Archive for May, 2012

And speaking of bad cops…

Thursday, May 31st, 2012

Around this time last year, we noted the police officer in Franklin County, VA, who shot his ex-wife and engaged in a wild police chase that screwed up traffic for miles.

Well, the former sheriff – the one who allegedly ignored warnings that his deputy was hunting his ex-wife – the one who allegedly told dispatchers not to put out a BOLOhas been charged with “misconduct by an elected official”. This is a “class 1” misdemeanor charge, so it isn’t like he’s going to do hard time, but..

…he’s also being sued by the dead woman’s family. And by two former deputies who were fired after an investigation in 2009 that led to charges against the sheriff of “failure to maintain adequate records”. (Those charges were dismissed.) And by another woman who claims the sheriff didn’t act on threats to kill her son until it was too late.

(This comes by way of the Cato Institute’s new “National Police Misconduct Reporting Project” which in turn is an outgrowth of work done by David Packman.)

Patricia Cook.

Thursday, May 31st, 2012

On February 9th of this year, Officer Daniel Harmon–Wright of the Culpeper, VA police department shot and killed Patricia Cook in the parking lot of a church preschool.

Officer Harmon–Wright was responding to a call about a woman “acting suspiciously”, and claimed that Ms. Cook attempted to flee, rolling up the window in her Jeep and trapping his arm as she did so.

There are questions about Officer Harmon-Wright’s account of events. For example, Ms. Cook’s Jeep did not have power windows, which raises obvious questions about the whole “rolling up her window and trapping his arm” thing. Reason’s “Hit and Run” blog has some good coverage of the case here.

One point noted by Reason and other reporters is that Officer Harmon-Wright has several names: he’s also gone by “Daniel Wayne Sullivan” and “Dan Wayne”.

On Tuesday, Officer Harmon-Wright was charged with “murder, malicious shooting into an occupied vehicle, malicious shooting into an occupied vehicle resulting in a death and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony” by a grand jury.

This is interesting enough, but there’s another aspect to the story that I think is worth noting: Officer Harmon-Wright’s mother, who was “an administrative secretary to the chief of police” when he was hired as a police officer, has been charged with three counts of “uttering” and three counts of “forgery of public documents”. Apparently, the grand jury turned up evidence that she had altered public records to remove “negative information” from Officer Harmon-Wright’s personnel file.

Some folks go “wow” at $320 million dollar incinerators, and I can’t blame them for that. Other folks go “wow” when they’re faced with how deep the corruption seems to run sometimes.

(Hattip: Commendante Balko.)

Art, damn it, art! watch (#29 in a series).

Thursday, May 31st, 2012

Sol LeWitt was a conceptual artist. (He passed away in 2007.)

One of his works was “Wall Drawing #448″. This work has two parts. Part one is a list of instructions on how to create a wall drawing. Part two is an example of what that drawing would look like.

In 2008, the owner of the work consigned it to a gallery in Chicago.

The gallery lost the instructions. The owner is suing, claiming that the instructions are basically a certificate of authenticity:

“The unique nature of Sol LeWitt’s wall drawings renders their accompanying certificates of authenticity critical to the works’ value,” the complaint reads, noting that every certificate says: “This certification is the signature for the wall drawing and must accompany the wall drawing if it is sold or otherwise transferred.”

The gallery says their insurance won’t cover the loss (I’d really like to know why) and apparently tried to settle with the owner. The owner is asking for a minimum of $350,000.

Stuff that doesn’t fit anywhere else.

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

You gotta fight…for your right…to declare bankruptcy.

The strange story of David Webb, fake DEA agent. Doug Swanson, call your office, please (and give us another Jack Flippo novel while you’re at it).

Random observation.

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

At least 90% of the time (if not more), when someone tells me “you shouldn’t burn bridges”, that person has just finished pouring gasoline all over the structure in question, and is now standing in the middle of the bridge flicking their Zippo.

Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

I don’t want to mock the death of Mack Wolford. I was not raised in the Pentecostal snake-handling tradition, nor does it fit in with my personal religious beliefs. (As I recall, there is a Bible verse that says something to the effect of “Don’t test God.”) But I do respect folks who have those beliefs and act on them; I don’t think they are crazy, but are trying to relate to God in their own way, and more power to them.

However, I do think his death is worth noting, not just for the odd factor, but also because it gives me a chance to talk about Jeremy Seal’s The Snakebite Survivors’ Club: Travels Among Serpents.

