Just not feeling the snark this week. So after the jump, this week’s TMQ…
Archive for September, 2018
TMQ Watch: September 25, 2018.
Thursday, September 27th, 2018Obit watch: September 26, 2018.
Wednesday, September 26th, 2018Freddie Dekker-Oversteegen passed away on September 5th, one day before her 93rd birthday.
It was 1940, Germany had invaded the Netherlands, and she and her sister, Truus, who was two years older, had been recruited by the local Dutch resistance commander, in the city of Haarlem.
“Only later did he tell us what we’d actually have to do: Sabotage bridges and railway lines,” Truus Menger-Oversteegen recalled in a 2014 book, “Under Fire: Women and World War II.” “We told him we’d like to do that.”
Then the commander added, “ ‘And learn to shoot — to shoot Nazis,’ ” she said.
“I remember my sister saying, ‘Well, that’s something I’ve never done before!’ ”
The sisters, along with a lapsed law student, Hannie Schaft, became a singular female underground squad, part of a cell of seven, that killed collaborators and occupying troops.
The three staged drive-by shootings from their bicycles; seductively lured German soldiers from bars to nearby woods, where they would execute them; and sheltered fleeing Jews, political dissidents, gay people and others who were being hunted by the invaders.
…
“Yes, I’ve shot a gun myself and I’ve seen them fall,” Freddie Oversteegen told a TV interviewer. “And what is inside us at such a moment? You want to help them get up.”
Still, she justified killing collaborators, who had betrayed her neighbors, and foreign soldiers, who had invaded and occupied her country.
“We had to do it,” she said. “It was a necessary evil.”
Ms. Oversteegen also rebutted criticism that the resistance had provoked German retaliation against innocent civilians.
“What about the six million Jews?” she said. “Weren’t they innocent people? Killing them was no act of reprisal. We were no terrorists. The real act of terror was the kidnapping and execution of innocent people after the resistance acted.”
Hannie Schaft was arrested, tortured, and killed shortly before the end of the war. Truus and Freddie Oversteegen created the National Hannie Schaft Foundation in her memory. Truus Oversteegen died in 2016.
First they came for the gun shows…
Tuesday, September 25th, 2018…and I wasn’t a gun owner, so I didn’t say anything.
(No, wait: actually, I did. Previously.)
Then they came for the ROT Rally and the Heat Wave car show.
Travis County commissioners will vote Tuesday on whether to lease the banquet hall to the Travis County Central Appraisal District instead. The lease would be from May to August, making the banquet hall unavailable for the Republic of Texas biker rally, which would take place in June, and the Heat Wave car show, which is scheduled for July.
Organizers with both events said that not having access to the banquet hall could be a deal-breaker.
…
If commissioners approve the agenda item on the banquet hall lease, “there won’t be a ROT rally in 2019,” Bragg said. “If they decide to postpone the decision, there’s room for negotiation.”
The same goes for Heat Wave, said David MacDonald, the show’s owner.
I don’t have anything against motorcycle people: some of my best (virtual) friends are motorcycle people. And I kind of agree with part of the argument: why give the space to the county (basically moving money from one pocket to the other) instead of letting a profitable event that brings in a host of visitors every year pay to use it?
But as I said several years ago: there are more deaths associated with the ROT Rally every year than were ever associated with the old Saxet gun shows at the Expo Center. The ROT Rally is always something I find vaguely obnoxious. Fortunately, most of it is either downtown (which we avoid during ROT Rally) or out at the Expo Center. But you still have roads clotted with bikers, many who seem to have bolted on the loudest exhaust pipes commercially available. That weekend’s usually a mess, and I wouldn’t miss it terribly if it was gone. (I don’t have the same reaction to the car show. That just maybe barely impinges on the fringes of my consciousness. Maybe they could do that in WillCo?)
Your loser update: week 3, 2018.
Monday, September 24th, 2018The Browns won for the first time since Donald Trump took office. The worthless Buffalo Bills actually beat Minnesota in what ESPN calls “the biggest NFL upset in 23 years”. The New York Football Giants beat hapless the Houston Texans. New England is 1-2. And we’re down to three teams standing. But at least we didn’t have another tied game.
NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
Houston
Oakland
Arizona
In non-NFL news, the NYT ran an interesting article on the Baltimore Orioles.
I admit I haven’t been paying much attention, because:
1) Baseball.
