Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

Obit watch: March 22, 2023.

Wednesday, March 22nd, 2023

John Jenrette Jr., former Democratic congressman from South Carolina.

Mr. Jenrette was, famously, caught up in the ABSCAM scandal.

A former social acquaintance, John Stowe, got in contact with Mr. Jenrette in 1979, saying that he had found a wealthy investor, sometimes referred to as a sheikh — an invention of the F.B.I. — who was willing to finance the revival of an empty munitions factory, bringing 400 jobs to Mr. Jenrette’s district. To sweeten the deal, Mr. Stowe said, he needed legislation that would let the sheikh emigrate to the United States.
Mr. Jenrette was captured on videotape, during one of his visits to a townhouse in the Georgetown section of Washington in December 1979, discussing a payment he would accept with people said to be lieutenants of the phony sheikh.
To an offer of $100,000, with $50,000 up front, Mr. Jenrette said, ”I have larceny in my blood — I’d take it in a goddamn minute.”
Five envelopes, each containing $10,000, were laid out on a desk.
Despite the urgings of Anthony Amoroso, an F.B.I. agent posing as one of the sheikh’s executives, Mr. Jenrette didn’t take the money. Instead, two days later, Mr. Stowe picked it up. Mr. Jenrette, fearful of appearing to have accepted a direct payoff to help the sheikh, agreed to receive $10,000 from Mr. Stowe as a loan, and received a promissory note for it.
The jury delivered a quick verdict, convicting Mr. Jenrette and Mr. Stowe of one count of conspiracy and two counts of violating the federal anti-bribery statute by promising to introduce legislation to let a fictitious Arab businessman into the United States.

The case put a great strain on his marriage, which had already been roiled by his womanizing. His wife, Rita (Carpenter) Jenrette soon wrote, with a co-author, an article for The Washington Post with the headline “Diary of a Mad Congresswife,” in which she declared, “I hate my life as a congressional wife” and described Mr. Jenrette’s struggles with alcohol.
A few months later, she posed for Playboy and, in an accompanying article, said that she and her husband had once made love on the steps of the United States Capitol. When she was profiled in 2017 on “CBS Sunday Morning,” she amended that to say that they had simply shared a passionate kiss behind a Capitol column.
The Jenrettes divorced in 1981 after five years of marriage.

“Between our two salaries we were OK but not flush with money,” Ms. Jenrette, now known as Princess Rita Boncompagni Ludovisi, wrote from Italy. “This evoked his childhood to him, the poverty, the lack, the uncertainty brought to a child with elderly parents. He drank more, and the rest is history.”

Willis Reed, noted player for the New York Knickerbockers.

Reed won the N.B.A.’s Most Valuable Player Award for the 1969-70 season and was named the M.V.P. of the championship series. He won the Rookie of the Year Award in 1965, was voted an All-Star seven times and won another N.B.A. title and finals M.V.P. with the Knicks in 1973. For his career, he averaged 18.7 points and 12.9 rebounds per game.
He was chosen by the N.B.A. for its 50th and 75th anniversary teams. In 1996, he was chosen by the N.B.A. as one of its 50 greatest players. His No. 19 uniform jersey — white with blue and orange trim — was the first to be retired by the Knicks, on Oct. 21, 1976. He was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1982.

Bobbi Kelly. This is probably going to be a “Who?” moment for most of you.

She was the woman on the cover of “Woodstock: Music from the Original Soundtrack and More”.

The man, Nick Ercoline, was her boyfriend at the time. They married in 1971 and stayed married until her death.

It wasn’t until the 20th anniversary of Woodstock, in 1989, that Nick and Bobbi were publicly identified as the couple in the iconic photo that they now proudly display in their kitchen.

Obit watch: March 14, 2023.

Tuesday, March 14th, 2023

Dick Fosbury, Olympic high-jumper and inventor of the “Fosbury Flop”.

