Yes, I’m old enough to remember Laugh-In when it originally aired. One of the staples of that cast, Henry Gibson, has died.

Henry Gibson, the veteran comic character actor best known for his role reciting offbeat poetry on “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,” has died. He was 73.

Gibson’s son, James, said Gibson died Monday at his home in Malibu after a brief battle with cancer.

After serving in the Air Force and studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, Gibson — born James Bateman in Germantown, Pa., in 1935 — created his Henry Gibson comic persona, a pun on playwright Henrik Ibsen’s name, while working as a theater actor in New York. For three seasons on “Laugh-In,” he delivered satirical poems while gripping a giant flower.

His bit is at the beginning of this clip.

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No agreement with her politics, but I loved the music. Mary Travers has died at 72.

Mary Travers, one-third of the hugely popular 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, has died.

The band’s publicist, Heather Lylis, says Travers died at Danbury Hospital in Connecticut on Wednesday. She was 72 and had battled leukemia for several years.

Travers joined forces with Peter Yarrow and Noel Paul Stookey in the early 1960s.

I’m not going to delve into her politics here, let’s just listen to what is arguably one of the trios most well known songs.

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Joe Wilson is the Representative from South Carolina’s 2nd Congressional district. He has been in that seat since the death of Floyd Spence. Working to elect Floyd Spence was my first active involvement in politics. Later, as a County Party Chairman and State Committeeman, I met and got to know Joe, if only a little.

My impression is that Joe Wilson is a passionate conservative politician, and typically very measured and aware of what he says. On occasion, the passionate side overcomes the measured. I believe that is what happened last night.

“I let my emotions get the best of me when listening to the president’s remarks regarding the coverage of illegal immigrants in the health-care bill,” Wilson said in a statement. “While I disagree with the president’s statement, my comments were inappropriate and regrettable.”

Wilson shouted “you lie” at a point in the speech when Obama said his plan to extend insurance coverage “would not apply to those who are here illegally.”

Last night on Twitter, this was getting more attention than the President’s speech. My question, in the poll over on the right, is, “What do you think about Rep. Joe Wilson’s Outburst?”

Vote, and leave any additional thoughts here in the comments.

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John Hawkins reached out to Right of Center bloggers for their choices of the most respected people on the right.

All bloggers were allowed to make anywhere from 1-10 unranked selections and were allowed to choose anybody on the Right or generally perceived to be on the right that they liked: Republican, Conservative, Libertarian, politician, preacher, blogger, columnist, radio host, you name it!

I didn’t take the time to respond as I was working through the computer issues here at home. I don’t see anyone on the list that I couldn’t have put there, and the order wouldn’t have changed much with my contribution. Fred Thompson and Bobby Jindal would have moved up a spot from their seven person tie for 16th, and Ed Morrissey would have jumped up one position as well.

The top five would have remained the same, but each would have one more tally.

Take a look at the list and let me know who you would have had on your list.

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I can’t find much of anything online, but TBO sent a breaking news alert that Walter Cronkite has died at 92. Rest in Peace.

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Former GOP Presidential candidate Jack Kemp has died at 73.

His spokeswoman Bona Park and longtime friend and former campaign adviser Edwin J. Feulner confirmed that Kemp died after a lengthy illness.

Kemp had announced in January 2009 that he had been diagnosed with cancer. He said he was undergoing tests but gave no other detail.

I got to shake Jack Kemp’s hand when he visited and spoke in Orangeburg, SC many years ago. I was truly impressed by vision and passion for America.

My prayers are with his family, friends, and many admirers.

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James Joyner (OTB) writes this morning:

After 12 hours of trying naturally, another 14 of trying with the aid of an inducing drug, and two hours of hard labor, Katharine Webb Joyner was ultimately delivered by Caesarian section at 6:40 this morning. She was 7 pounds, 6.44 ounces and 18.5 inches at birth.

Mother and baby are fine.

Congratulations and all the best to your entire (enlarged) family, James!

Go by and offer the Joyners your best wishes.

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Of course the real congratulations go to Mrs. Wyatt and the newest Earp, Julia Elizabeth.

UPDATE: The first pics are here.

