George Michael^[1] died he was 70, Michael was a sportscaster best known nationally for his long-running American sports highlights show called The George Michael Sports Machine. Started as a local show in 1980 called George Michael’s Sports Final^[2] and then nationally syndicated in 1984, the nationally broadcast show was distributed for syndication by NBC until it left the air following the March 25, 2007 airing. Michael won a Sports Emmy in 1985 for his work on The George Michael Sports Machine.

(March 24, 1939 – December 24, 2009)

A native of St. Louis, Missouri, Michael anchored the sports desk at WRC-TV (News 4) in Washington DC from 1980 to 2007. Previously he was a WABC-AM disk jockey known as “King” George Michael, and was noted for his energetic style. Several incidents from his radio stint at WABC in New York City have been chronicled in deejay “Cousin Brucie” Morrow’s autobiography.^[3] George Michael replaced Morrow at WABC in 1974. Before that he was the popular evening deejay at Philadelphia’s WFIL Radio (560 kHz) from 1966 until his move to WABC. While in New York, he also served for several seasons as a commentator on New York Islanders telecasts, where he was paired mainly with Tim Ryan.

As a sports broadcaster at WRC, Michael was easily one of the most popular media personalities in the Washington area. Michael got significant latitude in his programming, employing a bevy of segments some might consider old-fashioned, including his “Tuesday Replays” and “Wednesday Wrestling.” He also had devoted extensive coverage to and was considered a significant influence in the popularity of NASCAR, broadcasting interviews with famous drivers such as Dale Earnhardt well before that sport became what it is today. An avid equestrian himself, Michael also broadcast segments on bull riding and rodeo.

Michael’s affable personality had endeared him to the curmudgeonliest of local and national sports personalities and landed rare interviews. For example, Michael’s team at WRC had been the only local sportscasters allowed to broadcast from inside the Washington Redskins‘ FedEx Field during the season.

In November 2005, Michael was seriously injured in a horseback riding accident. He broke several ribs and injured his wrists during the equine mishap at his Comus farm in upper Montgomery County, Maryland. Michael resumed his duties in December 2005.

Michael left his role as WRC’s daily sports anchor on March 1, 2007 following a dispute with WRC-TV (News 4) over layoffs of his staff. The George Michael Sports Machine went off the air on March 25, 2007.^[4][5] He continued to host weekend sports panel shows, such as Full Court Press (basketball season) and Redskins Report (football season) as well as interviews at Redskins Park on Mondays with Jim Zorn and Joe Bugel through December 2008. He was completely dropped from WRC due to budget cuts despite the fact Redskins Report was consistently one of WRC’s top shows. He indicated at the time of his layoff, he would like to work on a panel show again but not on a nightly newscast.^[6]

Michael died on Dec. 24, 2009, at 70 years old after a two-year battle with cancer.^[7][8]

^{To see more of who died in 2009 click here}

A So. Fla. Man Asked Cabbie For A Ride To Memphis, Then Refused To Pay

A South Florida cabbie was tricked into making a 20 hour trip from Miami to Western Tennessee over the weekend. And he ended up getting stiffed, not getting a penny for his efforts.

CBS4′S Stephen Stock spoke with the cab driver victim by telephone and his colleagues on the streets about getting shorted on a very long trip.

From 7 at night to 4:30 in the morning, 6 days a week for 29 years Jean Desir has driven a taxi on the streets of Miami.

Despite two robberies, one at gunpoint, and countless riders who’ve stiffed him on fares, this past year has been toughest of all economically.

“This year has been really really hard,” the 54 year-old said, “really hard.”

That’s what makes the story of Desir’s fellow taxi-driver so tough to swallow this holiday season.

Police say Miami resident Luciolo Perez convinced a cabbie from Flamingo Taxis to drive him to Memphis, Tennessee. That’s a 20 hour cab ride to the middle of the country.

Then police say Perez stiffed the driver of $3,000 in cab fare, plus expenses such as gas and meals, which the cabbie paid with his own credit card.