With a running start at a raised bar, he launched himself back first, seemed to hover for a moment parallel with the ground, and landed approximately on the back of his neck.
The technique has been compared to a corpse being pushed out of a window. Like Fred Astaire dancing on the ceiling, Fosbury’s flopping struck many onlookers as residing somewhere between a physical feat and a joke. At the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, the crowd oohed, aahed and laughed watching Fosbury compete.
But the last laugh was his:
The high-jump bar kept being raised, and Fosbury kept clearing it. He finally executed a Fosbury Flop at 7 feet 4¼ inches — earning him not just the gold medal, but an Olympic record at the time.

Within a few years, the Fosbury Flop was the standard method of elite high jumping. (The current Olympic record is held by Charles Austin, who Fosbury Flopped 7 feet 10 inches at the 1996 games in Atlanta.)
More broadly, the Flop set a standard for the kind of innovation that can transform a human endeavor. The Times has written about “the Dick Fosbury of ski jumping,” of racewalking, of golf, of angler fishing and of the game show “Jeopardy!” When Piaget introduced a line of watches advertised as a “daring departure,” the company made Fosbury its spokesman.

In later years he often said that at the start of his high-jump career, in high school, he was the worst jumper in his school, in the school’s conference and in all of Oregon. He was seemingly not even a gifted athlete, having failed to make his school’s football and basketball teams.

It was not just Fosbury’s form that made him an unconventional athlete. He wore mismatched running shoes. He had the arm muscles of a chess player. Before making an approach run, he rocked back and forth, clenching and unclenching his fists.

Joe Pepitone, noted Yankee.

In his second season, he displaced the Yankees’ longtime first baseman Bill Skowron, and with Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra aging and Roger Maris’s best years behind him, Pepitone seemed poised to become the focus of the next-generation lineup. From 1963 to 1965, he made three consecutive All-Star teams, belting 27 home runs in 1963, 28 in 1964, 18 in 1965 and a career-high 31 in 1966.

His Yankee teams finished no higher than fifth through 1969, after which he completed his big-league career in the National League, playing for the Houston Astros, the Chicago Cubs and briefly in 1973 for the Atlanta Braves.
He socked 27 homers again for the Yankees in 1969 and hit .307 in more than 40 at-bats for the Cubs in 1971, but after 1966 he never drove in more than 70 runs in a season. Overall, he hit 219 home runs, with a career average of .258.
For most of his career, Pepitone undermined his own gifts with his rambunctious and self-destructive behavior. He had money problems and marital problems. His night life began after night games; he drank with and without his teammates and was no stranger to drugs. He claimed at one point to have turned Mantle and Whitey Ford on to marijuana, and in an interview in Rolling Stone magazine in 2015, he recalled that when he was with the Cubs, fans in the bleachers would throw packets of joints and cocaine at him in the outfield, and he would hide them in the ivy that covered the stadium wall.

Pepitone played briefly in Japan in 1973 and wrote a whiny article for The New York Times about his treatment there; hardly anyone spoke English, he complained, “and at my apartment, I swear the door was 4 feet 5 inches high.”
He played some professional softball, was in the bar business for a time and in the early 1980s worked briefly for the Yankees as a hitting coach. In 1985, he was riding in a car with two other people when the police stopped them for running a red light and found drugs — cocaine, heroin and quaaludes — and a loaded handgun in the car.
Pepitone was convicted on misdemeanor counts of possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia and served about half of a six-month sentence.

And speaking of Japan, this one goes out to FotB RoadRich: Masatoshi Ito is dead at 98.

“Who?”

He brought 7-11 to Japan.

Perhaps his greatest contribution to modern Japan began in 1973, when a young executive persuaded him to bring 7-Eleven to the country. Starting with a single store in Tokyo, the deal he struck with the chain’s owners, the Dallas-based Southland company, launched a revolution in Japanese retailing that would transform everything from the way companies moved their products to the way people eat.
The company’s introduction of the ready-to-eat rice ball to store shelves in 1978 made that humble snack into a central part of the country’s fast food culture.
In the decades that followed, 7-Eleven and its imitators would open tens of thousands of convenience stores across Japan, providing a wide range of goods and services. The shops — open 24 hours a day, every day of the year — became so integral to daily life that the government declared them part of the national infrastructure.

