{"id":14747,"date":"2016-06-29T15:45:59","date_gmt":"2016-06-29T20:45:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/?p=14747"},"modified":"2016-06-29T15:45:59","modified_gmt":"2016-06-29T20:45:59","slug":"obit-watch-june-29-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/?p=14747","title":{"rendered":"Obit watch: June 29, 2016."},"content":{"rendered":"

So Cormac McCarthy isn’t dead.<\/p>\n

However, Alvin “Future Shock” Toffler<\/a> is.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo serious futurist deals in \u2018predictions,\u2019\u201d he wrote in the book\u2019s introduction. \u201cThese are left for television oracles and newspaper astrologers.\u201d<\/a>
\nHe advised readers to \u201cconcern themselves more and more with general theme, rather than detail.\u201d That theme, he emphasized, was that \u201cthe rate of change has implications quite apart from, and sometimes more important than, the directions of change.\u201d<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(I’ve never actually read Future Shock<\/strong><\/a>. When it was first published, I was distracted by other things, like my binky: when I reached the age where I might have been able to appreciate it, it seemed…quaint. Perhaps I should fix this.)<\/p>\n

I find this obit for Phil Parker<\/a> oddly touching. Son of a Baptist preacher, drank for the first time in grad school at Harvard, ended up an alcoholic living on the streets of the Bowery, finally went to AA and got sober…<\/p>\n

In 1974, just a few years after he stopped drinking, Mr. Parker founded a supported work program that over the next several decades would help countless other homeless alcoholics. And as the derelict population became disproportionately young and black, Mr. Parker, who was black, became a social worker himself, supervising the program at the city\u2019s East Third Street Men\u2019s Shelter just off the Bowery.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He stayed sober for 48 years. Cancer got him in the end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So Cormac McCarthy isn’t dead. However, Alvin “Future Shock” Toffler is. \u201cNo serious futurist deals in \u2018predictions,\u2019\u201d he wrote in the book\u2019s introduction. \u201cThese are left for television oracles and newspaper astrologers.\u201d He advised readers to \u201cconcern themselves more and more with general theme, rather than detail.\u201d That theme, he emphasized, was that \u201cthe rate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-obits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14747"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14750,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14747\/revisions\/14750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sportsfirings.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}