They died within hours of each other, but North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il and Czech playwright Vaclav Havel were opposites. The key difference: “Kim stood for power without principle; Havel for principle over power,” writes Joe Schlesinger.
Obits
Remembering the lives of ordinary people
This American Life and The New York Times have banded together for a special look at the lives of ordinary people who passed away in 2011: from aspiring rappers, to grandfathers and poets.
Vale to the witty and wise Christopher Hitchens
Essayist and thinker Christopher Hitchens died last Friday after a public battle with cancer. George Eaton pays tribute to Hitchens’ political views, his take on religion and his glorious hedonistic life.
Steve Jobs’ sister delivers his eulogy
A heartfelt and personal eulogy written and read by novelist Mona Simpson at the memorial service for her big brother — and Apple founder — Steve Jobs. It covers Jobs life as a father and his final words said just hours before he died.
vale 
The most remarkable person I have ever known: eulogy for Diana Gribble
Legendary publisher Diana Gribble had the gift of seeing you in the round, with great and sometimes unsettling clarity, and she gave the impression of treating everyone as distinctive individuals, writes friend W H Chong.
Vale to an ally of Dr Martin Luther King Jnr
Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth, a civil rights leader who’d been beaten, arrested and nearly bombed by white supremacists, passed away yesterday. Read how he took full advantage of his 89 years…
Remembering Steve Jobs: iSad, iMourn, iLife …
Crikey media wrap: Apple founder Steve Jobs passed away this week but his legacy — and incredible collection of inventions, from iPods to viable home computers and the technology behind Toy Story — lives on.
Vale Steve Jobs: his NY Times obit
Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, helped change how society communicates. Have a read of the fascinating indepth obituary by the New York Times, examining the life of a visionary.
vale Good night, Diana Gribble, goodbye, rest in peace
Diana Gribble was a legend in the book world, instrumental in creating two Australian beacons of independent publishing: McPhee Gribble, and Text. W H Chong pays tribute to his dear friend.
Vale Rob Chalmers, after 60 years in the gallery
The only Australian journalist to cover 28 federal election campaigns, Rob Chalmers, passed away overnight. Alan Ramsey pays tribute to a man who spent six decades reporting on Australian politics.
Russell Brand on Amy Winehouse and addiction
Ex-drug addict and comedian Russell Brand writes an obit-of-sorts to his friend Amy Winehouse: “the lips that I’d only seen clenching a fishwife fag and dribbling curses now a portal for this holy sound”.
Vale to the dean of the Washington press corps
A Pulitzer prize winning political columnist for the Washington Post died yesterday. David Broder was one of the most respected US political journalists in the US, winning his Pulitzer for his reporting on Nixon’s Watergate scandal.
Vale to a sharp-suited, bushy-sideburned political maverick
Twice president of Venezuela, the victim of political coups, misuser of millions of dollars in public funds and mortal enemy of current president Hugo Chavez, Carlos Andrés Pérez died aged 88 on Christmas Day.
Death of an American dream (Hopper and Sex and the City)
W H Chong pens an obit to Dennis Hopper, as well as to the death of the American Dream, as seen by the glassy dead-eyed, pumped- and pimped-up women of Sex and the City.
Spider-Woman dies, leaving a tangled web of ferocious art
French-American artist Louise Bourgeois, best known for her giant metal spiders sculptures, has died, aged 98. Adrian Searle reflects on a career of creative abnormalities, like the writhing nest of floppy penises.
Trivial Pursuit creator goes to piece of pie in the sky
Christopher Haney, the creator of Trivial Pursuit, has died at the age of 59. Canada’s Globe and Mail looks back at the life of the man who all made us roll again.
Vale Dennis Hopper: 1936-2010
Film legend Dennis Hopper died yesterday, aged 74. Hopper was notoriously difficult to work with, his personality often described as “bully” and “maniacal”, writes Luke Buckmaster.
RIP John Murta: an unethical, corrupt pork-barreler
A look back on the life of the longest serving member of the US house John Murtha shows a politician “corrupt in a completely, traditionally American way”, writes Jenn Kepka.
Vale J.D. Salinger
Catcher in the Rye author J.D Salinger has died, age 91. The New York Times pays tribute to a legend and literary recluse.
Montazeri: Iran’s bravest cleric
The New Republic pays tribute to the recently deceased Ayatollah Hosseinali Montazeri, Iran’s highest-ranking Shiite cleric and one of the Ayatollah Khomeini’s most vocal critics.
RIP Paul Samuelson, trailblazing economist
The WSJ plays tribute to Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Samuelson, who died on Sunday, age 94 — a man Ben Bernanke has called “one of the greatest teachers that economics has ever known”.
Callan to Breaker: a little of us in all Woodward
Edward Woodward, the man who played Callan and Breaker Morant, is dead. He should be honoured in Australia for playing a wronged anti-hero of the Boer war, writes Peter Craven.
Guy Rundle: Levi-Strauss survived to see that he had become an era
Claude Levi-Strauss, the anthropologist and founder of structuralism, has died, age 100. His work Claude Levi-Strauss was so influential that it is impossible to imagine a whole intellectual climate without it.
RIP Levi-Strauss (the anthropologist, not the jeans)
Influential French anthropologist and intellectual Claude Levi-Strauss has passed away, aged 100. A look at the profound influence he had on modern thought, and links to an array of interviews with the great thinker himself.
RIP GeoCities: a loss for fluro text, animated GIFs and endless Midi files
Today, Yahoo is finally euthanising GeoCities, the original free, design-you-own webpage service where many netizens got their first taste of web mastery and popped their HTML cherries. Vale.
