those are people who died, died

sure, people die all the time. every day. every week (I was astounded by the percentage of Italian-American deaths reported in the obit section of the Star-Ledger while in New Jersey for Thanksgiving). but for some reason this past week it seemed the tenor changed.

the recently deceased include Henry Hyde, long-time Illinois Republican and anti-abortion activist who led the House of Representatives' impeachment fight against Bill Clinton (Hyde was later discovered to have carried on at least one long-term (five years) affair while both he and his mistress, Carrie Snodgrass, a mother of three, were married when Hyde was in his 40s (see above). after discovery, Hyde termed the affair a "youthful indiscretion." I haven't seen mention of the rather ironic infidelity in any of the Hyde obituaries),

Evel Knievel, macho daredevil (does it mean anything that Mailer (see earlier entry) and Knievel are both now gone? who, pray tell, will carry the banner of the antiquated onward?) who once attacked writer and promoter Shelly Saltman with a baseball bat (while two of Knievel's associates bravely held Saltman down), shattering Saltman's left arm and wrist, and bringing about a still unpaid multi-million dollar judgement against EK,

Washington Redskins Pro Bowl safety Sean Taylor,

Ralph Beard, a member of Kentucky’s national championship basketball teams in 1948 and 1949 who later pled guilty in a point-shaving scandal that resulted in his being barred for life from the NBA,

Roger Smith, chairman and chief executive of General Motors (made famous to the general public by Michael Moore's first film Roger & Me),

Bobby Van (born Robert Craig Van Velsor), famed pianist and New York City restaurateur,

former Cleveland Browns two-way player Bill Willis who was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1977,

Quiet Riot lead singer Kevin DuBrow (at age 52) and

J. Robert Cade, nephrologist (I had to look that one up) and inventor of Gatorade.

possibly even more tragic, on par with the shooting of Sean Taylor, were last weekend's announced deaths of Joe Kennedy, 28-year-old major league pitcher who last season played for the Athletics, Diamondbacks and Blue Jays, and Casey Calvert, 26-year-old guitarist and vocalist for Dayton, Ohio's emo band Hawthorne Heights (we saw them open up for Fall Out Boy at the Dayton Arena (kind of like a minor league hockey facility) a couple of years ago.
the causes of death for both Kennedy and Calvert have yet to be determined.

r.i.p all.