II) FiveThirtyEight, as of today, is predicting that Baltimore will finish 47-115, or a .290 winning percentage. That’s 15th place on Wikipedia’s list. Historically bad? Maybe. That’s certainly a worse record than the bad Astros teams of recent memory, but it’s still better than the 2003 Detroit Tigers.
I report, you decide.
Obit watch: September 23, 2018.
Sunday, September 23rd, 2018Over the weekend, I was rewatching parts of “Project Grizzly” and I got to wondering what Troy Hurtubise was up to. I’d kind of lost track of him after the whole “Angel Light” thing.
Sadly, and completely unknown to me until yesterday, Mr. Hurtubise passed away in June, as the result of an automobile accident.
This is a damn shame. I’m extremely skeptical of “Angel Light” and “R-Light” (for obvious reasons), but Trojan armor seems like a logical extension of both the Ursus suits and the protective gear worn by bomb squad technicians. Firepaste doesn’t strike me as being too out there, either. I remember reading a book a while back about a famous magician who helped the Allies develop deception tactics during WWII. In his spare time, this guy also invented something that sounds very similar to Firepaste: the intent was that aircrews who anticipated a crash could apply the substance to exposed flesh and ideally get a little more time to flee a burning aircraft.
We extend our belated condolences to his people, and will pour out a 40 of something Canadian in his memory.
Anne Russ Federman, the last of the three daughters of Joel Russ, founder of Russ & Daughters (formerly Russ’s Cut Rate Appetizers).
I’ve been reading Mark Federman’s book about Russ & Daughters, and I love the story behind the store. I also, as it happens, love me some smoked salmon, and I could go for a little herring, too. Next time I’m in New York City…
Book news.
Saturday, September 22nd, 2018NYT headline:
After reading the article, the surprising (to me) answer is: yes, I do want some sausage with my novel, and I want to visit Bad Sooden-Allendorf, shop at the Frühauf’s bookstore, and get a couple of rolls to nibble on.
In other book news, I just discovered that Silvertail Books has reprinted Under an English Heaven.
I’m sure I’ve written before about the amazingly prolific Donald Westlake, mystery author and screenwriter. (Fun fact: “Westlake co-wrote the story for the pilot of the ill-fated 1979 TV series Supertrain with teleplay writer Earl W. Wallace; Westlake and Wallace shared “created by” credit.”) If you know anything at all about the mystery genre, you know Westlake.
But as prolific as he was, he only wrote two non-fiction books: a biography of Elizabeth Taylor under one of his pen names, and Under an English Heaven about the Anguillan “revolution” and “occupation” of the island by British troops. Rumor has it that this is a very Westlake-ian book, even if it is non fiction: more Dortmunder in tone than Parker. This is one I’m actually excited about: review (possibly) forthcoming.
Can’t we just let the investigation get along?
Saturday, September 22nd, 2018(This is a guest post from FOtB RoadRich, speaking only in his private capacity as a citizen, and not representing the opinion of any organization. I’ve made a few minor edits, but no major changes. -DB)
I listen to local talk radio station KLBJ, and enjoy Jeff Ward and Ed Clements’ banter. I really enjoy them though on occasion I mildly disagree with one or the other.
Today I heard something that seemed really irresponsible – Jeff was incensed that the Dallas police chief had not fired Amber Guyger for the horrible and very very avoidable shooting death of Botham Jean. He said that Acevedo didn’t waste any time and fired Geoffrey Freeman for the shooting death of ‘teen running naked’ David Joseph. Jeff said that the Dallas chief said he didn’t want to interfere with the investigation and that excuse was bogus – it didn’t stop Art.
I know a little about internal investigations. I’m no cop. I’m no lawyer. But I did JUST hear a presentation by Austin’s Internal Affairs which reminded me of a key point.
So, I looked up an article on the local paper on my phone. I confirmed my thought – that former Austin Police Chief / current Houston Police Chief / lightning rod for use or misuse of a microphone did in fact fire Freeman… AFTER the internal investigation was over. That’s the key point.
*I* know that if you have an officer involved shooting you have two investigations, the internal one and the criminal one. The criminal one is different from the internal one in that you are COMPELLED TO SUBMIT INFORMATION in the internal one as a condition of your employment. You quit or are fired, and that investigation STOPS.
I didn’t know, but I suspected, that far less time had passed for the Dallas case compared to the Austin one.
