Although its scientific work for NASA ended in the early 1980s, the International Sun-Earth Explorer never quite died — and this week it was revived by a team of volunteers intent on letting it continue exploring interplanetary space.
Two elements deep within Cassiopeia A, hint the supernova remnant underwent a quark nova — a theoretical second explosion that leaves behind a quark star — just days after the original supernova.
A small asteroid slammed into the Martian surface sometime between March 27 and 28, 2012, creating a crater swarm in the ground. The largest pit is 159 feet across.
Exoplanet missions are shifting their goals from counting to characterizing, with multiple instruments coming online to directly image these alien worlds.
Galaxies’ central black holes are surprisingly simple creatures at heart, but they have a complicated past. New studies are starting to remove history’s obfuscating veil.
The crescent Moon stars in the evening sky: a hairline sliver can be found to the left of dim Mercury tonight and the waxing crescent sweeps past Leo next week.
Dynamicists had predicted that Comet 209P/LINEAR would create an active meteor display in the early morning of May 24th. But that’s not what observers across the U.S. and Canada reported.
People, non-governmental organizations and governments unite on World No Tobacco Day to draw attention to the health problems that tobacco use can cause. It is held on May 31 each year.
World No Tobacco Day focuses on informing people about health problems associated with tobacco use.
World No Tobacco Day is a day for people, non-governmental organizations and governments organize various activities to make people aware of the health problems that tobacco use can cause. These activities include:
Public marches and demonstrations, often with vivid banners.
Advertising campaigns and educational programs.
People going into public places to encourage people to stop smoking.
The introduction of bans on smoking in particular places or types of advertising.
Meetings for anti-tobacco campaigners.
Moreover, laws restricting smoking in particular areas may come into effect and wide reaching health campaigns may be launched.
Public life
World No Tobacco Day is not a public holiday.
Background
Tobacco is a product of the fresh leaves of nicotiana plants. It is used as an aid in spiritual ceremonies and a recreational drug. It originated in the Americas, but was introduced to Europe by Jean Nicot, the French ambassador to Portugal in 1559. It quickly became popular and an important trade crop.
Medical research made it clear during the 1900s that tobacco use increased the likelihood of many illnesses including heart attacks, strokes, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), emphysema and many forms of cancer. This is true for all ways in which tobacco is used, including:
Cigarettes and cigars.
Hand rolling tobacco.
Bidis and kreteks (cigarettes containing tobacco with herbs or spices).
Pipes and water pipes.
Chewing tobacco.
Snuff.
Snus (a moist version of snuff popular in some countries such as Sweden).
Creamy snuff (a paste consisting of tobacco, clove oil, glycerin, spearmint, menthol, and camphor sold in a toothpaste tube popular in India).
Gutkha (a version of chewing tobacco mixed with areca nut, catechu, slaked lime and other condiments popular in India and South-East Asia).
On May 15, 1987, the World Health Organization passed a resolution, calling for April 7, 1988, to be the first World No Smoking Day. This date was chosen because it was the 40th anniversary of the World Health Organization. On May 17, 1989, the World Health Organization passed a resolution calling for May 31 to be annually known as World No Tobacco Day. This event has been observed each year since 1989.
Themes
The themes of World No Tobacco Day have been:
2009 – Tobacco health warnings.
2008 – Tobacco-free youth.
2007 – Smoke free inside.
2006 – Tobacco: deadly in any form or disguise.
2005 – Health professionals against tobacco.
2004 – Tobacco and poverty, a vicious circle.
2003 – Tobacco free film, tobacco free fashion.
2002 – Tobacco free sports.
2001 – Second-hand smoke kills.
2000 – Tobacco kills, don’t be duped.
1999 – Leave the pack behind.
1998 – Growing up without tobacco.
1997 – United for a tobacco free world.
1996 – Sport and art without tobacco: play it tobacco free.
1995 – Tobacco costs more than you think.
1994 – Media and tobacco: get the message across.
1993 – Health services: our windows to a tobacco free world.
1992 – Tobacco free workplaces: safer and healthier.
