Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader was saddened, but somehow not surprised, to learn today that George Carlin had passed. Your Maximum Leader ran hot and cold on Carlin. Some of his stuff got a little too political for me to find really funny. But then there were other bits that really worked (like “your shit” and “my stuff”). And of course there is always… Seven words…

RIP.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader would normally be watching “Meet the Press” right now. But today he is sitting at his computer thinking about Tim Russert.

Your Maximum Leader has watched MTP for ages. At least since the late 80s - just before Russert became host. In recent years he didn’t always watch MTP, but downloaded the audio podcast and listened to the program. One way or another it was “can’t miss TV.”

Your Maxmium Leader must admit that he is getting a little worn down by the remembrances, celebrations, and eulogies all over the news channels for Tim Russert. It is not that he is getting tired of Russert; but that he is getting tired of the maudlin recitations of the same story being replayed over and over. In a way it is ironic that in remembering Tim Russert his collegues are becoming boring - the one thing Russert never was. At 2:00am on Election Night in 2000 when there was nothing new to report, Tim Russert was still making interesting commentary.

There is very little I can add to the ever lengthening list of tributes you will see on TV and read online. I am deeply saddened by Tim Russert’s passing. I mourn as someone who felt that Tim Russert helped me be a better citizen because he helped to keep me more informed. I mourn as someone who could observe the love that Russert had for his family - a family now bereft of his presence. I mourn because a town that is filled with phony people, egomaniacs, and sometimes loathesome characters has lost a genuine man.

God bless you Tim Russert. May you rest in peace.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees on NRO that William F Buckley Jr has died. Your Maximum Leader is genuinely saddened. He’ll have to think of more fitting words to mark this passing than just a few hasty jottings…

Your Maximum Leader will say a prayer for him.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader notices that two things died today… Fred Thompson’s presidential campaign and Heath Ledger.

Okay… That was sorta tasteless…

But it was amusing…

Admit it.

Your Maximum Leader has been saying for a little while now that Fred Thompson’s campaign was toasted. He had said that a strong, but not winning, showing in South Carolina might keep Fred going for a while. But, Fred didn’t do well in South Carolina and thus, dropped out of the race. Your Maximum Leader is not really sad about this. He had resolved himself, a while ago, that Fred wasn’t going to win the nomination. Politically speaking, Fred Thompson was probably as good a candidate as your Maxmium Leader could hope to see in this cycle. But, Fred didn’t have the fire in the belly to run. As your Maximum Leader noted before, not having the fire in the belly might in an earlier time have been an attribute. At any rate, Fred is done. He can now go back to his young wife and daughter and making TV shows.

Your Maximum Leader believes the Republican race is effectively down to McCain and Romney. If your Maximum Leader had to choose between those two, he would choose McCain. Romney just doesn’t do anything for your Maximum Leader. If your Maximum Leader had to lay a wager on the eventual Republican nominee he would choose Romney. He would make that bet solely because Romney can self-finance if he wants.

Your Maximum Leader wonders if the current cash crunch that so many candidates are experiencing is because of the protracted run-up to the primary race. These candidates have been raising money for ages already. They have been spending money for ages. Now, due in part to campaign finance laws, they can’t go back to the same big donors they have already tapped. (This probably hurts Hillary Clinton more than any other Democrat by the way.) People are tired of giving. They are tired of being asked. They are probably just tired of the campaigning.

And to close out your Maximum Leader’s tasteless opening…

Heath Ledger has died. He was 28. Apparently he died of a drug overdose in his New York apartment. Your Maximum Leader really enjoyed “A Knight’s Tale.” He thought that “Brokeback Mountain” was well done, even if the subject matter didn’t really appeal to him. He thought “The Patriot” was positively awful. And as far as your Maximum Leader can tell, those are the only three Ledger films he’s seen. There probably are more, but he can’t think of them now.