I called the caller line, which I haven’t done in over a year. I spoke with the screener, said my peace, and went back about my business. I didn’t get on the radio, which I don’t have any need to do. I haven’t heard the topic come back around so I can only hope that the information was relayed.
Once in front of the computer I pursued my other thought – how long did it take to investigate Freeman, and how long has passed since the flood of bad decisions and poor luck caused some guy watching a football game in the supposed safety of his own home… to be killed by a cop.
You can find any number of articles on this, but I found this one.
From here, I did the math. It was simple. February 8, 2016 APD Officer Freeman is rushed by a naked teenager that was reported to be acting ‘erratically’. Freeman goes on the defensive and David Joseph is shot dead. March 21, 2016 fAPC/cHPC/lr4mum Art Acevedo fires Officer Freeman after the investigation, 42 days after the shooting. September 6, 2018 DPD Officer Guyger ends a long shift, thinks she’s parked on the right level, thinks she’s at her apartment, overlooks the red mat outside and goes on the offensive and Botham Jean is shot dead. Today is September 21 and it’s only been fifteen days, one third of the time that was taken for the Freeman investigation, which was pushed full
throttle, and some think ‘rushed’, others think not.
The overarching problem is that we think we know more (by ‘we’, I mean ‘them’ of course – naturally I think myself and my friends are well and above reproach)… and we are weaned on hour-long cop shows and think that random people showed up to the building they call the police department and JUST started working that day. (Born yesterday anyone?)
There’s a procedure for everything from investigating an officer ‘stealing a cup of coffee’ to one who takes the life of another citizen. The guys in the building learned the job, learned the processes, and are applying them. We… ok, THEY who are outside of this process think they get to make policy on social media — and broadcast media — and then get outraged because they weren’t proven to be a better judge of procedure, than policy manuals that reach nearly 1000 pages over decades of legal precedent.
It’ll get investigated. No one has more hatred for a bad cop than all the good cops.
I don’t know what that baby’s problem was.
Saturday, September 22nd, 2018Yes, we have no bananas…
Friday, September 21st, 2018Knight falls.
Friday, September 21st, 2018Somewhat to my chagrin, I have not been following the Suge Knight murder trial closely.
In fairness, though, the case has been going on for 3 1/2 years:
One man, Terry Carter, died. The second man, Cle “Bone” Sloan, was badly injured but lived.
The whole thing became a circus more or less behind my back:
…
Where is this going? Knight pled out to manslaughter yesterday:
Remember, the deadly weapon in this case was a Ford F-150. When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have pickup trucks.
The Court of Last Resort.
Thursday, September 20th, 2018Back in the day, when Argosy was publishing Erle Stanley Gardner the creator of Perry Mason’s “The Court of Last Resort” column, they noticed a sizeable circulation uptick. (According to Wikipedia, the magazine was “never terribly successful”, but they did get a “significant boost in sales”.)
These days, the “large mass market publication brings attention to a wrongful conviction and gets the guy off” story is so common as to almost not be news anymore. Texas Monthly has done this several times that I know of, the legendary Gene Miller won two Pulitzer Prizes for his stories at the Miami Herald, and given enough time I could probably come up with more examples than Carter had liver pills.
But this is an unusual first, as far as I know: guy has his conviction vacated after spending 27 years in prison (“the bulk of it in the infamous Attica Correctional Facility”) because of the work of a lot of people: the Erie County district attorney’s wrongful convictions unit, the Georgetown University Prison Reform Project, his daughter (who raised money for his legal fees by selling his color drawings of golf courses online), and the mass media…
Said it before, I’ll say it again: we need a new “Court of Last Resort” as a regular feature in some large circulation publication. And we need more public intellectuals like Erle Stanley Gardner, too.
(Edit: forgot to include hattips: Popehat on the Twitters, and Lawrence.)
Carbon Monoxide Yoga Balls…
Thursday, September 20th, 2018…are not opening for KISS on the “End of the Road World Tour”.
But there is an update:
An anesthesiology professor at a top Hong Kong university was convicted on Wednesday of murdering his wife and daughter with a yoga ball filled with carbon monoxide, in a case that drew intense local interest for its bizarre details and unusual family dynamics.
The jury voted unanimously for convicting the professor, Dr. Khaw Kim-sun, after almost seven hours of deliberation.