1991 – Public places and transport: better be tobacco free.
1990 – Childhood and youth without tobacco: growing up without tobacco.
1989 – Initial observance.
Symbols
Images that symbolize World No Tobacco Day are:
Clean ashtrays with flowers in them.
Ashtrays with images of body parts, such as the heart and lungs, which are damaged by tobacco use.
No smoking signs.
Symbols of death, such as gravestones and skulls, with cigarettes.
Images of the diseases caused by tobacco use.
These images are often displayed as posters, on Internet sites and blogs, on clothing and public transport vehicles.
A Utah man is now facing federal hate crime charges for threatening to kill a black child of a neighboring Caucasian couple. Robert Keller, a 70-year-old resident of Hurricane, wrote to the family to say he would kill the boy if the child remained in his neighborhood.
Keller told KUTV that he didn’t mean anything by it, “All I wanted to do was open their eyes.” “To me, it’s not a threat, it’s my opinion, which I should be allowed to,” he said, trailing off, before concluding with, “Of course, I wrote it down, which was a mistake.”
What Keller wrote down, in a letter to the family last December, was a direct threat. His hate-filled letter – which concluded with “Get this nigger out!” – explicitly warned the parents that he would kill either the boy or the parents if they did not remove him from the neighborhood.
By Keller’s own description the letter read, “If it was my daughter – I think I wrote that I’d slice his throat or something like that.”
Keller told KUTV that he was inspired to write the letter out of fear that the boy might try to date white girls. “I just said, ‘What’s gonna happen later on down the road, when this black kid starts chasing these girls? Which I’ve seen,” he said. “That’s what set me off. I saw him walking down the street with a white gal.”
The property manager at the neighborhood where both Keller and the family live was shocked when she read the letter. Tenille Ewing told reporters that the letter “made threats against life,” adding: “It hit home, because it’s my ethnic background.” “It was very shocking to me that people still have that much hate, nowadays,” she said.
Keller was originally charged with interfering with a right to fair housing, a federal offense, in December. But the Department of Justice recently expanded the case to include federal hate crime charges:
The first count alleges that Keller’s threats interfered with the housing rights of the Caucasian residents to associate in their home with their African-American family member, and the second count alleges that Keller’s threats interfered with the African-American resident’s right to occupy the home.
According to the DOJ, Keller faces “a statutory maximum penalty of one year in prison on each count” if convicted.
“To me, it’s not a threat, it’s my opinion, which I should be allowed to,” he said….”
Yes, it was just your opinion.
It will be the presiding judge’s opinion to hear the evidence against you (“Of course, I wrote it down, which was a mistake.” What Keller wrote down, in a letter to the family last December, was a direct threat. His hate-filled letter – which concluded with “Get this nigger out!” – explicitly warned the parents that he would kill either the boy or the parents if they did not remove him from the neighborhood), convict you on the federal hate crime charges (“The first count alleges that Keller’s threats interfered with the housing rights of the Caucasian residents to associate in their home with their African-American family member, and the second count alleges that Keller’s threats interfered with the African-American resident’s right to occupy the home. According to the DOJ, Keller faces “a statutory maximum penalty of one year in prison on each count” if convicted.”), and send you to the Big House for being stupid, hateful, and racist.
Of course, opinions are like assholes…..everybody has one.
Except in your case, Mr. Keller, you pushed your head all the way up past the levator ani muscle to get your opinion known to the rest of the world.
You visit a blog and see a discussion going on that peaks your interest. You join in the conversation about the day’s topic which just happens to be about racism. You give your two cents worth, then, bam! pow! blammo! here it comes:
“I’m colorblind.”
“Reverse racism!” Blacks can be racist too!
“I’m not racist, because I have a black friend-lover-husband-co-worker-shoe shine man….etc.”
Challenging and discussing racism brings out the worst in those Whites who believe in a so-called post-racial America.
One person has addressed this all too common scenario with an excellent article on the 28 ways that discussions of race can be derailed.