It is sad that a man with so much promise should die so young. But if he OD’ed, that is his own fault and your Maximum Leader is much less remorseful. Your Maximum Leader wonders if Heath Ledger will become a sort of James Dean type icon for a new age. He sort of doubts it. But anything is possible.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is sad this morning. He is, in fact, doubly sad.

First, his beloved Green Bay Packers just colapsed yesterday night on the Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field. By the middle of the third quarter (around the time Smallholder called your Maximum Leader to discuss the game) your Maximum Leader was beginning to think that the Packers were beginning to unravel. By the middle of the fourth quarter your Maximum Leader was beginning to believe that the Giants were going to win. He had already started to think to himself that “there is always next year.”

Then the game went to overtime. When the Packers won the toss and elected to receive your Maximum Leader was elated. He foresaw another glorious victory akin to the one on the Monday night game earlier this year. (You remember the one when Farve threw the 60+ yard pass to win the game on the first play of OT vs Denver.) His hopes were raised…

Then Farve threw the interception.

Then the Giants kicked that damned field goal.

It was very sad.

But at least there is next year…

Secondly, Suzanne Pleshette, of Newhart fame, died yesterday at age 70. She died, apparently, of complications resulting from lung cancer. While your Maximum Leader is in his late 30s (near 40) he does fondly remember the Newhart show from re-runs. What does it say about a young kid that he liked Bob Newhart over the other comedies on TV? Anyhoo… Your Maximum Leader liked Newhart and Pleshette. May she rest in peace.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader reports, with a very heavy heart, that George MacDonald Fraser has slipped this mortal coil. Fraser died after a battle with cancer at his home on the Isle of Man on January 2. As many readers will no doubt know, Fraser is the author of the dozen or so novels about the life of Sir Harry Flashman. Those works are among your Maximum Leader’s favorite works of fiction.

The Washington Post has a fine obitiuary for Fraser. Here are the first few paragraphs of that piece:

George MacDonald Fraser, whose tales about an unscrupulous Victorian scoundrel, Sir Harry Flashman, chronicled the misadventures of one of the most memorable characters of modern British fiction, died Jan. 2 of cancer at his home on the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea. He was 82.

After working for years as a journalist, Mr. Fraser published his first novel about Flashman in 1969, passing it off as the newly discovered memoirs of a 19th-century coward, Lothario and soldier of misfortune. Flashman appeared in a dozen novels over the years, inadvertently landing at the center of almost every major military campaign of the Victorian age, from the Boxer Rebellion in China to the Indian Mutiny, the Charge of the Light Brigade, the siege of Khartoum, the Mexican Revolution and the Battle of Little Big Horn.

In Mr. Fraser’s words, Flashman “can only display the courage of a cornered rat” as he tries to escape his many predicaments. Flashman demonstrates little more than craven self-interest, yet he invariably emerges as the antihero of his comic escapades, undeservedly winning top medals for bravery and bedding countless women along the way.

When the first novel in the series appeared, “Flashman: From the Flashman Papers, 1839-1842,” Mr. Fraser claimed to have edited manuscripts he had found at a household sale.

Several critics were initially taken in by the ruse and believed that the stories were drawn from a lost cache of authentic memoirs. But the character of Harry Paget Flashman originally appeared as a bully in “Tom Brown’s Schooldays,” a popular Victorian boys’ book that Mr. Fraser read as a child. The story flagged whenever Flashman left the stage, Mr. Fraser noted, so he made the irrepressible rogue the central figure of his novels.

“Anything is thinkable if it preserves [Flashman] with a whole skin,” critic Christopher Hitchens wrote in The Washington Post in 1986. “The very qualities which got him expelled from Tom Brown’s Rugby School — deceit, cruelty and funk — fit him admirably as a man to take credit for the sacrifices of others.”

The Times of London has, as they almost always do, a better obituary. From the Times:

[Fraser] had hit on a deceptively simple idea that proved to be a bestselling formula at the end of the Swinging Sixties. The public still wanted to sit down with a good rip-roaring yarn — but did not want heroes. So why not make the central character a cad? A cad the reading public already knew about — Harry Flashman, the bounder of Tom Brown’s Schooldays?

