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Random notes and obit watch: December 18, 2012.

Tuesday, December 18th, 2012

Remember Pat Lykos, former Harris County DA, unceremoniously tossed from office in this past election cycle? Remember the whole BAT Van scandal? (If you don’t, the “HCDA” category” will provide you with a historical overview.)

Anyway, Amanda Culbertson and Jorge Wong, two of the people who brought up the problems with the BAT Vans, are suing Ms. Lykos, Rachel Palmer (another prosecutor in the DA’s office) and Harris County itself.

Among several allegations, the lawsuit says that officials with the DA’s office retaliated against Culbertson and Wong by lobbying the Harris County Commissioner’s Court to cancel a contract with a local private laboratory, where the two found jobs after leaving HPD.

The NYT informs us that there hasn’t been a big hit book this holiday season. (Apparently, last year’s big hit was Steve Jobs, which surprises me; I would have thought the appeal of that was limited outside of Apple fanatics, and it was not well reviewed by several prominent personalities in that community. But I digress.) However, bookstores are still doing…okay.

Steve Bercu, an owner of BookPeople in Austin, Tex., said sales were up 10 percent over last year. He said that shoppers were buying coffee-table books but were also snapping up Kobo devices. “I was a naysayer,” he said, “but they are buying the actual devices, which surprised me.”

Obit watch: Senator Daniel K. Inouye.

Maurice Herzog, noted French climber.

A dramatic photograph of Herzog waving a French tricolor atop 26,545-foot Annapurna on June 3, 1950, thrilled his countrymen and appeared on front pages around the world. It captured a triumphant moment before a brutal descent, during which Herzog endured frostbite that led to the amputation of all his fingers and toes. (His climbing partner, Louis Lachenal, also lost toes in the climb.)

Herzog died of natural causes at the age of 93.

Posted in Books, Clippings, HCDA, Law, Obits | Comments Closed

TMQ Watch: December 11, 2012.

Tuesday, December 11th, 2012

TMQ was oddly silent last week about Kansas City. TMQ is oddly silent this week about Dallas. TMQ loves him some Patriot offense.

We actually watched last night’s game at the home of some friends. (Those friends shall remain nameless to protect their privacy, but thank you, nameless friends for hosting us!) We have not seen a Monday night game since the contract moved to ESPN, and we were amazed at just how awful the commentary was. We were also amazed at how much time was spent talking about Every. Single. Little. Aspect. Of the New England Patriots (especially Brady) and how little time was spent discussing the Texans.

We’re not that upset the Texans lost. A win would have been nice, but 11-2 is pretty good, and it isn’t like they lost to an incompetent team.

Additional note: as we write this, news is breaking that Paulie Tags has thrown out the New Orleans Saints player suspensions. We’re not sure what to make of this, or how this is going to play out. We need some time to think about it.

After the jump, this week’s TMQ….

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Posted in Books, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch | Comments Closed

Morris, Weingarten, and MacDonald.

Friday, December 7th, 2012

I have written before about my complicated relationship with Gene Weingarten and his writing.

I have a tremendous admiration for Errol Morris as a filmmaker.

I own, but have not yet read, A Wilderness of Error: The Trials of Jeffrey MacDonald.

The intersection of these three things: Weingarten in the WP profiling Brian Murtagh, the federal prosecutor in the MacDonald case. And, in the process, taking on Morris and his book. Weingarten believes MacDonald is guilty:

I’ve concluded this both because I have researched the case extensively, and because, as a writer, I see exactly how Errol Morris prejudiced his account while shrewdly appearing not to do so. I admire his skill but not his book. I think the media have been careless and gullible in reviewing it, perhaps partially because the story of a grievous, enduring miscarriage of justice presents a more compelling narrative than the alternative.

So Weingarten should maybe be taken with at least a small grain of salt. But he does bring up several places where Morris himself admits problems. For example, a woman named Helena Stoeckley allegedly confessed to a federal marshal, Jimmy Britt, that she was present when the killings took place. Britt filed a sworn affidavit stating that Stoeckley confessed while he was transporting her to the trial. Both Britt and Stoeckley are now dead.

None of what was about to come out was in Errol Morris’s book, though it was available to him in public records.
Jimmy Britt, evidence suggested, had not transported Helena Stoeckley from South Carolina at all; he’d never had hours to talk to her. The transport had been done by a tag-team succession of other marshals. Some of the paperwork still survived. Two of the transporters testified.