Developed and written by Debra Leigh, an organizer with the Community Anti-Racism Education Initiative at St Cloud State University in Minnesota, the handout takes on the many forms of derailment that occur when the privilege and habitus of whiteness rears its head in the forms of white guilt, white denial and white defensiveness.
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!
I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting—
I know why he beats his wing!
I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!
Poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar (June 27, 1872 – February 9, 1906). The above poem was published in Lyrics of the Hearthside by Dodd, Mead and Company in 1899.
The International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers is an occasion to pay tribute to people who served in United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations.
Local names
Name
Language
International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers
English
Día Internacional del Personal de Paz de las Naciones Unidas
Spanish
היום הבינלאומי של כוחות שמירת שלום של האו”ם
Hebrew
اليوم الدولي لحفظة السلام التابعين للأمم المتحدة
Arabic
UN 평화 유지군의 날
Korean
Internationaler Tag der Friedenstruppen der Vereinten Nationen
International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers 2015
Friday, May 29, 2015
The International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers is a day to remember those who served in United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations. They also honor the memory of people who died in the name of peace.
Many UN workers are remembered for their work in peacekeeping operations.
Many activities are organized on this day. Activities include:
Notes in official UN documents and schedules.
Presentations during UN meetings and events.
Memorial services and wreath laying events for those who died in peace keeping missions.
Presentation of the Dag Hammarskjöld Medal as a way to honor military, police and civilian personnel who lost their lives while working for UN peacekeeping operations.
Awarding peacekeeping medals to military and police officers who are peacekeepers.
The launch of photographic and multimedia exhibitions on the work of UN peacekeepers.
The events take place in places such as the UN headquarters in New York in the United States, as well as Vienna, Australia, and other locations worldwide.
Public life
The International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers is not a public holiday.
Background
The UN Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) was founded on May 29, 1948. UNTSO’s task was to assist peacekeepers to observe and maintain a cease-fire. This cease-fire marked the end of the hostilities between Israel and the Arab League forces. The hostilities started after the end of the British Mandate of Palestine on May 14, 1948. On December 11, 2002, the UN General assembly designated May 29 as the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers. The day was first observed on May 29, 2003.
The International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers is a tribute to people who serve or have served in UN peacekeeping operations. The peacekeepers are honored for their high level of professionalism, dedication and courage. People who died for peace are also remembered.
Symbols
UN Peacekeepers are usually clearly recognizable. They often display the UN flag and the letters “UN” on their clothing, equipment and vehicles. They also wear hats, helmets or other clothing with UN colors.
International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers Observances
While we are honoring the many brave women and men who put their lives on the line to protect us from enemies both foreign and domestic, we must also remember the ideals that this country should stand for, and what better way to do that in acknowledging a song that speaks to what America should strive to be.
“The House I Live In”, written by Lewis Allan and Earl Robinson.
According to the website Songfacts, here is the history of the song:
“This became a patriotic anthem in America during World War II. The lyrics describe the wonderful things about the country, with images of the era like the grocer, the butcher, and the churchyard. The “house” is a metaphor for the country.
The song was written in 1943 with lyrics by Abel Meeropol and music by Earl Robinson. Meeropol, who wrote it under the pen name Lewis Allan, had very liberal views and mixed feelings about America. He loved the constitutional rights and freedoms that America was based on, but hated the way people of other races, religions, and political views were often treated. His lyrics do not reflect the way he thought America was, but what it had the potential to be. With the country under attack, he wanted to express why it was worth fighting for.
Meeropol was dogged by the government for his liberal (some would say communist) views. He took a particular interest in the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were accused of passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union and executed in 1953. Meeropol felt they were wrongly accused, and he and his wife adopted their 2 sons when they were put to death. The sons, Michael and Robert, took Meeropol’s last name (it was easier to be a Meeropol than a Rosenberg at the time), and have spent their adult lives trying to clear their birth parents’ names.
