Jack Valenti, Dead at 85

saforrest writes "Jack Valenti, a man whose influence in both Washington and Hollywood was profound, died today at age 85. He first became famous as special assistant to Lyndon Johnson: he can even be seen in the famous photo aboard Air Force One. In 1966, he quit this job to become president of the MPAA, from 1966 to 2004."

Comments

Re:mod parent up

[fotbr]

BZZZT, wrong.

You don't get court provided attorneys for civil matters, which is what a lawsuit is.

Re:RIP Jack Valenti

[Daengbo]

I can't believe you're the only one (at this point) to make this joke. I opened the page specifically to count the number of "Truly andAmerican icon"s. I'm disappointed in the Slashdot community.

Re:mod parent up

[RightSaidFred99]

I don't care about angry MPAA fans and their mod points, he deserves a long line of people waiting to piss on his grave for the laws he and the RIAA have inflicted upon an unwilling majority of citizens in this country.

Give me a fucking break. Are you fucking kidding me? It takes a lot of nuts to say something that retarded. It's like some scumbag politician standing in front of a group of his fellow Christians and saying "I don't care what anybody says, I love children! Oh, and God! I don't hare if the enormous God and children hating contingent of this group hates me for it, I've said it!".

Retard.

Re:Obligatory

[FlyingSquidStudios]

Whoever rated this a 0 might want to go look up the entry on Valenti in Wikipedia. Specifically for his comment on the Beta VCR.

Re:It's a very sad day on slashdot..

[alienmole]

You don't have to respect the person. Just respect life. [...] Respect for life is something any decent person has for anyone.

That's interesting, but what does it mean to "respect life", and are we not doing so sufficiently in this case? If we don't respect the person, and believe that the world is better off with him dead, are we somehow not respecting life by saying so?

In any case, most people's respect for life is limited. We all eat plants, most of us eat animals, and most of us support, either actively or passively, the semi-organized killing of people in wars. So life is clearly not entirely sacrosanct, to most of us.

I've demonstrated my respect for Jack Valenti's life in the fact that I didn't personally kill him, but that's really as far as it goes. Beyond that basic courtesy, everything else needs to be earned, if you're a thinking being with some degree of what we think of as free will.

Re:Odd thing to note

[roman_mir]

Sure, you are +5 Insightful, but in Russia the Communist member Michael Zapolev will no longer be able to get the floor as a speaker for his suggestion to drive a wooden stake into Yeltsin's chest.