Good Bye Roger Ebert!

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I was deeply saddened to read that Roger Ebert passed away.  For me Rogert Ebert will always be half of the movie critic duo of Siskel and Ebert (they are pictured together at the top of this post). I used to watch their weekly movie review show to see what they thought of the new movies and often used their reviews in deciding if I wanted to go see a movie or not (like lots of other people I might add).  Their show was a big part of my life.

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I think what originally drew me in was my love for movies.  I've often thought that it would be great to be able to make a living by being a film critic, so it is only natural that I would enjoy watching these two do their show.  For me Roger seemed more down to earth that Gene.  Gene often appeared very snobbish for my taste, but the two of them together did what I thought movie critcs should do.  They told us what they thought of the movies they reviewed and between the two of them you could get a good idea of if a movie was worth seeing.

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Time when by and Gene Siskel died and he was replaced by another film critic. I had stopped watching the show at this point and not long afterwards I moved to Germany so I wasn't aware of all that Roger Ebert with through in the past decade, so I was really surprised when I read the accounts of Roger Ebert after he died!  He had quite a battle with cancer and as a result part of his jaw was removed and long story short he lost the ability to eat, drink, and speak and even needed a feed tube at one point. He turned to a series of computer voices in order to speak, this eventually included a copy of his own voice derived from his own DVD commentaries! The picture above is a caricature of Roger Ebert drawn sometime after the problems with his throat.

I was surprised to learn that Roger Ebert was largely responsible for convincing Oprah Winfrey to sysndicate  her show, would Oprah have been nearly as popular if she hadn't listened to his suggesion to go into syndication? Good Morning American had a nice interview with Chaz Ebert, Roger's wife, there is a video in the article but I'm not able to view it from Germany.  It sounds like they had quite a life together.    

Even though his show didn't hold the same priority and place in my heart as it did when I was younger, I really miss the show that he and Siskel used to do. I admire his attempts to continue and carry on after his health initially became an issue.  I wonder what it must have been like to fight the battle he fought with his voice. Losing his partner to cancer earlier, I'm sure that he often had doubts if he would be able to keep fighting. I wonder how many movie critic were influenced by Siskel and Ebert? Whenever I think of thumbs up, I'll always think of you and Gene Siskel. I hope that you get to meet all the stars that passed away before you. Imagine the movies they could be making now.


Photo credits: "Siskel & Ebert" picture from Roger Ebert's timeline on Facebook. Roger Ebert giving Thumbs up picture courtesy of the IMDb. The caricature of Roger Ebert is from kaganmcleod.com. All of the pictures above have been re-pinned to my Gone But Not Forgotten board on Pinterest.

 You might want to also want to check out...

• The ABC story about Roger Ebert
• Roger Ebert Through the Years (a nice slide presentation showing him through the years).
• Wikipedia Entry on Roger Ebert
• Wikipedia Entry on Gene Siskel
• Roger Ebert Defends 'Star Wars' (Roger and Gene face-off on Night-Line against a critic that is definitely not a Star Wars fan).

Hello Pope Francis!

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Goodbye Cardinal Bergoglio, Hello Pope Francis! The world welcomes you open arms as the new pope. You are taking leadership of the Catholic world at a time of great turmoil and challenge.  You have a honeymoon phase with your new position where the world is waiting to learn about you and people are willing to listen to what you have to say and hear you out.  There is a new hope with a new pope and we all are crossing our fingers that you'll be able to live up to our expectations and help to lead us forward.

I truly hope that you're able to bring the Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and all the religions of the world together, and that you'll be able to find some common ground by which you can build an effective coalition of the world's religious peoples.  There is so much division in the religious worlds at the moment and we desperately need to find a common ground, to find new ways to work together, and to lift each other up.  As the Pope, you have some influence here, I hope that you'll use it to these means.. 

I hope that you're able to get the atheists and agnostics of the world to join you on a different common ground.  That you can use the realization that we're all people and that our humanity should bind us together, to lift up our weaker brothers, sisters, and children that need our help.

I hope that you're able to bring together the states and nations of the world.  There are lots of politicians that have become corrupt over the years and are no longer looking after the needs of the people, they're only looking after the needs of special interests and those that are able to pay for their time and attention, or the various political systems have been broken and world leaders aree unable to manage in the mess we have today.  I hope that you're able to get warring parties to come to the table and negotiate, so that we can end all the useless bloodshed and conflict.

I hope that you're able to inspire and motivate the wealthy people and corporations of the world to realize that they have obligations to society and that life is not only about making money.  I hope that you're able to inspire them to feed the poor, to create lots of  jobs that pay a living wage so that employees can support their families and have a decent life.  I hope that you're able to convince the wealthy and the corporations that the world has limited resources that need to be shared equitably and that polluting and destroying our world for short-term profit is not in the best interest of the human and animal populations on our planet.

