BS: Who would you save?

Subject: BS: Who would you save?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 05:56 PM

This is a counterpoint to this thread.

If you could go back in history and prevent the premature deaths of ten people, who would they be?

The only stipulations are that they died at relatively young ages and that their deaths were in some way preventable. People with congenital health disorders don't count. Allowable causes of death are accidents, acts of violence or war, suicides, and medical conditions that could have been cured or prevented. And you can get pretty far-fetched with the "preventable" part, like having avoided exposure to a communicable disease.

Since we can only save ten people and arts and music are more important than politics to me, my list is entirely from the art and music world. (And since I get to go first, I get the easy ones.) Somebody else can save the politicians.

Jimi Hendrix - guitarist
Duane Allman - guitarist
Berry Oakley - bassist
Stan Rogers - folk singer/songwriter
W.A. Mozart - composer
James Dean - actor
River Phoenix - actor
John Belushi - actor
John Kennedy Toole - author (A Confederacy of Dunces)
Vincent Van Gogh - artist

That's my ten. Your turn.

Bruce

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Peter T.
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 06:17 PM

Depends on what you mean by premature -- John Belushi died right on schedule, it seems to me.

One wants to see more of people who were only just getting started, or who were obviously into a great new part of life. Lots of people who died youngish had done a great deal, and probably done about all that was going to be original in the world. Some people were never long enough in the world, though they were eighty when they died. Gandhi should have lived another five years. If Lincoln had lived another 6 months, America would have been completely different.

John Keats.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Mrrzy
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 06:20 PM

My dad, not that I could really have stopped him going to Beirut, but don't think I haven't thought about it.

From the music world: all the people on the Big Bopper's plane, or at least him and Buddy Holly. From politics/generally famous category: Lady Di (but not the boyfriend, necessarily); the Kennedy that skied into the tree and the one from the plane crash. More from art: John Wayne, can we get him away from the nuclear tests? Or did he live to be old enough? Hmmm - can't believe I'm having trouble coming up with 10 people.

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Peg
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 06:36 PM

Part of the reason, it seems to me, that many artists who died tragically and/or young are revered as great artists taken from us too soon has to do with the fact that they DID die so young...they have a very mythic and magical aura surrounding their deaths AND their lives. No one knows what potential might have been explored and manifested with these people. I have more thoughts on this but that's good for now.

here's my list (must say I agree with some of those already mentioned):
my friend J.P. Slota
my friend Adam Schliemer
Jimi Hendrix
River Phoenix
Janis Joplin
Robert Burns!!!
Katrin Cartlidge (Scottish actress who died this year aged 41)
Derek Jarman (English filmmaker)
Brad Davis (American actor)
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Justa Picker
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 06:54 PM

Eva Cassidy
JFK
RFK
Martin Luther King Jr.
Marilyn Monroe
Hank Williams
Robert Johnson
James Dean
Jesus
Terry Fox

and

Keith Richards :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Gareth
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 06:58 PM

Hmmm ! - A little objectivity here - Shall we just say that it is possible some died before thier reputations collapsed.

And for an example _ as he has not been mentioned - Lord Nelson.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Amos
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 06:59 PM

John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Bobby Kennedy
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Probably FDR
Abraham Lincoln
Ernest Hemingway, not because it was so premature but because it was so unnecessary.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 07:10 PM

JFK
Abraham Lincoln
Martin Luther King
My father (I'd like to have known him)
Thomas Chatterton
Pope John Paul I
Stan Rogers
Jimi Hendrix
Janis Joplin
Jesus of Nazareth

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 07:16 PM

Sure, it's possible that some died before their reputations collapsed. It's also possible that some may not yet have reached their full potential. There's certainly no way for us to know.

Bruce

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 07:21 PM

Well, seeing as how I'm sorta an extreme extinctionist... I guess my list has no one one it...

That aside, I do gotta agree, I'da liked to see more movies from River Phoenix...

And my chummer from highschool, Adam, who got drunk one night, picked a fight with a guy, chased down his car, and ended up under the back wheels... All I wanna change is to be there to calm him down... Coulda done with a BUNCH more years with that SOB....

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Ely
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 07:27 PM

Edgar Allan Poe
Bessie Smith

I'm going to cheat and add Jane Austen (her illnesses could not have been cured at the time, but nowadays we could have at least gotten her past 42).