Meeropol wrote a lot of songs, including “Strange Fruit,” which was about the horrors of lynchings and became Billie Holiday’s signature song. Many songs he wrote were parodies of America, with commentary on racism and political oppression. He wrote several versions of this, including one for children and one that expanded the “house” to mean the whole world, not just America. He also wrote a scathing version about things he felt were bad in the US. The idyllic images were replaced with lines like “The cruelty and murder that brings our country shame.”
Earl Robinson, who wrote the music, also had very liberal views. During the McCarthy era, he was hounded for being a communist and blacklisted from Hollywood, making it hard for him to find work. Before his death in 1991, he wrote presidential campaign songs for FDR (1944), Henry Wallace (1948), and Jesse Jackson (1984).
This has been recorded by a slew of artists, including Mahalia Jackson, Paul Robeson, Sonny Rollins, and Josh White. Sinatra’s version is the most famous, as it was used in a short film he starred in with the same in 1945. When Meeropol saw the film, he became enraged when he learned they deleted the second stanza of his song, which he felt was crucial to the meaning. He had to be removed from the theater. With it’s message of racial harmony, the second stanza was deemed too controversial for the film.
Sinatra loved this song and performed it many times, even as his political views moved from left to right as he got older. As an Italian-American, Sinatra experienced bigotry growing up, but also loved the United States. He once sang this in the Nixon White House and performed it for Ronald Reagan at the rededication of the Statue Of Liberty in 1986.
This regained popularity among Americans in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. A lot of people found it comforting at a difficult time.
In 2002, comedian Bill Cosby opened some of his shows with this playing while a light shined on an empty chair. The song had meaning for Cosby not only because of September 11, but also because of his son, who was murdered in 1997 at age 27 when he pulled over to fix a flat tire.”
What is America to me
A name, a map, or a flag I see
A certain word, democracy
What is America to me
The house I live in
A plot of earth, a street
The grocer and the butcher
Or the people that I meet
The children in the playground
The faces that I see
All races and religions
That’s America to me
The place I work in
The worker by my side
The little town the city
Where my people lived and died
The howdy and the handshake
The air a feeling free
And the right to speak your mind out
That’s America to me
The things I see about me
The big things and the small
That little corner newsstand
Or the house a mile tall
The wedding and the churchyard
The laughter and the tears
And the dream that’s been a growing
For more than two hundred years
The town I live in
The street, the house, the room
The pavement of the city
Or the garden all in bloom
The church the school the clubhouse
The millions lights I see
But especially the people
Yes especially the people
That’s America to me
Writer/s: ALLAN, LEWIS / ROBINSON, EARL
Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics Licensed and Provided By LyricFind
Personally, I think the late and great Mahalia Jackson’s version is the best, bar none.
The House I Live In, made in 1945, is a ten-minute short film written by Albert Maltz, produced by Frank Ross and Mervyn LeRoy, and starring Frank Sinatra.
Made to oppose anti-Semitism and racial prejudice at the end of World War II, it received an Honorary Academy Award and a special Golden Globe award in 1946.
The following video involves singer Frank Sinatra stopping a group of boys who are beating up on a Jewish boy. They fight him because of his religion and the difference it holds to them. Sinatra scolds their behavior and tells them that everyone in America contributes, people the children see on a daily basis, and people they may never meet.
The video is archaic by today’s standards, especially the politically incorrect usage of terms like “Jap” by Sinatra. Also, isn’t it funny that the word Nazi is used, but nothing is mentioned of the Ku Klux Klan. Yes, the film was made during the time of World War II, but, the KKK would have been more appropriate instead of the Nazis, since America had its own homegrown groups of domestic terrorists, haters, fascists, racists, and sexists. So easy to point the finger at Nazis, but not at the intolerance in its own backyard. So easy to forget the Detroit Race Riots which happened in the same year the song was written. This attack against the Black community was held up by the Nazis as a sign of racial turmoil in America as the German-controlled Vichy radio broadcasted that the riot revealed “the internal disorganization of a country torn by social injustice, race hatreds, regional disputes, the violence of an irritated proletariat, and the gangsterism of a capitalistic police.”