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I remember reading One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich early in high school. It was probably one of the deepest books I had read up to that time. The author, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, passed away yesterday at age 89.

Nobel prize-winning Russian writer and dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who shone a light on the brutal Soviet Gulag camps, has died at the age of 89, bringing tributes from around the world on Monday.

[...]

Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970 after depicting in harrowing detail the Soviet labour camps, where he spent eight years from 1945.

He toiled obsessively to unearth the darkest secrets of Stalinist rule and his work ultimately dealt a crippling blow to the Soviet Union’s authority.

Update: It was the Gulag Archipelago that was the deep read. I read that on my own after being exposed to Solzhenitsyn in high school through One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

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Getting over the disappointment of finding out I wasn’t one of the 2006 Weblog Award finalists has been made much easier. You see, I have been named Time Magazine’s Person of the year.

I wonder if there’s a check that goes along with this? I’m only asking because I do have to share the award — with about six and a half billion other people — including you.

But look at 2006 through a different lens and you’ll see another story, one that isn’t about conflict or great men. It’s a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It’s about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people’s network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It’s about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes.

The tool that makes this possible is the World Wide Web. Not the Web that Tim Berners-Lee hacked together (15 years ago, according to Wikipedia) as a way for scientists to share research. It’s not even the overhyped dotcom Web of the late 1990s. The new Web is a very different thing. It’s a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter. Silicon Valley consultants call it Web 2.0, as if it were a new version of some old software. But it’s really a revolution.

In reality it is a smaller subset of the 6.5 Billion people currently riding this rock we call home. So, who are they talking about?

Who are these people? Seriously, who actually sits down after a long day at work and says, I’m not going to watch Lost tonight. I’m going to turn on my computer and make a movie starring my pet iguana? I’m going to mash up 50 Cent’s vocals with Queen’s instrumentals? I’m going to blog about my state of mind or the state of the nation or the steak-frites at the new bistro down the street? Who has that time and that energy and that passion?

The answer is, you do. And for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME’s Person of the Year for 2006 is you.

Captain Ed thinks that they punted with this selection.

The entire point of a Person of the Year is to acknowledge that some people play larger roles in history. Naming all of us may make us feel good about our anonymity, but in the end it’s either pandering to millions of readers or a refusal to take a stand on anyone. Choosing everyone is an abdication on the entire purpose of the project.

Don Surber likes the choice, saying,

Technology can liberate people, which is why so many regimes are trying to keep the lid on the Internet as if it were Pandora’s box. Most of the technology is used for crap: baseball fantasy leagues, crotch shots of celebrities and spam, spam, spam.

But like Pandora’s box, the Internet also unleashes upon the world hope.

He is right about most of the technology being used for crap. Some of it’s fun crap, but it’s still mostly crap. It is often that way with new technologies. Look at what could be grouped together as information technologies — printing, broadcast radio and television, movies, and now the internet — the ratio of garbage to gems is pretty one sided. But every now and then you get something that makes sifting through the rest worth while.

Gaius at Blue Crab Boulevard has some fun with this story as well, but does add this.

But seriously, there has been a huge change in the world due to the internet. The repercussions of that change have yet to be fully understood. I think Time, while dodging a tricky call that would have brought them some serious abuse (see the link), may be on to something whether they meant it to be so or not. The world is changing. One pixel at a time.

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John Hawkins and Right Wing News have been mentioned on the Rush Limbaugh show three times this week. With good reason.

The posts Rush referred two are dead-on looks at the illegal immigration debate. Read Democrats: Illegal Aliens Who Engage In Burglary, Assault, & Kidnapping? Make Them American Citizens and Answering 13 Frequently Asked Questions About Illegal Immigration. Way to go John.

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Former Yugoslavian leader Slobodan Milosevic was found dead in his cell.

Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav leader who orchestrated the Balkan wars of the 1990s and was on trial for war crimes, was found dead in his prison cell at the U.N. detention center near The Hague, the U.N. tribunal said Saturday. He was 65.

A tribunal press officer in The Hague said Milosevic was found dead in his bed, apparently of natural causes.

Milosevic has been on trial since February 2002, defending himself against 66 counts of war crimes, including genocide, in Croatia, Bosnia and
Kosovo.

He will not be missed.

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