According to “sources”, the NY Jets have fired general manager Joe Douglas. ESPN.
Under Douglas, the Jets have a 30-64 record, no winning seasons and no playoff appearances.
The Charlotte 49ers have fired football coach Biff Poggi.
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The good news is, former coach Biff is going to have more time to drink white wine spritzers at the club with Muffy, Buffy, and Brock.
There’s been a lot going on. I’m sorry to be linking so much to ESPN, but I’m having trouble finding local coverage for some of these.
Tom Herman out at Florida Atlantic. 6-16 in two seasons, and 0-6 in the AAC this season.
Don Brown out at the University of Massachusetts. 6-28 over “two plus seasons”, and they’re 2-8 so far.
Phil Longo out as offensive coordinator of the Wisconsin Badgers. I have not heard anything about mushrooms or the snake.
Stan Drayton out at Temple. 9-25 in “two plus” seasons, 4-18 in the AAC, and 0-15 on the road. But they actually won (in overtime) Saturday.
Noted: “Temple’s firing of Stan Drayton should open the door to dropping the football program“.
Bela Karolyi, gymnastics coach.
You may remember him from such hits as Nadia Comaneci:
Mary Lou Retton:
And Dr. Larry Nassar:
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In fact, a reckoning was already underway. That August, accounts emerged that Dr. Nassar had regularly molested young female athletes at the Karolyis’ ranch and at Michigan State University, where he was a faculty member and sports doctor. Gymnasts began discussing publicly how, while training with the Karolyis, they had practiced with fractured bones, suffered ridicule of their developing bodies, faced food restrictions and felt discouraged from complaining about hunger or pain.
Many former gymnasts said they had dreaded going to the Karolyis’ ranch. One testified that she once purposefully hit her head against a bathtub to avoid the abuse.
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Theodore B. Olson, noted lawyer. I sort of vaguely remember him from the Reagan administration:
Later on, he became involved in the effort to overturn California’s gay marriage ban, and opposed the first Trump administration’s efforts to repeal the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
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Mr. Olson worked on the White House’s behalf during the initial stages of the Iran-contra affair, Congress’s investigation into the illegal arms sales to Iran to support right-wing rebels in Nicaragua. He was also accused of committing perjury during a congressional investigation into the White House’s withholding of environmental records.
That investigation, which lasted five years and personally cost Mr. Olson $1.5 million, ended without charges. It made him a darling among conservative commentators, but left many Democrats convinced that he was dangerously partisan.
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His third wife, the conservative commentator Barbara (Bracher) Olson, was aboard American Airlines Flight 77 to Los Angeles from Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, when Al Qaeda terrorists hijacked it, crashing it into the Pentagon and killing everyone aboard.
She had planned to leave the day before, but had stayed an extra day to be with Mr. Olson on the morning of his birthday. As the plane veered back toward Northern Virginia, where they lived, she called him from a bathroom, and Mr. Olson was able to record some of the call. His telephone is now in the collection of the National Museum of American History.
Gerry Faust, former coach at Notre Dame.
John Robinson, former coach at the Universty of Southern California and of the Rams.
…Attending Our Lady of Perpetual Help School, he met a fellow fifth-grader, John Madden, the future Hall of Fame coach and broadcaster, and they became lifelong friends.
“Just two doofuses from Daly City,” Robinson told The Los Angeles Times in 2021.
Timothy West, noted British actor. Other credits include “EastEnders”, “Nicholas and Alexandra”, “Crime and Punishment” (the 1979 TV miniseries)…
…and what was, according to the obit, a disastrous production of “Macbeth” with Peter O’Toole.
Mr. O’Toole, who had not appeared on the London stage for 15 years, had insisted on complete artistic control over the production, Mr. West wrote in a memoir — “a sure recipe for dissent if not disaster” — and refused to make any suggested changes.
The first night was a critical failure (“Not so much downright bad as heroically ludicrous,” The Daily Mail wrote), and ignited a public war of words (“West Disowns MacBeth,” one headline blared). But the play drew so many curious theatergoers that it became a box office hit.
He was also married to Prunella “Sybil Fawlty” Scales, who I did not know (until I read the obit) has Alzheimer’s. Damn.
