Archive for January, 2017

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Thud.

Monday, January 30th, 2017

That’s the sound of the other shoe dropping.

Remember the great Houston Astros hacking scandal of 2015? If you don’t, that’s okay. Briefly: the St. Louis Cardinals were accused of hacking into the Astros computer system and stealing information on players. Christopher Correa, the Cardinals “director of player development” pled guilty to federal charges and was sentenced to 46 months in prison (plus restitution).

MLB has issued their decision on how they plan to punish the Cardinals. Good news: the Astros will get their top two draft choices, plus two million dollars.

Bad news: those draft choices are number 56 and 75 overall.

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred ruled the Cardinals are “vicariously liable” for Correa’s conduct despite finding the evidence “did not establish that any Cardinals’ employee other than Mr. Correa (who was the only individual charged by the federal government) was responsible for the intrusions into the Astros’ electronic systems.”

Off the top of my head, I think I would have liked to see a more severe penalty, but I’m not sure what would have satisfied me (other than Correa’s head on a pike outside of Minute Maid Field). Correa, who “declined to answer questions or cooperate with MLB” has been placed on the “permanently ineligible” list. (Yes, that is the same list that includes Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe Jackson.)

Interesting (to me) fact that I found while looking up the list: Correa is the second person banned by Commissioner Manfred in the two years he’s had the job. The other one is Jenrry Mejía, who was a pitcher for the Mets until he tested positive for drugs “three times in less than a year”. In contrast, Bud Selig banned one person during his time as acting commissioner and commissioner (1992-2015).

Posted in Geek, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 30, 2017.

Monday, January 30th, 2017

I didn’t become aware of this until I saw it on the NYT obits Twitter feed, but: J.S.G. Boggs, one of my favorite visual artists, has died.

..he painstakingly reproduced British pounds, Swiss francs and American dollars, with quirky deviations.
On American currency, for example, he might use the signature “J. S. G. Boggs, Secret of the Treasury,” or inscribe “Kunstbank of Bohemia” on a $5,000 bill, or append the motto “In Fun We Trust.” At first he created the notes one by one, a time-consuming process. Later he ran off limited-edition prints.

…

In the mid-1990s, when Worth magazine asked him to design a note using the Treasury Department’s new guidelines, Mr. Boggs produced a $100 bill with the image of Harriet Tubman as a young girl, anticipating by 20 years the announcement that Tubman would replace Andrew Jackson as the new face of the $20 bill. In 2001, he ran off a series of 100,000 plastic Sacagawea dollars, stamped with his own mint marks and paid for with a $5,000 Boggs bill.

A very quick Google search does not turn up any indication of how much the Boggs dollars are currently going for. Which is a shame: I’ve always figured I’d buy a Boggs artwork when I got filthy rich.

(On a side note: Canadian Tire money is available for surprisingly reasonable prices on eBay.)

The obit mentions Lawrence Weschler’s Boggs: A Comedy of Values, which I think is a fine (though dated) book. But I’d also put in a plug for Weschler’s Shapinsky’s Karma, Bogg’s Bills: And Other True-Life Tales, the essay collection that was my first introduction to Boggs.

Speaking to ARTnews after Mr. Boggs’s death, Mr. Weschler said, “He was just short of being a con man, but no more than anyone in the art world, or for that matter in the world of finance — which, of course, was his whole point.”

Posted in Art, Books, Obits | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 28, 2017.

Saturday, January 28th, 2017

John Hurt. NYT. A/V Club.

Since the A/V Club hit one of his most famous scenes, I’ll hit the other:

For the calm dignity he brought to this performance — a powerful reproof to those who demonized and humiliated Merrick — Mr. Hurt was rewarded with an Oscar nomination for best actor, critical plaudits and the admiration of the film’s director, David Lynch, who said 10 years later, in an interview in The New York Times Magazine: “John Hurt is simply the greatest actor in the world.” (Robert De Niro won the best actor award in 1981.)

(I’d kind of like to see the Hurt/Egoyan “Krapp’s Last Tape”, but it looks like you can only get that in the “Beckett On Film” set, which is pricy but contains some other stuff I’d like to see as well.)

Barbara Hale, who knocked around movies and TV a bit before she settled into her most famous role. LAT. NYT.