7-11 in Japan was so successful, the parent company ended up buying out Southland, who had run 7-11 in the US into the ground.

The victory, however, was short-lived. In 1992, Mr. Ito announced he was stepping down as Ito-Yokado’s president after three executives at the company were accused of providing payoffs to corporate shakedown artists who had threatened to disrupt the company’s annual meeting, a common racket at the time.
Replaced by his protégé, Mr. Suzuki, Mr. Ito stayed out of the public view for several years before re-emerging in the late 1990s, when he was appointed Ito-Yokado’s honorary chairman. In 2005, the company became Seven & I, combining the convenience store’s name with the first initial of its predecessor. Mr. Ito remained honorary chairman until his death.

Jesus Alou, baseball player and one of the three Alou brothers (Felipe and Matty were the other two).

Jesus Alou played in the major leagues for 15 seasons and was a member of the Oakland A’s teams that won World Series championships in 1973 and 1974. He had limited power, hitting only 32 home runs in his career, but he was a solid batter with a career average of .280.

He was also famous for another reason:

When Jesus Alou was a rookie, he and his brothers were all in the Giants’ outfield on Sept. 15, 1963. They were the only three brothers in major league history to play together in a single game.

Patricia Schroeder, former Congress woman (D-Colorado).

Quick flaming hyena update.

Friday, March 10th, 2023

KXAN has updated their story on Burnet County Judge James Oakley.

According to the indictment records, Oakley is facing two abuse of official capacity counts, stemming from his role as a Pedernales Electrical Cooperative board member while also serving as Burnet County judge. The court record claims this is in violation of Texas local government code.
Records state, on multiple occasions in 2021, Oakley used a Burnet County vehicle to drive to PEC. Oakley told KXAN earlier Thursday the charges stemmed from his “multi-term service as a member of the Director of the Board of the Pedernales Electric Cooperative.”

Yeah, I can easily see using a county vehicle on non-county business as being a crime. Perhaps a low-level crime, but still something you shouldn’t do as an elected official.

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#101 in a series)

Thursday, March 9th, 2023

This is still a breaking story, and details are slim.

Burnet County Judge James Oakley was indicted this week on felony and misdemeanor charges, according to the Burnet County Sheriff’s Office.

Burnet County is fairly near Austin. The charges:

  • Tamper/Fabricate Physical Evidence W/Intent to Impair
  • Abuse of Official Capacity-Cnt 1
  • Abuse of Official Capacity-Cnt 2
  • Official Oppression

The Sheriff’s Office won’t provide copies of the indictment or the arrest warrant until Judge Oakley is arrested and booked. Supposedly, the office is waiting for him to turn himself in.

In a statement, Oakley told KXAN the charges stem from “a fender-bender at a gas station two years ago, where I moved a piece of plastic bumper on the ground to clear for drivers” and his “multi-term service as a member of the Director of the Board of the Pedernales Electric Cooperative.”
Oakley went on to say “I have every confidence that my attorney will be successful in the outcome of addressing these allegations during the process.”

I don’t want to rush to judgement, but: somehow I doubt moving “a piece of plastic bumper on the ground to clear for drivers” results in charges of “official oppression“.

More details as I have them.

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#100 in a series)

Friday, March 3rd, 2023

Number 100. I was hoping for something more spectacular, or at least less distasteful, for such a milestone event. But you take what you get.

The mayor of College Park, Maryland, Patrick L. Wojahn, resigned Wednesday night.

He was arrested Thursday morning.

The charges against him are “40 counts of possession of child exploitative material, a misdemeanor, and 16 counts of distribution of child exploitative material, a felony, according to the Prince George’s County Police Department.”

