King” Claude

I enjoyed reading about Claude now and then; maybe I’m not the only one.

‘Iconic swamp king’: San Francisco’s beloved albino alligator dies aged 30

Claude, the de facto mascot for a local museum, was the subject of a children’s book and regularly received fan mail

Claude, at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, on 24 April 2025. Photograph: Jeff Chiu/AP

Claude, the beloved albino alligator who called the California Academy of Sciences home for the better part of two decades, has died at age 30.

The San Francisco museum announced his death on Tuesday and said that the reptile had in recent weeks received treatment for a “suspected infection”. Claude, with his unusual white scales, had become a sort of mascot for the academy and the city. He was the subject of a children’s book and regularly received fan mail and gifts from around the world, the museum said.

“He brought joy to millions of people at the museum and across the world, his quiet charisma captivating the hearts of fans of all ages,” a statement from the museum read. “Claude showed us the power of ambassador animals to connect people to nature and stoke curiosity to learn more about the world around us.”

In September, the museum celebrated his 30th birthday with a month of festivities in honor of the “iconic swamp king”. (snip-MORE)

Rest In Peace & Power

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, activist since Stonewall, has died

The LGBTQ+ community — and particularly the transgender community — has lost an iconic activist.

Trudy Ring October 13 2025 7:29 PM EST

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a legendary transgender activist who had been in the movement since Stonewall, died Monday at age 78.

Her death was announced by the House of GG—Griffin-Gracy Retreat and Educational Center, which she founded. She died “in the comfort of her home and surrounded by loved ones in Little Rock, Arkansas,” says a statement from the center. “Her enduring legacy is a testament to her resilience, activism, and dedication to creating safe spaces for Black trans communities and all trans people — we are eternally grateful for Miss Major’s life, her contributions and how deeply she poured into those she loved.”

Miss Major had suffered from health problems for some time and had recently begun receiving hospice care.She spent more than 50 years fighting for the “trans, gender-nonconforming, and LGB community — especially for Black trans women, trans women of color and those who have survived incarceration and police brutality,” the statement continues. Major’s fierce commitment and intersectional approach to justice brought her to care directly for people with HIV/AIDS in New York in the early 1980s, and later to drive San Francisco’s first mobile needle exchange. As director of the TGI Justice Project, she’d return to prisons as a mentor to her ‘gurls’ inside.”

She founded House of GG in 2019 as “a space for our community to take a break, swim, enjoy good food, laugh, listen to music, watch movies, and recharge for the ongoing fight for our lives,” the statement goes on. “Miss Major fought tirelessly for her people, her love as vast and enduring as the universe she knew herself to be a part of. She was a world builder, a visionary, and unwavering in her devotion to making freedom possible for Black, trans, formerly and currently incarcerated people as well as the larger trans and LGB community. Because of her, countless new possibilities have been made for all of us to thrive — today and for generations to come. She affirmed that our lives hold meaning and that we stand on the shoulders of giants like her, whose courageous love and relentless fight assured our right to live with dignity. We will forever honor her memory, her steadfast presence, and her enduring commitment to our collective liberation.” (snip-MORE good history and story on the page)

Jane Goodall, the celebrated primatologist and conservationist, has died

(I’m very sorry to read this. -A)

Jane Goodall, the conservationist renowned for her groundbreaking chimpanzee field research and globe-spanning environmental advocacy, has died

By HALLIE GOLDEN – Associated Press Updated 37 minutes ago

Jane Goodall, the conservationist renowned for her groundbreaking chimpanzee field research and globe-spanning environmental advocacy, has died. She was 91.

The Jane Goodall Institute announced the primatologist’s death Wednesday in an Instagram post. According to the Washington, D.C.-based institute, Goodall died of natural causes while in California on a U.S. speaking tour.

Her discoveries “revolutionized science, and she was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world,” it said. (snip-MORE on the page)

https://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/nation-world/jane-goodall-conservationist-renowned-for-chimpanzee-research-and-environmental-advocacy-has-died/2BQI7LDKS5L3NHS3GEH6X5M624/#

I Don’t Mean This In A Rude Way, But I Thought He Was, Already. I Learn New Things Every Day. RIP.