It is also worth pointing out that of the 25 Black Americans and 9 White Americans killed during the destruction, “no white individuals were killed by police,” according to the Detroit Historical Society, “whereas seventeen African American died at the hands of police violence.”
Gordon Coster—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
Not published in LIFE. A soldier guards a group of African American men rounded up following wartime race riots in Detroit, 1943. SOURCE
In the video short, the boys in the group are seen ganging up on the little Jewish boy, but, nowhere are there any little Black boys in the video. No, much too much to address how this nation has denigrated its Black citizens.
And speaking of sexists, why not show the boys tormenting a little Black girl? The history of life for Black women and girls in this nation certainly has been no bed of roses.
No, play it safe and stick with Americans of European ancestry.
This song is very profound in its love of America. It speaks to what all Americans should work and strive for: uphold the laws of the U.S. Constitution and do right by those who are their neighbors; those who have contributed so much to America; those who have fought and died for America; those who are of various races, ethnicities, religions, and creeds.
The cause was metastatic cancer, his son Gordon Willis Jr. said.
Mr. Willis created some of the most indelible cinematic imagery of the ‘70s — or of any decade, for that matter — giving narrative propulsion to adventurous screenplays while expressing the moral ambiguities at the heart of so many of that decade’s films and of the society they mirrored.
Three films that he shot — Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather” (1972) and “The Godfather Part II” (1974) and Woody Allen’s “Annie Hall” (1977) — won the Academy Award for best picture.
Yet Mr. Willis, a native New Yorker who chose to live on the East Coast, harbored an antipathy toward Hollywood that may have been mutual. From 1971 to 1977, seven films he photographed earned a total of 39 Oscar nominations, 19 of which won the award. He received not one of those nominations, to the astonishment of many of the peers he influenced.
Gordon Willis, center, and Woody Allen, right, during the filming of “Annie Hall” in 1977.Credit Brian Hamill/Getty Images
”If there were a Mount Rushmore for cinematographers, Gordon’s features would surely be chiseled into the rock face,” said Stephen Pizzello, the editor in chief and publisher of American Cinematographer magazine.
Ultimately, Mr. Willis got two Oscar nominations for his cinematography — for Mr. Coppola’s “The Godfather Part III” (1990) and Mr. Allen’s “Zelig” (1983), but won neither — and he received an honorary Oscar in 2009.
The cinematographer Conrad Hall called Mr. Willis “the prince of darkness” for his daring use of minimalist light and embrace of shadows. It was fully on display in “The Godfather,” in the haunted look of Marlon Brando’s Don Corleone and in the gothic composition of Don Corleone’s study, and in the lush, romanticized images of Mr. Allen’s beloved Manhattan in the bittersweet 1979 comedy of the same name.
Shot in convention-defying wide-screen, 35-millimeter black and white, “Manhattan,” as much as any Willis film, showed the emotional impact that a cinematographer can have.
Mr. Willis collaborated with the director Alan J. Pakula on six films, three of which — “Klute” (1971), “The Parallax View” (1974) and “All the President’s Men” (1976) — established the paranoid thriller as a subgenre of American cinema.
Mr. Willis made virtuoso use of darkness in those films, alternating it with a stark white light that implied more than it revealed. “The Parallax View,” one of his signature achievements, was a tale of political assassination starring Warren Beatty in which Mr. Willis used the made-for-TV brilliance of a political convention as counterpoint to the shadowy corporate realities that lay behind the scenes.
Marlon Brando, foreground, and Robert Duvall in “The Godfather,” from 1972.Credit Paramount Pictures, via Photofest
Like many of the films he made during the 1970s, “The Parallax View” reflected a national spiritual unease. So did “All the President’s Men.” The way Mr. Willis lighted and shot the Washington parking garages where the reporter Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) met clandestinely with the anonymous source known as Deep Throat (Hal Holbrook) — with an American presidency in the balance — suggested both the antiseptic angst of Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” from 1968 and the German expressionist terror of F. W. Murnau’s “Nosferatu” from 1922.
