Archive for March, 2019

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Bibilohoplophilia.

Sunday, March 17th, 2019

Or is it hoplobibilophilia? What do you call it when you have a fondness for gun books?

Whatever it is, I have the fever. And the only cure is…more cowbell, er, buying more books. Now it’s your turn to suffer for my -phila.

Seriously, I’ve picked up a couple of books lately that I want to endorse and document Lawrence style. (Please do not confuse “Lawrence style” with “Gangnam style“.) Half-Price Books has been having another coupon sale, but the first two books here I actually ordered new from the publishers.

(more…)

Posted in Books, Endorsements, Guns, Holsters, Hoplobibilophilia | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 17, 2019.

Sunday, March 17th, 2019

Johnny “Lam” Jones, former UT football player and track star.

In his freshman year he ran in the same backfield as another Johnny Jones. To distinguish the two, Coach Darrell Royal gave one the nickname Lam, for Jones’s hometown, and the other the nickname Ham, because that Jones came from Hamlin, Tex.

He was an Olympic gold medalist in 1976 and a star football player for UT, but did not have an entirely successful pro career.

W. S. Merwin, noted poet. While I like me some poetry, and have heard of Merwin, I confess to not knowing his work very well. But:

In later years Mr. Merwin was equally known for his work as a conservationist — in particular for his painstaking restoration of depleted flora, including hundreds of species of palm, on the remote former pineapple plantation in Hawaii where he made his home. He had lived there, in blissful near-solitude, since the 1970s, refusing to answer the telephone.

Anyone who’s a fellow member of the Alexander Graham Bell Was a Meddling SOB Society is okay in my book.

Posted in Obits, Sports | Comments Closed

I shouted out “Who killed the Kennedys?”

Saturday, March 16th, 2019

Billy Kennedy out as head coach of Texas A&M men’s basketball.

151-116 over eight seasons, two Sweet 16 appearances, but 14-18 this season.

Edited to add: with a rebel yell, he cried more more more.

Marvin Menzies out at University of Nevada-Las Vegas. Three years, 17-14 this season, 48-48 overall.

Mike Dunleavy Sr. out at Tulane (Green Wave!).

Dunleavy’s .258 winning percentage (24-69) is the second-poorest among all coaches in school history. The only coach with a poorer winning percentage is Ted Lendhardt, whose 1963-64 team lost the first 22 games before beating LSU in the final game for a 1-22 record (.043).

They were 4-27 this year, lost their last 21 games in a row and went 0-18 in conference.

Posted in Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

NZ.

Friday, March 15th, 2019

I feel a moral obligation to say something about the New Zealand massacre.

Problem is, I don’t have anything to say right now that won’t make me feel like I’m waving the bloody shirt around. (The NYT coverage has some interesting points that I may come back to in a day or two.)

So this is perhaps worth spreading around.

Posted in Guns | Comments Closed

I heartily endorse this event or product. (#16 in a series)

Thursday, March 14th, 2019

Great and good friend of the blog Karl Rehn (official trainer to WCD) has a new book out, co-written with John Daub.

Strategies and Standards for Defensive Handgun Training is available in paperback and Kindle form. Quoting Amazon’s summary:

What percentage of carry permit holders attend training beyond the state minimum? What are the barriers keeping people from attending firearms training that isn’t mandatory? What are realistic standards for minimum defensive handgun competency? What are the best drills to practice? How can you compare the difficulty level of one drill to another? Written by two trainers with decades of experience, this book explores those questions and others related to defensive pistol training.

I haven’t read (or ordered) this book yet. But as you know, Bob, I’ve known Karl for a while and taken classes from him, so I don’t have any qualms endorsing this. I plan to order my copy soon, and will report back once I’ve read it.

Besides, if you can’t pimp your friend’s products, whose products can you pimp?

Posted in Books, Endorsements, Guns | Comments Closed

Florida Mayor, Florida Mayor…

Thursday, March 14th, 2019

I missed out on the first and second parts of this story when they ran originally, but I got tipped off to part three by way of Peter Bonilla on the twitters.

So, part one: a few weeks ago, the police went to serve a warrant on the mayor of Port Richey, Florida. Dale Massad was charged with practicing medicine without a license.

The Florida Department Law Enforcement says the Port Richey Mayor was treating people at his home even though he lost his medical license in 1992.

…

In December of 2017, Massad removed a fish hook from a “patient” who returned to him in April of 2018 to get a shot of cortizone, according to the arrest affidavit obtained by ABC Action News. On August 24, 2018, another “patient” came to Massad for a “surgical procedure” to close a laceration on his left ankle. During that procedure, Massad administered a local anesthetic and gave the “patient” stitches.

Apparently, they sent a SWAT team to arrest the mayor for practicing medicine without a license. That seems a little excessive to me, but it leads us to part two of the story:

The mayor shot at the SWAT team, and has been charged with attempted murder.

But wait! The story gets even better!

So with the mayor in jail and facing attempted murder charges, someone has to fill in, right?