Playing catch-up here:
Tony Todd, actor. NYT (archived). Other credits include “Crossing Jordan” (the “Quincy” of the 2000s except it sucked), “Homicide: Life on the Street”, “Cop Rock”, “Jake and the Fatman”, and multiple spinoffs of a minor SF TV series from the 1960s.
This is a little old, but as I recall, it came up while Mike the Musicologist and I were wandering around: Jonathan Haze, actor. Other credits include OG “Dragnet”, “Highway Patrol”, “The Fast and the Furious” (1954), and “The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent”.
Finally, Baltazar Ushca has passed away at 80. He is believed to have been the last of the Andean ice harvesters.
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Part of me thinks I should apologize for not posting yesterday. The other part of me doesn’t.
I got about 3.5 hours of sleep Tuesday night, though I did nap some on Lawrence’s dog couch. So I was pretty worn out yesterday and still had to put in a full day at work. Plus, as I’ve said before, I am not a politics or geo-politics person. I have some things I could say about politics and gun politics, like what I’m hoping for out of the new boss (same as the old boss) but I’d just be stirring the metaphorical pot with a metaphorical stick.
There are plenty of other people who are smarter about politics than I am. I’d suggest Lawrence and Borepatch to start with. I’d also recommend the folks on Lawrence’s sidebar.
At least I can stop muting political ads, and continue muting Medicare supplement ads and lawyer ads.
In other news, I wanted to bookmark this article from American Handgunner, “Sixguns To The Rescue: The M1917 In World War One” about the M1917 revolvers. (Previously on WCD.)
From the obit front: Geoff Capes. I’d never heard of him, but he was hugely popular in the United Kingdom. He was a multiple time winner of the World’s Strongest Man competition, a six-time winner of the Highland Games, and won the “U.K. Truck-Pulling Championship” in 1986.
At 6-foot-6 and 365 pounds, Mr. Capes was a crushing Adonis whose daily diet consisted of seven pints of milk, two loaves of bread, a dozen eggs, two steaks, a jar of baked beans, two tins of sardines, a pound of butter and a leg of lamb.
His gargantuan caloric intake powered his extraordinary feats in strongman competitions: pulling 12-ton trucks uphill, flipping cars, tearing London phone books in half and tossing five-pound bricks as if they were Kleenex boxes. He could run 200 meters — nearly the length of two American football fields — in under 25 seconds.
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He was also a world-class breeder of budgies.
He competed in budgerigar shows throughout Europe, winning a world championship in 1995. He was named president of the Budgerigar Society in 2008 and frequently judged competitions.
“There’s something about their color and beauty that fascinates me,” Mr. Capes told The Sunday People. “They bring out my gentler side.”
This is one that I’ve been a little behind on: Richard A. Cash, big damn hero.
One of the things that people don’t understand until they’ve read at least a little bit about medicine is: dehydration will kill you. And there are lots of diseases, such as cholera and dysentery, that trigger fatal dehydration.
Patients could go “from a grape to a raisin” within hours, Dr. Cash often said.
Dr. Cash and Dr. David Nalin were working in Pakistan in 1967, and together developed an experimental oral rehydration therapy. It worked exceptionally well in trials.
Their approach was put to the test in 1971, when Bangladesh’s war of independence drove tens of thousands of refugees into camps across the border in India. Cholera and other diseases soon spread rapidly.
An Indian pediatrician helping with the response, Dilip Mahalanabis, made oral rehydration a cornerstone of his strategy, with astounding success — proof for all the world that a simple solution could be brought to bear against one of the world’s greatest killers.
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I had scheduled today and tomorrow off, and am running around with Mike the Musicologist. I had no idea how busy it was going to get, so I am blogging by phone.
Dennis Allen out in New Orleans. 18-25 in more or less three seasons, and the Saints have lost seven games in a row.
The Raiders fired Luke Getsy as offensive coordinator. Also offensive line coach James Cregg and QB coach Rich Scangarello. The team is 2-7, and all three were in their first season with the Raiders. (Hattip: Lawrence.)
Mike Bloomgren out as head coach of Rice.
24-52 in seven seasons, 2-6 this season with four games left.
