Dead, Not Forgotten

Famed author and thinker Arthur C. Clarke died March 19, 2008, at his home in Colombo, Sri Lanka after experiencing breathing problems. He was 90 years old. He had suffered from post-polio syndrome since 1988.

Clarke’s impact on science, literature and popular culture cannot be underestimated. He always seemed to go places no one had gone before and it is easy to see how he would get there if you consider his well known three laws.

1. “When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.”
2. “The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”
3. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Arthur C. Clarke was born December 16, 1917 in Minehead, Somerset, United Kingdom and earned a first-class degree in mathematics and physics at King’s College London. Though he is best known for his works of fiction, he also impacted real science with more than just his thinking. During WWII he served in the Royal Air Force as a radar specialist and was involved in the early warning radar defense system which contributed to the RAF’s success during the Battle of Britain. After the war he served as the Chairman of the British Interplanetary Society. He is credited as the first person to promote the idea that geostationary satellites would be ideal for communication purposes.

Clarke’s most famous work of literature is “A Space Odyssey.” It is based upon his 1948 work, “The Sentinel,” which he wrote for a BBC competition. The work was not accepted for the competition but the stage was set for a primary theme of Clarke’s work, an advanced but clueless mankind is shocked into growth by its interaction with a superior alien intelligence. Of course, the book was made into the famous science fiction move, “2001: A Space Odyssey” directed by Stanley Kubrick.

Arthur C. Clarke moved to Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) in 1956. In Sri Lanka is was able to persu one of his greatest loves, scuba diving. Sri Lanka also inspired the locale for his novel The Fountains of Paradise, in which he first described a space elevator. This, he believes, will be his ultimate legacy, more so than geostationary satellites, once space elevators make space shuttles obsolete.

A space elevator is described as “… a tether, usually in the form of a cable or ribbon, spanning from the surface near the equator to a point beyond geosynchronous orbit. As the planet rotates, the inertia at the end of the tether counteracts gravity, and also keeps the cable taut. Vehicles can then climb the tether and reach orbit without the use of rocket propulsion. Such a structure could hypothetically permit delivery of cargo and people to orbit at a fraction of the cost of launching payloads by rocket.”

I think of Clarke when I hear people talk about the possibility of life other than on earth. He summed it up well when he said, “Sometimes I think we’re alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we’re not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.”

We are a little more alone in the universe today having lost Arthur C. Clarke.

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Tom S. Blackstone died today, February 15, 2008. He succumbed to prostate cancer in Plano, Texas at 63 years of age.

Born in Palistine, Texas to school teacher parents Tom H. and Christine (Lively) Blackstone in 1944, Tom Blackstone’s youth was spent in the rural East-Texas countryside where the summers were hot, oil was gold, and high school football was king. To the people of Palestine, TX, education was a civic responsibility, and young people kept in touch with their crushes in the next town through weekly letters. Only a few weeks ago, when we were discussing his small town upbringing, Tom told me that when he was a child it wasn’t just at his parents’ insistence that he get an education — his entire community pushed its children to succeed. Everybody knew who wasn’t doing well in school and they used their influence to provide more motivation to the student and their family, so to speak.

Tom Blackstone earned his degree in Chemistry from the University of Texas, where he quarterbacked the football team. After college his friendly manner and competitive spirit soon had him in a sales position. Those who knew him in this context only needed a short time to realize two things; for Tom, selling was another way of making friends, and, Tom was a Texan.

In fact, the more he lived in California. the more his Texas accent thickened. On the occasion of his 40th birthday in Diamond Bar, California, I recognized this with a t-shirt that read: “Tom Blackstone - Professional Texan.”

Tom retired in November 2007 from more than 40 years in medical marketing, including a 30 year stint as Marketing Director and Associate Publisher of Dialysis & Transplantation, a leading journal in the medical field of kidney dialysis and transplantation.

His time there typified Tom’s “style.” Tom Blackstone knew the people in the field of dialysis. He knew the doctors, he knew the researchers, he knew the suppliers and he put them together in ways they hadn’t thought about. The result was a cohesive industry finding an resonate voice in a dynamic journal. And that’s how he did business. He personified the industry. He was Mr. D&T.