Mr. Willis could be playful as well. In “Zelig” (1983) — one of eight films he made with Mr. Allen, his most frequent collaborator — he used hand-cranked cameras, an assortments of film stocks and his own sleight-of-hand to impose Mr. Allen’s nebbishy title character into the major moments of the 20th century. The comedy was largely visual, and Mr. Willis created the kind of plausible imagery that allowed the comedic ideas to work.
Mr. Willis was known for his mechanical innovations as well. For “All the President’s Men,” he placed a winch in the dome of the Library of Congress so that a remote-controlled camera could be sent aloft from a desktop, providing, in a single shot, a full view of the library.
But it was his celebrated use of light that he was most often asked about, particularly in “The Godfather.” He spoke about it in 1995, when he received a lifetime achievement award from the American Society of Cinematographers.
“People said, ‘You can’t see his eyes,’ “ he remarked, referring to Brando’s Don Corleone. “Well, you didn’t see his eyes in 10 percent of the movie, and there was a reason why. I remember asking: ‘Why do you have to see his eyes in that scene? Based on what?’ Do you know what the answer was? ‘That’s the way it was done in Hollywood.’ ”
“That’s not a good enough reason,” he continued. “There were times when we didn’t want the audience to see what was going on in there, and then, suddenly, you let them see into his soul for a while.”
Gordon Hugh Willis was born in Astoria, Queens, on May 28, 1931, the child of former Broadway dancers. Young Gordon grew up loving movies and wanting to be an actor, but after performing in some summer stock productions he gravitated toward stage design, theater lighting and ultimately photography.
Robert Redford, left, and Dustin Hoffman in “All the President’s Men,” from 1976.Credit Warner Bros., via Photofest
He began his photography career by shooting portfolio pictures for models he had met when his family lived in Greenwich Village and his father worked as a makeup man at the Warner Brothers studio in Brooklyn.
“I was going to be a fashion photographer!” he told an interviewer in 2009. “I was dumber than dirt, as they say. No money, no jobs, etc. Meanwhile my father had some friends that got me some jobs as a gofer on some movies that were passing through.”
The experience paid off. At the start of the Korean War, Mr. Willis joined the Air Force, which assigned him to a documentary motion picture unit. On his discharge he got into the cinematographers union in New York and began working as an assistant cameraman.
After working in television and doing television commercials, he got his first chance to shoot a feature film when the maverick director Aram Avakian asked him to direct photography for “End of the Road” (1970), a black comedy, with Stacy Keach, adapted from a John Barth novel and set on a “farm” for the mentally ill. The film found an art-house following in later years. Among his other early films was “The Landlord,” the feature debut of Hal Ashby.
Mr. Willis retired after shooting his final film for Mr. Pakula, “The Devil’s Own,” a crime thriller with Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt released in 1997. (Mr. Pakula died the next year in an automobile accident.)
In addition to his son Gordon, Mr. Willis is survived by his wife, the former Helen Stubsten; another son, Timothy; a daughter, Susan Willis; and five grandchildren.
A direct influence on cinematographers like Michael Chapman (“Raging Bull”) and John Bailey (“The Big Chill”), Mr. Willis would say that in preparing a film, a director of photography has to “fit the punishment to the crime” — that is, find a way into the material that feels artistically and aesthetically appropriate.
“The truth of the matter is, everybody tends to reduce or expand things to a level that they understand,” he said in a 2009 interview with John Lingan of Splice Today. “Two people can look at the same thing, they don’t necessarily see the same thing. Whatever happens on the screen really comes out of you. There’s no formula.”
JERRY VALE, WHO CROONED SMOOTHLY OF LOVE
Jerry Vale in 1976.
Jerry Vale, a pop crooner known for his velvety voice and the classic love songs he recorded in the 1950s and early ’60s, died on Sunday at his home in Palm Desert, Calif. He was 83.
His family confirmed his death.
Mr. Vale rose to stardom performing in supper clubs as a teenager, hitting the charts for the first time in 1953 with “You Can Never Give Me Back My Heart.” He was a fixture at Columbia Records, where he recorded more than 50 albums and had hits with songs like “Two Purple Shadows” and “Al Di La.” His biggest hit, “You Don’t Know Me,” peaked at No. 14 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in 1956.