Specifically:

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children had notified the county police on Feb. 17 that a social media account operating in the county possessed and distributed what were suspected to be images of child sexual abuse, the police said.
Court records indicate that the account was on the social media app Kik.
Prince George’s County Police investigators determined that videos and an image had been uploaded to the account in January, and that the account belonged to Mr. Wojahn, the police said.
On Tuesday, detectives served a search warrant at Mr. Wojahn’s home, where they seized cellphones, a storage device, a tablet and a computer, the police said.

A small bonus: I can’t say for sure that Mr. Wojahn is a card-carrying, dues-paying member, of Criminal Mayors Against Law-Abiding Gun Owners, but: he did sign this “Bipartisan Mayors Call for Background Checks” letter, along with 99 other mayors (including the late unlamented Lori Lightfoot and Lovely Warren), so I feel like calling him a member is a safe bet.

Administrative update.

Thursday, February 9th, 2023

The list of Austin City Council members has been updated.

It will, I hope, stay that way for the next five minutes or so.

I’ve included staff information when and where it is available. Which led me to note: notorious gun-grabber Ed Scruggs is now the “Constituent Director & Policy Aide” for District 8 council member/mayor pro tem Paige Ellis.

I encourage folks to be polite and respectful in their communications with these folks. Next up: the Travis County Commissioners, then the Congressional reps. Maybe I can get those done this weekend? We’ll see.

(I’ve made some good progress on part 2 of “Day of the .45”, but I still need to take photos, do some proofreading, and triple-check my sources. I might get to the photos this weekend, but again, we’ll see.)

UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED, ESPECIALLY to COMPUTER BULLETIN BOARDS.

The problem is not the guns.

Sunday, January 29th, 2023

(This is a guest post from FotB RoadRich, speaking in his capacity as a private citizen, and not representing any organization or group. -DB)

In this article that I found after following links from the Michigan helicopter one, it is revealed that the old man who shot up two California farms had mental problems. But of course the problem is the guns.

Set aside the fact he tried to kill his roommate with a pillow.

It’s not mental illness, it’s the guns.

Oh, and later threatened the same roommate with a knife.

It’s the guns.

And also made a thinly veiled threat to bring his vengeance to work.

Can’t be mental illness.

Must be something we can take away from people so they can’t defend themselves when one of these lunatics snaps. So that we look like we’re doing something.

I know, we will just fight back with some paper laws and voluntary-only social programs.

Because people with mental illness will naturally sign up for those on their own, they know they need help.

Obit watch: December 8, 2022.

Thursday, December 8th, 2022

Lawrence sent over an obit for Al Strobel, the one-armed man from “Twin Peaks”.

Representative Jim Kolbe (R-Arizona).

Sal Durante, historical footnote. He caught the ball from Roger Maris’s 61st home run.

Mills Lane. He was the ref in the Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield 1997 fight (that was the ear biting one) and later went on to have a syndicated court show.

“Stomp”. 29 years off-Broadway.

“KPOP”. the musical. 17 regular performances on Broadway and 44 previews.

Since it began previews in October, the new musical has often made less than $200,000 a week, ranking among the lowest-grossing in weekly industry tallies. Capacity has remained fairly healthy but alongside a low average weekly ticket price. The quick closing means KPOP will not be able to benefit from the traditional boost in ticket sales that comes around the holidays and for which many shows hold out for.

I had forgotten about the associated drama: the NYT pretty much panned the show, the producers accused the NYT of racism, and the NYT basically responded with the bedbug letter.

“Wonder Woman 3”.

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#99 in a series)

Tuesday, December 6th, 2022

Mike the Musicologist asked me if I do foreign flaming hyenas.

The answer is: sure! I did the Germans a while back!

Now it is the Argentinians turn.

Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, a political titan in Argentina, was found guilty on Tuesday and sentenced to six years in prison and banned from holding public office for a fraud scheme that directed public roadworks contracts to a family friend while she was the first lady and president.
The verdict was a major blow to Mrs. Kirchner, the current vice president and a deeply polarizing figure who has helped split Argentina between those who favor her and her leftist movement, called Kirchnerismo, and those who say she has helped ruin a country that has struggled with high inflation, poverty and failed economic policies.