I met Tom Blackstone in 1979 in California when I accepted a position at Creative Age Publications (then the publisher of Dialysis & Transplantation). We worked from 6am - 2pm together, we shared sales strategies, breakfast and more than a few after-work drinks. And we always shared the fundamental points of view that dominated the sales department at Dialysis & Transplantation during those days. I came from a publishing point of view, and he came from a sales point of view. We both found out soon that we agreed on the basics: We sell by making friends. We want to have a reason to call a client other than to sell them something. We want to enjoy ourselves and contribute more than to the bottom line.

In the end we shared something else, a life-long friendship.

Tom leaves this life having deeply influenced those who knew him — we can’t think of Tom Blackstone without thinking of words like kindness, humor, love and tolerance. He will be missed for those qualities and many more.

In his last public comment he related a biblical verse that gave him great comfort and that he meant to comfort those that he would leave behind:

The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord makes his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.
Numbers 6: 24-26

Tom Blackstone is survived by his wife, Debbie Blackstone of Plano, Texas, his daughters, Denise Blackstone of Plano, Texas and Kristene Blackstone of Austin, Texas, and his brother Ed Blackstone of Gladewater, Texas.

A service of celebration will be held at 1:00 p.m., Monday, February 18, 2008 at First United Methodist Church of Plano. In lieu of flowers, Tom requested that donations be made to the National Kidney Foundation, the First United Methodist Church of Plano, or, to the church of your choice.

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When 119 people died in Atlanta’s Winecoff Hotel when it burned early on the morning of Dec. 7, 1946, the nation was horrified by the news. But if it wasn’t for Arnold Hardy and his picture of Daisy McCumber falling in midair in front of the hotel’s facade it may not have become the turning point in modern building fire safety. After selling his image to the Associated Press for $300 (he received $200 more as a bonus) it was printed on front pages around the world and mobilized the nation to make buildings safer from fire dangers.

That morning, Hardy, a Georgia Tech graduate student, arrived home from a late date  and soon heard sirens. An avid photographer and a quick thinker, Hardy called the fire department saying, “Press photographer. Where’s the fire?” Winecoff Hotel was the answer and he was on his way with his camera and five flash bulbs.

Though the Winecoff Hotel was touted as being fireproof, the structure quickly became an inferno blocking many patrons inside. As the fire advanced people resorted to tying bedsheets into ropes to escape the flames but many slipped while others simply jumped from the building to escape an even worse death.  Arnold Hardy was the first photographer on the scene and by that time many patrons had already died. After using all but his last bulb on wider shots, Hardy decided to try to capture an image of someone falling from the building. The result won him a Pulitzer Prize and sparked a nation to action.

Though at the time it was reported that the women pictured died from the fall, she did survive.

Realizing that from then on all of his photos would be compared to that one image, Hardy decided to opt for a career in business and founded an X-ray equipment business.

Arnold Hardy died at age 85 on December 5, 2007.

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German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen died Wednsday December 5, 2007 at his home in Kuerten-Kettenberg and is to be buried in the Waldfriedhor Cemetary in Kuerten, Germany. The cause of his death has not been announced.

In the memorial booklet distributed on his website, Stockhausen said shortly before his death, ““My life is extremely one-sided: what counts are the works as scores, recordings, films, and books. That is my spirit formed into music and a sonic universe of moments of my soul.”

Always bluntly forward, when asked how he became involved in electronic music Karlheinz Stockhausen said in the Nov./Dec. 1977 issue of Synapse Magazine,”The question is wrong. I started the electronic music.” While his claim can be debated, his contribution to the world of avant garde and electronic music is weighty indeed. And although his non-electronic output was larger, it is not what he is best remembered for.

Extending his controversial nature into his greater life, Karlheinz Stockhausen found himself embattled in 2001 when he stated that the 911 attacks in New York were “the greatest work of art one can imagine.” He later apologized for his comments.

Orphaned in WWII, Stockhausen went on to study under composer Olivier Messiaen in Paris from 1952 to 1953. There he also met his French contemporary Pierre Boulez.

Read Synapse Magazine’s 1977 interview with Karlheinz Stockhausen
Visit Karlheinz Stockhausen’s website

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The Alex Foundation has just announced that “according to the vet who conducted the necropsy, there was no obvious cause of death.”

Alex had a complete physical just two weeks ago and was found to be in good health.

The Alex Foundation will continue its work using other African Grey parrots in its program.

Dead, Not Forgotten’s obituary of Alex follows this post or can be found here.

Read the entire press release

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