It was with sadness that I learned today of the passing of Maurice Sendak, the man who took the concept of Children's books to an entirely new level. His was a unique voice and vision and it will be missed.

I found an episode broadcast earlier today via NPR's Fresh Air program which features a remembrance of Sendak along with excerpts of several of the interviews he did for that program over the years.

If you haven't already heard it - here it is now.

Rest in Peace Maurice Sendak - you made surviving the day-to-day so much more bearable.

With the stunning and sad news of the passing of author, philosopher and icon Ray Bradbury today, I ran through a mental catalog of his many milestone works and found it overwhelming. Probably one of the most gifted and keen minds the 20th Century had to offer, Bradbury painted a world perhaps more prophetic than fantastic, more visionary than imagined, more real than fancied.

As way of tribute, I ran across this brief excerpt from an interview done in 1958 where he explains the premise of his landmark novel Fahrenheit 451.

In 1958 he explained his reason for writing a piece on the willful and systematic destruction of books, with a sense of optimism that the climate that spawned the piece (the McCarthy era and book censorship) had passed and our culture was becoming more enlightened.

In retrospect, he may have spoken too fast. But then, history has that awful tendency to repeat.

Thank you Ray, for being one-of-a-kind. We do however, need you back right about now.

In what started out as a seemingly busy but otherwise sedate newscast via the BBC World Service' World Today, quickly turned into a series of bulletins and updates regarding the death earlier this evening of North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Il at age 69, or 70 depending on which source you read (the Russians claimed he was born in 1941).

So in keeping with news-off-the-cuff, here is the first and second hours of The World Today, complete and uncut, with the first bulletins coming in at around 6 minutes into the top player.

You get the whole rundown, the High-Voltage North Korean newscaster and the updates, along with the rest of the news of the day (Iraq already showing signs of coming apart, violence in Tahrir Square and the video that's now gone viral, Domestic violence in the extreme in Bangladesh and more). There is also a lot speculation regarding Il's successor - namely the son, Kim Jong Un - the name alone should send chills, or perplexed stares.

I think it's going to be an interesting week coming up.

Stay tuned.

Hot on the heels of hearing of the passing of Blues and Soul legend Howard Tate last night, I also heard the sad news on the passing of another Blues and Soul legend, Dobie Gray, who passed away last night at the age of 71.

I hate these things. They are never easy.

My first exposure to Dobie Gray came by way of his debut hit The In Crowd which dominated the radio, when the Beatles and Rolling Stones weren't. I didn't really hear very much from him for a few years until the early 70's when he came out with Drift Away, which has since become a staple on FM Radio ever since.

Rather than play that, as I am sure if you've been anywhere near a radio you've heard a few hundred times today, I thought I would play something else from that period. Lovin' The Easy Way is a track maybe not as well known but certainly every bit as much a tribute to the versatility and wide-ranging talent that Dobie Gray had.

You couldn't pigeon hole Dobie Gray as "this" kind of singer or "that" kind of singer. He just did what he did and he did it wonderfully well.

Doesn't get much better than that for anybody.

News on this September day in 1970 was all about the death of Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser at 52 of a massive heart attack. His passing stunned many throughout the world and cast doubts over the future of the Middle East and the on-going Peace negotiations leaving something of a void and rather large shoes for his successor, vice-President Anwar Sadat to fill. The newscast was nearly dominated by reactions and statements from world leaders.

Meanwhile, President Nixon was visiting Rome on his European tour and spent time with The Pope at The Vatican. Kent State University, scene of the shooting deaths of anti-War protesters in May, reopened to a new semester, and hopefully some calm.

And somewhat overshadowed by the International news of the day was news that celebrated American author John dos Passos had died at 74.

A busy day, as reported by NBC News on September 28, 1970.

(Abbey Lincoln - fearless and timeless)

With the sad news today of the passing of Jazz legend and Civil Rights Activist Abbey Lincoln, the world has one less voice speaking up and singing out. One less voice saying it and showing how it's done.

Abbey Lincoln was a remarkable talent, a renaissance woman who was not only a gifted vocalist but writer, actress and outspoken critic of the injustices brought on by bigotry and racism.