Evangelical Sex Scandal Pioneer Jimmy Swaggart Is Dead by Rebecca Schoenkopf

God murdered him, and he died. Read on Substack

Televangelist Jimmy Swaggart is dead at the age of 90.

He was a man of many contradictions and continuity errors. He was a fiery televangelist who had a whole lot to say about other people’s sex lives and immorality, but who also famously enjoyed the occasional lady of the evening.

Swaggart surely served as a role model and inspiration to many future evangelical preachers, like Ted Haggard, Jerry Falwell Jr., Tony Alamo, Douglas Goodman, and so, so many others others who would go on to follow in his very holy/pervy footsteps.

In 1988 — not long after he had publicly dragged his fellow televangelist Jim Bakker for having used church funds to pay $279,000 in hush money to his former secretary Jessica Hahn after he raped her, committing multiple acts of fraud for which he was later imprisoned, as well as for owning a waterpark — a rival evangelist of Swaggart’s sold photos of him going to a motel with a sex worker, after Swaggart refused to stop accusing him of being an adulterer. That picture you see above is from his very famous apology. (snip-MORE, with a trigger warning regarding disturbing info)

Tribute

Highwaymen …

Yesterday I was reading about somebody else in the Guardian, and saw Kris Kristofferson’s name with “was” next to it, so I knew then. I preferred his talent in movies, but can easily tolerate the music.

Effortless skill, mixed salads and a certain impatience with life: Michael Palin remembers Maggie Smith

Smith’s costar in two 80s comedies shares his memories of an actor blessed with an instinctive grasp of her craft

(I’ve been an admirer and fan of Maggie Smith since the first time I watched “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.” It was on TV when I was 11, and she [well, Jean Brodie,] was who I wanted to be. I still feel the same way, and Michael Palin’s closing sentence fits perfectly.)

Maggie Smith and Michael Palin

‘Some of the happiest times of my life’… Smith and Palin in A Very Private Function. Photograph: Handmade Films/Allstar

To work with Maggie Smith, as I did in The Missionary and A Private Function, was to be in the presence of pure acting gold. Maggie was so skilful and intuitive. She could portray the maximum of emotion with the minimum of effort. Nothing was ever wasted with Maggie.

The slightest glance could contain so much information, the smallest gesture be loaded with such significance that you had to be absolutely on your toes to stay with her. The two films we made together were comedies, and Maggie’s impeccable comic timing was an absolute joy to watch and a privilege to be part of.

Michael Palin and Maggie Smith in A Private Function. Photograph: Photo 12/Alamy

Her wit was sharp and always icily well-targeted. I remember having a meal with her and Alan Bennett at a rather smart Yorkshire restaurant during the filming of A Private Function, when I discovered a piece of glass in my mixed salad. No great fuss was made. To the manager, Maggie simply described it as “a very mixed salad”.

Maggie made it look so easy and yet I always felt that there was something else there. Something held back. An impatience with life. To be blessed with such an instinctive, effortless understanding of what acting was all about made her dismissive of anything she saw as dull and uninspired. She didn’t suffer fools.

She always maintained that the part of the process she liked most was the rehearsal. The working out of how to make the whole thing the best it could be. Once you’d got that right, then the rest of it was easy and, as she intimated, rather less fun.

I rate our work together as some of the happiest times of my life. I shall mourn her passing most sadly, but remember her most gladly.

I’m very sorry to read this, too.

James Earl Jones, acclaimed actor and voice of Darth Vader, dies at 93

By MARK KENNEDY Updated 8:03 PM CDT, September 9, 2024

NEW YORK (AP) — James Earl Jones, who overcame racial prejudice and a severe stutter to become a celebrated icon of stage and screen — eventually lending his deep, commanding voice to CNN, “The Lion King” and Darth Vader — has died. He was 93.

His agent, Barry McPherson, confirmed Jones died Monday morning at home in New York’s Hudson Valley region. The cause was not immediately clear.