A panel of three judges in Buenos Aires, the capital, rendered the verdict on a public broadcast after a three-year trial in which Mrs. Kirchner was accused of steering hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer-funded contracts to a business associate to build roads in Patagonia, on the tip of South America.
The panel found her not guilty of a second charge of directing an “illicit association” that oversaw that kickbacks scheme.
“We are certain” the ruling said, that “an extraordinary fraudulent maneuver took place that harmed the pecuniary interests of the national public administration under the terms and conditions established by criminal law.”

Twelve other people were also accused in the corruption case including Lázaro Báez, the Kirchner associate who received the roadworks contracts, and two former Kirchnerista government ministers who have been convicted in other corruption cases.
Mr. Báez was found guilty of fraud and sentenced to six years in prison. He was already serving a 12-year sentence for money laundering in a separate case. José López, a former public works secretary, was also sentenced to six years in prison for fraud and banned from holding public office.

The focus of Mrs. Kirchner’s trial has largely been 51 roadworks contracts that were awarded to companies linked to Mr. Báez, who went from being a bank employee in Santa Cruz to forming a construction company in the days before Mr. Kirchner became president in 2003. The prosecution said that from 2003 to 2015 the scheme defrauded the Argentine state of more than 5 billion pesos, or about $926 million, according to officials.
The contracts were often awarded at inflated prices, went over budget or granted other special considerations, according to the prosecution. Almost half of the road projects were never finished.

Last year, a court dismissed charges against her over accusations that she conspired to cover up Iran’s purported role in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people. The accusations against Mrs. Kirchner were first made in 2015 by a prosecutor, Alberto Nisman, who was found dead of a gunshot wound in his apartment days later.
His death was never solved, and the matter has been a source of frenzied speculation and political infighting ever since.

I feel like there’s really only one thing I can say about this:

Obit watch: November 29, 2022.

Tuesday, November 29th, 2022

Clarence Gilyard.

Other credits include “CHiPs”, “Top Gun”, and “L.A. Takedown“.

Freddie Roman, one of the old time Borscht Belt comedians.

Rep. Donald McEachin (D – Virginia).

Obit watch: November 23, 2022.

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2022

John Y. Brown Jr., former governor of Kentucky and fried chicken tycoon.

In 1964, Brown purchased Kentucky Fried Chicken from Harland Sanders for $2 million. He became president of KFC in January 1965 and sold it to Heublein Corp. in a $275 million stock swap in 1971. Brown received nearly $21 million in Heublein stock for his KFC shares.

(Diversion: this is an older piece from Damn Interesting about Harland Sanders that I rather enjoyed. It does discuss the Brown sale and the Heublein buyout.)

In 1969, Brown purchased controlling interest in the Kentucky Colonels, a Louisville franchise in the American Basketball Association. After the ABA folded, Brown paid a reported $1 million for half interest in the Buffalo Braves of the National Basketball Association. He wanted to move the Braves to Louisville but was blocked in court. Brown and a partner then swapped the Braves for the Boston Celtics, in the first trade of professional sports teams.
The Braves later moved to San Diego, and Brown later sold his share of the Celtics.

As some people may recall, he was married to Phyllis George.

For Christmas one year in the not-to-distant past, Lawrence gave me a copy of The Bluegrass Conspiracy, about Drew Thornton and his drug ring. (Cocaine bear!) John Y. Brown is mentioned quite a bit in that book: while he was never convicted of any crime, he certainly had close and questionable ties to people who were.

Mickey Kuhn. He was a child actor: his most famous role was probably “Beau Wilkes” in “Gone With the Wind”. He was also the last surviving cast member from that movie.

His last acting credit was in 1957.

Wilko Johnson, guitarist with Dr. Feelgood and acted in “Game of Thrones”.

Very brief update.

Thursday, November 3rd, 2022

Former Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith: Guilty on every count.

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#98 in a series)

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2022

Good news, everyone!

Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith resigned Monday morning.

You may remember that former Sheriff Smith was indicted by a civil grand jury last December on corruption charges. You may also remember that those corruption charges (mostly) involved her issuing concealed carry permits to large campaign contributors.