The judge sentenced Dr. Kim-sun to life in prison.
TMQ Watch: September 18, 2018.
Wednesday, September 19th, 2018Someone who isn’t us asked why we didn’t mention Vonte Davis in the loser update this week.
The truth is, we just didn’t have anything to bring to the table on that subject. We do have one thought, but we’re not comfortable sharing that in public: it would be irresponsible speculation on our part. We do (sincerely) hope for the best for Mr. Davis.
Apparently, Gregg Easterbrook has almost nothing to say on the subject either. But he does have things to say on other subjects, including the Clay Mathews penalty.
After the jump, this week’s TMQ and why his commentary is problematic…
Obit watch: September 18, 2018.
Tuesday, September 18th, 2018Alan Abel, hoaxer, is dead at the age of 94.
Or is he? The NYT certainly thinks he is, and who would know better than the paper of record.
Among his many pranks: the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals, Yetta Bronstein (“the phantom Jewish grandmother from the Bronx who ran for president in 1964”), Omar’s School for Beggars…
Perhaps his most famous hoax was getting the NYT to publish his obituary while he was still alive.
Mr. Abel’s putative 1980 death, orchestrated with his characteristic military precision and involving a dozen accomplices, had been confirmed to The Times by several rigorously rehearsed confederates. One masqueraded as the grieving widow. Another posed as an undertaker, answering fact-checking calls from the newspaper on a dedicated phone line that Mr. Abel had installed, complete with its own directory-information business listing.
After the obituary was published, Mr. Abel, symbolically rising from the grave, held a gleeful news conference, and a much-abashed Times ran a retraction.
Your loser update: week 2, 2018.
Tuesday, September 18th, 2018Not a whole lot to say this week.
NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
Buffalo
Houston
Oakland
New York Football Giants
Detroit
Seattle
Arizona
Obit watch: September 16, 2018.
Sunday, September 16th, 2018Some from the past day or two:
David Yallop, author and journalist. He was perhaps most famous for In God’s Name: An Investigation Into the Murder of Pope John Paul I which argued that the Pope “had been poisoned by a cabal connected to a secret Masonic lodge that had infiltrated the church and the Vatican Bank.”
Peter Donat, character actor. He was Mulder’s father on “The X-Files”, but he also did a lot of theater: “Over the years he played Cyrano de Bergerac, Prospero, Shylock, King Lear and Hadrian VII.”
Also:
Walter Mischel, of “marshmallow test” fame.
In a series of experiments at Stanford University beginning in the 1960s, he led a research team that presented preschool-age children with treats — pretzels, cookies, a marshmallow — and instructed them to wait before indulging themselves. Some of the children received strategies from the researchers, like covering their eyes or reimagining the treat as something else; others were left to their own devices.
The studies found that in all conditions, some youngsters were far better than others at deploying the strategies — or devising their own — and that this ability seemed to persist at later ages. And context mattered: Children given reason to distrust the researchers tended to grab the treats earlier.
…
In the late 1980s, decades after the first experiments were done, Dr. Mischel and two co-authors followed up with about 100 parents whose children had participated in the original studies. They found a striking, if preliminary, correlation: The preschoolers who could put off eating the treat tended to have higher SAT scores, and were better adjusted emotionally on some measures, than those who had given in quickly to temptation.
The paper was cautious in its conclusions, and acknowledged numerous flaws, including a small sample size. No matter. It was widely reported, and a staple of popular psychology writing was born: If Junior can hold off eating a marshmallow for 15 minutes in preschool, then he or she is headed for the dean’s list.
TMQ Watch: September 11, 2018.
Wednesday, September 12th, 2018Ah, the first week of football season. There’s a wonderful scent of mold in the air (due to all the recent rain), friends are trying to provoke us into doomed bets on the Texans, and Gregg Easterbrook finally has something to write about.
After the jump, this week’s TMQ…
Your loser update: week 1, 2018.
Tuesday, September 11th, 2018Administrative note:
The loser update is primarily for teams that have a shot at going 0-16 over the course of the NFL season. (Secondarily, the loser update is for teams that have a shot at going 0-(x) over the course of some other sport’s season. Thirdly, the loser update is for teams that are just plain bad, or other noteworthy loser related items.)
Teams that have a shot at going 0-15-1 don’t count. I’m just a little sorry to see the Browns come off the list, and more sorry to see Pittsburgh go. But, technically, neither team has a chance to go 0-16: if one or both of them wind up going 0-15-1 this season, there might be a special acknowledgement. But for now, neither team is part of the loser update.
