"On Nov. 13, the rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard - I am not making this name up - died in New York at the grandfatherly-for-rap age of 35. Three days later, at Fort Defiance (Ariz.) Medical Center, Navajo Code Talker Samuel Billison Sr. died at 80 from complications after heart surgery in Tucson.

Big-city newspapers ran extensive stories, features and obituaries on - guess whom? The Ol' Dirty Bastard. Billison got maybe a few inches here and there in area papers and filler blips elsewhere.

We learn from one newspaper that convicted felon Ol' Dirty Bastard had an infectious "wobbly howl" and that he had been addicted to drugs and alcohol, "fathered" 10 kids out of wedlock, was arrested for not paying child support, pleaded guilty to assaulting his wife, served two years in prison for possessing crack cocaine and escaped from drug rehab. The clown once picked up food stamps in a limousine.

Billison, meanwhile, contributed to a code in World War II that many credit with helping win the war and save countless lives. After graduating from Albuquerque Indian School, Bacone College in Oklahoma, East Central University in Oklahoma and the University of Oklahoma, he earned a doctorate from the University of Arizona and helped reorganize the education system under the Bureau of Indian Affairs."

Get the Story:
Eddie Chuculate: A rap on obits: Why do we laud a lowlife rapper but not a Code Talker? (The Albuquerque Tribeune 11/24)

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