CBS4 News spoke by phone with the cab driver, who drove this taxi half way across the country and back.

His name is Lelis Almeira.

Almeira refused CBS4’s request for an on-camera interview, saying he was tired frustrated and angry and, “I just want to put this incident behind me.”

“(The money came) out of his own pocket,” said Almeira’s colleague at Flamingo Taxi, Joel Lubin.

That’s why Flamingo Taxi dispatcher Lubin is angry too. He said that a scam such as this hurts drivers especially hard, given the tough economic times they’ve suffered through this year.

“He didn’t have to do it,” Lubin said. “He spent all his money for the expenses. He put everything for meals on his credit card expecting to get paid.”

CBS4 reporter Stephen Stock asked: “And this happens?”

“This happens,” Lubin said. “He’s kind of lost faith in humanity. And I don’t blame him.”

“We ain’t going to promise something we don’t have,” said the woman in Memphis whom Perez had traveled to visit, Nellie Rose.

Rose insists she didn’t have the money and made that clear to Perez.

“I don’t know why the cab driver and him came on (to Memphis).That’s between them,” Rose said.

Memphis police arrested Perez and charged him with theft over $1,000.

Now, in addition to trying to find $3,000 in cab fare, Perez must find enough money to bond out of jail.
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To win Rookie of the Year and MVP!!!

Wes Unseld in 1969

and

Wilt Chamberlain in 1960.

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Kim Peek has died he was 58, Peek was an American prodigious savant known as a megasavant.^[1][2][3] He had a photographic or eidetic memory, but also social developmental disabilities, possibly resulting from congenital brain abnormalities. He was the inspiration for the character of Raymond Babbitt, played by Dustin Hoffman, in the movie Rain Man. He was not autistic and likely had FG syndrome.

Kim Peek was born with macrocephaly, damage to the cerebellum, and, perhaps most important, agenesis of the corpus callosum, a condition in which the bundle of nerves that connects the two hemispheres of the brain is missing; in Peek’s case, secondary connectors such as the anterior commissure were also missing. There is speculation that his neurons made other connections in the absence of a corpus callosum, which results in an increased memory capacity.^[4] According to Peek’s father, Fran, Peek was able to memorize things from the age of 16-20 months. He read books, memorized them, and then placed them upside down on the shelf to show that he had finished reading them, a practice he maintained. He read a book in about an hour, and remembered almost everything he had read, memorizing vast amounts of information in subjects ranging from history and literature, geography, and numbers to sports, music, and dates. His reading technique consisted of reading the left page with his left eye and the right page with his right eye and in this way he could read two pages at time with a rate of about 8-10 seconds per page. It is believed he could recall the content of at least 12,000 books from memory. ^[5] Peek resided in Salt Lake City, Utah and was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.^[6] Peek died of a heart attack on December 19, 2009.^[7]

Peek did not walk until the age of four and walked in a sidelong manner.^[4] He could not button up his shirt and had difficulty with other ordinary motor skills, presumably due to his damaged cerebellum, which normally coordinates motor activities. In psychological testing, Peek scored below average (73) on general IQ tests.

Unlike many savants, Peek had shown increasing social skills, perhaps due to the attention that had come with being perceived as the “real Rain Man”. His father says that his sense of humor had been emerging since 2004 or so. Also, he had developed well beyond the stage of being a mere repository of vast amounts of information; his skills at associating information he remembers were at least one of the signs of creativity. He displayed difficulty with abstractions such as interpreting the meanings of proverbs or metaphorical terms of speech.

Although never a musical prodigy, Peek’s musical abilities as an adult were receiving more notice when he started to study the piano. He apparently remembered music he heard decades ago and could play it on the piano, to the extent permitted by his limited physical dexterity. He was able to give running spoken commentary on the music as he played, for example, comparing a piece of music to other music he had heard. In listening to recordings he could distinguish which instruments play which part and was adept at guessing the composers of new music by comparing the music to the many thousands of music samples in his memory.

