The death on Wednesday of pioneering motivational author and speaker Zig Ziglar has reverberated far and wide.

Here for example is how LA Times celebrity blogger Christie D’Zurilla initially reacted on Twitter:

Saturday’s memorial service in Plano, Texas will be live-streamed. Leading up to that, one of the very best ways to remember Ziglar is to read an essay published earlier this year by New York Times bestselling author Michael Levin. It begins:

The last time I saw Zig Ziglar, I was one of 17,000 in attendance at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California, where he was speaking as part of a program of superstars, including Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Joe Montana. He was onstage accompanied by his daughter, Julie Ziglar Norman, because Zig had suffered a fall a couple of years before that and nobody wanted him to fall again, especially onstage, and especially in front of 17,000 people.

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Following Tom Brokaw‘s Monday night “Newsmakers” series speech at the Lesher Center for the Arts in Walnut Creek, event producer producer Steve Lesher blogged some interesting observations.

He deemed Brokaw one of the best speakers to have graced the event, right up there with Colin Powell, Ken Burns, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. He also noted that Brokaw, during a dinner held immediately beforehand, suggested that Ronald Reagan‘s terms as California Governor dealing with Jessie Unruh and the Legislature prepared him better than most for the challenges of the U.S. Congress. Writes Lesher:

It is interesting to me that in their visits to “Newsmakers,” Brokaw, Bob Schieffer, Lesley Stahl and Powell all had anecdotes about Reagan that were central to their talks. One can recall when it was downright hip to criticize the Gipper as being unintelligent, superficial and the like.

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Keith Olbermann had on his program the “surviving” members of Monty Python this week. Olbermann said Terry Gilliam asked him about a statement Colin Powell made in 2007 about the “terror industrial complex,” a phrase Powell used in an interview with GQ. Apparently the only reporter to ask Powell about those remarks were staffers at the Oklahoma Daily, OU’s student paper. Score one for the little student guys.

Syndicated cartoonist Gordon Campbell responds to Colin Powell‘s endorsement of Barack Obama by portraying the former Bush cabinet member as Benedict Arnold in blackface. We get how GOP-types could be mad at him, but blackface? Classy. GOP, you just lost your African-American votes. All five of them.

Thanks to Rob Tornoe to turning us on to this.

All Is Happy In Happy Valley: The David Mamet TV show The Unit skipped the headaches of filming in L.A. by shooting its exterior shots on a Santa Clarita cul-de-sacs, where locals are happy to pocket location cash and graze at craft services tables.

Emergent Submersibles: Of all the causes to fight for — world peace, an end to poverty, a reduction of greenhouse gasses — some Disney folks chose to battle on behalf of the Disneyland submarine ride. We mock, but maybe it makes sense to rally behind a cause you can actually win.

Now He Tells Us: Years after telling us stories about yellow cake and anthrax and other lethal nonsense, Colin Powell tells NBC’s Meet the Press that the Bush Administration is going in the wrong direction. What a brave statement to make. Now. After the war — and the president — have proven unpopular. Thanks.