{"id":1051,"date":"2003-07-01T07:55:00","date_gmt":"2003-07-01T07:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/2003\/07\/the-bell-tolls.html"},"modified":"2003-07-01T07:55:00","modified_gmt":"2003-07-01T07:55:00","slug":"the-bell-tolls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/2003\/07\/the-bell-tolls.html","title":{"rendered":"The Bell Tolls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Has anyone else noticed that there seems to be a steady stream of well-known people dying lately? It seems to have begun with Gregory Peck<\/a> and David Brinkley<\/a> and continues daily. Leon Uris<\/a>. Strom Thurmond<\/a>. Katharine Hepburn<\/a>. Today it’s Buddy Hackett<\/a> and–probably not noted much outside the New England area–Robert McCloskey (of Make Way for Ducklings<\/i><\/a> fame; that book, by the way, was declared the official children’s book of the State of Massachusetts last year. How many of our tax dollars went into making that happen, I wonder?). I find it intriguing how the New York Times<\/i><\/a> (registration required to see the site) allots coverage as if they are trying to measure a person’s worth in terms of column inches. Hepburn and Peck both got front page treatment with pics (I’m referring to the online edition), although Peck only had a link to his obit, whereas Hepburn had a link to her obit, stories about her, and reviews of her film. Leon Uris got below the fold coverage. Buddy Hackett isn’t apparently worthy of front page coverage–not even a text link under Arts. McCloskey gets a front page text link and blurb at the Boston Globe<\/i><\/a>.<\/p>\n

But what is even more morbidly compelling is that the New York Times<\/i> has listed in its obituaries section<\/a> a “greatest hits” of death. Along the right-hand column are selections from the obit archives, people who have died in the month of July. I wonder how they determine who is truly<\/i> famous enough to make it there. Does that signify some sort of life-after-death success that ranks beyond just the everyday front-page coverage? I mean how famous do you have to be to make the “best of”? Selections from July include: Harriet Beecher Stowe<\/a>, Adlai Stevenson<\/a>, James Steward<\/a>, and Ernest Hemingway<\/a>. Maybe that should be a life goal: “I hope to become famous enough that someday I’ll make the ‘most famous deaths’ column in the New York Times<\/i> online version.” Hey, everyone needs a goal, don’t they?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Has anyone else noticed that there seems to be a steady stream of well-known people dying lately? It seems to have begun with Gregory Peck and David Brinkley and continues daily. Leon Uris. Strom Thurmond. Katharine Hepburn. Today it’s Buddy Hackett and–probably not noted much outside the New England area–Robert McCloskey (of Make Way for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1051","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jennyandadam.com\/Jenny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}