As you know, Bob, I prefer to link to local coverage when I can, but I couldn’t find any. Not in the HouChron, not on the Fox station, not on KHOU, nothing.
Christie Sides out as coach of the Indiana Fever, which is your WNBA team featuring Caitlin Clark.
33-47 in two years, 20-20 this year, and they got swept in the playoffs. ESPN.
I ran across a story on ESPN last night that, for me, raised more questions than it answered. I even ran it past Mike the Musicologist (who is very much not a sportsball person) because it just seemed so odd.
Josh Reynolds, wide receiver for the Denver Broncos, was shot last Friday.
Police documents indicate Reynolds and another man were located, after multiple 911 calls to report two people had been shot, near South Quebec Street and East Union Avenue in Denver. Reynolds had been shot twice — once in the left arm and once in the back of his head.
Team sources said Thursday that Reynolds was treated and released from a Denver-area hospital hours after the shooting.
So he was shot in the back of the head, treated, and released? That’s the kind of thing that should make you get down on your knees three times a day and thank God. It is also the kind of thing that makes you wonder what caliber he was shot with, and whether something slowed down the bullet on the way.
Strippers. Always with the strippers. Also, nothing good happens after midnight. Also, Shotgun Willie’s is where Ja Morant got into trouble. Maybe teams should be telling their players “Shotgun Willie’s is off-limits.”
Also also: situational awareness. Maybe teams should be hiring the Left of Bang guys (more on this to come).
Sounds like the car was shot up enough to where it wasn’t mechanically functional, which is another reason why I’m wondering if Mr. Reynolds was hit by a bullet or fragment that was slowed down by glass or auto body.
I don’t know that this worth the amount of thought I’ve been putting into it. It just seems like a curious thing.
By the way, the police have arrested two suspects. And while Mr. Reynolds was treated and released, he won’t be playing this week: he’s been on injured reserve for a finger injury. (Carolina plays in Denver Sunday afternoon.)
Fernando Valenzuela. ESPN. NYT (archived).
As I’ve noted before, I am not a baseball fan, and I hate the Dodgers. But I remember Fernandomania. And I get the impression he was a class act.
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He stumbled on one of his most publicized discoveries accidentally, when he asked his undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley, to bring in a chemical of their choosing to undergo testing. All of the chemicals tested negative, except for one: contained in a bottle of hair dye a student had borrowed from his girlfriend.
Dr. Ames sent a lab technician, Edith Yamasaki, to buy out every type of hair dye at a local drugstore, and after extensive testing concluded that the dyes — used by more than 20 million Americans at the time — were very likely linked to cancer and birth defects.
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Later in his career, as Dr. Ames’s opinions about the dangers of man-made chemicals began to shift, his legacy in the environmental movement became more complicated.
He felt that some activists were overstating the risks of these chemicals and targeting chemical companies unfairly. He often said that he thought there was too much focus on substances that were technically mutagenic but that were no more likely to cause DNA damage than the “natural” chemicals found in fruits and vegetables.
“I don’t mean to suggest that there aren’t real problems with some synthetic chemicals, but the environmentalists are wildly exaggerating the risks,” he told The Times in 1994. “If our resources are diverted from important things to unimportant things, this doesn’t serve the public.”
I’ve known about this one for a few days, but was waiting for something I was comfortable linking to: Ward Christensen, early computer BBS pioneer.
Then, on Jan. 16, 1978, a blizzard hit Chicago, covering the city in 40 inches of snow and stranding Mr. Christensen at his home in the suburbs. He phoned Mr. Suess, suggesting that they use the time to start building their messaging system. He wondered if they should get help from other club members, but Mr. Suess argued that involving more people would slow the project down.
“Forget the club. It would just be management by committee,” Mr. Suess said, as Mr. Christensen recalled their conversation to The New York Times in 2009. “It’s just me and you. I will do the hardware, and you will do the software.”
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By way of Greg Ellifritz: Ed Lovette, trainer and gun guy. I have a copy of The Snubby Revolver, and would recommend picking it up if you find it used.
I also wanted to link this because Mr. Ellifritz’s post contains an excellent list of other books you should have in your gun library. I will say I have many, but not all, of them: some of them I am still trying to find. (And someone should get the rights to reprint that old Paladin Press stuff, like the Lovette and Cirillo books.)
