Something's off with 2009, the year in which Twitter became a not only a verb but a manner in which human knowledge is condensed. I was talking yesterday with a a friend and telling her how 2009 felt like "the year in death". It wasnt just big luminaries like Michael Jackson, Teddy Kennedy and Farrah Fawcett who were gone. It was all kinds of random celebrities like Brittany Murphy, DJ AM, Karl Malden and Dom DeLouise. And of course, there's the family members who had passed away in both of our families who were not celebrities but still in our R.I.P. lists.

Then, it was while reading the list of 80 celebrity obituaries at OhNoTheyDidnt's In Remembrance - 2009 that it hit me: Here we have yet again another example of how the media as we know it is really, truly dying. It is not up TV news "producers" and newspapers editors to decided who is notable or celebrity enough to be included in these lists. Heck, it is not anymore in their control to decide who is a celebrity —Andrew WK hoaxes notwithstanding. With the advent of social media and the popularity of social spaces like Facebook and broadcasting platforms like Twitter we now have the possibility of knowing about way many more people who at one point either were celebrities or lower-level celebrities or entertainment industry workers with influence whom we would have never heard about if it were up to newspaper and newsroom chieftains.

It's going to be interesting to see the "moment of silence" moment at the Oscars evolve. Maybe the lists will get so long that they will have to drop the format or be forced to become creative with it.

With that thought, here's my 10 Radom Celebrity Obituaries for 2009:


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I would have subtitled this video "America's New Civil War".

From the production company :
The New York Times and the Washington Post have recently reported on the "System of Neglect," namely, the state of immigration detention center conditions. As told by her sister June Everett, watch the story of Sandra Kenley, a 52- year-old grandmother, who after living in the U.S. legally for 33 years, was subjected to these very conditions and died in immigration detention.

Yesterday I wrote the following about Hillary Rodham Clinton :

Shameless.

Despicable.

Unfit to be President of the United States.

My words hit the front pages of both Daily Kos and The Moderate Voice. By evening Keith Olbermann had the following to say about Hillary Clinton's latest "gaffe" :

The most important part of the transcript is after the jump :
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That is all.

Go read the amazing homage written in the Wall Street Journal by his father :

When an unarmed journalist is killed, we are reminded of both the freedoms that we treasure in our society, and how vulnerable we all are to forces that threaten those freedoms.

But this still does not explain the attention given to Danny's tragedy. After all, 30 other journalists were killed in 2002, and 118 journalists have been killed in Iraq alone since that war began.

The shocking element in Danny's murder was that he was killed, not for what he wrote or planned to write, but for what he represented -- America, modernity, openness, pluralism, curiosity, dialogue, fairness, objectivity, freedom of inquiry, truth and respect for all people. In short, each and every one of us was targeted in Karachi in January of 2002.

It's not a touchy feely homage, but a reminder that Daniel Pearl's blood is in all our hands, especially the media :

One of the things that saddens me most is that the press and media have had an active, perhaps even major role in fermenting hate and inhumanity. It was not religious fanaticism alone.

This was first brought to my attention by the Pakistani Consul General who came to offer condolences at our home in California. When we spoke about the anti-Semitic element in Danny's murder she said: "What can you expect of these people who never saw a Jew in their lives and who have been exposed, day and night, to televised images of Israeli soldiers targeting and killing Palestinian children."

At the time, it was not clear whether she was trying to exonerate Pakistan from responsibility for Danny's murder, or to pass on the responsibility to European and Arab media for their persistent de-humanization of Jews, Americans and Israelis. The answer was unveiled in 2004, when a friend told me that photos of Muhammad Al Dura were used as background in the video tape of Danny's murder.

[...]

The Pakistani Consul was right. The media cannot be totally exonerated from responsibility for Daniel's murder, as well as for the "tsunami of hate" that has swept the world and continues to rise.

Go read the whole thing.
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