The pioneering Jones, who in 1965 became one of the first African American actors in a continuing role on a daytime drama (“As the World Turns”) and worked deep into his 80s, won two Emmys, a Golden Globe, two Tony Awards, a Grammy, the National Medal of Arts and the Kennedy Center Honors. He was also given an honorary Oscar and a special Tony for lifetime achievement. In 2022, a Broadway theater was renamed in his honor.

He cut an elegant figure late in life, with a wry sense of humor and a ferocious work habit. In 2015, he arrived at rehearsals for a Broadway run of “The Gin Game” having already memorized the play and with notebooks filled with comments from the creative team. He said he was always in service of the work. (snip-MORE)

https://apnews.com/article/james-earl-jones-dies-19ea259ff3f44b91b2ed8730b702c23f?utm_source=copy&utm_medium=share

I’m sorry to read this

Maybe others here enjoyed Sergio Mendes’s talent, too.

Sérgio Mendes, Brazilian Bossa Nova Musician, Dies of Long Covid at 83

The two time Grammy winner died on Thursday, Sept. 5, in a Los Angeles hospital

By Charna Flam Published on September 6, 2024 06:40 PM EDT

Kendall Jenner’s Most Stylish MomentsClose

Sergio Mendes arrives for red carpet arrivals to the Women's Guild Cedars-Sinai Women's Guild Cedars-Sinai60th Anniversary Diamond Jubilee Gala held at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on May 3, 2018 — Sérgio Mendes in Beverly Hills in May 2018. Photo: Chrissy Hampton/Getty

Sérgio Mendes, the Brazilian-born musician who brought bossa nova music to a global audience in the 1960s, died on Thursday, Sept. 5, in a Los Angeles hospital. He was 83.

The renowned musician’s family announced his death in a statement on his social media channels. His family said that his death was caused by effects of long Covid.

“His wife and musical partner for the past 54 years, Gracinha Leporace Mendes, was by his side, as were his loving children,” the statement read. “Mendes last performed in November 2023 to sold out and wildly enthusiastic houses in Paris, London and Barcelona.”

Throughout his six-decade career, Mendes recorded more than 35 albums, but he is best known for popularizing Brazilian music on a global stage beginning in the 1960s, starting with his composition of “Mas Que Nada.”

“It was completely different from anything, and definitely completely different from rock ’n’ roll,” the Latin music scholar Leila Cobo said in the 2020 HBO documentary Sergio Mendes in the Key of Joy. “But that speaks to how certain Sérgio was of that sound. He didn’t try to imitate what was going on.” (snip-MORE)

https://people.com/sergio-mendes-dead-age-83-long-covid-8708012

Phil Donahue, the pioneering host of long-running daytime talk show ‘Donahue,’ dies at 88

This was published yesterday. I wanted to post it though, because my recollection of watching Donohue any chance I got, for years, was that he always treated his guests, on stage and in the audience, like human beings equal to him. I saw more than one very empathetic show about trans people, about gay people, about women in various situations solely because they were women, about so many who were marginalized during the years Phil Donahue was on TV. His show, along with Oprah’s, never got into the reality show circuses that those who came behind them went with (no disrespect to Jerry Springer, who started out like Donohue, but bowed to pressure.) Anyway, here is this; Godspeed, Mr. Donahue.

https://www.latimes.com/obituaries/story/2024-08-19/phil-donahue-dead-talk-show-host

By Dawn Burkes and Alexandra Del Rosario

Aug. 19, 2024 Updated 11:33 AM PT

Phil Donahue earned praise for his “insatiably curious and accepting” nature and his ability to hold a “mirror up to America” when he received the Medal of Freedom from President Biden in May.

The groundbreaking daytime talk show host reinvented the relationship between TV hosts and their audiences, opening the medium up to genuine conversations about race, religion, reproductive healthcare and scores of other hot topics over more than 6,000 episodes.

“He saw every guest as worthy of interest and worked to build understanding, bringing us to see each other not as enemies but as fellow Americans,” a White House announcer said of Donahue in May.

Donahue died Sunday “peacefully after a long illness,” his family said in a statement to The Times. He was 88. NBC’s “Today,” where he was a contributor, broke the news of the host’s death. (snip-More on the page linked above)