More:

There are many significant, incriminating facts glossed over in, or completely omitted from, “A Wilderness of Error.” Conversely, much is made of nonsense. An entire chapter is devoted to the supposedly startling fact that Helena Stoeckley reported seeing a broken rocking horse in Kristy’s room. Yes, the horse had been clearly visible in newspaper photos, but no one, Morris argues, had ever publicly disclosed it was broken.

Punchline: it wasn’t broken. And:

Just before this story went to press, Errol Morris and I spoke for nearly an hour; he concedes there are some things he wishes he’d written differently — for example, disclosing that there were some credible challenges to Jimmy Britt’s story. Morris allows that he may have used some facts selectively to make a case for what he believes — selectivity, he says, is part of all journalism — but adds that his belief remains solid that MacDonald did not get a fair trial. He also thinks MacDonald is innocent, but of that is less certain.

The entire article is pretty long, but I commend it to your attention if you have any interest in the MacDonald case.

(Hattip: Ted Frank by way of Popehat on the Twitter.)

Posted in Books, Clippings, Law, Movies | Comments Closed

“…with the eyes wide open”

Thursday, December 6th, 2012

Something about the state cemetery that I didn’t realize until I went there; many of the monuments are, for want of a better work, architecturally interesting.

There are quite a few standard flat tombstones (especially in the section for the Confederate dead) but it seems like many people have the attitude of “This is the state cemetery; let’s make it interesting.”

I wish the focus had come out a little better on this one. I think it works, but in retrospect, it would have been better if i had taken another shot with a smaller aperture to get better depth of field.

(And call me a sentimental old fool, but I like the inscription.)

(Tom Lea Institute. The Tom Lea Collection at the University of Texas.)

Posted in Art, Books, Obits, Photography | Comments Closed

Well said, sir.

Tuesday, December 4th, 2012

(That second photo was taken by my mother with her camera.)

(Biographical information on J. Frank Dobie from the Handbook of Texas Online.)

(Interestingly enough, both Webb and Dobie are buried in the state cemetery, but Roy Bedichek, the third member of the group, is buried elsewhere. It isn’t unusual, as we will see, for the cemetery to have monuments for people who are buried elsewhere, but as far as I can tell there’s none for Bedichek. And for those of you outside of Austin who aren’t aware of the significance of Webb/Dobie/Bedichek, here’s a nice article on the state cemetery website that explains it all for you.)

Posted in Books, Obits, Photography | Comments Closed

Random notes: December 3, 2012.

Monday, December 3rd, 2012

Jim Washburn is out as defensive line coach of the Eagles. Yes, already.

Obit watch: David Oliver Relin, journalist and co-author of Three Cups of Tea. I wish I had more to say on this, but right now I’m not sure what I can say.

As I recall, the case of the lawyer who shot at a census worker was well publicized at the time. The lawyer. Carolyn Barnes, denies the incident ever happened. But she was declared incompetent to stand trial and sent off to a state mental hospital.

Here’s the punchline: her law license is still valid, and she’s representing at least one client.

From Barnes’ perspective, the fact that she has been permitted to continue practicing law is clear evidence she should be released from her forced confinement in the state hospital and be allowed to proceed to her own trial. Her logic: If she is legally able to represent Gourley, as she has been doing, then she is more than capable of understanding the charges against her and participating in her own defense – the legal standard used to determine if a defendant is mentally competent to stand trial.

So, in other words: if the state hasn’t taken away her law license, she’s sane and can be tried for shooting at the census worker. If the state takes away her law license, that just certifies that’s she’s insane and can’t stand trial. That’s some catch.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Firings, Law, NFL, Obits, Sports | 2 Comments »

Obit watch and a bit of personal indulgence: December 1, 2012.

Saturday, December 1st, 2012

This has not been a good week for various reasons. Add another one to the list.

Jeff Millar, columnist and former movie critic for the Houston Chronicle, and also writer of the “Tank McNamara” comic strip, has passed away.

Millar’s time as a HouChron columnist and film critic overlapped my childhood and teenage years. I’ve written before that he was one of three people (Siskel and Ebert being the other two) who made me love movies. (My teenage years were a time when teen slasher flicks were approximately every third movie in the theaters. It was so bad, Millar came up with the “teen scream checklist” format for his reviews of those movies; I laughed every time I saw he’d done one of those.)

