Milton Friedman
Of course, I have to post this song:
The Titanic had two sister ships, the Britannic and the Olympic. Violet Jessop survived the sinkings of the first two and was on the Olympic when its hull was breached by another ship but it somehow didn’t sink. The Woman Who Survived All Three Disasters Aboard the Sister Ships: the Titanic, Britannic, and Olympic
“The ship is unsinkable!!!” Ship sinks
“Well it couldn’t possibly happen twice to two unsinkable ships!!” Ship sinks
“Third times the charm!!” ship hits another ship. “Oh come on people what the hell???!!!” :mad:
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Of course, I have to post this song:
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I was thinking of adding that. I think the song contains some of Jonathan Coulton’s most moving lyrics. It’s one of his favorites of his own songs, too.
Don’t live another day unless you make it count.
There’s someone else that you’re supposed to be.
Something deep inside of you still wants out
And shame on you if you don’t set it free.
He wrote that for a contest to honor Plimpton’s memory by creating a statue. Not surprisingly, it won $400. Coulton had actually met Plimpton at a party at The Paris Review some years earlier, courtesy of his friend John Hodgeman.
Someone needs to photoshop Robert Todd Lincoln into the grassy knoll near Kennedy’s assassination, and then the jinx will be complete.
Jim Leavelle was a young sailor stationed at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Twenty-odd years later he was out of the military, acting as a detective, and assigned to escort Lee Harvey Oswald through a throng of reporters when Jack Ruby ran up and shot him. You can see him in pictures it he white hat and white suit. And he’s still alive, to boot!
You left out “singer on a profoundly influential children’s album” (he sang “It’s All Right to Cry” on Free to Be You and Me).
Alan Page played on Notre Dame’s national championship football team, four Chicago Bears Super Bowl teams, and was an Associate Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court.
Whizzer White was student body president at the University of Colorado, a Rhodes Scholar, an All-American football halfback, was the highest paid player in the NFL during his time, and led the league in rushing twice. His pro career was cut short when he joined the US Navy during World War II, where he was an intelligence officer and wrote the report on the sinking of John F. Kennedy’s PT-109. After the war he graduated magnum cum laude from the Yale Law School, and became a law clerk for Chief Justice of the United States Fred Vinson. He worked for the John F. Kennedy Presidential campaign, and became Deputy United States Attorney General. He was appointed to the US Supreme Court by President Kennedy. In 1993 he administered the oath of office to Vice President Al Gore. The NFL awards the Whizzer White award annually to the player who does most for his community. In 1976, the mother of Michael McCrary sued a day care facility for refusing to allow her black son to attend the facility. The case was finally heard before the Supreme Court, and White joined the minority in arguing against the integration of the day care facility. In 2000, Michael McCrary, then playing for the Baltimore Ravens, won the Whizzer White Award.
Not a thread winner by any means, but an interesting bit of trivia on the subject:
When Evel Knievel was trying to make a name for himself as a daredevil, he arranged to jump the fountains at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, and hired John Derek to produce a film of the jump. To keep his costs down, Derek employed his wife as a camera operator. The famous footage of Knievel’s crash was shot by actress Linda Evans.
Thomas Francis Meagher was a Young Irelander involved in the 1848 revolution. He was sentenced to death but then sent to Tasmania. There he escaped and found his way to America, where he eventually became a Union brigadier general during the Civil War. After the war he was appointed the acting governor of Montana territory. He possibly drowned under mysterious circumstances after falling from a steamboat. He supposedly brought the tricolor to Ireland.
Joseph Fouché also: Oratorian novice, anticlerical revolutionary, Thermidorian, Directory official, Napoleon, Louis XVIII, Napoleon again, Louis again, then exile.
Pretty off-topic, but I always thought it interesting that acclaimed actor Woody Harrelson’s father claimed to be involved in the assassination at one time (claim possible made while high). He was a contract killer. He almost certainly was the first person in the 20th century to kill a judge.