In 1984, script writer Barry Morrow met Peek in Arlington, Texas; the result of the meeting was the 1988 movie Rain Man. The character of Raymond Babbitt, although inspired by Peek, was portrayed as having autism. Dustin Hoffman, who played Babbitt, met Peek and other savants to get an understanding of their nature and to play the role with accuracy (see Method acting). The movie caused a number of requests for appearances, which increased Peek’s self-confidence. Barry Morrow gave Kim his Oscar statuette to carry with him and show at these appearances. It has been referred to as the “Most Loved Oscar Statue” since it’s been held by more people than any other Oscar statue. Kim also enjoyed approaching strangers and showing them his talent for calendar calculations by telling them on which day of the week they were born and what news items were on the front page of major newspapers. Peek had also appeared on television. He traveled with his father, who took care of him and performed many motor tasks that Peek found difficult.^[4]

Peek died on 19 December 2009, of a heart attack. He was survived by his father.

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Arnold Stang^[1] died he was 91. Stang was an American comic actor who played a small and bespectacled, yet brash and knowing big-city type.

Stang once described himself thus: “I look like a frightened chipmunk who’s been out in the rain too long.”^[2] As for his squawky, Brooklyn voice, he said “I’m kind of attached to it…[it's]a personal logo. It’s like you’re Jell-O or Xerox.^[3]

(September 28, 1918 – December 20, 2009)

Stang once claimed he got his break in radio by sending a postcard to a New York station requesting an audition, was accepted, and then bought his own ticket to New York from Chelsea, Massachusetts with the money set aside for his mother’s anniversary gift.^[4]. True or not, Stang worked on New York-based network radio shows as a boy, appearing on children’s programs such as The Horn and Hardart Hour and Let’s Pretend.^[5]. By 1941, he had graduated to teenaged roles, appearing on The Goldbergs. Director Don Bernard hired him in October that year to do the commercials on the CBS program Meet Mr. Meek but decided his voice cracking between soprano and bass would hurt the commercial so he ordered scriptwriters to come up with a role for him.^[6]. He next appeared on the summer replacement show The Remarkable Miss Tuttle with Edna May Oliver in 1942^[7] and replaced Eddie Firestone Jr. in the title role of That Brewster Boy when Firestone joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1943^[8].

Cantankerous comedian Henry Morgan made him a sidekick on his program in fall of 1946, and Stang appeared in similar roles the following year on radio shows with Eddie Cantor^[9] and Milton Berle^[10].

At this time, Stang had appeared in a number of movies, including Seven Days Leave, My Sister Eileen and They Got Me Covered. He had also appeared on the Broadway stage in Sailor Beware, All In Favor and Same Time Next Week where he first worked with Berle.^[11]

Stang moved to television at the start of the Golden Age. He had a recurring role in the TV show The School House on the DuMont Television Network in 1949. He was a regular on Eddie Mayehoff’s short-lived situation comedy Doc Corkle in fall of 1952^[12]. Then, he made a guest appearance on on Berle’s Texaco Star Theater on May 12, 1953^[13] and joined him as a regular the following September, often berating or heckling the big-egoed star for big laughs. Stang also had guest roles on several variety shows of the day including The Colgate Comedy Hour.

In films, he played Sparrow in The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) with Frank Sinatra and Kim Novak. In It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) he played Ray, who along with his partner Irwin (played by Marvin Kaplan), owns a gas station that is destroyed by Jonathan Winters. He appeared in Hello Down There (1969). In one of the oddest movie pairings, he partnered with Arnold Schwarzenegger (billed as “Arnold Strong”) in the latter’s first film, the camp classic Hercules in New York (1970).