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: mg
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 07:36 PM

seven door gunners and two river rats and one truck driver who died in Vietnam. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Benjamin
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 07:44 PM

Franz Schubert
Neal Cassidy
Abraham Lincoln
Bruce Jay Pascow
Sam Cooke
Buddy Holly
Bruce Lee
Brandon Lee
M.L.K.

I'm having trouble thinking of a number 10 for now.

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: izzy
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 07:57 PM

Kenneth Horne, Tommy Handley, Little Titch, Marie Lloyd. T.E. Lawrence, Nic Jones, Sandy Denny, Peter Bellamy, Lal Waterson, Royston Wood.

I'm sure there's lots more.. anyway, I defy anyone to come up with a more unusual list!

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: izzy
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 07:58 PM

And OBVIOUSLY Martin Luther King Jr. Hasn't anyone mentioned him yet?

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Amos
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 08:23 PM

ISabel:

Yes.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 08:26 PM

mg, there are a whole lot of guys I'd like to have seen come back from 'Nam -- better'n 58,000 of 'em, in fact. And that don't count the Vietnamese, North and South. Or the Laotians or Cambodians or Australians or . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Jeri
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 08:56 PM

This is a tough one. I don't know what would have been different if the public figures named had lived longer. Some of what they accomplished was because they died young. They're remembered because they died. People who followed them did certain things because they died, and the world changed. I'd pick people I knew. Even then, who's to say I'd be doing any good just because I saved myself the pain of losing them once. I just don't know...

(BTW, Nic Jones lives.)

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 10:31 PM

Hmm. Here's another thought probe: of the list of people whom you would like to bring back because what they accomplished while they lived gave an indication of how much more they could have contributed had they not died prematurely (careful, here it comes), who can you think of who probably would have totally it screwed up, managed to negate their earlier accomplishments, turned out to be nothing more that a flash-in-the-pan, and eventually died in obscurity?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Peg
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 10:40 PM

oh yes, Lal Waterson, good one. I have been discovering her genu=ius of late.

Fine fine sparrow...fine, fine horseman.

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 11:07 PM

To answer Don's question, I think Jim Morrison falls into that category. In fact, he was well on the way there when he died. The Doors' music is still very popular, but I think Morrison, had he lived, had the potential to do things that would have made people never want to hear his music again. In a younger vain, I think Kurt Cobain of Nirvana would have eventually driven his fans away too. And, with apologies to Peg, Janis Joplin was so burnt out by the time she died that I have a hard time believing that she could have seriously accomplished much else. She had definitely peaked and was not gonna come back up again.

Bruce

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 11:41 PM

I defy anyone to come up with a more unusual list!

Isabel,

Well given that one entry on your list is still alive, and another two died of cancer, and hence don't qualify according to the rules laid out above, yes your list is the most 'unusual'

Do you want a prize?

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Sep 03 - 11:55 PM

John Lennon and Jesus.

That would be an interesting discussion...

Lennon would win, mind. 'God' seems to be increasingly silent as science moves on.

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: maire-aine
Date: 07 Sep 03 - 12:10 AM

Will Rogers (American humorist)
Wilkie Collins (English author)
all the astronauts

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 07 Sep 03 - 01:22 AM

It's more interesting to look at the lists already here than to compose my own. Don't forget, death can be a good thing.

Dr. King had pretty much done his life's work when he died. I suspect he's worth more to the world as a martyr than a living man.

Princess Di - A nice woman. Nothing more. Over-rated.

John Lennon - I cried. But his work was almost certainly done, also.

T E Lawrence - I don't think he would agree.

Lincoln - A difficult call. If he hadn't been elected, the war might not have happened. Slavery was dieing economically, anyway.

Buddy Holly - Who knows. I don't really care.

Bruce and Brandon Lee? - Get real.

Bessie Smith - Immortality wouldn't be enough.

Stan Rogers & Hank Williams - ditto the above.

Percy Shelly - Lived far too long. All thud and blunder, moke and smirrors.

van Gough - It was a pity but give him his rest.

Mozart - see Smith, Rogers and Williams.

Schubert - Good but over-rated. If given another chance, he'd probably find a way to kill himself.

AND NOW...........................................

Jesus.   I don't think he existed. If he did, the good he caused may outweigh the evil. And then again, it may not.

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Zoot
Date: 07 Sep 03 - 04:22 AM

Harold Godwinson (1066)

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: GUEST,Wolfgang
Date: 07 Sep 03 - 04:50 AM

Rabin, for him living longer might have made a big difference
Lumumba, for the same reason

and I add Jesus from Nazareth, though I think with very different reasons from others who have named him.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: izzy
Date: 07 Sep 03 - 07:51 AM

I meant Nick Drake. That's what comes of trying to post messages at 11 at night.

