2007 In Review: Lost Voices R.I.P.

“We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we’re for them and trying to get them out of there.”

David Halberstam made his mark as a journalist during the early stages of the Vietnam War, working as a reporter for the New York Times. His criticism of the war angered American policy makers but established his reputation as a courageous and brilliant reporter, and earned him a Pulitzer Prize.  Author of “The Best and the Brightest” and “The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam during the Kennedy Era.”

“If you’re a reporter, the easiest thing in the world is to get a story. The hardest thing is to verify. The old sins were about getting something wrong, that was a cardinal sin. The new sin is to be boring.” David Halberstam

Norman Mailer

January 31,1923- November 10,2007

Called “the macho prince of American letters” by the Associated Press, Norman Mailer was one of America’s most famous and controversial writers in the years after World War II. Mailer twice won the Pulitzer Prize.



“America is a hurricane, and the only people who do not hear the sound are those fortunate if incredibly stupid and smug White Protestants who live in the center, in the serene eye of the big wind.”

Norman Mailer

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

11/11/1922-4/11/2007

An iconoclast often compared to Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut found ways to wring humor out of the apparent meaninglessness and absurdity of human existence. His novels, frequently set in alternate worlds, are a blend of science fiction, social commentary and personal philosophy; many have become countercultural classics.



“I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center.”

Kurt Vonnegut

Yolanda King, (November 17, 1955 – May 15, 2007)

A social activist, motivational speaker, actress, and eldest child of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King.



“I know in my heart the dream will be realized. I choose to believe. And choosing is a powerful thing. It’s available to you at every moment. You can choose understanding over anger, believing over nonbelieving, action over inaction. It gives meaning to every choice we make.”

Yolanda King

Arthur Schlesinger Jr., 1917-2007

Schlesinger was a cofounder of the Americans for Democratic Action (1947). He served as an assistant to Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy, and in 1961 President Kennedy appointed him special assistant for Latin American affairs. His study of Kennedy’s White House years, A Thousand Days (1965), won the Pulitzer Prize for biography.



“If we are to survive, we must have ideas, vision, and courage. These things are rarely produced by committees. Everything that matters in our intellectual and moral life begins with an individual confronting his own mind and conscience in a room by himself.”

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

Zakia Zaki

Died: June 5, 2007 (Kabul, Afghanistan)

Zakia Zaki was shot dead in her home while sleeping with her 20-month-old baby. She was the head of a private local radio station north of Kabul in a town called Jabal-us-Siraj. Zaki had received threats for a few months to take the station off the air. She was involved in women’s rights, politically active, and a headmistress of a high school for girls. Many think her death was at the hands of religious conservatives, who do not want women taking a prominent role in Afghanistan’s society.

“I created the first independent women’s radio in Afghanistan. Every beginning is difficult, but I overcome the obstacles… It started broadcasting from Jabul Seraj during the Talebans… We work with men as well as women because if men respect women’s sights, brothers to sisters, husband to wives, fathers to daughters, then women’s rights might become reality.”

Zakia Zaki

Peace in 2008 – Zwoof