As a voice actor for animated cartoons, Stang provided the voice for Popeye’s pal Shorty (a caricature of Stang), Herman the mouse in a number of Famous Studios cartoons, Tubby Tompkins in a few Little Lulu shorts, the famous Hanna-Barbera lead character Top Cat (modeled explicitly on Phil Silvers’s Sgt. Bilko), and Catfish on Misterjaw. He also provided many extra voices for the Cartoon Network series Courage the Cowardly Dog. On television, he appeared in commercials for the Chunky candy bar, where he would list all of its ingredients, smile and say, “Chunky, what a chunk of chocolate!” He provided the voice of the Honey Nut Cheerios Bee in the 1980s and was also a spokesman for Vicks Vapo-Rub.

Stang appeared on an episode of The Cosby Show with guest star Sammy Davis Jr. In one TV ad he played Luther Burbank, proudly showing off his newly-invented “square tomato” to fit neatly in typical square slices of commercial bread, then being informed that the advertising bakery had beat him to it by producing round loaves of bread. He played the photographer in the 1993 film Dennis the Menace with Walter Matthau. ^[14]

Arnold and his wife, the former JoAnne Taggart, lived until his later years in New Rochelle, New York, moving toward the end of his life to Needham, Massachusetts. He died of pneumonia in Newton, Massachusetts, on December 20, 2009.^[1] The Stangs had two children, David and Deborah.^[1] Stang was born in New York City in 1918, but often claimed Chelsea, Massachusetts as his birthplace and 1925 as his birthdate.^[1]

^{To see more of stars that died this year click here}

Ann Louise Nixon Cooper died she was 107, Cooper was an American activist for African-American people’s rights.

(January 9, 1902 – December 21, 2009)

Cooper was born in Shelbyville, Tennessee, on January 9, 1902. She was raised in Nashville.^[1] She moved to Atlanta, Georgia, in her early twenties with her husband, Albert Berry Cooper, a dentist,^[1] and they had four children together.^[2] During that time, she served more than fifty years in public work on the board of Gate City Nursery Association and also helped found the Girls Club for African American Youth.^[3] When her husband died, Martin Luther King, Jr. sent Cooper a telegram; she also met with Coretta Scott King and saved photographs of the occasion.^[4] Cooper first registered to vote on September 1, 1941. Though she was friends with elite black Atlantans like W. E. B. Du Bois, John Hope Franklin and Benjamin Mays, she didn’t exercise her right to vote for years, because of her status as a black woman in a segregated and sexist society.^[5]

During the 1970s, she served as a tutor to non-readers at Ebenezer Baptist Church. She also served on the Friends of the Library Board, serving at one time as vice president of the board. In 1980 she received a Community Service Award from Channel 11 for being one of the organizers of the black Cub Scouts and serving as the first den mother for four years.

She was bestowed with a community service award for her activism from Atlanta’s WXIA-TV in 1980, and the Annie L. McPheeters Medallion for community service from the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History in 2002.^[2]

Still living in Atlanta, Cooper voted early for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election.^[6] After Obama won the election, she came to international attention when Obama mentioned her and compared various stages of her life to the present day during his acceptance speech at a rally in Chicago on November 4, 2008.

“She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons – because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin,”

President Obama also made reference to Cooper in his popular campaign chant, Yes We Can:

“And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America – the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: ‘Yes we can’.”

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Eki “Eddie”^[6] Fatu^[2][5] died he was 36 . Fatu was a Samoan-American professional wrestler better known by his ring name Umaga. He was best known for his time with World Wrestling Entertainment, where he was a two-time Intercontinental Champion.

(March 28, 1973 – December 4, 2009)

He was a member of the Anoa’i wrestling family and frequently worked as a part of a tag team – variously named The Island Boyz, the Samoan Gangstas, and 3-Minute Warning – with his cousin Matt Anoa’i. During Fatu’s first stint with WWE, he was known as Jamal and Matt was billed as Rosey. In late 2005, Fatu returned to WWE. Repackaged under the ring name “Umaga”, Fatu went undefeated for many months on WWE’s Raw brand throughout much of 2006, before suffering his first defeat under the Umaga name in January of 2007. Known by his many nicknames, including “The Samoan Bulldozer” and “The Samoan Savage”, Fatu died on December 4, 2009, as a result of a heart attack.

