
Jorge Liderman, 50, music theory and composition professor at UC Berkeley, died on Sunday after being hit by a BART car at El Cerrito Plaza. At around 9:30 a.m., it seems, the BART train operator claims that as the car was about four or five feet from the station, Liderman hurled himself in front of it, killing him instantly. And although the word "suicide" is being tossed about, his cause of death is still under investigation.
"Just because the train operator said someone jumped, that doesn't mean the train killed him," morbidly mused BART spokesman Linton Johnson, going on to say that Liderman "could have had a heart attack and fell. He could have had a stroke."
Gregory Bloch, a UC Berkeley PhD musicologist, tells us, "I've been talking to people all morning...no one can believe it."
To listen to some of Jorge Liderman's works, go here and here.

Week Around the Ists


Linton Johnson wins the comedy award. Yes, just because he got hit by a train, don't mean the train killed him, it could have been Lupus. What a tactless cretin. Our public servants really are a cut above.
IT'S NOT LUPUS, WELL MAYBE IT IS.
To quote House, "It's never Lupus."
Sometimes I feel sorry for those train drivers.
That could put a damper on your day.
I'm guessing a MUNI driver pushed him
People using public transport to kill themselves really pisses me off. Do it in your own damn home, where you're not ruining the days and weeks of people you're never met. You've scarred them for life, what with your blood all over their commute and junk. Selfish bullshit.
#6 - I think that's a bit much. It's unfortunate that a lot of suicides happen in public places, but you can't hold someone who's depressed or in the grips of mental illness to the same standards the same way most of us in society do, any more than I can expect my broken Brookstone thermometer to tell the temperature accurately.