Obituaries: Terrorist, Author and Tina

The Unabomber, Cormac McCarthy, Tina Turner

Death of a Religious Terrorist

The Unabomber died in prison. The anti-capitalist Unabomber can be remembered as a monster who was a religious terrorist; he is the embodiment of the nihilistic climax of the 20th century’s decline and a prelude to the West’s impending doom.

Death of a Writer

Dystopian writer Cormac McCarthy has also died. The author of No Country for Old Men, The Road, the suicide-themed The Sunset Limited, The Passenger and other fiction left a legacy of writing which this reader may want to explore.

After seeing the 2009 adaptation of his 2006 Alfred Knopf novel The Road, which I reviewed here (paid subscribers can listen to the podcast episode), I want to read more of what McCarthy wrote. He joined the United States Air Force, lived in Spain, El Paso, Texas, Santa Fe, New Mexico and Alaska, married and divorced, fathered children and was funded by predominant intellectuals, winning the nation’s most favored prizes, grants and scholarships including Rockefeller, Pulitzer and Guggenheim awards. McCarthy, who chose to give one of his only interviews to the magazine published by the New York Times, was 89 when he died.

Have you read his fiction? If so, can you recommend a story you think I might enjoy?

Death of a Rock Star

What’s most compelling to me about Tina Turner isn’t what gets attention. That she was female and black is emphasized at the expense of her admirable qualities.

Tina Turner fled an abusive husband and restarted her life. She did so plainly. She made a long, strenuous and initially unsuccessful transition from rhythm and blues to becoming a rock star with her greatest success later in life from her 1984 album, Private Dancer. It’s a good album, certainly meaningful in my life. “I Can’t Stand the Rain” is slow and soulful. That tune caught my attention. The rest of the album did not disappoint, especially the title song. There’s serenity in its wistful aura.

The song on that bestselling album which for me captures her essence is “Better Be Good to Me,” a crisp rock anthem which affirms rationality as it expresses anger, reasserting control and gaining clarity with self-confidence and a sense of triumph. I like many of her other songs, too, especially “We Don’t Need Another Hero,” from one of the Mad Max movies, which I think would be better titled “We Don’t Need Another Pseudo-Hero” and is somewhat misunderstood.

Amid today’s rampant sexism and racism, including minimizing rock star Tina Turner by emphasizing her sex and blood, the show business ageism of her biography gets lost. Tina Turner was older in a later stage of her career when she found her greatest success, and she found it with mostly white mainstream pop and rock audiences. Tina was embraced after she fled Ike Turner by Donny and Marie Osmond as well as fashion designer Bob Mackie, who costumed her comeback performances in Las Vegas, and she found passion in her chosen partnership with predominantly white and male rock stars, including Rod Stewart, Bryan Adams and David Bowie.

Tina Turner remade herself as an older woman, which she rarely gets credit for. The Buddhist renounced her U.S. citizenship during the Obama presidency and left the U.S. to live in Switzerland, where she died last month. Tina Turner never returned.