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Rapparee
Date: 07 Sep 03 - 09:37 AM

Actually, I'd like Jesus of Nazareth to drop around and filter what he actually said from what it's said he said -- straighten out the New Testament. I fantasize about the comments:

"Whoa, dude! I never said nothin' like that! And that, yeah, I said it, but not in those words. Yah know, whoever edited this sure messed it up. And looky there -- I never even went there!" And so on.

If JC had lived longer it would have interfered with the Christian redemption.

(Something about term limits for politicians just occured to me -- if a public life of three years was good enough for Jesus of Nazareth....)

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Amos
Date: 07 Sep 03 - 11:23 AM

Wow, misoph!! Most refreshing post to date! Thanks,


A

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: mooman
Date: 07 Sep 03 - 12:01 PM

I could pick many and agree with many of the suggestions so far. From my side...

- Jo-Ann Kelly (someone I met all too late)
- John Smith
- All the unsung special people who made a positive contribution in this world and passed on either because of that or before their time.

Peace

moo

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: izzy
Date: 07 Sep 03 - 01:39 PM

I recently lost a family member to cancer, and it is likely that it could have been avoided had she not smoked, ate properly, exercised, etc, since it didn't run in the family. So it is sometimes partly preventable. And no I don't want a 'prize', just a little of the respect I try to accord other people. May I ask why Mudcat allows anonymous postings? This feature is hardly ever used except by people who have the wrong motives --i.e. they have something controversial to say and they don't have the guts to put a name or nickname to it, or they want to wreck other people's discussions. Maybe I should start another thread about this...

Back on subject, Wilfred Owen is somebody else who was lost much too early, if anyone is interested. And I agree about Harold.

Cheers,

Isabel

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Peter T.
Date: 07 Sep 03 - 05:56 PM

Oh yes, Wilfrid Owen, to be sure. It is also a real pity about Christopher Marlowe.

Thinking about Don's thought, I think it is likely that Percy Shelley would have worn out his welcome if he hadn't drowned. He was, however, changing somewhat (The Triumph of Life is unfinished, but it is hard to see how he would have finished it). John Lennon had really worn out his welcome, it is hard to see that he would have become less strident and boring as time went on. I think Janis Joplin died on schedule, but what an amazing talent, I am still sad to think of her dying so young.

Meanwhile:

I would like to have had Bix Beiderbecke sober for a few years.

Puccini for another five months to finish Turandot!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: GUEST,pdq
Date: 07 Sep 03 - 06:04 PM

Steve Goodman fans will note that he is gone and B.B. King is still here.

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Midchuck
Date: 07 Sep 03 - 06:08 PM

Well, a lot of mine have been said already. I need two lists:

Musicians:

Stan Rogers
Kate Wolf
Steve Goodman

The news had come by sometime back, when a rider stopped to say,
Big North, young Kate, and the Goody boy had up and passed away...

- Christopher Shaw; "The Year of '88"

Hank (the real one)

Elvis
Janis Joplin

(Yes, both of them were pretty well burned out well before they died - but I think of the burning out process as part of the dying. You can commit suicide with drugs either with one big dose or a lot of little ones.)

Clarence White (and not because of his electric rock stuff - although there was nothing wrong with that either)

Buddy Holly

Waylon Jennings
John Duffey

(Yes, they both lived into their 60s. But I'm in my 60s, so I consider dying in said decade premature. And I miss both of them.

To be continued.

Peter.

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: harvey andrews
Date: 07 Sep 03 - 07:22 PM

Sorry peter but;

John Lennon
Buddy Holly
Harry Chapin
Steve Goodman
Kate Wolf
Stan Rogers
Phil Ochs
George Gissing
Jaques brel
Mozart

I was driving back from france today and on the radio they played "American Pie" and then pointed out that it was Buddy's birthday. He would have been 67. I had to pull over, choked up. The journey we never made....How can you be 60 and yet 15 at the same time? It still hurt.

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Raedwulf
Date: 07 Sep 03 - 07:35 PM

I dunno about 10... I might get there eventually... In the meanwhile, I'd agree with Harold Godwinsson & Wilfred Owen.

Hmmmm... How about Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary. The agitators who killed him & his wife managed to assasinate the one bloke in the regime who had both the power & interest towards helping them. WWI might have kicked off anyway at some point, but the world would have been a very different place, I think, if FF had lived. Don't know whether it would have been better, just very different...