That role, by the way, was “Della Street”, Perry Mason’s secretary during the Raymond Burr run from the beginning of the TV series in 1957 all the way through the last TV movie in 1993. (I make the distinction because: while I personally don’t remember this and it didn’t last very long, there was an attempt to revive Mason in the 1970s, with Monte Markham in the titular role. Ms. Hale was not involved with that. She was, however, involved with “The Perry Mason Mysteries” which were made after Burr’s death and didn’t involve Perry Mason at all.)

Noted: she was also the wife of Dean Martin’s character in “Airport”.

Posted in 1970s, Movies, Obits, Theatre, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 27, 2017.

Friday, January 27th, 2017

Mike Connors.

He served in the Air Force during World War II, then enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he played basketball (and earned the nickname “Touch” on the court).

…

Under the name Touch Connors, he also appeared in several forgettable films (“Swamp Women,” “Flesh and the Spur”), many of them for the director Roger Corman, and at least one enduring film: “The Ten Commandments” (1956).

…

By the end of its eight-season run, “Mannix” earned Mr. Connors a salary of $40,000 an episode. He used his fame to publicize a then-underreported chapter in Armenian history by narrating “The Forgotten Genocide,” a 1975 documentary about the targeted killing of hundreds of thousands of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World War I. He would later narrate another Armenian-themed documentary, “Ararat Beckons,” by the same director, J. Michael Hagopian.

Serdar Argic, call your office, please.

One more crime series lay in Mr. Connors’s future — “Today’s FBI,” which lasted one season on ABC in 1981…

I remember liking that show. Doesn’t look like it has ever had a DVD release, and I can’t tell if it streaming anywhere. But the opening is on YouTube.

Remember when TV shows had openings? And theme music?

Posted in 1970s, History, Mannix, Movies, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Historical note, required for use in schools.

Friday, January 27th, 2017

The Apollo 1 fire was 50 years ago today.

Report of the Apollo 204 Review Board.

Posted in History | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 26, 2017.

Thursday, January 26th, 2017

Your Mary Tyler Moore roundup: NYT. A/V Club. LAT. WP.

CBS is doing an hour-long tribute special tonight. And apparently, MTM Enterprises has been posting full episodes of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” on YouTube (minus the opening credits).

If they don’t play “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” at her funeral, there just ain’t no justice in this world.

My mother asked me yesterday if there was anybody from the show other than Betty White who was still alive. The answer kind of surprised me:

Cloris Leachman (“Phyllis”) is still around, though she’s pushing 91. Ed Asner is also still alive (he’s 87). Gavin MacLeod’s still around. Valerie (‘Rhoda”) Harper seems to be doing more or less okay after that cancer scare a couple of years ago. And Georgia Engel (Ted Baxter’s girlfriend) is only 68 and still working.

Posted in 1970s, Obits, TV | 1 Comment »

Notes on film: Hidden Figures

Tuesday, January 24th, 2017

The Oscar nominations are out. Once again this year, I have seen exactly one of the nominated films. And I didn’t get around to seeing it until this past Sunday, and mostly because my mother wanted to see it.

I’m going to put in a jump and talk about “Hidden Figures” a bit. Before the jump, a couple of notes:

A) As I’ve said before, my father worked for NASA during some of the same period covered by “Hidden Figures”. Specifically, he worked at what is now known as the Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. Some of what I’m going to say is filtered in part through my mother’s experience. (I wasn’t born for much of the time my dad worked for NASA, and am too young to remember the rest of his time there.)

B) There may be some things here that could be considered as spoilers, which is why I’m inserting the jump. The movie itself is based on historical fact that you can look up, so I’m not sure how much of what I’m about to say is really “spoilers”. (John Glenn orbited the Earth and returned safely. If that’s a spoiler for you, well, welcome to our planet, I hope you enjoy your stay here.)

(more…)

Posted in Geek, History, Leadership, Movies | Comments Closed

Obit watch and norts spews: January 23, 2017.

Monday, January 23rd, 2017

Your Miguel Ferrer roundup: NYT. A/V Club.

Obligatory: he was one of the best things about “Crossing Jordan”, the “Quincy” of the 2000 era except that it sucked.

And yesterday was a bad day for baseball: Kansas City Royals pitcher Yordano Ventura and former infielder Andy Marte were both killed in separate car crashes in the Dominican Republic. More from the NYT.

A 2015 study by the World Health Organization found that the Dominican Republic had the highest traffic accident death rate in the Americas, 29.3 per 100,000 inhabitants.

