Farewell!

I remember as a kid watching the end of the year montage of famous people who had died, and they were mostly a bunch of old people I'd never heard of. But this summer, many people and creatures famous to me have passed the way of the dodo. Pavarotti sung his last, and these three people are also history.

Alex the parrot, who challenged our ideas on what it means to be conscious, died on September 6th (this post is a little late). This NYtimes article is exceptionally interesting and reveals Alex's personality: Alex Wanted a Cracker, but Did He Want One?

Also, a belated fairwell to Albert Ellis (died 7/25/07), the father of rational emotive behavior therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy. Anyone with a bad habit like drinking or self-hate should look into CBT. Here is his NYtimes article.

Madeleine L'Engle also died on september 8. I had read some of her books, the most famous of which is titled A Wrinkle in Time. The mother of the children in that series was a chemist.