This had the potential to be an interesting book, and about half of it is. The chapters on snake hunting and snake bite survivor hunting in Africa and Australia are quite good. Unfortunately, his chapters set in India seem oddly disengaged from the rest of the book; I’m not sure why, but they don’t seem to fit.

And while he has an interesting story to tell as his through line through the chapters in America (backsliding snake-handling minister decides to end his marriage through rattlesnake; unfortunately, his wife survived her bites, and he’s doing time), he has a typically British condescending attitude towards America (and especially the American South) that I found annoying.

If you find a copy of this for $3 or less, I think you might get that much entertainment out of it. Otherwise, I’d suggest skipping it. I haven’t read it, but this Whit Gibbons book looks more entertaining and less dripping with scorn.

Edited to add: Added a link to a review of Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia which a) sounds like a better book about the snake-handling tradition, and b) summarizes the Glenn Summerford story.

Obit watch: May 30, 2012.

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

Noted guitarist Doc Watson.

Leo Dillon. Leo and his wife Diane won two Caldecott medals back to back for their work as illustrators. They also worked on many SF books during the “New Wave” era, including doing illustrations for many of Harlan Ellison’s works.

“You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena!” watch.

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

I thought I’d start a thread covering results of last night’s primaries. Specifically, the ones that amuse me.

To start (hattip Lawrence) Harris County DA Pat Lykos, who you may remember from such hits as the BAT vans and the grand jury investigation, lost the primary election to Mike Anderson.

(If you don’t remember Ms. Lykos and her antics, the “HCDA” tag will provide you with a summary.)

I am getting a slow start to the morning, so watch this space for possible updates as I wade through the coverage.

Edited to add: I did not know this, but the winner of the Democratic primary election for HCDA was “once indicted for illegal lawyering”. To which I say: Huh?

ETA2: “In 2010, he ran as a Democrat while under indictment for barratry, a charge that later was dropped.” Ah, barratry.

Insert Monty Python reference here.

Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

A moose stomped the arm of an elementary school-aged child Monday evening in Eagle River, police say.

The 6-year-old was “severely stomped on the arm and had hoof marks on her back,” Parker said.

The 6-year-old’s sister was also slightly injured when the moose knocked over a piece of “playground equipment”.

Barbecue watch.

Sunday, May 27th, 2012

Grandy at Popehat observed a week or so ago, in response to an observation of mine about Southern Living‘s “Top Ten Pitmasters” piece, “Because people like BBQ.” 

In that vein, I wanted to point out the lengthy Statesman profile of John Mueller, grandson of the legendary Louie Mueller. This is pretty much your standard “scion leaves the family business, strikes out on his own, struggles for a while, and starts making a comeback” story. Also, a considerable amount of this story was already covered in Texas Monthly’s “Of Meat and Men” (which also covers the story of Aaron Franklin of Franklin’s Barbecue), but I think both articles are worth reading. Ideally, with about a pound of good brisket and maybe some sausage and beef ribs.

(I checked BugMeNot: the “tx@bugmenot.com”, “texas” user ID/password combo works fine.)

The butler did it.

Saturday, May 26th, 2012

No. Really. Even stranger, it was the pope’s butler.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — An already sordid scandal over leaked Vatican documents took a Hollywood-like turn Saturday with confirmation that the pope’s own butler had been arrested after documents he had no business having were found in his Vatican City apartment.

Random notes: May 24, 2012.

Thursday, May 24th, 2012

Ever been to Niagara Falls? Did you take the boat tour? (I know we visited the falls when I was a child, and I’m pretty sure we took the boat tour, but I honestly do not remember very much about it.)

Those boats have been run by the same company, Maid of the Mist Corporation, since 1971. But now that company has lost the contract to run boat tours on the Canadian side of the falls. And this is a problem because they need a place to fuel and store their boats during the winter: the current site is on the Canadian side, and will be taken over by the new tour operators. There’s no easy place to put a new location on the New York side, at least not without going through a minimum of two years worth of environmental reviews, permitting, and construction.

Obit watch: noted author and critic Paul Fussell. I probably should have read The Great War and Modern Memory back when I was studying 20th Century history, but I suppose it isn’t too late now. I do remember reading the titular essay in Thank God for the Atom Bomb but it was a long time ago in a now defunct bookstore, and besides the wench is dead.