What happened to Flashman after the good Doctor Arnold expelled him from Rugby? Fraser decided that he must have gone into the Army. Bully, liar and coward he may still have been, but the Victorian military authorities did not mind. Or perhaps they were simply too stupid to notice, as he whored and cheated his way around the British Empire. The resulting stories became one of the great tongue-in-cheek achievements of popular fiction.

The standing joke between Fraser and his readers was that these were genuine memoirs: they had been discovered, “wrapped in oilskin” and stuffed into a tea chest, during a house sale at Ashby, Leicestershire, in 1965. They described how, after a long, eventful life, loved by the ladies and lauded by the Establishment — Flashman was a brigadier-general, a VC, a Knight of the Bath, a Chevalier of the Legion d’Honneur and, amusingly, holder of the San Serafino Order of Purity and Truth — the old scoundrel mused in old age about how he had got away with it: “The ideal time to be a hero,” he wrote, “is when the battle is over and the other fellows are dead, God rest ’em, and you take the credit.”

It was all rollicking nonsense; but it had a sterling quality that went to the heart of many sophisticated readers who like to relax with a rubbishy book provided it is well written rubbish. Fraser was a thoroughly professional literary craftsman.

The books could be enjoyed at different levels. They sold in airport bookshops and they found their way into the hands of solemn Americans who could not understand why they were unable to find General Flashman in the reference books. Letters came from people who claimed to be related to Flashman as a result of one of his irregular liaisons. One serving British officer claimed that his grandfather lent Flashman $50 and a horse during the American Civil War — and never saw either again.

Your Maximum Leader has not yet read two Flashman books that he owns (thanks to Christmas) - Flashman on the March (the most recent) and Flashman and the Angel of the Lord. He will now move both of these books up in his queue.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader asks that you remember Richard III, King of England. He was killed in battle at Bosworth this day in 1485. He fought valiantly, if not triumphantly. He was the last Plantagenet to rule England. He was the last King of England to die in battle. And his death marks the generally accepted end of both the Wars of the Roses and the medieval period in England.

It is from Shakespeare’s play Richard III that the name of this site is taken. The important lines come in Act One, Scene III:

But then I sigh; and, with a piece of scripture,
Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:
And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With old odd ends stolen out of holy writ;
And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.

Richard is, in your Maximum Leader’s opinion, one of the most maligned kings in all history. Shakespeare’s play, while vastly entertaining, is far from an accurate portrayal of history and the man as we now know him.

Your Maximum Leader, out of habit, will republish the famous Rex Stout New York Times obituary for King Richard:

“PLANTAGENET — Richard, great king and true friend of the rights of man, died at Bosworth Field on August 22, 1485. Murdered by traitors and, dead, maligned by knaves and ignored by Laodiceans, he merits our devoted remembrance.”

For those of you interested in learning more about Richard you might try the following links: Battle of Bosworth from the Richard III foundation, The Richard III Society of the UK, another Bosworth site from the US Richard III Society and finally the Wiki article on Richard III.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maiximum Leader usually appends blog posts he writes about those who have recently passed with the letters RIP. Of course, those letters abbreviate the latin requiescat in pace - or “Rest in Peace.”

Well… Sometimes the dead don’t deserve to rest in peace. Such is the case of Heinz Barth.

Herr Barth died recently, of cancer, presumably at home, in Gransee, Germany. In case the name doesn’t sound familiar to you here is the obituary run in today’s Washington Post. In case you don’t want to click through…

Heinz Barth, 86, a former SS officer convicted of involvement in the massacre of an entire village in Nazi-occupied France, has died, a priest in the German town where he lived said Aug. 14.

[…]

In 1983, a court in East Berlin convicted Mr. Barth and sentenced him to life in prison for his role in the slaughter of villagers in Oradour-sur-Glane in 1944, widely considered the worst atrocity in Nazi-occupied France.