Articles posted by Sports Illustrated, the New York Daily News, and The Washington Post during the weekend of August 30, 2007, named Fatu as one of a number of superstars to have purchased pharmaceuticals from an online pharmacy, a violation of the WWE “Talent Wellness” program. Fatu specifically was said to have received somatropin, a growth hormone, between July and December 2006, after the “No drugs from online sources” rule was instituted. Fatu violated this rule again in 2009. Due to his unwillingness to seek rehabilitation, Fatu was released from his WWE contract.^[51][52]

Fatu was born in San Francisco,California, a member of the famous Anoa’i wrestling family. His mother, Vera, was the sister of Afa and Sika of the Wild Samoans, and his later Umaga gimmick would be compared to their “wildness”.^[7] His two older brothers, Sam (better known as Tonga Kid and Tama) and Solofa Jr. (better known as Rikishi), are also professional wrestlers who have achieved success of their own.^[5] Dwayne Johnson, known in wrestling as The Rock, is his cousin.

On April 27, 2008, Fatu’s mother Vera died after a seven-year battle with cancer.^[53]

A few days prior to December 4, 2009, returning home to Spring, Texas, Fatu had just completed a wrestling tour with Hulk Hogan in Australia.

On December 4, 2009, Fatu was hospitalized after his wife found him not breathing with blood coming out of his nose a few hours after he had fallen asleep the night before while watching television. He was rushed to a local hospital in Houston, Texas and was admitted into the Intensive Care Unit.^[54] It was reported that Fatu had suffered a heart attack.

Fatu was pronounced dead around 6:00 PM EST after suffering a second heart attack.^[5][55][56]

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Charles Proctor Sifton died he was 74. Sifton was a United States federal judge.

(March 18, 1935 – November 9, 2009)

Born in New York, New York, Sifton received a B.A. from Harvard College in 1957 and an LL.B. from Columbia Law School in 1961. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Göttingen in Göttingen, Germany from 1957 to 1958.

He was in private practice in New York City from 1961 to 1962, and was staff counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations from 1962 to 1964. He returned to private practice until 1966, then served as an assistant U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of New York until 1969, when he again returned to private practice until 1977.

On August 16, 1977, Sifton was nominated by President Jimmy Carter to a seat on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York vacated by John F. Dooling, Jr.. Sifton was confirmed by the United States Senate on October 12, 1977, and received his commission the same day. He served as chief judge from 1995 to 2000, assuming senior status on March 18, 2000.

He was the Father of New York TImes writer Sam Sifton.

Judge Sifton died from sarcoidosis on the morning of November 9, 2009.

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The ideal of this blog when I first started was to tell all the horrors of child support, but after the first story I began to think that one could become redundant! So my ideal was to take it to the next level of reporting and show some news with a twist. So one thing that I continue to try and stress is that the law is not fair or impartial when it comes to men and how the Courts deal with the.

Thank goodness for the Child Support laws changing for the better and protecting the men a little more. Although I don’t understand what these judges are thinking when they impose these gross and unreal income tax on these super stars income! I am shocked that these women who make their own millions still expect the men to give them another few millions of tax free income.

Comedian ends legal dispute with former Spice Girl Melanie Brown

Eddie Murphy has been ordered by a judge to pay $51,000 a month in child support for his 22-month-old child Angel Iris until she turns 18…totaling in $10 million. According to The Daily Telegraph, Murphy has also agreed to start seeing the child he has with former Spice Girl, Melanie Brown. Murphy first questioned whether the child was his until paternity tests proved he was the father. “I don’t know whose child that is,” Murphy said on Dutch TV show RTL Boulevard in 2006, “until it comes out and has a blood test.” Both Brown and Murphy were embroiled in a 15-month long legal dispute. “Mel is delighted that the case is over,” a friend of Brown said. “She just wanted what was right for the girl.” To see more child support stories click here