(And I’m glad somebody mentioned “Murray the Wonder Publicist”. I had almost forgotten about him.)

“Tank McNamara” was a hoot in those years, too. It still is, but sports have become so ridiculous that they’re hard to satirize any more. And I was a big fan of “Second Chances”, too: it was often funny, but also deeply moving (and I wonder how much of it was autobiographical). (Somebody should do a complete collection of that comic, damn it.)

I even saved up my pennies and purchased a copy of his novel Private Sector. (I had to wait for the paperback, because I was a broke kid. Sorry, Mr. Millar.) I still think that’s a pretty spiffy thriller; even though it was published in 1978, the core concept doesn’t seem that far-fetched to me today.

And the columns. Most of them were side-splittingly funny. But the one that I remember best right now was one he wrote about his first wife (the legendary “Spot” of his columns) after her death. I’d love to find a link to that, but the HouChron doesn’t go back that far.

I had it in my head that, at some point, I was going to write Mr. Millar and thank him for his influence in my life. I met him once, when I was a teenager, at a book signing. But I was too shy and intimidated to talk with him much. We had a brief email correspondence shortly before he retired as a reviewer, and that was the extent of my contact with him. I tried several times to see if he had a presence online, and couldn’t find any contact information, so I gave up on it.

Too late now. I guess this has to be my thank-you note.

Domo arigato, Millar-sensei.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Movies, Obits, Sports, Theatre | 1 Comment »

Quote of the day.

Thursday, November 29th, 2012

I’ve always liked Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination (also known as Tiger, Tiger in the UK).

The last chapter struck me rather forcefully the first time I read it. Especially the ending: I’m putting this quote behind a jump because it contains possible spoilers for the book.

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Posted in Books | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: November 26, 2012.

Monday, November 26th, 2012

Noted Russian SF writer Boris Strugatsky.

Posted in Books, Obits | Comments Closed

TMQ Watch: November 13, 2012.

Tuesday, November 13th, 2012

Unleash the kraken 1972 Miami Dolphins auto-text! Plus, we all live in a nuclear submarine, TMQ has a new book out, and more, in this week’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback! After the jump…

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Posted in Books, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch, TV | 1 Comment »

TMQ Watch: October 30, 2012.

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012

The dead walk only to redig the graves, and make them big enough to fit TVs and microwaves. Plus, this week’s TMQ. After the jump…

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Posted in Books, Clippings, NFL, Sports, TMQ watch | Comments Closed

Things I did not know (a continuing series of infinite length).

Friday, October 26th, 2012

Jacques Barzun lived in San Antonio?

Posted in Books, Clippings, History, Obits | Comments Closed

Random fun: October 24, 2012.

Wednesday, October 24th, 2012

Remember our old friend Randy Adams, former police chief of the California city of Bell, who was seeking a $510,000 a year pension based on his contract with the city?

Ask not who the fail whale tolls for: it tolls for Randy Adams.

The chief, the judge wrote, also wanted to keep confidential an agreement that would have eventually granted him a disability retirement, meaning that half his pension would have been tax-free. His decision included an email that Adams sent to Spaccia during contract negotiations. “I am looking forward to seeing you and taking all of Bell’s money?!” he wrote. “Okay…just a share of it.”

Adams still has the option to appeal the ruling. In the meantime, instead of collecting $510,000 a year, his pension will be a mere $240,000 a year.

Glen Berger is writing a book. “Who?” Glen Berger, one of the writers of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark”. Mr. Berger’s book currently bears the title “Song of Spider-Man: The Inside Story of the Most Controversial Musical in Broadway History”.

Mr. Berger is by no means an impartial observer in the troubled gestation of “Spider-Man,” the most expensive show in Broadway history. He was brought onto the project by Tony winning director Julie Taymor, with whom he co-wrote the book, but he and Ms. Taymor had an ugly split when she was fired in 2011, and a new writer and director were brought in to make the musical more family- and tourist-friendly.

And in other news, the NYT would like for you to shed some tears over the death of poor pitiful Dan Fredenberg.

What did Mr. Fredenberg do?