On June 10, 1944, as they headed toward Normandy to combat Allied invasion forces that had landed four days earlier, German troops of the 2nd SS Panzer Division “Das Reich” slaughtered 642 men, women and children in the village.

[…]

In addition to involvement in the massacre [at Oradour-sur-Glane], East German judges also found that Mr. Barth volunteered to participate in an execution of 92 Czech civilians in 1942. Mr. Barth, the SS equivalent of a lieutenant, was also sentenced to death in absentia in France in 1953.

Mr. Barth lived under a false name in communist East Germany, working as a decorator in Gransee and running a grocery store, until his identity was discovered in 1981 and he was imprisoned.

In 1997, a state court freed him on health grounds, commuting his sentence to probation. Mr. Barth, who lost a leg in the war, suffered from diabetes, high blood pressure and other ailments.

Your Maximum Leader would have had Herr Barth dragged out and shot… Probably in 1982. As he figures it, Barth got at least 26 more years of life than he deserved. He should have been dragged out and shot in 1953…

Your Maximum Leader doesn’t like to speak ill of the dead, even if he didn’t think much of the deceased in life. But sometimes one is just replused by the knowledge that someone who didn’t deserve to live died much too late.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader sees on the new wires that former San Francisco 49ers coach Bill Walsh has died at age 75.

As you know, your Maximum Leader is something of a child of the 80s. As a child of those halcyon Reagan years, you have to admire Bill Walsh. Walsh’s 49ers were the footbal team of the 90s. Walsh revolutionized how football is played. As the article reads:

Walsh coached the 49ers for only 10 seasons but that was enough for him to become known as “The Genius” for his offensive wizardry. Football as it was played by Walsh’s 49ers was more poetry than brute force. His skillfully choreographed system of short, quick-hitting passes became known as the West Coast offense and was widely copied by other NFL coaches in the decades that followed.

“The offensive philosophy that he installed in those great 49er teams more than 25 years ago will remain his legacy and is still very much a part of the NFL to this day,” said another Hall of Fame coach, Don Shula.

As long-time readers know, your Maximum Leader is a Packers fan. And although your Maximum Leader personally is a fan of the running game, his beloved Packers won their last Super Bowl on the strength of a “West Coast” offense led by former 49ers assistant coach Mike Holmgren.

Thanks Bill Walsh for innovating the game. You will be missed.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is now at the beach, and he is feeling much better. But on the not so good side of the equation… His internet connection is very dicey… So it is unlikely that he will blog again until next week.

He did want to take note of the passing of Beverly Sills. Your Maximum Leader remembers many old 33 rpm recordings of Sills that his saintly mother used to play when he was growing up. He remembers seeing some performances in the late 1970s broadcast over PBS. He also remembers his dear departed grandmother “shushing” him when he spoke during a Saturday afternoon Texaco radio broadcast on which Sills was a featured performer.

You should read the Post’s Obit for Sills. If your Maximum Leader had a better connection now, he’d try and get one from one of the New York papers…

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader has been coming to terms today with a tragic death. A friend’s 16 year old son was killed Saturday in a freak accident while cutting up a downed tree. Words can’t describe the pain felt by so many today. One wishes there was some word or gesture one could use or invoke that might help ease the suffering of a man who cradled his son in his arms as the boy died. If there is such a word or gesture, I don’t know what it is.

Please keep Hunter Payne and his parents and friends in your prayers.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leaders sees that in the midst of all the other news out there a noteworthy passing has been missed (rightfully given the gravity of newsworthy events).

Don Ho has slipped from this mortal coil. He was 76. According to a news release:

For more than 40 years, Ho shows were the musical equivalent of Diamond Head: unique, awesome and something that had to be seen to be believed. From behind a console desk, seated comfortably in a rattan chair, the latter-day Ho could go about his business with an ease that might be mistaken for a man phoning it in, except for the fact that Ho made outgoing calls with his onstage phone.

