—Robert McNamara dies

My Way News [AP] – McNamara, defense chief during Vietnam War, dies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McNamara

Controversial and occasionally infamous Secretary of Defense in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, Robert S. McNamare has died.  THe Vietnam War was a constant feature of life and news when I was growing up, and so was McNamara. 

He was involved in many infamous decisions of the 1960’s,.  I especially remember the micro-managed war itself, and the mismanagement of the Army’s M-16 rifle.   I recently saw “Fog of War“,  a documentary on his life, including the peculiar “bean-counter”  business-analysis approach he seemed to typify.  In the documentary, he discussed his involvement in analysis of strategic bombing of Japan in WWII under Curtis LeMay, leading up to the low-level fire bombing attacks that, in some cases, killed more people in a night than the atomic bombings.   The historical context and experience he provided in this way would be invaluable for current and future policy makers, if they took the time to review them.

He seems to have spent much of his later life repenting of his involvement in war and politics, and advocating projects to combat poverty.

—Celebrity Medicine?

Extremely famous people don’t seem to fair well when they get sick, especially when they fail victim to mental illness. 

Howard Hughes, for example, suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder, together with an addiction to codeine.  [The Aviator]  [Howard Hughes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia]  But instead of obtaining treatment for the underlying causes of his bizarre behavior, his associates simply went along with Hughes’ demands. 

By some accounts, the examiners who conducted Michael Jackson’s autopsy were alarmed by the amount of scar tissue in his face.  Someone in a position to know better has been regularly reinforcing Jackson’s obvious,  pathological obsession with self-mutilation, eventually transforming the singer’s appearance into that of a hideous marionette. 

The motives in these cases can only be guessed, but they were not the welfare of the patients.