Also for the record: Ryan Grigson out as general manager of the Colts, though they are apparently keeping Chuck Pagano as coach.

And no, PeyPey is not being considered.

Posted in Firings, Obits, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

Books in brief.

Wednesday, January 18th, 2017

I’ve ranted to some of my friends about Reacher Said Nothing: Lee Child and the Making of Make Me and I should probably post a longer review here. (Short version: now I know why there aren’t more books following an author during their writing process.)

But you know how it is. Mom likes Jack Reacher, and I kind of do as well, so when I found a copy of Night School at Half-Price I grabbed it.

And I think it’s actually a pretty okay book. It still has some of the things that have started to grate on me (Reacher makes women’s clothes fall off: Reacher takes on seven guys at once), but the annoyances are modulated by a couple of factors:

  • This is a “historical” Reacher rather than a “contemporary” Reacher. Night School Reacher is still in the Army, and the book is set sometime between 1993 and 1999.
  • Frances Neagley from Without Fail and Bad Luck and Trouble is a major character (introduced early on, and cleverly, so I don’t think this is a spoiler). I like Neagley, and not just because Reacher doesn’t make her clothes fall off; she’s smart, at least as smart as Reacher and possibly smarter, and there are hints of an interesting backstory. I’d read an entire “Adventures of Frances Neagley, PI” novel if Child ever decided to write one.

There’s an interesting MacGuffin (who is “the American” and what is he selling for $100 million?), some clever procedural work, and a satisfying level of ass-kicking (seven against Reacher aside). Night School isn’t a bad way to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon.

I don’t have a Single Action Army (yet) but I grabbed a copy of Shooting Colt Single Actions in All Styles, Calibers, & Generations from Half-Price right after Christmas (it was 20% off, so I picked it up for relatively short money). It seems like HPB got in a fair amount of relatively obscure gun books from someone or somewhere. (I also got a copy of Compliments of Col. Ruger in the same purchase.)

Venturino’s book, while about 20 years out of date, is still informative. I don’t know that much has changed in the world of Colt Single Actions since 1995. (Except for prices, and I suspect some of his listed vendors have closed up shop.) The most interesting thing about my copy of the book, though? When I’m reading it, I can just faintly smell Hoppe’s #9 or some other form of gun cleaner/lubricant coming off the pages. Someone must really have loved this book, and their guns.

(It isn’t an annoying smell, at least to me. I own a few books that used to belong to smokers; as any serious book collector will tell you, that’s annoying.)

One of my Christmas presents from my beloved and indulgent sister was Spy Secrets That Can Save Your Life, a book I was previously unaware of (but which was a NYT bestseller). I’ll confess that I was initially a little bit skeptical about Spy Secrets, mostly because the author set off my “reality show contestant” radar. (He apparently appeared on “Shark Tank” and got a deal.)

My reality show skepticism was offset early on when Jason Hanson came out and said: he’s a gun guy, who has a permit, carries everywhere he legally can, and hangs out in gun shops. But Spy Secrets isn’t a gun book, nor is it a text on mastering covert tradecraft. Hanson’s emphasis is on protecting yourself through:

  • awareness – paying attention and knowing how to spot possible trouble.
  • avoidance – staying out of trouble and, if you stumble into it, not making it worse
  • preparedness – if you do get in trouble, what do you have and what do you know that can get you out, or at least keep you alive until the cavalry gets there?

I’m probably not the best person to evaluate this book – I’d love to see a take from Weaponsman or Karl – but Hanson impresses me as sane and practical. I do have one small quibble with his advice, but beyond that I feel comfortable recommending Spy Secrets. And if you have a high school or college freshman around, I think you could do a pretty good deed if you bought them a copy of this book, a nice tactical pen, and a good quality pocket-sized flashlight.

(My one quibble? I disagree with Hanson about the value of smartphones and text messaging. I agree with him that smartphones detract from situational awareness: I’m conscious of that in my own life and need to work on it. But it is also a well known fact that, in emergency situations where the cell network is overloaded, text messages have a much better chance of going through than phone calls. If you’ve got someone to watch your six, or can dictate a text to Siri, texting “Meet me at the meeting place” may be the smart way to go.)

Posted in Books, Christmas, Guns, Law | 3 Comments »

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#35 in a series)

Wednesday, January 18th, 2017

Lawrence beat me to it, but only because I have to wait until my lunch hour to blog.

According to “a person with knowledge of the case”, state representative Dawnna Dukes has been indicted by a grand jury.