What you may not know (and I missed it too) is that the corruption trial is going on right now, and the jury is actively deliberating whether she should be removed from office. Obviously, the fact that she’s resigned sort of takes the air out of the jury deliberations.

Which seemed to be part of her evil plan:

But in court Monday afternoon, her attorney, Allen Ruby, asked the judge in the corruption trial to dismiss the charges against Smith, arguing the primary penalty she faces — removal from office — is now meaningless since the jury cannot oust Smith from a job she no longer holds.

Except it didn’t work:

A judge has ruled that the civil corruption trial for Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith will continue even after Smith suddenly resigned Monday and asked the court to dismiss the case now that she can’t be kicked out of office.

Fineman’s response to the arguments highlighted the lack of precedent for removal-from-office trials spurred by a civil grand jury; the only other one in known memory in the South Bay was in 2002 when a Mountain View city councilmember was ousted. The trial is conducted in the same structure of a criminal trial and adheres to a reasonable doubt standard for guilt, but is held in civil court. Fineman is presiding because the local judiciary recused itself, and the county also recused itself, which is why the prosecution is headed by Markoff, a San Francisco assistant district attorney.

Markoff and Ruby also sparred over the collateral consequences of not allowing a verdict to be reached. Fineman and Markoff mentioned pension implications and eligibility to hold office in the future.
That touched on another ambiguity by the hybrid standing of the trial. A 2013 law penalizes a public official’s pension benefits if they are found guilty of a felony corruption crime, and bars them from holding public office again. Both Fineman and Markoff discussed how the law might apply because some of the current trial counts allege criminal elements.

A guilty verdict on any of the counts would prompt the court to expel Smith from office two months before her previously planned retirement, at the end of her sixth term in January. Her resignation undercut the trial, now in its final stages, by effectively removing its stakes and throwing into question whether the jury should be allowed to reach a verdict.
Both legal observers and Smith’s critics suspected that was a strategic move for her legacy, since an aborted trial means she can’t be formally cast in the public record as a corrupt public official thrown out of office for wrongdoing.

It isn’t clear to me: if she resigns and then is found not guilty, can she run again for the same office in the next election? If she is found guilty, is she barred from running for that office again? For any office in California?

As noted above, there’s not a lot of precedent for this. It does seem, based on the article quoted above, that it is very likely she will be found guilty of at least one charge:

Larsen and other experts nitoring the trial also believed the resignation was influenced at least in part by Smith and her attorney’s anticipation that jurors would come back with a guilty verdict on at least one of counts she was facing. Three of the counts were relatively cut-and-dry, asking jurors to decide if she accepted a San Jose Sharks luxury suite — which violates gift limits for public officials — and if she intentionally masked the suite use by buying cheaper tickets for the same game. Detailed and direct testimony from Smith’s staff seemingly confirmed those allegations.

(Hattip: Mike the Musicologist.)

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#97 in a series)

Thursday, September 8th, 2022

Jeff German was a reporter for the Las Vegas Review Journal. He specialized in investigative reporting, and was apparently quite well regarded by his peers.

I say “was” because Mr. German was stabbed to death on Friday. Mike the Musicologist sent me a tweet from some Twitter rando claiming that Mr. German’s latest investigative reporting was on the Oathkeepers.

Robert Telles is the “public administrator” for Clark County. According to the Clark County webpage:

Rob’s primary focus is to ensure that the CCPA serves the community as best as possible. Under the current administration, safeguarding and customer service performance have been increased significantly according to the statistical data provided on the CCPA website. Further, the CCPA now objects to many probate court matters where families are at risk.

It isn’t exactly clear to me what the “public administrator” does, but it is an elected position. Mr. Telles (who is a Democrat) lost the primary election for the position in June. He apparently blamed his loss on Mr. German, who had done a series of investigative pieces on Mr. Telles’s management of the office:

Reporting from May included allegations from former employees that Telles created a hostile work environment and had an “inappropriate relationship” with a staffer. There were also accusations of bullying and favoritism.

