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Non Gaming Discussions => Off-Topic => Topic started by: GigaShadow on June 05, 2004, 01:01:23 PM
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WASHINGTON - Ronald Reagan (news - web sites), the cheerful crusader who devoted his presidency to winning the Cold War, trying to scale back government and making people believe it was "morning again in America," died Saturday after a long twilight struggle with Alzheimer\'s disease (news - web sites), a family friend said. He was 93.
He died at his home in California, according to the friend, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The White House was told his health had taken a turn for the worse in the last several days.
Five years after leaving office, the nation\'s 40th president told the world in November 1994 that he had been diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer\'s, an incurable illness that destroys brain cells. He said he had begun "the journey that will lead me into the sunset of my life."
Reagan body was expected to be taken to his presidential library and museum in Simi Valley, Calif., and then flown to Washington to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda. His funeral was expected to be at the National Cathedral, an event likely to draw world leaders. The body was to be returned to California for a sunset burial at his library.
Reagan lived longer than any U.S. president, spending his last decade in the shrouded seclusion wrought by his disease, tended by his wife, Nancy, whom he called Mommy, and the select few closest to him. Now, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton (news - web sites) are the surviving ex-presidents.
Although fiercely protective of Reagan\'s privacy, the former first lady let people know his mental condition had deteriorated terribly. Last month, she said: "Ronnie\'s long journey has finally taken him to a distant place where I can no longer reach him."
Reagan\'s oldest daughter, Maureen, from his first marriage, died in August 2001 at age 60 from cancer. Three other children survive: Michael, from his first marriage, and Patti Davis and Ron from his second.
Over two terms, from 1981 to 1989, Reagan reshaped the Republican Party in his conservative image, fixed his eye on the demise of the Soviet Union and Eastern European communism and tripled the national debt to $3 trillion in his singleminded competition with the other superpower.
Taking office at age 69, Reagan had already lived a career outside Washington, one that spanned work as a radio sports announcer, an actor, a television performer, a spokesman for the General Electric Co., and a two-term governor of California.
At the time of his retirement, his very name suggested a populist brand of conservative politics that still inspires the Republican Party.
He declared at the outset, "Government is not the solution, it\'s the problem," although reducing that government proved harder to do in reality than in his rhetoric.
Even so, he challenged the status quo on welfare and other programs that had put government on a growth spurt ever since Franklin D. Roosevelt\'s New Deal strengthened the federal presence in the lives of average Americans.
In foreign affairs, he built the arsenals of war while seeking and achieving arms control agreements with the Soviet Union.
In his second term, Reagan was dogged by revelations that he authorized secret arms sales to Iran while seeking Iranian aid to gain release of American hostages held in Lebanon. Some of the money was used to aid rebels fighting the leftist government of Nicaragua.
Despite the ensuing investigations, he left office in 1989 with the highest popularity rating of any retiring president in the history of modern-day public opinion polls.
That reflected, in part, his uncommon ability as a communicator and his way of connecting with ordinary Americans, even as his policies infuriated the left and as his simple verities made him the butt of jokes. "Morning again in America" became his re-election campaign mantra in 1984, but typified his appeal to patriotrism through both terms.
At 69, Reagan was the oldest man ever elected president when he was chosen on Nov. 4, 1980, by an unexpectedly large margin over incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter.
Near-tragedy struck on his 70th day as president. On March 30, 1981, Reagan was leaving a Washington hotel after addressing labor leaders when a young drifter, John Hinckley, fired six shots at him. A bullet lodged an inch from Reagan\'s heart, but he recovered.
Four years later he was re-elected by an even greater margin, carrying 49 of the 50 states in defeating Democrat Walter F. Mondale, Carter\'s vice president.
Although no one had seen him in quite some time, it is a sad day.
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RIP Ronald Reagan. I just heard this as I came home from a poker game like 15 minutes ago.
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I heard it right after playing GTA Vice City...sad.
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RIP indeed, except i think alzheimers could probley be worse then death at times....
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I spent part of my day at work (newspaper) getting quotes from local and state Republican officials and putting them into an AP story like that one.
He left quite an impression on people. I was too young to remember, but sounds like he was quite the guy and a good president.
When he was shot in an assassination attempt, he joked to his wife that he forgot to duck.
-Dan
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Gotta go sometime and for the record, he wasn\'t exactly the idea President.
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He was one of the most infulencial presidents of our time. He helped bankrupt the USSR and nearly the US. He had the best wit, best persona, strong character especially after he was nearly shot.
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Does anyone remember his off the microphone comment/joke that was transmitted were he said..
“people of American I have just passed legalisation that will ban communism forever…we start bombing in 5 minutes”.
:laughing:
anyway
RIP....strange as it may seem he was one of my favourite US presidents …God I miss the 80’s
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He was a good conservative, more representative of what most conservatives stand for..
As opposed to G.W., who conservatives support.. albeit.. somewhat grudgingly.
"Hey, he\'s better than Kerry.."
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He was the best president of my generation at least. Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr, Clinton and now Bush Jr... No comparison IMO - Reagan was leagues ahead of the others.
A lot of what GW Bush does is modeled on what Reagan did, but unfortunately he lacks the charisma and charm to pull it off.