Dukes, an Austin Democrat, faces two misdemeanor counts of abuse of official capacity and 13 felony counts of tampering with public records, said the person, who was not authorized to speak publicly.

She could get 28 years in prison, but we all know there’s no way in heck she’s going to get that much of a sentence if she is convicted. (I know, these are state, not federal, charges, but Ken’s principle still applies.)

You may remember Rep. Dukes was playing “Let’s Make a Deal” with DA Lehmburg late last year. Ms. Dukes decided she wasn’t going to resign after all because “the people” wanted her to stay (in spite of her poor attendance record).

Posted in Austin, Law, Politics, Texas, Travis County | Comments Closed

When guns are outlawed…

Tuesday, January 17th, 2017

,,.only outlaws will have ninja swords and daggers.

A local DJ was attacked Friday night in his apartment.

…when he opened the door…who was wearing a ski mask, began attacking him with a Katana sword.
“I didn’t know what else to do, so I just grabbed [the sword] with my hand,” Angel said. “Blood was just dripping down the blade.” Angel said…then pulled out a dagger and stabbed him in the back.

What makes this kind of noteworthy is that the alleged ninja is also the owner of a fairly prominent local bar. (Never been there, but have heard of it: mostly in the context of, “In spite of the name, this has nothing to do with A Clockwork Orange.”)

Posted in Knives, Law, Mixology, Swords | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 17, 2017.

Tuesday, January 17th, 2017

Eugene Cernan, Gemini 9, Apollo 10, and Apollo 17 astronaut. NYT. NASA.

Hans Berliner, master chess player and prominent developer of early game playing computers (such as HiTech and BKG 9.8.)

Mr. Berliner was an expert at correspondence chess, in which moves can be sent by postcard or, more recently, over the internet. Players have days to think about each move, and games usually last months or even years. When Mr. Berliner won the Fifth World Correspondence Chess Championship, the final began on April Fools’ Day in 1965 and did not end until three years later.

Posted in Chess, Geek, Heroism, History, Obits | Comments Closed

General reminder.

Monday, January 16th, 2017

I have been somewhat negligent about posting reminders recently, since pretty much every day during the current administration has been like this.

But while I’m thinking about it, let me just remind everyone that Friday is national “Buy an AK Day”. Please note that the timing is just a coincidence, and has nothing to do with recent events. (A more complete explanation of the reasons why January 20th is national “Buy an AK Day” is at the link.)

(I’m not sure I’m going to actually purchase an AK, as I haven’t really found one I like at a good price, and there’s much less pressure to do so now. However, I may go out and pick up 100 rounds of 7.62×39, just to have it around.)

Posted in Guns, Music | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 15, 2017.

Sunday, January 15th, 2017

Tommy Allsup, guitarist, producer, and historical footnote.

As a guitarist, he was touring as a part of Buddy Holly’s band in February of 1959. This is the same tour that Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson were on…

Mr. Allsup flipped a coin to see whether he or Valens would get a seat on the plane. He lost and took a bus to the next stop on the tour.
Holly, Valens, the Big Bopper (J. P. Richardson) and the pilot, Roger Peterson, died when the plane crashed in the Iowa countryside. Their deaths were recalled as “the day the music died” in Don McLean’s 1971 hit song, “American Pie.”

For the record: William Peter “The Exorcist” Blatty. NYT. WP.

Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. I’m torn about this. On the one hand, I hate to see nearly 150 years of history flushed down the drain, and I’m sad for the circus population that’s going to lose their jobs (and possibly, for some of them, homes). I’m also sad that this decision appears to have some roots in the organized campaigns by various “animal welfare” organizations. (Remember, when you see those sad animals on TV and Sarah McLachlan in the backgrond: that money’s going to pay Ringling’s legal fees.)

On the other hand…the last time I went to a Ringling Circus was over 30 years ago, before my first attempt at college. And what I remember most about it from that time was that I found it kind of sad and depressing. It isn’t that I’m some sort of crypto-animal-rights activist; it just felt like there was something sad and wrong about the whole thing. I guess I’m sad for the people, and sad for the lost history, but I’m not so sad for the institution itself. (And as the article notes, Feld Entertainment has a bunch of other stuff going on, much of which appears to contain the phrase “…On Ice!” so they’ll probably do okay for a while longer.)

Posted in Books, Law, Movies, Music, Obits | Comments Closed

Random notes: January 13, 2017.