Like so many of his fellow crooners — among them Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and Perry Como — Mr. Vale was Italian-American, and he helped popularize romantic Italian songs for American listeners with renditions of “Innamorata (Sweetheart)” in 1956 and “I Have but One Heart” in 1962.
As a teenager, he worked as an oiler alongside his father, an engineer, on excavations for projects like a sewage plant in Oyster Bay, on Long Island. “But then I got a break singing,” he said in a radio interview in 1984. “So, thank God, I made the right decision.”
Mr. Vale got his big break in 1950 while working at the Enchanted Room in Yonkers. There he met the singer Guy Mitchell, who arranged an audition for him with Mitch Miller, head of artists and repertoire at Columbia. He was signed to a contract and changed his name — he was born Genaro Louis Vitaliano — and his career was launched.
That career took him to Carnegie Hall as well as the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, where he met and worked with the stars of his time, among them Jerry Lewis, Sammy Davis Jr. and Nat King Cole.
His autobiography, “Jerry Vale: A Singer’s Life,” written with Richard Grudens, was published in 2000. In it, he recalled meeting his longtime idol, Sinatra, in the early 1950s at Lindy’s Restaurant in New York City, a magnet for show business talent. When they were introduced, Sinatra stood up, an unusual gesture for big stars at the time. It stunned Mr. Vale.
“A few years ago I had heard so many negative stories about Frank that I was somewhat apprehensive to approach him,” he said. “To my absolute surprise, he wound up being quite amiable, and the most caring individual that I have ever known.”
The two became fast friends. Sinatra, who was a partner in the Sands Hotel, helped Mr. Vale get his first gig there, a two-week engagement that was extended to 22 weeks after an owner, Jack Entratter, heard Mr. Vale’s voice.
After Mr. Vale and his wife, Rita, moved to California, the two became a constant presence at Sinatra’s ranch in Rancho Mirage. He took part in the annual Frank Sinatra Celebrity Invitational Golf Tournament for several years and once performed at the event in 1996.
In 1963 he hired a 40-piece band and eight background singers to record the national anthem. The recording became a fixture at sporting events for years and was the first song inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.
Mr. Vale made cameo appearances as himself in the films “Goodfellas” (1990) and “Casino” (1995), both directed by Martin Scorsese, and in the television series “The Sopranos.”
She survives him, as do their son, a daughter and three grandchildren.
Correction: May 19, 2014 An earlier version of this obituary misidentified the person who signed Mr. Vale to a recording contract. He was signed by Mitch Miller, not by Guy Mitchell.
Correction: May 21, 2014 An obituary in some late editions on Monday about the singer Jerry Vale misspelled the surname of an owner of the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas, where Mr. Vale performed early in his career. He was Jack Entratter, not Enratter. The obituary also misstated the maiden name of Mr. Vale’s wife. She was Rita Grapel, not Vale.
Find links to follow and view Saturday morning’s shower, and for the ambitious, we have finder charts for Comet LINEAR/209P, the source of Saturday’s meteors, at its closest approach. For the rest of us, the planets are in fine form both at dawn and dusk.
Dim, obscure periodic Comet 209P/LINEAR is about to pass close to Earth — and bring with it a trail of debris that could make for an exciting meteor shower in May, during the predawn hours of the 24th.
This weekend’s potential for a decent display of shooting stars might tempt you to try your hand at meteor photography. Here are some techniques to help you on your way.
A neighboring galaxy’s central black hole powers strong winds, allowing astronomers — for the first time — to spot those gales pushing out star-forming gas.
Christina’s World, (1948) by Andrew Wyeth. Tempera on gessoed panel, 81.9 cm × 121.3 cm (321⁄4 in × 473⁄4 in), Museum of Modern Art [MOMA], New York City, New York.
Ann
BEAUTIFUL, ALSO, ARE THE SOULS OF MY BLACK SISTERS 