Bob Bork once told me that he could not give up the New York Times obits. The rest of the paper, yes. But not the obits. I know just what he means.

I enjoyed the following, from Sunday’s obit of Marvin Mandel, the “Progressive Maryland Governor Convicted of Fraud,” as the headline had it:

In July 1973 he issued a news release announcing that he was going to divorce Barbara Mandel, his wife of 32 years, and marry Jeanne Blackistone Dorsey. His statement implied that he had discussed the matter with his wife.
Mrs. Mandel, known as Bootsie, responded by saying that “Marvin has not discussed this with me” and that “the governor crawled out of my bed this morning.” She added, “He should see a psychiatrist.”
Of her successor in the governor’s heart, she said, “How can she be a first lady when she isn’t a lady first?”
Mrs. Mandel refused to move out of the governor’s mansion, causing the governor to stay in a hotel and then in an apartment. She agreed to leave in December after a divorce settlement of over $500,000 had been negotiated.

I like the sound of Mrs. Mandel (No. 1).

And here is “James L. Flanagan, Who Helped Make Computers Talk.” He was a phenomenal engineer, a real whiz. Son of a couple of Caltech professors maybe? Or of math teachers from Chicago?

James Loton Flanagan was born on his family’s cotton farm in Greenwood, Miss., at the edge of the Mississippi Delta, on Aug. 26, 1925, to Hanks Flanagan, a farmer, and the former Wilhelmina Barnes.
Infused from an early age with a passion for science and mathematics, he joined the Army Air Forces at 17, worked to perfect signal scrambling and radar during World War II and returned to Mississippi State University, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering in 1948.
He received a master’s degree and a doctorate from M.I.T., and in 1956 he joined Bell Labs, where he would work for 33 years. He retired in 1990 as director of information principles research.

Amazing. What a country. Or maybe I should say, What a race (meaning the human race). (You have to add that for Internet nuts, unfortunately.)