(I have not heard that the beer fridges have been hacked yet. However, the word from Bud Light is that a tie is not a win, so the fridges officially stay locked for now.)
NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
Buffalo
Houston
Tennessee
Indianapolis
Oakland
Chargers
Dallas
New York Football Giants
Detroit
Chicago
New Orleans
Atlanta
Seattle
San Francisco
Arizona
Obit watch: September 11, 2018.
Tuesday, September 11th, 2018Bill Daily, noted second banana. He was Major Healey on “I Dream of Jeannie” and Howard Borden on “The Bob Newhart Show”.
Our favorite zany astronaut, Bill Daily has passed. Billy was wonderful to work with. He was a funny, sweet man that kept us all on our toes. I'm so thankful to have known and worked with that rascal. Until we meet again Billy, xo -B #RIPBillDaily pic.twitter.com/OVZjaWB9CP
— Barbara Eden (@Barbara_Eden) September 8, 2018
Bill Daily & I go back to Chicago in the 50's. He and I were both trying to get into standup. Later, he joined the Bob Newhart Show. He was our bullpen guy – you could always go to him. He was one of the most positive people I've ever known. I will miss him dearly
— Bob Newhart (@BobNewhart) September 8, 2018
Inverted Jenny watch.
Monday, September 10th, 2018I’m a day or two behind on this, but: Inverted Jenny #49 is now accounted for.
As far as anyone was able to determine, the stamp went from William T. Robey (the guy who discovered the error and bought the sheet of 100 stamps) to Eugene Klein (who bought the sheet from Robey for $15,000) to Col. E.H.R. “Ned” Green (who bought the sheet from Klein for $20,000 and split it up). After Green, nobody knew where #49 was until recently.
Mr. Lyons said the Illinois man’s 91-year-old father had been a stamp collector, but the stamp had come from his mother’s side of the family. A great-uncle apparently bought it after the sheet of 100 was broken up, and after the great-uncle died, the great-aunt left it to the man’s mother in the 1930s.
“It spent all those years in bank vaults, which was a good thing for the stamp,” he said. Mr. Lyons said the man, who has asked not to be identified, could not explain why his father never put it in an album with his other stamps.
This is way cool. Because the stamp was never mounted and spent most of the time in safety deposit boxes, it is in very good shape. According to the article in Linn’s Stamp News, the stamp has been graded at 90 XF.
If it goes up for auction…an XF-SUP 95 graded Inverted Jenny went for $1.35 million in 2016. I can easily see this one going for over a million.
The only Inverted Jenny unaccounted for at the moment is #66: that one was part of a block of four that was stolen in 1955. The other three stamps eventually resurfaced.
Inverted Jenny website maintained by Siegal Auctions. This includes a very useful interactive reconstruction of the entire sheet.
Obit watch: September 7, 2018.
Friday, September 7th, 2018Pour out a 40 of Coors for the man.
Burt Reynolds: NYT. LAT. THR. WP.
Also among the dead: Richard DeVos, co-founder of Amway.
Obit watch part 2.
Thursday, September 6th, 2018Breaking this one out for reasons.
Dr. Ralph R. Brown, my uncle (on my dad’s side of the family).
Not much more that I want to say about this right now.
Obit watch: September 6, 2018.
Thursday, September 6th, 2018George Austin, blogger and regular commenter, died earlier this week. Borepatch and ASM826 have nice tributes up.
Adding to what they said: I didn’t know Mr. Austin (I wish I had) but he was a frequent commenter here: as a matter of fact, he was the originator of Gavrilo Princip Day. We extend our condolences to his people.
Kenny Shopsin, restaurant owner. I never met him, either, but I was familiar with him by way of Calvin Trillin’s writings. I even have a copy of his cookbook, though of course I waited for it to show up used.
I suspect Mr. Shopsin and my stepdad would have gotten along famously, while there’s a 50/50 chance that Mr. Shopsin and I would have rubbed each other the wrong way. Such is the way of the world.
TMQ Watch: September 4th, 2018.
Wednesday, September 5th, 2018The regular season starts Thursday. And TMQ gets back to something closely approaching normal next Tuesday. But for now, we have one more week of filler.
After the jump, this week’s TMQ…