Here are a couple of obituaries - from The Economist and The Daily Telegraph, for Gene Smith, a librarian whose passion, intellect, tenacity and enterprise "almost single-handedly ensured the survival of Tibetan literature..." He died in December 2010.
From The Economist obituary :
"Over five decades, Mr Smith made it his business to put Tibetan literature back together. He did it more or less single-handedly, fired by his love of the language and the culture and aided by a brain that rapidly became an encyclopedia of lineages, sutras, lives of lamas, and the history and ownership of every book he came across. Expatiating in serene but fearsome detail to friends in his rooms in Delhi, or Boston, or New York, all of them piled floor-to-ceiling with cloth-wrapped pecha, he could instantly find a page anywhere to illustrate a point.
Though people considered him a teacher, he was always a librarian, with a librarian’s love of catalogues and connections; but his Buddhism added to that a reverence for the transmission of texts, on which all spiritual progress rested."
Showing posts with label The Economist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Economist. Show all posts
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Hans Rosling and The Economist
I did a post a while ago about Hans Rosling's engaging, informative, surprising 2006 TED talk on the use - and presentation - of data / statistics to understand the world, and I have just read a profile of him in November's Economist - here is the link http://www.economist.com/node/17663585?story_id=17663585&CFID=158252112&CFTOKEN=51531046 This piece updates Hans Rosling's efforts to make data accessible, both from organisations and through software...
The Economist is known for its well-written and eclectic obituaries - here is a quote about them by author Marilyn Johnson - "There is no chariot as elegant for a final send-off as The Economist obit. Each one is a literary marvel, a dazzling ride through an era. The subjects are lucky (except for the death part) : they cross to the other side in incomparable style."
In 2010 a collection was published - The Economist Book of Obituaries, featuring 199 people and one parrot - here is the link to the Amazon page with reviews... http://www.amazon.com/Economist-Book-Obituaries-Keith-Colquhoun/dp/1576603261
One of my favourite Economist obituaries is of two characters remembered from television in England in the 1970s - it deftly connects weather forecaster Jack Scott and "On the buses" tv sitcom star Reg Varney, and provides insight into the English temperament - post-war and today... brilliant http://www.economist.com/node/12719434
The Economist is known for its well-written and eclectic obituaries - here is a quote about them by author Marilyn Johnson - "There is no chariot as elegant for a final send-off as The Economist obit. Each one is a literary marvel, a dazzling ride through an era. The subjects are lucky (except for the death part) : they cross to the other side in incomparable style."
In 2010 a collection was published - The Economist Book of Obituaries, featuring 199 people and one parrot - here is the link to the Amazon page with reviews... http://www.amazon.com/Economist-Book-Obituaries-Keith-Colquhoun/dp/1576603261
One of my favourite Economist obituaries is of two characters remembered from television in England in the 1970s - it deftly connects weather forecaster Jack Scott and "On the buses" tv sitcom star Reg Varney, and provides insight into the English temperament - post-war and today... brilliant http://www.economist.com/node/12719434
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