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Last Titanic Survivor Dies, Credits Her Father for Saving Her Life
 The last Titanic survivor has died–a woman who was only nine weeks old when the ship went down. As was common, she, her mother and baby brother survived, and her father went down with the ship. From Millvina Dean, Titanic's Last Survivor, Dies At 97:
Dean said her father's quick actions saved his family. He felt the ship scrape the iceberg and hustled the family out of its third-class quarters and toward the lifeboat that would take them to safety.
"That's partly what saved us—because he was so quick. Some people thought the ship was unsinkable," Dean told the British Broadcasting Corp. in 1998.
Wrapped in a sack against the Atlantic chill, Dean was lowered into a lifeboat. Her 2-year-old brother Bertram and her mother Georgette also survived.
"She said goodbye to my father and he said he'd be along later," Dean said in 2002. "I was put into lifeboat 13. It was a bitterly cold night and eventually we were picked up by the Carpathia."
Baseball Player Getting Shook Down for Ex-Wife's Attorney's Padded Legal Fees?
 Washington Nationals outfielder Elijah Dukes seems to be making an effort to put his problems behind him, but the troubled ballplayer certainly has not been a poster boy for fatherhood. Nevertheless, there's something noteworthy about the latest in his financial battle with his ex-wife.
From Dukes Faces Possible Jail Time for Legal Fees (Washington Post, 5/29/09):
Hillsborough (Fla.) Circuit Court Judge Mark Wolfe on Friday ordered that [Washington Nationals outfielder Elijah] Dukes, 24, must pay $39,767 in outstanding legal fees for his estranged wife's attorneys. If he doesn't make the payment by June 5 at 5 p.m., he could face 90 days in jail.
Dukes's attorney, Grady Irvin, said that his client would make the payment and avoid jail time...
Irvin said, "He is current on his child support. His wife, NiShea, will go to any length to smear him. She won't even grant a divorce. Elijah has been trying to get a divorce. All this is over attorney's fees. This is not child support. If Elijah Dukes isn't paying child support, it's a different story."
I don't know if Dukes' attorney's version of the story is accurate or not but this business of jailing men for not paying their ex-wife's attorneys' fees is troubling for several reasons.
One, of course, is that the attorneys' task is usually to minimize the father's role in his children's lives as much as possible.
Another is that when the attorney has a high-earner on the hook, he'll drag the case out and pad his bills, as Dukes' attorney claims the ex-wife's attorney is doing here.
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High School Kid ‘Throws No-Hitter to Honor Dad'
 From Assistant principal Wiener's son throws no-hitter to honor dad (New York Daily News, 5/22/09):
This one was for Dad.
Just a day after the emotional funeral for his father, Jordan Wiener threw a no-hitter Thursday in a playoff game for Robert F. Kennedy High School. His father, Mitchell, was the Queens educator who died on Sunday night, becoming the city's first swine flu fatality.
Jordan said that after breaking down during the funeral, he decided that he was going to pitch in RFK's B-League first-round matchup, just as his father would have wanted him to.
"When my father was put in the hospital on (May 13), I told myself, ‘Death or survival, I was going to pitch,' " Jordan said. "I knew that's what he would have wanted from me, to go out there and pitch. I was going to pitch no matter what"…
The Panthers wore caps with Mitchell Wiener's initials on them. Wiener served as an assistant principal at Intermediate School 238 in Hollis for 30 years...
Mitchell, a lifelong Mets fan, taught Jordan the game and coached his son's Little League team.
"People shouldn't feel bad that we lost our father," [Jordan's brother] Farrell, 18, said on Wednesday. "We had the greatest father in the world"...
On Wednesday, Jordan sobbed while quoting from the college application essay he wrote about his father:
"Although my dad would look awful ridiculous in tights and a cape, he had the elements of a hero. Mitchell Wiener is the rock of my family."
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"My father was the person I looked up to more than anyone."
--Golf champion Tiger Woods, after his father's death |
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