“I’m a kinda guy, I like to work seven days a week, all day if I have to, because where I grew up, it kept you out of trouble,” Ho said on National Public Radio in 2006.

Aloha Don. Aloha.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is deep in prayer today for the souls of many departed. As readers probably already know, Robert’s (of the Llamabutchers) father passed last night after a long bout with cancer. Please keep Robert, his father and family in your thoughts.

Also, the father of one of Villainette #1’s friends died suddenly of a heart attack yesterday. I knew the man only casually, but can still say it is a tragic loss. He was 47. He leaves behind a loving wife and three children (one in high school, one in middle school, and one in 4th grade).

It is a very sad day.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader is sure that by now you have heard of the passing of Anna Nicole Smith. Your Maximum Leader, humanitarian that he is, wondered immediately about Smith’s infant daughter and what would happen to her. Whatever it is, it is surely not going to be pleasant.

Although it might seem churlish, it would seem as though Smith’s story is at an end. You may recall that once while guest blogging over at Agent Bedhead’s site, your Maximum Leader wrote a cautionary tale about Smith and the dreamy Jennifer Love Hewitt. In that post your Maximum Leader wrote:

What does the future hold for Anna Nicole Smith? Well, it doesn���?�?�t appear to hold money from J. Howard Marshall. Our white trash heroine picked an idiot lawyer and seems to have lost all her cash. Anna’s weight is down and she has resumed respectable modeling. But we all know that the greased pole, disco lights, and overpriced watered-down drinks are just a fifth of Southern Comfort and a few pills away. She may yet return to her trailer park roots…

Apparently the trailer park is not in her future any more… Who’d have thought then that Anna Nicole would have appealed her court case to the Supreme Court of the United States - and won. Who could have predicted her son’s death at age 20? And now, her own death. Sad really…

All of this is just sad…

But before too long it will make a great TV movie.

Carry on.

Greetings, loyal minions. Your Maximum Leader wants to note the passing of some important figures this week.

The first is champion race horse Barbaro. As you have no doubt heard, Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro was put down yesterday. Your Maximum Leader did not really bond with this horse. While he was intellectually disappointed that the horse lost his battle for survival after a brutal broken leg; he can’t say that he is emotionally torn up over this. It is, if anything, a testament to the improvements in veterinary medicine that Barbaro wasn’t put down 8 months ago when the leg was broken at the Preakness. It is sad to see such a beautiful animal’s life cut short, but your Maximum Leader isn’t going to shed tears over the horse’s passing.

After 16 years of faithful service to astronomers around the world, it appears as though the Hubble Space Telescope is dead. At least the primary optics and optical controls are dead. There are secondary systems that appear to function, but who knows how long that will last. Your Maximum Leader is a little dismayed by this. Again, intellectually he isn’t all torn up about it. Afterall, the Hubble is 16 years old. As your Maximum Leader understands it, the telescope was designed to operate for 5 years. By that standard the past 11 years have been gravy for scientists. Your Maximum Leader doubts that NASA will send the shuttle up for another repair mission. It is probably time for a new telescope. It will take some time to design, build, test, and launch. The benefits to human understanding that flow from a space telescope are worth the time and treasure.

And finally, au revoir to public smoking in France. Well actually, smoking in public places or on the property of public buildings is going to be banned on Thursday. The French will still be allowed to smoke outside, in their homes, or in places that approximate homes - like hotels. What will happen to our stereotypcal Frenchman sitting in a cafe, sipping his coffee and smoking a Gauloise? Well… If your mental picture of the Frenchman has that virtual Frenchman sitting outside smoking and drinking coffee; then that picture will not change. If your virtual Frenchman is sitting in a cafe or restaurant; then the Frenchman will be sipping coffee and nervously drumming his fingers and eyeing the door as he craves his niccotine fix.

If you are living in or visiting France, your Maximum Leader suggests you smoke ‘em while you’ve got ‘em.

Carry on.