Nelson Mandela Dies.

One of the great liberal voices of the 20th Century has vanished from the earth with the passing of Nelson Mandela, Former President of the Republic of South Africa. Few people can be credited with successfully combating racism as much as Mandela did. Yet, far from waging a war with bullets and bombs he followed the examples of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. fighting a successful campaign with pacifistic non-cooperation. From the ANC's non-violent protests against Apartheid , which Mandela lead for 27 years behind the formidable walls of Pollsmoor Prison, to his calls for Truth and Reconciliation, he ensured that his fight was a fight of ideas and ideologies and not of blood. The Guardian's obituary for Nelson Mandela can be found here.

Seamus Heaney Dies.

The Irish Poet Seamus Heaney has passed away at 74 on August 29, 2013 in a Dublin hospital after a short illness. He was arguably the greatest contemporary Irish writer and English language poet. During his long career his work earned him countless awards and honors, including the Nobel Prize for Literature. Yet, he never lost sight of his muse--to express in poetry the full gamut of human emotion from heroic struggle to the monotony of day to day life. He made good poetry for everyone. His metric translation of the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf re-invigorated the first piece of English literature and introduced it to a new generation. Heaney will be sorely missed. The link to Seamus Heaney's Obituary in The Guardian can be found here.