Several sources, including SF Signal, are reporting the death yesterday of noted SF writer Frederik Pohl. I hope to have more on this later.
Paul Poberezny, founder of the Experimental Aircraft Association, passed away on August 22nd, though the NYT didn’t get around to mentioning it until today. He was 91 years old, and his life “spanned more than 70 years of flight at the controls of more than 500 different types of aircraft“.
Damn. What a ride.
Harris County DA Mike Anderson.
I don’t have any thoughts about how this is going to play out. I’m out of town, WiFi is catch as catch can, and I’m blogging from the Kindle. Check in tomorrow or Tuesday.
I probably would have posted these even if Lawrence hadn’t done a quote of the day, because: Derek Lowe! More “Things I Won’t Work With“!
But I can’t decide which one I like more:
Explosions are definitely underappreciated as a mixing technique…
Or:
“Spaying hyenas” has so many possible uses.
“How was work today, honey?”
“Spaying hyenas.”
(“Spaying Hyenas” is also the name of my next band. We do Daft Punk covers.)
About a month ago, I noted the case of Bruce Malkenhorst, former city administrator of the notoriously corrupt city of Vernon (later convicted of misappropriation of public funds) who was suing Vernon for the difference between the pension Vernon said they’d give him and the actual pension that he was given by the state.
Vernon has taken the gloves off. You see, back in 2002 or thereabouts, people were starting to become suspicious of Malkenhorst. The LAT was tailing him:
And the city attorney at the time, Eduardo Olivo, started investigating Malkenhorst as well.
There’s more. The full report ran to 85 pages. And of course the city responded by firing Malkenhorst.
Wait, did I say Malkenhorst? I meant Olivo, the city attorney that prepared the report. They also sued Olivo for “breach of contract”. And Vernon has gone to great efforts to keep the report and supporting data secret:
Greg Tsujiuchi, a former assistant to the city administrator, told a district attorney’s investigator about a particularly bizarre instance in which Fresch insisted that he burn magnetic tapes that were an important backup for original hard copies of city records.
Tsujiuchi said he took the tapes to one of Vernon’s fire stations and had baffled firefighters set them ablaze. He regretted doing so and told Olivo, who told Tsujiuchi about the report. Not long afterward, Tsujiuchi resigned.
“Fresch” is Eric T. Fresch, who replaced Olivo as city attorney, and later replaced Malkenhorst as city administrator. By the way, Fresch died last year.
Anyway, the gist of the story is: now that Malkenhorst is suing, all of the sudden, the notoriously corrupt city of Vernon is being very open about Olivo’s report, even providing copies of it to the LAT. I wish the paper would post the whole report as a PDF, but you can’t have everything. Otherwise, where would you put it?
(Side note: no change of venue for Robert “Ratso” Rizzo.)
I have written previously about the performance artist Marina Abramovic.
I was not aware of this, but she had a Kickstarter campaign going. She was trying to raise $600,000 for a “long durational” performance art center.
Well, she did it. She raised $661,452 from 4,765 backers.
And she’s promised every one of them (yes, even the $1 backers) a hug.
And if you’ve ever wanted to see a performance artist tell a light bulb joke, go here.
Back in July, I noted the rhythmic gymnastics scandal. There’s a new development:
More updates, this time on “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark”. It took in $966,952 last week. This is not good, as the cost of running the show is over $1 million a week.
Only the police should have guns department:
There were no deaths or injuries, as both sides “did not fire at each other, he said, but into the air”. Of course, what goes up must come down, somewhere…
It turns out that the rival gun-toting campers were both Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies.
But official misconduct and filing false records are.
Would you believe that IV fluid (specifically, normal saline) is almost as cheap as house-brand cola at the grocery store?
That is, if you buy it in bulk from the manufacturer. If you go to the hospital and get an IV…
Of course, there’s hospital overhead and such involved. You don’t expect to go to Best Buy and pay wholesale price for a laptop, so why would you expect to pay wholesale for IV fluid? But isn’t $786 a lot of markup?
At White Plains Hospital, a patient with private insurance from Aetna was charged $91 for one unit of Hospira IV that cost the hospital 86 cents, according to a hospital spokeswoman, Eliza O’Neill.
Ms. O’Neill defended the markup as “consistent with industry standards.” She said it reflected “not only the cost of the solution but a variety of related services and processes,” like procurement, biomedical handling and storage, apparently not included in a charge of $127 for administering the IV and $893 for emergency-room services.