Friday, January 13th, 2017

Actual headline from the NYT:

It’s Baltimore, gentlemen. The gods will not save you from a consent decree.

I feel a possible rant coming on about questionable legislation and questionable journalism, but I’m still trying to pull together information and run this past some friends for a sanity check.

Justice Dept. releases scathing report, says Chicago police officers have pattern of using excessive, unconstitutional force

Investigators excoriated the department and city officials alike for what it called “systemic deficiencies.” The report also said investigators determined that the Chicago police force has not provided officers with proper guidance for using force, failed to hold them accountable when they use improper force and has not properly investigated such incidents. They also faulted the city’s methods of handling officer discipline, saying that process “lacks integrity.”

Everyone together now, on three. One…two…three.

Posted in Cops, Law, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 12, 2017.

Thursday, January 12th, 2017

Roy Innis, head of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).

I’m just going to put this out there: he was an interesting guy.

Though court decisions and new laws banned discrimination in education, employment and public accommodations, Mr. Innis was disillusioned by that progress, saying integration robbed black people of their heritage and dignity. He pronounced it “dead as a doornail,” proclaimed CORE “once and for all a black nationalist organization” and declared “all-out war” on desegregation.

…

In the early 1970s, Mr. Innis toured Africa, visiting Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya, Julius Nyerere in Tanzania and Idi Amin in Uganda. He made Amin a life member of CORE and predicted that he would lead a “liberation army to free those parts of Africa still under the rule of white imperialists.” He later urged black Vietnam veterans to assist anti-Communist forces fighting in Angola.

He supported Nixon and Reagan’s presidential campaigns, and the Supreme Court nominations of Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas.

Mr. Innis acknowledged that his loss of two sons to gun violence in New York — Roy Jr., 13, in 1968, and Alexander, 26, in 1982 — influenced his decision to oppose gun control and defend citizens’ rights to carry arms in self-defense. He became a life member and a director of the National Rifle Association.

He also supported Bernard Goetz.

A favorite of conservative talk shows, Mr. Innis twice engaged in televised scuffles in 1988. On “The Morton Downey Jr. Show,” he erupted at challenges to his leadership and shoved the Rev. Al Sharpton to the floor. On “Geraldo,” he choked John Metzger of the White Aryan Resistance, who had called him an “Uncle Tom,” and the host, Geraldo Rivera, suffered a broken nose in the ensuing brawl.

Posted in Guns, History, Nixon, Obits, Politics | Comments Closed

I heartily endorse this event or product. (#15 in a series)

Wednesday, January 11th, 2017

My “Secret Ops of the CIA” calendar arrived today. (Previously.)

The WP, for once, wasn’t wrong: it really is a beautiful piece of work, and I think it is worth every penny the creator is asking for it.

(My favorite entry? April. Because 1) my birth month, 2) Stingers, 3) Charlie Wilson.)

Posted in Endorsements, History | Comments Closed

Politics.

Wednesday, January 11th, 2017

I’m working on getting the lists updated, but I’m a little frustrated.

If you go to the city’s list of council members, they’re all there.

But if you click on Alison Alter or Jimmy Flannigan, you still get the information for Ann Kitchen and Don Zimmerman. I’m doubtful the street addresses and PO boxes have changed, but I can’t be sure of that, so I’ve struck through those temporarily.

The “contact council member” pages for the two new members do look like they’ve sort of been updated, in that the links now show “Send Email to District (X)”. The pages for the other council members still show ‘Send Email to (Council Member Name Here) District (X) Council Member”.

So I’m not just being a lazy, shiftless blogger. I am working on these pages, but I’m in “waiting on the city council and the webmaster” mode right now.

(I probably need to work on the county commissioners and the legislators, too. I’m hopeful I can get that done this weekend.)

Posted in Austin, Politics, Travis County | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 11, 2017.

Wednesday, January 11th, 2017

Michael Chamberlain, ex-husband of Lindy Chamberlain and father of Azaria Chamberlain.

You may remember the Chamberlains from the “dingo ate my baby” case, which I have touched on before.

Detective Steven McDonald of the NYPD. Det. McDonald was shot by a 15-year-old boy in 1986. The shooting left him completely paralyzed from the neck down.

A plainclothes police officer when he was shot, Officer McDonald remained on the Police Department’s payroll afterward as a first-grade detective, at times appearing at roll calls and offering support for wounded officers.
His son, Conor, who was born six months after the shooting, is a sergeant with the New York Police Department and represents the fourth generation of the family to serve in the department.