Oh & on the subject of Jesus, there is a well argued theory ("Jesus the Man", by Barbara Thiering) that says he didn't die of crucifixion, but lived into his 60's.

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: izzy
Date: 07 Sep 03 - 08:01 PM

Actually that's an interesting point (and coincidence) about Archduke Ferdinand. We were discussing him in a recent English class at university (my teacher in that course is second-generation Croatian) and I was the only one who could say who he was and why he was important.

How frightening is that? My mother, who is a college teacher, also says she's had some students WHO HAVEN'T EVEN HEARD OF HITLER.
Sort of makes you wonder whether, through ignorance, we will be doomed to repeat our mistakes.

Spot on with Jacques Brel. What a songwriter, what a satirist. It's worth learning French just for him (unfortunately the translations don't really do it--Le Moribond versus Seasons in the Sun, ugh!!)

I think (pet theory of mine) that if Harold hadn't been killed he might have been able to rally the Anglo-Saxons and we wouldn't have had to put up with an aristocracy based on ideas of Norman ethnic superiority for so long. Anybody ever read an unsettling short story by Kipling called "The Tree of Justice", which deals with an idea like this?

Speaking of people who died before we really got a sense of their true potential, I often wonder what Rupert Brooke would have done after the war. He was a supreme example of the syndrome that makes icons out of people who are reasonably talented and die young.

Sorry for the long and rambling message, but this thread is beginning to get interesting...

Cheers,

Isabel

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 07 Sep 03 - 09:01 PM

Noone's mentioned the Bronte sisters.

And it's interesting to imagine how things might have been for the Beatles if Stuart Sutcliffe hadn't died. Of course, it's quite possible a change like that might have meant we'd never have hear of them, because John Lennon could well have been diverted into doing something else.

And in the UK political world, it's a real bugger John Smith died like that and landed us with Tony Blair.

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: GUEST,Just passing through
Date: 07 Sep 03 - 09:42 PM

Fermat, long enough to finish his last theorem and see if he proof held up.

Sam Cooke.

Einstein, long enough for him to learn that God does, indeed, "play dice with the Universe" and to determine if it was really his first wife who wrote the Theories of Relativity.

Amy Robsart, long enough to find out what really happened.

Christopher Marlowe, ditto.

Elizabeth Stride, or any of the others, to find out WHO?

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Peg
Date: 07 Sep 03 - 10:58 PM

Do bear in mind that some artists with drug or alcohol problems sometimes go on to best these problems and continue their work...and this might well have happened with the "Js" who OD'ed like Joplin, Jimi, Jim, et al. I do not agree with those who say someone has "peaked" just because addiction problems ahve caused their talents and output to backslide, as this may only be temporary.

Robert Downey Jr., Richard Dreyfuss, Norman Mailer, Carrie Fisher, Drew Barrymore, Robin Williams, Ally Sheedy, just a few examples of some who almost didn't make it.

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Joe_F
Date: 08 Sep 03 - 10:30 AM

Burns, yes. James Agee. A couple of my college buddies who died in their boots.

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 08 Sep 03 - 11:37 AM

My understanding is that, one way or another, Harold would have died.The Normans had orders to target the leaders at all costs. The real question, I think is 'What if Harold had had more tanists (understudies) to rally the men? The Normans only won by the skin of their teeth and it cost them dearly.

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: GUEST,John Hardly
Date: 08 Sep 03 - 11:40 AM

Neil Young?

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: C-flat
Date: 08 Sep 03 - 11:44 AM

If Marlowe hadn't died young would we even know Shakespears name?

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Sep 03 - 12:22 PM

Isabel,

The thread is becoming a joke thanks to you. Take your prize and go a way.

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Sep 03 - 12:48 PM

Virginia woolf, Alexander The Great, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King,Emily Bronte,Janis Joplin, Mozart, John Keats, Christopher Marlowe.

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Amos
Date: 08 Sep 03 - 12:55 PM

Oh, Guest. Just stop it. How dull.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Sep 03 - 12:57 PM

It definitely wouldn't be GUEST...

Subject: RE: BS: Who would you save?
From: Amergin
Date: 08 Sep 03 - 01:20 PM

well...for the folks who would save jesus christ...he served his purpose by being a martyr....otherwise he would have faded into obscurity just like any other cult leader...

the same goes for jfk and mlk and malcolm x and joe hill...

would we still be hearing about any of them if they had lived?