On a few passings... a few words from me

First, let me mention a gentleman that many of us may have benefited from along the way.  Especially business travellers, and others that have passed through airports needing transportation at the ready when they arrived.

Warren Avis, the founder of the Avis ("We Try Harder") rental car company passed on over the last few days.  Many may never have known that there really was a Mr. Avis that founded the company.  You can find an obit from the New York Times here, noting that he had passed away "over the last few days" (I hate articles that don't put exact dates in when using frames of time reference). Date of death: April 24, 2007.

Mr. Avis started his business because he was frustrated with waiting for Taxi's and not finding ready transportation when he got to airports.  From his simple start, he created one of the largest rental car agencies in the world, competing heartily against the now number 1 (in the U.S.A.) Hertz.  He sold off his interest in the company along the way, for an amount that would have been considered "rich" at the time, but which now pales in comparison to the values associated with payment to CEOs and other company executives' compensation packages.

As noted in the bio, Mr. Avis realized that placing rental car companies with airports took care of a glaring need for airline travellers (primarily business folk at the time).  Travellers could be assured of finding rental cars and ready transportation provided by Avis, and Avis could in turn find a steady stream of customers that were ready and waiting in lines when they stepped off the planes in the airports.  By making deals with airports, everyone was happy.

Though Mr. Avis had long since been out of the business which still uses his name, his business is one that changed many lives for the better.

Thanks Mr. Avis.

The second passing worth mentioning is one that myself and many others not in the motion picture business may look at with thoughts of a fiery afterlife.

Jack Valenti, former head of the MPAA, creator of the ratings system still used by the MPAA and it's member studios, passed away over the last few days.  He had had a stroke last month and apparently wasn't able to recover from it.

Valenti was a giant of a man in his industry, and had formerly been an advisor to President Lyndon Johnson.  He was *there* riding in the motorcade when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.  He was *there* in the background in the famous picture of Johnson's swearing in with Kennedy's widow by his side (still wearing the coat with the blood of her husband splattered on it).

In 1966 Valenti went to work for the MPAA as their leader and chief lobbyist on behalf of the motion picture industry.

When he had his stroke last month some individuals like me may have commented that it couldn't happen to a better person.  I don't want to seem cruel and heartless, or demean his memory, but Valenti, for all of the potential good he did, was also the man that likened VCR users to persons that would break into a home and kill the occupants.

The words:

He memorably told a congressional panel in 1982, "I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone."

Valenti defended his industry staunchly, and helped enrich his employers through his lobbying efforts.  Not a bad thing at all, and certainly what he was paid to do for them.  Sadly though he sold his soul in so doing, and basically (through words like above, and through his deeds to help extended copyright protections to seemingly never ending periods, and through anti-piracy efforts that continue to interfere with user's fair use rights to this date, and well into the future) showed an abundance of scorn to the customers of his employers.

His much touted ratings system has been made a mockery of several times.  If you don't know why I say this, check out the highly informative documentary "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" (note that if it were rated it would have been rated NC-17 for language, nudity and other objectionable materials according to the highly secretive ratings board which seemingly answers to no one).

While I hate to wish ill upon the dead, Valenti's support of things like the Digital Millenium Copyright Act and other anti-consumer protectionism of the motion picture industry have long since engrained a streak of hatred for him in my soul.  As a sometime believer in Karma, I'd like to think that Valenti is getting what he's due in the afterlife as he sits somewhere with a stack of broken, scratched and completely unplayable DVDs of his favorite movies for all eternity while also looking over a huge stack of unopened DVD-Rs that might have been used to make fair use backups with had it not been for his own efforts.

Washington Post obit for Mr. Valenti can be found here.

A third passing worth mentioning is Mstislav Rostropovich, the former music director of the National Symphony Orchestra and renowned Cellist. He was very a talented individual who overcame a lot in his life (including exile from his home country).

Washington Post obit for Mr. Rostropovich can be found