I just ran across this tribute done by NPR as part of their Jazz Profiles series some time back featuring the work and life of Abbey Lincoln. A quick reminder of what we've just lost.

Rest in Peace Abbey.

(Captain Trips has left the building)

Hard to believe it was fifteen years ago to the day that Jerry Garcia passed from the scene and left behind a legacy that is still as strong today as was then.

The time of Death was determined to be around 4 in the morning. The news spread quickly and by 9 am pretty much everyone who had ever heard a Grateful Dead track or went to a Grateful Dead concert heard the devastating news.

So here is a compilation of the first two hours, right after the initial "unconfirmed reports" were confirmed.

The rest is history.

(Senator Ted Kennedy - passing of an era)

Regardless of having known the end would come for some time, hearing the news that Senator Ted Kennedy lost his battle to brain cancer still came with an overwhelming sadness - a true sense of loss. The passing of an era.

So as way of a tribute, here is Ted Kennedy at the National Press Club from January 18, 1972, outlining the priorities for the upcoming session of Congress. As always, Health Care was forefront on his mind.

Ted Kennedy: “If you think we have a (health) system that is working well today, ask the person next to you. Ask a mother who tries to call a doctor after dark. Ask a man who lost is health insurance because he lost his job. Ask a senior citizen whose Medicare has run out. Ask anyone who ever paid a bill or tried to file a Health Insurance claim. Our people will never get fair value for their enormous investment in Health Care, unless we break the strangle hold of the Health Providers and Health Insurance companies. We have a mammoth Health Care crisis because we have a mammoth health care system that works well, but only for the few. It works well for the doctors. It works well for the hospitals. It works well for the insurance industry. It works well for everyone but the sick. And it is the people who pay the price for this enormous profiteering. They have been sold a bill of goods for a system that is marred throughout by high cost and inefficiency, by inconvenience and incompetence. And by implicit or outright fraud. I do not believe that the Congress will be a party to the passage of any Health Insurance bill that maintains such vital flaws. We stand on the threshold of real reform. And 1972 can be the year when we cross that threshold and fulfill at last the promise that health is a basic right for all our citizens, not just an expensive privilege of the few”.

He never quit the fight.

(Despite the overused cliche, he really was the most trusted man in America)

The idea of Walter Cronkite not being among us, even at the age of 92, is a hard concept to grasp. Those of us of a certain age who grew up with him every night, glued to our TV's during every defining moment of our history - hearing the words of calm and conscience, we came to expect he would always be around - maybe not nightly as he was until 1981, but in some form, some presence of the man we trusted - always there, always observing, always the witness.

But life doesn't work that way, and now we're left with moments of time, places in history we associate with Walter Cronkite.

Tributes the past day have been largely flashes of moments in history - the Moon landing, the JFK assassination.

I thought I would add something a little different to the mix - maybe not as earth shattering as a tragedy or a walk on the moon, but the postmortem of an election - November 7, 1968, when Nixon won by a narrow margin. The exhaustion of staying up most of the night to report returns up to the final moment when Nixon was declared winner. It's not a milestone moment, but it was typical of the eloquence, the thoughtful reflection on a night in a troubled time.

Those nights we turned to Walter Cronkite the most.

“There’s a great deal of talk tonight of Richard Nixon, not by his own admission a loveable figure, succeeding without a clear mandate, to the leadership of a divided nation. These, to put it mildly, are negative thoughts. President-elect Nixon has said his first job will be to try and unite the nation. There’s no one who can say tonight, including Richard Nixon, whether he can do that job. Who can restore the hope of the American spirit, to all our people, black and white, rich and poor. But there is one thing that should be abundantly clear, the President-elect, whether it was Nixon or Humphrey or Wallace or the candidate of the Prohibition Party, could not do that job alone. The leaders of the opposition including Dick Gregory in a particularly Statesman-like concession called for unity. Their followers can do no less than to give the new man a chance. This is Walter Cronkite, CBS News election headquarters – good night.”

And that's the way it was.