Eternity Tours wrote this lovely tribute to a TV icon.

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Lucy Ricardo. Edith Bunker. Maude Findlay. Roseanne Conner. Groundbreaking female characters from American sitcom history.

Ann Romano, not so much. But then you read about how Bonnie Franklin played this 30-something, divorced, working mother of two teenage daughters, and you're reminded that it was a truly different kind of role for sitcoms in 1975, the year One Day at a Time debuted. Before the show ended in 1984, it touched on many taboo subjects such as teen sex, birth control, suicide and infidelity. It was a show not nearly as controversial as creator Norman Lear's other hits like All in the Family, Maude or The Jeffersons, but Franklin said she appreciated Lear's willingness to explore sensitive themes, and his steady hand in making the series a long-lasting hit. Throughout her career, Franklin was multifaceted, earning a Tony nomination in 1970 for Applause and portraying early birth-control activist Margaret Sanger in a 1980 television movie, Portrait of a Rebel. Franklin considered that role one of her most significant. So, Ms. Franklin, you were quite a bit more the actress than I gave you credit for when I was a younger man. Almost feel guilty taking the 11 points you've brought me. But since 26 others chose you as well, it just shows that once you've announced you have pancreatic cancer, a lot of us lose faith in the medical profession.

— Eternity Tours

Gerard Tierney gets the hit, writes the update and makes me laugh twice. A good day.

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You'd think a man known for promoting coexistence and, you know, peace between Israeli Jews and Palestinians in the West Bank would be a logical candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize, which probably explains why he never won it.

Menachem Froman was born in Galilee, part of prestate Israel, apparently before reliable records were kept. Or maybe someone blew up the courthouse. Could be Jews of the era were just shy about documenting their whereabouts. In any event, not even our resourceful Deadpool staff was able to pin down his exact date of birth. Everyone seems to agree he was born in 1945, and that he was 68 when he died March 4, which would imply he'd already had his birthday this year. (Start checking bakery records, Brad; there must have been cake.) [Finally did get him! — Brad]

As chief rabbi of Tekoa, the former paratrooper and one-time chief Rabbi of the Knesset pushed for interfaith dialogue with Palestinians and Muslims and met with figures ranging from the late Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmad Yassin to the late PLO Chairman and Palestinian National Authority President Yasser Arafat. He negotiated any number of ceasefire agreements with Hamas leadership, all of which were ignored by the Israeli government.

He supported Palestinian statehood and called for the withdrawal of Israel from the West Bank and Gaza, with the minor proviso that Jewish settlements be left undisturbed under Palestinian sovereignty. Maybe in your lifetime, pal, but not in his.

His funeral, they say, was a four-hour blowout, with music and poetry, attended by thousands of people of all political and religious stripes.

And I bet there was cake.

— Gerard Tierney

Jim Thornton requested the update a month before Chávez died, which is troubling. But I'm pleased. A whole lot of players got the hit, including me!

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South America is almost the last bastion of semi-respectable communism, and for fourteen years Hugo Chávez, the populist president of Venezuela, was its most prominent proponent. A paratrooper imprisoned after a failed coup in 1992, he went on TV to persuade other rebels to lay down arms, saying he had failed por ahora, for now. He was lucky to be still in jail when a second, bloodier coup was suppressed later that year, and he survived to see President Carlos Pérez, who had been embroiled in financial and sexual shenanigans with his secretary, finally forced out peacefully.

After his release, Chávez won a reasonably fair election in 1998 and went on winning by rewriting the constitution and buying votes. His policies were hopeless. Arbitrary orders to build schools, reform prisons, or expropriate land and factories were announced on his TV chat show, Aló Presidente, and enforced by a motley collection of self-styled Chavistas. But the poor loved him, he didn't steal everything — a few favoured industrialists kept the country running, and took the blame when his policies failed — and the oil kept flowing.

Chávez had a wife, Nancy (the mother of his first three children), and a fiery Marxist mistress, Herma. But when he divorced Nancy, he married glamorous journalist Marisabel Rodríguez instead, having got her pregnant on their first date — they both boasted about it. Eventually, having fallen out with his wives and mistress, one of Chávez's daughters (either Maria or Rosa, depending) took over as First Lady, leaving him single again and eligible. They say women don't mind fat guys so long as they're powerful, so there were many rumours. But Chávez had learned discretion, so they remained so.

