Happy Birthday, Bill P.

[syrakusos]

Shanghaied... But still in our thoughts.

[Peter]

Happy birthday! Bill has not posted in a long time. Where art thou?

Michael that was great campaign music or perfect for the state fair going on in Iowa. Is Trump going to make it? I saw several other candidates were there. If you wanna be President you gotta know the territory . . .

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bill is one of the good guys.

Bill, if you get to see this from over yonder, happy birthday.

You are still dear to many of us.

Michael & Kat

[Brant Gaede]

Ellen thinks Bill died. I think he just stopped posting. The odds are Ellen is right and I'm wrong.

There might be a problem working in China and making US Internet postings in your own name, especially on such a site as this one.

--Brant

edit: sad news (I can't make this link work)

www.ceibs.edu/faculty_c/notice/obituary_en.html

Bill had a stroke stroke January 2011, apparently in China, had a partial recovery then died three years ago some months later in Tennessee

I went to his Chinese school CEIBS and put "Parr" into the search and found his obituary

edit: getting the dates right in my head--if Bill's stroke stopped his postings then he survived another 18 months

Edited August 15, 2015 by Brant Gaede

[Mikee]

I found this: CV

and a linkedin account

I checked the faculty at China Europe International Business School, Shanghai, and he is not listed. Impressive resume.

The linkedin account is Bill's, the personal website is the same as on his OL personal page. The website is not active.

I found this after reading Brant's update:

...which is redundant after MSK's fix of Brant's link...

[9thdoctor]

Wow, that's sad news. I remember him fondly.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

edit: sad news (I can't make this link work)

www.ceibs.edu/faculty_c/notice/obituary_en.html

Bill had a stroke stroke January 2011 in Tennessee, had a partial recovery then died three years ago six months later

Brant,

I fixed it.

(Too complicated to explain--basically the ceibs site uses an older URL format condition.)

If anyone clicks on the link now, they go to the obituary.

NOTE: This post crossed with Mike's.

Very, very sad to hear about Bill.

Michael

[Selene]

That's horrible.

That's at least three (3) dear people that have been lost since I joined.

A...

[Ellen Stuttle]

I'm scarcely getting time to look at OL these days, but I happened to look today and saw the news about Bill Parr.

I was afraid that something awful was the reason he'd stopped posting.

I'm terribly sorry to learn of his stroke and subsequent death. I liked him a lot and have missed his presence in the last four plus years.

Ellen

[Brant Gaede]

Nothing but a basic sense of decency in everything--in every word--he wrote.

--Brant

[syrakusos]

So sad... I feel bitter about not knowing that he passed. Just a couple of general reflections on this if I may...

1. Bill was teaching statistics at the China Europe International Business School in Shanghai and that was really cool. His CV is, indeed, as Mikee said, "impressive": he four-pointed his graduate and post-graduate degrees at SMU, no mean feat. After working at Harris Semiconductor, the University of Tennessee hired him with tenure - hired in 89, tenured from 90 - also an achievement. He had over 50 original papers and a slew of book reviews and et ceteras go along with that. He had a life of achievement. His death at such an early age is sad, but no one knows how long they have. One Norn spins; one Norn measures; one Norn cuts; even the gods have no control over Fate.

This is not the first time that I wished I had gotten to know someone better before they died. (I lost a manager in an industrial accident...) And that leads to:

2. The paradigmatic downside to all this individualism is that lack of social contact.

That is very American. We are not the only individualist culture in the world. Even Nigeria has them. But I find this in other social spheres as well. Right now, two of my hobbies are numismatics and astronomy, and while they do embrace large populations with attendant varieties of personality, they tend to attract those who do better with empirical concretes and their abstractions, than with they do with actual living people.

My other hobby is the Texas State Guard here (or here) on my blog. No one is ever left out there alone. Twice in the last three months, I sat with another guardsman who told a personal story. While he and his family dealt with the grief of loss of a parent or a child, the "details" at the funeral home were "taken care of" and not another word was communicated. Someone knew about their situation and someone else responded. No one is ever left alone -- which has a downside, also.

I do not know where the middle ground is. Perhaps it must remain Either-Or

[Brant Gaede]

Nathaniel Branden once opined about the availability of his therapy to "get it while you can." He was expressing it as a rare downer. He was a little glum. He was closing that therapy group (NYC) and starting his Intensives (early 1977.) I brightly replied, slinging my right fisted arm in front of me, "That's, my philosophy!" and everybody started laughing except a perplexed Nathaniel: "What did he say?" I looked right at him and tried to repeat it but I was laughing so hard myself I couldn't get the words out. I covered my face with my hand in embarrassment and kept laughing along with 23 everyone else. Finally someone told him.

So, get it while you can.

--Brant

that's what he said (October or November 1976)

[Ellen Stuttle]

Nothing but a basic sense of decency in everything--in every word--he wrote.

--Brant

That's what I felt, too.

Ellen

[Peter]

This is petty and may be one of the symptoms of senile dementia but I keep getting the deju vu feeling that I knew Bill was bad off or died. But when I saw the Happy Birthday, I thought he was alive. Sorry if I did forget, Bill. Adios once more.