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Originally posted by GmanJoe
He was one of the most infulencial presidents of our time. He helped bankrupt the USSR and nearly the US. He had the best wit, best persona, strong character especially after he was nearly shot.
You forgot that he raised our homeless rate up massively and what not. He was better than our current President - but that isn\'t saying a lot.
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Originally posted by Deadly Hamster
RIP indeed, except i think alzheimers could probley be worse then death at times....
Alzheimers has no effect on the patient. It\'s the people around the patient that have a hard time with Alzheimers.
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Have you ever been around someone with severe Alzheimers? Many of them are freaking out because they do not know what is going on, and no recognition of their loved ones.
Originally posted by videoholic
Alzheimers has no effect on the patient. It\'s the people around the patient that have a hard time with Alzheimers.
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My great grandpa had alzheimers and it was bad too. You could go into the room introduce yourself, leave for a couple of minutes and it\'d be the samething he forgot so much....it sux.
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Originally posted by videoholic
Alzheimers has no effect on the patient. It\'s the people around the patient that have a hard time with Alzheimers.
I would really like to know where you get this idea, when all reports say that the person with the illness is an emtional wreck. How would you like not knowing where you are, who the people around you are and at all times being confused and lost? Yeah - I guess it doesn\'t really effect the patient.
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COnsidering my wife has been running an alzheimer\'s facility for 7 years now and is very well read on the subject.
Sure they are a wreck at first. When they are in and out of it, but when it comes down to the later years they are so regressed and so out of it that they really don\'t know any better.
I\'m pretty sure this is the case. I\'ll ask her later today and see.
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Spoke with the wifey.
She said exaclty what I said.
It\'s hard on them in the very early ages because they know they have it. It\'s frustrating that they don\'t remember things and they are conscious of it.
Once they get full blown into alzheimers they don\'t even know they have it and everything is fine and dandy.
It\'s just extremely hard on the family.
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i wasn\'t really into politics that much if at all back then..i was like in the 5th or 6th grade when he was pres...only thing i remember from his era was star wars..and that taxes went up after carter was out of office..but he was responsible for getting the hostages out of iran(heard he gave them weapons..i could be wrong tho..)...i really wasn\'t big on him...for what it\'s worth r.i.p...
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Originally posted by clips
i wasn\'t really into politics that much if at all back then..i was like in the 5th or 6th grade when he was pres...only thing i remember from his era was star wars..and that taxes went up after carter was out of office..but he was responsible for getting the hostages out of iran(heard he gave them weapons..i could be wrong tho..)...i really wasn\'t big on him...for what it\'s worth r.i.p...
Taxes went up!?!?! What alternate universe were you living in? Reagan was known as "the big tax cutter". He was always cutting taxes and spending on defense - why do you think our deficit grew? He bankrupted the USSR with his spending on defense.
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I watched my Grandpa die and he had late stage alzheimers with cancer. He did not recognize anyone. The only thing he knew or could sense was that was going on was his dying. He would sleep with his eyes open. He was constantly freaked out. It was a horrible thing to see.
Originally posted by videoholic
Spoke with the wifey.
She said exaclty what I said.
It\'s hard on them in the very early ages because they know they have it. It\'s frustrating that they don\'t remember things and they are conscious of it.
Once they get full blown into alzheimers they don\'t even know they have it and everything is fine and dandy.
It\'s just extremely hard on the family.
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I watched the funeral services,the one in DC and CA. They were both very touching and very moving. Reagan was not afraid to do what needed to be done. When Libya was threatening the USA, Reagan dropped a bomb in Kadafy\'s backyard. Only when it became public knowledge did he go on TV and say that 36 hours ago, we dropped a bomb on Libya. He didnt apologize for it, he didnt say he was sorry. He said it needed to be done to save the US from a threat. Reagan didnt go on TV a month before hand and say "In 36 hours the US will launch a weapon at Libya and strike at the very heart of its Leader". That is what they do now. They go on TV and tell where and when and what time the USA is going to start its invasion/bombing. I know that this is done to perpare the US. But do they honestly think that Osama cant get CNN/Fox/MSNBC ? All he has to do is put up a satellite dish out there in the desert in one of his caves. Once Reagan bombed Libya you never heard anything threatening out of them again. Perhaps it is time to follow his lead and just bomb first and then tell the Nation afterwards.
But this is just my opinion.
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such a sad day for him. Its been cloudy since Ronald Reagan died. Rest in Peace. Hopefully they find a cure or treatment for alzheimers.
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Originally posted by Capcom
I watched my Grandpa die and he had late stage alzheimers with cancer. He did not recognize anyone. The only thing he knew or could sense was that was going on was his dying. He would sleep with his eyes open. He was constantly freaked out. It was a horrible thing to see.
Yeah, but that\'s not just Alzheimer\'s. ANy old fella with a disease who feels poor knows it\'s coming soon.
Sorry about your grampy though.. That sucks losing family members.
Can I say one thing good about the funeral being over? We can stop hearing 1400 journalists talk about how cool they were because they were in the presidential press corp with Reagan and how many stories they have. Oye. Let\'s get the news back to the way it was. Aren\'t we still looking for Bin Ladin?