SmarterTimes has one take on this. I have another. Actually, I have two:
This also gives me a chance to plug a forthcoming paperback that I’m very excited about: David Goldhill’s Catastrophic Care: How American Health Care Killed My Father–and How We Can Fix It
I’m not sure how applicable Goldhill’s prescriptions are to this incident. Much of what he talks about involves changes in routine health care, such as providing consumers with better cost information; being poisoned by monks at a dragon dance is the kind of catastrophic event you’d figure should be covered by insurance, and not the sort of thing where you shop around for the best deal on IV fluids and antibiotics.
Still, this does give me a chance to plug his book, which I was previously unaware of…
Ted Post, film and television director.
Among his credits: Hang ‘Em High and Magnum Force. I haven’t seen the former, but I’ve always felt Magnum Force was a worthy follow-up to Dirty Harry.
He did a lot of television, too, including Columbo and Twilight Zone. (Yeah, yeah, and Gunsmoke and Rawhide.)
Also worthy of note:
Among film buffs Mr. Post was probably best known for “Go Tell the Spartans,” set during the Vietnam War and based on the 1967 novel “Incident at Muc Wa,” by Daniel Ford.
Burt Lancaster starred as an American Army major who carries out orders to secure a remote jungle outpost in 1964 despite his fears that the mission will end badly, as it does. Mr. Lancaster put up his own money when budget problems threatened the film before it was completed.
The NYT suggests that Spartans was under appreciated on its first release, but has grown on film buffs since then. I wasn’t allowed to see it during the first run, but I bought the DVD and watched it a couple of years ago. In my opinion, it is a pretty good, but not great, Vietnam war film. I certainly liked it much better than Platoon.
I’ve written before about Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn, and the efforts by the State University of New York (SUNY) to close it, since it is bleeding money like a severed aorta.
The hospital was previously owned by Continuum Health Partners. Why did they transfer it to SUNY? They say it was either that, or shut the place down. You see the punchline coming, don’t you?
New York’s WBAI is in trouble. Normally, I don’t care that much about NYC radio stations. But:
…huge debt and a dwindling membership have left both WBAI and Pacifica starved for cash. The station, one of five owned by the foundation, has operated in the red each year since 2004, accumulating more than $3 million in net losses, according to Pacifica financial statements. In addition to WBAI, Pacifica has stations in Los Angeles, Washington, Houston and Berkeley, Calif., and feeds content to more than 150 affiliates.
Among Pacifica’s debts are more than $2 million in broadcast fees owed to Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now!,” the network’s most popular show. To cover Pacifica’s operating costs, the network has drained most of its accounts, hobbling the organization and raising the doomsday scenario in which it would have to sell WBAI’s broadcast license.
Lord, you know I don’t ask for much. But if WBAI’s broadcast license does go up for sale, please let the Koch brothers purchase it. Thank you.
Now that the dust has settled a bit, here’s a roundup of Elmore Leonard obits and tributes.
NYT.
LAT. Neely Tucker’s swell 2008 profile of Leonard for the WP. WP obit. A/V Club.
Amy Alkon knew Leonard, and has a nice tribute up here.
And The Rap Sheet, with a roundup of even more links.
Edited to add: missed this one. Robert Crais, another writer I greatly admire, in the LAT.
This week’s TMQ, after the jump…
NYT headline:
(Edited to add: I am willing to offer karma points and gratitude for a photoshop of Admiral Ackbar in a Yankees uniform.)
At least Richard Cohen is consistent. Here’s a man who’s never met a totalitarian initiative he doesn’t like.
Speaking of NYC and guns…
Say what?
So let’s see. NYC has strict gun control. So crooks are stealing weapons (already illegal) or engaging in “straw purchases” (also illegal, and rarely prosecuted by the Feds). So what we need is more gun control, and also stop and frisk.
I would laugh at these guys, but…I’ve got my own embarrassing gun related issue (which I will write more about at some time in the future; no, it wasn’t a negligent discharge, I’m just having problems getting something to run right), so I’m withholding the laughter for now.
…white courtesy phone, please.
(I apologize for linking to the Statesman, but it is a non-paywalled AP story. I also apologize for the stupid auto-play video; if you prefer, “princess cockfighting” in the Google will bring up other versions of this story.)
(I have a sneaking suspicion Willeford would say, “Come on, you can’t put that in a novel! People won’t believe it, even if it is true!”)
How can you write a travel article about Tacoma and not mention the Silver Cloud Inn and its luxurious Crazy Apple Rumors suite? For crying out loud, the Silver Cloud Inn is right on the waterfront! Instead, the LAT recommends staying at some hipster hotel with a “stunning glass collection”.
And what does the paper recommend you eat? Tacos. Vuelve a la Vida may be great, but I live in Austin; if I’m going to Tacoma, I’m going to get away from tacos.
(I’m still hoping to get up to Tacoma one of these days, before John Moltz becomes the famous Internet personality he deserves to be and starts spending all of his time cavorting with SI swimsuit models and professional drifers.)