Posted in Cops, Law, NYPD, Obits | Comments Closed

Annals of law (#11 in a series)

Tuesday, January 10th, 2017

This is bizarre, too bizarre not to make note of here. It is also a little squicky, so I’m going to put a jump here and the main body of this post after the jump. Also, trigger warning.

(more…)

Posted in California Über Alles, Law | Comments Closed

Firings watch.

Monday, January 9th, 2017

Ray Horton out as defensive coordinator of the Cleveland Browns, who have replaced him with the man known to TMQ as “the tastefully named Gregg Williams”.

You may remember Gregg Williams as the former defensive coordinator for the LA Rams, who started looking for a new job after Jeff Fisher got fired. Or you may remember him before that as a defensive assistant for the Tennessee Titans. Or you may remember him before that as “the guy who got indefinitely suspended by the NFL as part of Bountygate”.

The Redskins fired defensive coordinator Joe Barry, plus a couple of staff members and their strength coach.

And the University of California at Berkeley fired head football coach Sonny Dykes. I think I speak for many people when I say, “UC-Berkeley has a football team? Isn’t that just an expression of toxic masculinity?”

Dykes was 19-30 over four seasons.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Not sure I agree 100% with your police work there, Lou.

Monday, January 9th, 2017

One thing the Citizen’s Police Academy “suggests” is that you should reserve judgement on incidents involving the police – if not until all the facts are in, at least until we’re past the initial reports stage.

With that said, this doesn’t look good.

Yesterday, the APD arrested a man at one of our local malls. He was charged with shoplifting, but APD couldn’t determine his identity and suspected he had open felony warrants. So they loaded him into the back of a squad car and headed downtown for fingerprints.

On the way, the handcuffed gentleman told the officer he was feeling suicidal. The officer asked him if he had the means to kill himself…

…whereupon the gentleman in question pulled a gun out of his waistband and, after a brief standoff, shot himself in the head.

The obvious question is: how did police not find the gun?

An Austin police officer did not conduct a thorough pat-down of a man who shot himself Sunday in the back of a police car because the man already had been handcuffed by mall security, a preliminary investigation of the incident has found.

Other than the obvious lesson about assumptions getting you killed, I’m also wondering: how big was the gun? If it was a full-sized 1911, that’s one thing: Ray Charles probably wouldn’t have missed that. Then again, if it was a full-size 1911, the guy would probably be dead, instead of critical. If it was something like a NAA .22, or possibly even a Ruger LCP, missing it is a little more understandable to me.

Posted in Austin, Cops, Guns, Law, Politics | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: January 9, 2017.

Monday, January 9th, 2017

Nat Hentoff has passed away at the age of 91. NYT. Reason. The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. I can’t link to them directly, but Popehat has been retweeting a lot of very good tributes to Mr. Hentoff.

hentoff

Mr. Hentoff was a personal hero of mine (who I never met). Stipulated: he was a liberal, and we probably would have disagreed on many of the social issues of the day. But there was one thing we agreed on: freedom of speech. Mr. Hentoff was an absolutist. He didn’t care if you were left, right, a student, or even a Nazi. If someone was trying to stop you from speaking, he was against it. He wrote eloquently and well for many years for the Village Voice in opposition to censors and censorship. He didn’t just limit himself to government action, though there was plenty of fertile ground there. He also spoke out against private censors. I particularly remember his condemnations of CBS for suspending Andy Rooney

(I don’t know how long he’d been ill, but I wonder what, if anything, he would have said about Milo Yiannopoulos and Simon & Schuster.)

One of the things I respected about him was his intellectual consistency. That didn’t just apply to freedom of speech. He was opposed to the death penalty. But he was also opposed to abortion (he was the only anti-abortion voice in the Voice, and he wasn’t shy about expressing his views) and euthanasia. I like the way Wikipedia summarizes his view:

Hentoff argued that a consistent life ethic should be the viewpoint of a genuine civil libertarian, arguing that all human rights are at risk when the rights of any one group of people are diminished, that human rights are interconnected, and people deny others’ human rights at their own peril.

When I was a young lad in middle school and high school, Hentoff’s books on free speech were in the school library, and my high school had a subscription to the Voice. Nat Hentoff shaped my views on freedom of speech, and inspired me (in my own small way) to be a first amendment advocate and activist.