As a side note, I haven’t forgotten about gun books. I’ve just been busy, and my dealer of choice has taken some time off. I do want to try to get up a post this week, but it is probably going to be shorter than usual. The books I plan to post about are all new books, available from Amazon (with one exception). And one of those books is also going to be an entry in the “Leadership Secrets” series, too.
Keep watching the skies.
Latricia Trammell was fired on Friday as head coach of the Dallas Wings.
The team was 9-31 this season.
In case you were wondering- and it took me longer to figure this out than it should have – the Dallas Wings are a WNBA team.
On a related note:
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Thomas Rockwell, author. His most famous book is perhaps How to Eat Fried Worms.
He was also Norman’s son.
Posing for a painting that depicted him rummaging through his grandfather’s overcoat pocket was one of his favorite childhood memories, he told Cobblestone, a children’s magazine, in 1989. That image appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post in 1936.
“I had to stand on tiptoe while reaching into the overcoat, which was hung on an easel,” Mr. Rockwell said, describing how his father had composed the painting. “My father gave me a present for posing, and I remember feeling so proud and pleased that I’d helped him with his work. I know I’ve never enjoyed any gift as much as that one.”
This one goes out to great and good FotB pigpen51: Greg Landry, quarterback.
He wore the Lions’ Honolulu blue and silver for 11 seasons, tallying 12,451 yards and 80 touchdown passes.
In 1971, his first year as a starter, Landry passed for 2,237 yards and 16 touchdowns, earning a first-team All-Pro nod and his only trip to the Pro Bowl. He was the last Lions quarterback to earn that distinction until Matthew Stafford was named an alternate for the 2014 Pro Bowl.
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But with Landry, who was physically imposing at 6-foot-4, the Lions designed running plays for him, as would later be the case with current dual-threat quarterbacks like Lamar Jackson of the Baltimore Ravens and Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills. The Lions even took a page from college football playbooks and drew up option plays, in which the quarterback has the option to carry the ball himself after the snap or pitch it to a running back, a rarity in the N.F.L.
Landry showed off his burst early in his career, during the Lions’ rout of the Green Bay Packers in the opening game of the 1970 season. Closing out the game in relief of the starter Bill Munson, Landry called a quarterback sneak on third down with two yards to go at the Lions’ 13-yard line. Instead of gutting out a few yards for a first down, he burst through the Packers’ defense and galloped for 76 yards — the longest run for a Lion since 1951.
Great and good FotB RoadRich sent over an obit for Nobuyo Oyama, Japanese voice actress.
For about 25 years, Ms. Oyama was the voice of Doraemon, a character that first appeared in a manga created in 1969. Doraemon is a robot from the future, sent by its owner to the present day to help his great-great-grandfather solve his childhood problems and change his family’s fortunes.
The plump, earless, catlike robot typically helped the boy, Nobita Nobi, using gadgets from the future that he kept in his magical pocket. His deepening friendship with Nobita and his family was part of what made “Doraemon” one of the longest-running shows in Japan and beyond.
Robert Saleh out as head coach of the Jets. ESPN.
He was 20-36 over roughly three and a half seasons with the Jets. Noted:
In other news, Josh Wolff was fired on Sunday as head coach of Austin FC, the soccer team. 45-30-60 over four seasons. Austin FC made the playoffs once in that period (2022).
It was a full rich weekend. I was out all day Saturday and all day Sunday (at separate events) and did not get home until 10 PM last night. So blogging has been kind of constrained, and will be probably until tomorrow. (I have to drop my rental car off this morning, and I have an eye doctor’s appointment this afternoon that’s going to leave my eyes messed up.)
Anyway, NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-17:
None.
I was right about the Jacksonville -Indianapolis game, but that gives me no satisfaction.
And, in other news, I’m thinking the only reason this wasn’t a forfeit is that it was a playoff game, and that would have been a bad look for MLB.
I am also waiting on the results of the Alabama appeal. As I understand it, SEC bylaws specifically forbid any team from scoring more points in a game than Alabama, so I’m thinking the conference is going to overturn Vanderbilt’s win and award the victory to ‘Bama.