Fidel Castro was his best friend. Chávez sent him cheap oil, allegedly $3 billion worth a year, and Castro sent back doctors, the only thing Cuba produces any more. But when Chávez himself got cancer, even Havana's best couldn't save him.

Love me some Charlene updates. She went back for this one, perfectly suited for her talents.

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There was a time not so long before Lillian May Davies's birth in the slums of Swansea, Wales, when every milord and freiherr in Europe was expected to have a mistress. Most aristocrats found their special friends in the corps de ballet of Paris or at the stage door of a West End London theatre, far away from the respectable wives they married for reasons of property or state. (The word of the time for these girls was "chorine," which covered all the bases, as did most of them.) The milord would be expected to shower his mistress with jewels, furs, money and even real estate in payment for services rendered as long as the relationship lasted — usually the season.

So when model/actress/whatever Lilian Craig, having shed the poverty of Swansea, the unmarried state, and an "l" from her first name, took up with Prince Bertil of Sweden in 1943, society assumed that she was nothing more than the modern version of a chorine. Little did they know that Bertil's intentions were strictly honourable.

But having honourable intentions doesn't mean one has the ability to carry them out. The old King and his son both forbade the marriage. Money sweetened the blow a touch, sure, but it was no substitute for the children they wanted, or even for public recognition of their relationship. It wasn't until Bertil's grandfather and father died and his nephew Carl Gustaf succeeded to the throne that they were allowed to marry. Bertil was 64 at the time, Lilian 61. The bride and groom:

Lilian spent the rest of her life in the bosom of the King's family, an unofficial grandparent to his children and as close to a Queen Mother as the country had. The people liked her: She was kind, unassuming, she did her job, and — perhaps most importantly — she genuinely adored her husband. Fifty years together and she was still giving him cow eyes. The marriage ended with Bertil's death in 1997.

Princess Lilian of Sweden, Duchess of Halland, died at the age of 97, a grand old age for a grand old lady. Unfortunately, Kathi and WEP don't get many grand old points for her: 2 for age and 3 for the duet. Total: 5.

— Charlene

As Charlene, the author of this beauty says, it doesn't get any better than that. She was talking about Ralph Klein. I'm talking about her way with words.

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Back in the sanctimonious old days of Social Credit, one of the oldest hotels in Calgary was the St. Louis, and like all old hotels it had two bars: the boring main floor "ladies' parlour" and the raucous basement bar that was (at least when the police weren't looking) restricted to men only. Eventually, though, the Socreds withered away and a new generation overturned all the old draconian laws, and the old hotels either cleaned up or closed down — all but the St. Louis. You see, it had the advantage of being across the road from that cesspool of bureaucracy, Calgary City Hall.

One of the hardest-drinking reporters on the City Hall beat was this brash young high school dropout from Medicine Hat named Ralph Klein. Disgusted by the ongoings at City Hall, the story goes, he decided he could do just as good a job as the incumbent, and (despite spending not much more than his weekly bar tab on his campaign), he won the 1980 mayoral election. Somehow it worked: This cross between Boris Yeltsin and a Renaissance cherub — although I doubt either could match King Ralph's alcohol intake — was credited with bringing the city an LRT system, the 1988 Winter Olympics, and recovery from a horrific, hellacious recession, all while spending most of the day in the basement of the St. Louis. None of these achievements was actually of his doing, but he was credited with them anyway, because look at this face:

If that was your mayor you'd credit him with anything, and you'd probably be right.

Later on he became premier, and for me the magic disappeared. The cherub was now all Yeltsin: an arrogant, contemptuous drunk who baited protesters and verbally abused the homeless. Later on, and I cannot make this up, so I'm borrowing it from Wikipedia:

On March 20, 2010, Klein appeared on his own television game show called On the Clock on the Crossroads Television System network. Klein, shown perched on a golden throne, evaluates the responses and awards "Ralph Bucks" to the contestants whose answers he found the best. The person who has the most Ralph Bucks at the end of the game is declared the winner.

There are also sections in that article for "French Legion of Honour" and "Offensive gesture." It doesn't get better than that.

Ralph Klein took Little Ralphie's Train into the sunset on March 29 at the age of 70. The scums and bums who had him — Allen Kirshner, Allezblancs, Charlene, Denise, Direcorbie, Gerard Tierney, Mo and Philip — don't get any Ralph Bucks, just eight points.

— Charlene