I hope that you're able to bring the Catholic church up to date while preserving the best of Catholic traditions and customs.  Please do a review of all major policies, and where the church needs to come out of the dark ages, shine your light and help them to move forward.  There are lots of Catholics who really want to be a part of the church again but many of the church's dogma, teachings, and policies are out dated, and they exclude many who would like to be a part of the church. 

I hope that you're able to lift the poor out of poverty, that you're able to help them break the cycle of poverty that only seems to pull in more and more people. I hope that you're able to inspire the uninspired to do wonderful things with their lives.

I hope that we're able to look back in 5 or 10 years and see your time as Pope as a real breakthrough, one that the world has been waiting for. I wish you all the best.

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September 11th- 11 Years Later

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Today is the 11th Anniversary of September 11th.  I hope that you'll take a few moments to think about the 2996 victims, their families, friends, colleagues, and others that their lives have effected.  It is through my desire to honor the victims that I found (and lots of other people too) discovered Project 2996. I've been honored to kick off and participate in a special project with Project 2996 in honor of the 11th Anniversary.



Every year I try to do something a little different to honor the memory of September 11th.  This year I started a campaign to have all of the victims remembered via a photo and description appearing as a 'pin' in a group board at Pinterest. I've been doing a lot of things with Pinterest in the past few months and I thought that having a group board on Pinterest where others could 'pin' the victims would be a great way visual way for all of us to remember that all 2996 of the victims were people and not just some clincial statistic rattled off in the course of some vaguely related toppic. Below is a screenshot that I captured yesterday and posted in an article at the Project 2996 website that gives you a little taste of what the board looks like, but as the case with pictures, you just can't capture the totality of it.  It is definately something that you have to see for yourself.  You also need to take the time to scroll through all of the pins. 

Project 2996 is largely responsible for over 1700 online tributes to the victims of September 11th.  Many of the people that have participated, have blogs and write about a wide variety of topics and have a wide variety of interests and persnalities (much like the victims that we honor).  In many cases, if it weren't for Project 2996 we would not hang out in the same circles.  I really like being part of something bigger than myself and knowing that all of us together can do so much more together than we could all by ourselves.  There is certainly room for more people to join us as there are currently around 1300 victims still needing a 'real' tribute by a 'real' person.

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 David W Laychak is the first person that I wrote a tribute about, he was my first real dive into Project 2996.  I had the pleasure of having and email exchange with his sister and his wife wrote a nice comment after one of the tributes that I wrote for him.  Like so many other things in life, the first time we do it is something special.  Although I never met David or his family, somehow he is part of my life and not someone I will ever forget.  I'm really proud of the tribute that I wrote for David for the 7th Anniversary of September 11th.

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Keith Roma was the 2nd person that I found via Project 2996.  I decided that I wanted to expand my tributes and thought that I'd like to write about some of the firefighters.  Of the 5 people that I wrote about for the 8th Anniversary of September 11th, I spent the most time researching him. I was immediately drawn to him when I saw a picture of him with his daughter.  I discovered that there had been some controversy about including him in the list of the FDNY September 11th victims because although he was part of the the New York Fire Patrol, he was not "officially" part of the FDNY.  

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Christopher Santora was also part of the 5 firefighters that I wrote about for the 8th Anniversary of September 11th. I was drawn to him initially because of his age, at 23 he was one of the youngest firefighters to die.  He was a substitute teacher before following in his father's footsteps and becoming a firefighter. “P.S. Q222 - Fire Fighter Christopher A. Santora School” is named after him and was even attended by his nephew.

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Joseph P. Henry was also part of the 5 firefighters that I wrote about for the 8th Anniversary of September 11th. I was drawn to him after reading that a woman he had saved had promised to name her first born son after Joseph. He had only been with Ladder 21 eleven months before September 11th. “Firefighter Joseph Patrick Henry Lane” in Brooklyn is named after him. While doing research for Joseph, I discovered a nice tribute that had been done by Jen. 

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 Karl Henri Joseph was also part of the 5 firefighters that I wrote about for the 8th Anniversary of September 11th.  He was an EMT. Like so many other Americans, Karl and his family came to America from somewhere else, they came from Hati and although he loved Hati, America was his home. In doing my research fro Karl, I found a nice tribute from Tuxedo Cat Grandma. 

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Dana Hannon was also part of the 5 firefighters that I wrote about for the 8th Anniversary of September 11th. Dana started out as a volunteer firefighter, making his way to Captain before joining the FDNY.  He proposed to his then girlfriend on top of the Sidney Harbor Bridge.  While researching Dana, I found that Danielle at Stupid Trivia wrote A TRIBUTE TO DANA HANNON,


I feel that my life had been enriched by getting to know my 6 victims.  While there family and friends will never forget them, they have touched my and I can't help but feel that I'm a better person because of it. If you're family, friend of any of these wonderful people, I'd love to hear your memories, please leave a comment below.  I hope that you'll take some time to think about the victims of September 11th and that you'll check out the Project 2996 board at Pinterest.  Maybe you can join in and help us create a pin for all of the victims.  Maybe you write a tribute for one of the nearly 1700 people that we need tributes for.  

Darryl