It was Sept. 22, and Mr. Fredenberg, 40, was upset. He strode up the driveway of a quiet subdivision here to confront Brice Harper, a 24-year-old romantically involved with Mr. Fredenberg’s young wife. But as he walked through Mr. Harper’s open garage door, Mr. Fredenberg was doing more than stepping uninvited onto someone else’s property. He was unwittingly walking onto a legal landscape reshaped by laws that have given homeowners new leeway to use force inside their own homes.

Harper shot and killed Fredenberg. The DA declined to prosecute, stating that the shooting was justified under Montana’s “Castle Doctrine”. This greatly upsets the NYT, and many of the morons who read the paper and leave comments.

But there are some inconvenient facts.

  1. Mr. Fredenberg was drunk at the time he was shot.
  2. Mr. Fredenberg entered Harper’s home; he wasn’t standing in the driveway or out on the sidewalk.
  3. Mr. Fredenberg and his spouse had a history of mutual spousal abuse (physical and verbal), according to the local DA.
  4. Mr. Fredenberg’s spouse was having a relationship of some sort with Harper. She denies it was sexual, but states that they were “intimate”.
  5. Mr. Fredenberg and Mr. Harper had “once clashed at Fatt Boys Bar & Grille in Kalispell”.
  6. Ms. Fredenberg and Mr. Harper were driving around the block that evening shortly before the incident; they were pursued by Mr. Fredenberg, which led to the shooting.

“You don’t have to claim that you were afraid for your life,” Mr. Corrigan, the county attorney, said. “You just have to claim that he was in the house illegally. If you think someone’s going to punch you in the nose or engage you in a fistfight, that’s sufficient grounds to engage in lethal force.”
It was immaterial that Mr. Fredenberg was unarmed. What mattered was what Mr. Harper — who declined to comment through his lawyer — later told investigators: that Mr. Fredenberg was charging toward him, angry, “like he was on a mission,” and that Mr. Harper was scared for his life.

Was Mr. Harper supposed to wait until he was attacked by a drunk man who he’d previously had an altercation with, in the privacy of his own home? Apparently, the NYT thinks the answer to this question is “yes”.

Castle Doctrine didn’t kill Mr. Fredenberg: poor judgement killed him.

Posted in Books, California Über Alles, Clippings, Guns, Law, Theatre | Comments Closed

The Quick and the dead.

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012

This was on FARK, but it touches on so many things covered here, and is such a fascinating story, that I wanted to make note of it.

Thomas Quick was perhaps the most prolific serial killer in Scandinavia. During the 1990s, he confessed to over 30 murders, and was convicted of killing eight people.

Except his name wasn’t Thomas Quick. It was Sture Bergwall.

And he was being fed diazepam while he was confessing to the murders.

And he probably never killed anybody. There is a total lack of physical evidence linking him to the crimes. In several cases, he was convicted based only on his confessions, and in spite of the fact that there was physical evidence directly contradicting those confessions. (For example, in one case, recovered DNA didn’t match Quick/Bergwell’s DNA.)

And he was probably being fed information – information he used to build his false confessions – by the cops. (Henry Lee Lucas, call your office, please.)

There’s a book on the case that, as far as I can tell, does not have a US publisher. I’m hoping it finds one, as this is a heck of a story. (There’s also a good story behind the book; the author was a prominent documentary filmmaker/”investigative journalist” who started looking into Quick’s case, discovered the inconsistencies and other issues, and ended up having Quick/Bergwall tell all to him. As I understand it, this was the author’s first book. He died of cancer three days after finishing the manuscript.)

(Is this, like, a thing in Scandinavian countries? Dying before your book is published?)

Posted in Books, Clippings, Law | 1 Comment »

Quote of the weekend

Sunday, October 21st, 2012

From dinner Friday night:

I was going to buy you a book, but I figured you already had one.

–my mother

(This is somewhat more amusing if you’ve seen my library. What she meant was that she had considered buying this for me, as I guess the author spoke at her DAR meeting, but she decided to wait and see if showed up for less than $30. It looks like something that’d be up my alley, but my sister suggested it will probably show up at Half-Price soon.)

I would post a runner-up quote of the weekend, but:

  1. It would mostly be incomprehensible screaming, and
  2. I wasn’t there for it, since I left my sister’s house shortly before the end of regulation in the Texas Tech – TCU game. Between that and the UT game, I have to ask; has defense become a lost art?

Posted in Books, Sports | Comments Closed

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