Photo Gallery: Munson ceremony at Sanford

Pictures courtesy Joe Petersen and Shawna Pile.

The man may die, but not the music

Today makes eight years since Widespread Panic guitarist Michael Houser died of pancreatic cancer. Time, she flies.






And a little lesser known, but maybe my personal favorite ...

Don't forget to call your mama today

Happy Mothers Day.

Uga VI has died

Don't mess with this Dawg.

Uga would have been 10 next month. From the University of Georgia Athletic Association:

ATHENS, Ga. --- Uga VI, the winningest mascot in the University of Georgia’s history, died on Friday evening from congestive heart failure in his hometown of Savannah, Ga., owner Frank W. “Sonny” Seiler announced.

“He was a good one,” Seiler said. “What can I say? He had a marvelous record. He was a very strong and healthy dog. He was the biggest of all the dogs, and he had the biggest heart. It just played out.”

Damon Evans called him "an outstanding representative of our fine institution." I wholeheartedly agree.

We've had seven wonderful mascots since the Uga line began roaming the sidelines, and each has had his own personality and overseen his own era of Georgia athletics.

But I think this linebacker of a Dawg was my favorite. I hope he's on a big bag of ice in the sky.

Uga VI will be buried in the vault at Sanford Stadium, next to his predecessors, no doubt with an appropriate inscription.



Georgia Sports blog has all the links you need on Uga's passing.

And Dawgs Online has great pictures and video.




















When he was just a kid, 2000 from my paper, The Telegraph. Sign the guest book if you like.






More from The Telegraph:

Uga VI was breathing heavily Friday evening, Sonny Seiler noticed.

“I noticed he had a little congestion in his throat, which usually is not a cause for alarm,” Seiler said. “I gave him a bath, which he always loved, to cool him off. After that, I called (family veterinarian Stanley Lester), whose office is about a four-minute drive from our house. (Uga’s) heart just played out. He suffered no pain and died peacefully.”

Cecelia Seiler, the matriarch of the Uga line, said the family lost more than just a pet.

“He lived right here in my den with me for 10 years,” Cecelia Seiler said. “He was a happy dog.”

And from Athletic Director Damon Evans:
“This is a very sad day for the entire Bulldog Nation. Uga VI was a damn good mascot and a damn good dog. He was an outstanding representative of our fine institution.”

I agree with every bit of that.

I'll fly away

I went to Master Sgt. Davy Nathaniel Weaver's funeral today. He was 39 and had three children. He'd served 21 years in the Army, and he volunteered to do an extra three months this year in Afghanistan.

Turned out, that's what killed him. An IED exploded near his vehicle May 18, killing him and an interpreter, whose name I'm sorry to say I did not ask. They buried Sgt. Weaver today outside Lilla Memorial Baptist Church, which is just north of Barnesville.

I don't know how many funerals I've been to now for soldiers, the ones I never met and the one who was my friend. Enough to know I don't want to go to any more.

But you meet some amazing people at these funerals. Jan Johnson lost her son, Joshua, in 2004. Now she's one of those Patriot Guard Riders. I think she hugged every National Guardsman she saw today.














And the Weaver family - after the funeral was over they waited for his body to be lowered into the grave. Then they grabbed shovels and started filling in the dirt. One of his cousins told me that's a family tradition. I think it's a good one.














I don't know what else to say. Some members of Sgt. Weaver's family sang a song called "I'll Fly Away" during the service. They said he's in Heaven now, and they'll see him soon.

I hope that's true.

Determined now: VPI

Today is the one-year anniversary of the shootings at Virginia Tech. I got these pictures from a buddy of mine. I'm not sure who took the first one, and I hope the photographers don't mind me publishing them here.

The first is from a vigil shortly after the killings. The second was taken at midnight this morning. Those are university corpsmen standing watch.

Ray, rah, VPI.




Photo 2: Ivan Morozov, Virginia Tech.

"The daughter of Pakistan"

I'm sure you've read about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, the suicide bombing that killed some 20 others at one of her rallies and the subsequent riots in Pakistan.

But I thought this was an excellent obituary from The New York Times:

Despite numerous accusations of corruption and an evident predilection for luxury, Ms. Bhutto, the pale-skinned scion of a wealthy landowning family, successfully cast herself as a savior of Pakistan’s millions of poor and disenfranchised. She inspired devotion among her followers, even in exile, and the image of her floating through a frenzied crowd in her gauzy white head scarf became iconic.

In October, she staged a high-profile return to her home city of Karachi, drawing hundreds of thousands of supporters to an 11-hour rally and leading a series of political demonstrations in opposition to the country’s military leader, President Pervez Musharraf.

But in a foreshadowing of the attack that killed her, the triumphal return parade was bombed, killing at least 134 of her supporters and wounding more than 400. Ms. Bhutto herself narrowly escaped harm and shouted at later rallies, “Bhutto is alive!”

Despite her courageous, or rash, defiance of danger, her political plans were sidetracked from the moment she set foot in Pakistan: She had been negotiating for months with Mr. Musharraf over a power-sharing arrangement, only to see the general declare emergency rule instead.

The political dance she has deftly performed since her return — one moment standing up to President Musharraf, the next seeming to accommodate him — stirred hope and distrust among Pakistanis. A graduate of Harvard and Oxford, she brought the backing of the governments in Washington and London, where she impressed with her political lineage and considerable charm and was viewed as a palatable alternative to the increasingly unpopular Mr. Musharraf.

"A man of character."

I'm sorry to see anyone leave, but I enjoyed writing John C. "Scooter" Herring's obituary for the paper yesterday. I wish I'd been able to interview him before he died.

His life story is proof that Macon once was awesome, and that the headlines never define the man.

The basics (from the version I wrote, before it was edited):

John C. "Scooter" Herring, who lived much of his life on the outskirts of rock 'n' roll fame and starred in one of the most sensational trials in city history, died over the weekend.

He was 67.

Herring lived a quiet, charitable life the past few years in Macon, and probably died from complications associated with heart disease, his family said.

But he was once a defendant in a federal drug trial that gripped the rock 'n' roll world's attention and featured testimony from rock legend Gregg Allman that, some said, helped break up one of Macon's most famous contributions to music history: The Allman Brothers Band.