Deaths, divorces and this day in history

60 Minutes anchor and news icon-legend Ed Bradley died on Thursday at 65 of leukemia.

Oscar winner and actor Jack Palance died today at 87 of natural causes.


Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillipe are getting separated and likely soon divorced.

Britney Spears and Kevin Federline are getting divorced.





Ed Bradley spent 26 years reporting for 60 Minutes and his signature voice and journalistic prowess will be missed.

Jack Palance was one impressive actor. He was one of the few who could upstage Jack Nicholson, as their initial scenes in Tim Burton's "Batman" demonstrated. He won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in "City Slickers".

Why do we mourn human death so much? If all man is is a body, then why does it matter? For example, why don't we mourn squirrels and raccoons when they get hit by cars? What's the difference?

That Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillipe are now separated is surprising, yet not totally unexpected. Many Hollywood marriages that seem to be really solid usually end when one actor's carrer overshadows the other, as Witherspoon's has over Phillipe's.

Britney Spears divorce from Kevin Federline was a no-brainer and you could see it coming from the time you read about their marriage in the supermarket tabloids.

Too bad really. I for one never like to read about couples getting divorced, even the high profile Hollywood types. It's all part of the lack of respect for marriage and family and the general decline in our culture, where divorce is the easy way out.

And of course, I include myself in the above statement on divorce, just in case you think I'm being hypocritical. I don't recommend getting a divorce in the vast majority of circumstances.

This Day in History:

1928: Hirohito became Emperor of Japan.
1969: the children's educational program "Sesame Street" made its debut on PBS.
1975: the ore-hauling ship Edmund Fitzgerald and its crew of 29 vanished during a storm on Lake Superior. This event was memorialized by Gordon Lightfoot on his 1976 album "Summertime Dream"
1982: Soviet leader Leonoid I Brezhnev died at age 75.