Yesterday, the police searched Mr. Telles’s home. Shortly afterwards, Mr. Telles was arrested and charged with “suspicion of murder”.

Not really sure what I can say here. Seems tragic that a reporter got stabbed for doing his job, especially when it was apparently a politician who’d already lost his own job. What did he think he was going to get out of killing a reporter? His old job back? Or was he just a bully who thought he could get away with killing someone who crossed him?

Considered innocent until proven guilty, yadda yadda, but it’ll be interesting to see this one play out.

Edited to add: More from Reason. I haven’t quoted from the Review-Journal at all because that outlet is totally unreadable without a subscription, even in incognito mode.

Obit watch: September 5, 2022.

Monday, September 5th, 2022

Great and good FotB RoadRich was kind enough to send over a couple of Frank Drake links: SETI.org. NASA’s astrobiology branch.

And, because that’s just the way these things work, the NYT posted an obit this afternoon:

Young Frank was good enough at the accordion to play gigs at Italian weddings, recalled his youngest daughter, Leila Drake Fossek. He was always interested in chemistry and electronics as well as astronomy. He attended Cornell University on a scholarship from the Navy Reserve Officer Training Corps, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in engineering physics in 1952.

In what he called Project Ozma, after the Wizard of Oz, Dr. Drake alternately pointed the telescope at a pair of sunlike stars, Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani, each about 11 light-years from Earth. That telescope, known informally as the Ozmascope, is now on exhibit at Green Bank. The only signal he detected with it was from a rogue aircraft radar, but the effort drew the public’s attention.
A year later, in November 1961, 10 scientists, including luminaries like the young Carl Sagan and John Lilly, who was trying to learn to communicate with dolphins, convened at the Green Bank observatory to ponder the extraterrestrial question. (They did so secretly, fearing professional ridicule.) After Dr. Lilly’s research, they called themselves the Order of the Dolphin.
It was at Green Bank that Dr. Drake, who had planned the meeting, derived his famous equation as a way of organizing the agenda. It consists of seven factors, which range over all human astronomical knowledge and aspiration. Some are strictly empirical, like the rate at which stars are born in the Milky Way and the fraction of those stars with habitable planets. Others are impossibly mystical, like the average lifetime of a technological civilization — 1,000 to 100 million years was the guess. Multiply all the factors together and you get the putative galactic census.
In the realms in which astronomers have actually gotten new data, the old guesses of the Dolphins have held up well, said Seth Shostak, an astronomer and spokesman at the SETI Institute. NASA’s Kepler planet-hunting satellite and ground-based telescopes have verified optimistic estimates of the abundance of potentially habitable Earth-size planets, and scientists know from the Kepler mission that there could be 300 million of them in the Milky Way galaxy alone.
“These guys were either enormously lucky or amazingly prescient,” Dr. Shostak said of the Dolphins.
At the same time, scientists have discovered that life on Earth is tougher and more versatile than scientists had thought, thriving in weird places like boiling undersea vents. “There is so much evidence for lots of pathways to the origin of life,” Dr. Drake said.

Just for giggles, and since I don’t believe I’ve posted this before, here’s a paper I wrote back when I was at St. Edward’s on the Fermi Paradox, Drake’s Equation, and Clarke’s “The Sentinel”. (Yes, this was for an English class. Ask me about that class sometime.)

Moon Landrieu, former mayor of New Orleans.

“They were passing segregation laws every other day, and the one hand that would go up and say no was his,” recalled Norman Francis, a longtime friend and the former president of Xavier University of Louisiana, a historically Black Roman Catholic institution in New Orleans. In the fall of 1952, Mr. Francis became the first Black student to be admitted to Loyola Law School, also in New Orleans. When Mr. Francis arrived early on the first day of classes, Mr. Landrieu was one of three white students who approached him.
“Those three guys walked up to me and said, ‘We want you to know that if you ever need a friend, we’re going to be your friend,’” Mr. Francis said in an interview for this obituary in 2013.