I’m reminded of that quote from Melville Davisson Post that I often use: “He stood up as though he stood alone, with no glance about him to see what other men would do…No one of them believed in what the other taught; but they all believed in justice, and when the line was drawn, there was but one side for them all.” That was Nat Hentoff.

(He also was a pretty prominent writer on jazz, though I was born without the jazz appreciation gene and am not as well read in his jazz writings.)

91 is a good run, but the world is still a lesser place today.

Posted in Books, Music, Obits | Comments Closed

I heartily endorse this event or product. (#14 in a series)

Saturday, January 7th, 2017

EZ Frame Fixer
2308 E. Cesar Chavez #A
Austin, TX 78702
512-391-9900

For various and uninteresting reasons, I needed to do something about my prescription glasses. And I wanted to do something relatively cheap that didn’t involve new lenses, since I plan to go see my eye doctor in the near future and will probably wind up with a new prescription.

Lenscrafters doesn’t make the frame I need any longer, couldn’t repair the existing frame, and told me they couldn’t move the lenses to another frame since they were sized specifically for that frame. (I would have figured that frame sizes are pretty standard, but..)

They gave me EZ Frame Fixer’s number and suggested I give them a shot.

Thing #1: When I called and asked if they were open today, the guy who answered the phone said, “I can be.” It appears their “official” hours are Monday-Friday 10 AM to 5:30 PM, but the guy (“Christino”, I think, according to their business card) basically told me, “I live eight blocks away. Come on down, call me when you get there, and I’ll come over and open up.”

Thing #2: So I got down there, and he was already at the shop. Went in, laid the glasses on the counter, showed him what was wrong (the arm on one side had come detached from the hinge)…

Me: “The guys at Lenscrafters said you might be able to solder this, but the hinge may not fold any more. I’m okay with that…”

Him: “No, when I do a job, I do it right. (Emphasis added- DB) It’ll work.”

And it does. He fixed the glasses for me while I waited, charged only $30, and they work perfectly. You can’t even tell they’ve been repaired.

I suspect most people just throw away their broken frames. Why bother getting anything repaired any more, when you can just get cheap crap online and throw it away? But it is nice to find somebody who can do this kind of work if you need it, who will go out of the way to help you on the weekend, and has that old world sense of craftsmanship.

I don’t know what your other choices in Austin for eyeglass repair are, but if you need frames repaired, give EZ Frame Fixer a call.

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Retail is heck.

Friday, January 6th, 2017

Two stories related to the declining fortunes of the retail industry that I thought were worth noting:

1. Sears is selling off the Craftsman tool brand. My dad did all of his own auto and home maintenance, and he swore by his Craftsman tools. And why not: they had a lifetime warranty, no questions asked. (I remember going with him to a Sears at one point to exchange a socket wrench: he was trying to get a rusted bolt on a truck bumper unstuck, as I recall, and was using a length of pipe to get additional leverage. The wrench snapped in half before the bolt gave. And Sears didn’t even ask any questions. They just gave him a replacement socket wrench.)

But I haven’t been in a Sears store for years, and I’m not even sure that they still have the lifetime warranty on Craftsman tools. I’m not sure what my dad would be doing now: perhaps purchasing Snap-On instead, as I think they’ve become a little more available now. (You kind of had to know people in the 70s and early 80s, or work professionally as a mechanic, to get Snap-On tools.) This looks like a quick attempt at a cash infusion to prop up a dying company.

2) Macy’s is laying off 10,000 people. And they’re closing three stores in Houston, including the one at Greenspoint Mall.

When I was a teenager, I spent a fair amount of time at Greenspoint Mall, and I (well, my family and I) shopped at the Foley’s.

Note I said “the Foley’s”. Not “the Macy’s”. Foley’s was a beloved regional brand that Macy’s bought and which they have proceeded to run into the ground.

Granted, it is hard to do retail these days, and it is hard to run a mall. Especially Greenspoint, which has changed considerably since my teenage years. (I have heard that it is now commonly nicknamed “Gunspoint Mall”.) As Mike the Musicologist, who is also familiar with the area, said when I informed him, “… seeing what’s become of Greenspoint and West Oaks, the better question is ‘What took you so long?'”

Maybe sometime real soon now, they can use what’s left of Greenspoint to film the big chase scene in that all-female remake of “The Blues Brothers”. I remember there being lots of space in that mall.

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