The acting Port Richey mayor is out of jail after being arrested by FDLE agents on obstruction charges Wednesday.
Agents received information that 64-year-old Terrence Rowe, the vice-mayor of Port Richey, was conspiring to interfere with an active criminal investigation.

And what active criminal investigation was he conspiring to interfere with? Go on, guess.

An arrest report says Massad contacted Rowe earlier this month on a recorded jail phone line. During the call, deputies say Massad told Rowe, “I believe (Officer) Howard was hired illegally, fired legally and re-hired illegally.”
According to the arrest report, Massad then added “I don’t know why but he is in on everything,” referring to his arrest.
Deputies say Rowe replied that he was “on it” and Massad told him, “anything you can do is good.” Rowe then said, “You know this doesn’t go down without somebody answering for it,” the arrest report says.

By the way, Massad (who is still in jail on the attempted murder charge) is also now charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice and “use of a two-way communication device to facilitate the commission of a crime”.

Port Richey city councilman Richard Bloom tells News Channel 8 he is “shocked and confused” by the news of his colleague’s arrest, adding he “doesn’t understand all this.”

You’re not the only one, brother.

Posted in Law | Comments Closed

Happy Pi Day!

Thursday, March 14th, 2019

Yes, there is pie: a bunch for work, and a bunch more to take down to the CPA class tonight.

Posted in Food, Geek | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 14, 2019.

Thursday, March 14th, 2019

This literally just in, hot off the virtual press: Birch Bayh, former Senator from Indiana. Possibly more later.

Going out to great and good friend of the blog Borepatch: Hal Blaine, noted session drummer.

Mr. Blaine was part of a loosely affiliated group of session musicians who in the early 1960s began dominating rock ’n’ roll recording in Los Angeles. Along with guitarists like Glen Campbell and Tommy Tedesco, bassists like Carol Kaye and Joe Osborn, and keyboardists like Leon Russell and Don Randi, Mr. Blaine played on thousands of recordings through the mid-1970s.
He famously said he gave the group its name, the Wrecking Crew, although Ms. Kaye has insisted that he did not start using that term until years after the musicians had stopped working together.

He substituted for Dennis Wilson on many of the Beach Boys studio recordings:

Asked if Mr. Wilson was angry that he was replaced in the studio, Mr. Blaine said he was not.
“He was thrilled,” he said, “because while I was making Beach Boy records, he was out surfing or riding his motorcycle. During the day, when I was making $35 or $40, that night he was making $35,000” performing live.
Mr. Blaine’s other studio credits include Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” Simon & Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson,” the 5th Dimension’s “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In,” the Byrds’ “Mr. Tambourine Man,” Ms. Streisand’s “The Way We Were,” the Crystals’ “Da Doo Ron Ron” and Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass’s “A Taste of Honey.”

The NYT has an interesting way of presenting the obit for former UT president Bill Powers:

Francesco Cali passed away last night. He was shot six time outside his home, and (according to one report Lawrence sent me) run over by a pickup truck.

Mr. Cali was the current reputed boss of the Gambino family, John Gotti’s old outfit.

The assassination of Mr. Cali came on the same day that Joseph Cammarano Jr., the reputed acting boss of the Bonanno crime family, was acquitted at trial, and about a week after Carmine J. Persico, a longtime boss of the Colombo crime family, died in prison at age 85.

NYT on the Cammarano acquittal. Previously on Carmine “The Snake” Persico.

Edda Goering, Herman’s daughter, passed away. She was 80.

Posted in History, Law, Music, Nazis, Obits, Politics | 1 Comment »

Does this count as a tax-fattened hyena watch?

Tuesday, March 12th, 2019

Lawrence is all over the Felicity Huffman/Lori Loughlin bribery case, which apparently also involves a UT tennis coach. Additional coverage from ESPN. NYT coverage.

The story is developing, I don’t have as much time as I’d like to keep on top of it, and I don’t want to tread on Lawrence’s turf (although it doesn’t look like anyone was taking bribes to admit giant spiders to Yale. Yet.), so I’d recommend keeping an eye on the three sites above for updates.

Posted in Law, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 12, 2019.

Tuesday, March 12th, 2019

Kelly Catlin passed away last week.

You probably were not familiar with her: she was part of the women’s pursuit cycling team that won the silver medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

She was 23 years old.

Catlin’s father, Mark Catlin, broke the news in a letter sent to VeloNews Sunday morning. Mark Catlin said that Kelly had died Friday around 12 a.m. at her residence in California. Mark Catlin said that Kelly died by suicide.
“There isn’t a minute that goes by that we don’t think of her and think of the wonderful life she could have lived,” Mark Catlin wrote. “There isn’t a second in which we wouldn’t freely give our lives in exchange for hers. The hurt is unbelievable.”

The number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). If you live outside of the United States or are looking for other help, TVTropes has a surprisingly good page of additional resources.

We often hear from those who have attempted suicide but survived that they believed the world would be better off without them. While sharing suicide-prevention hotline numbers can help a great deal, sharing the perspectives and grief of those left behind can as well. Because those still in this world but contemplating an exit must know that their feelings of self-worthlessness are not shared by those who love them.
If someone is contemplating suicide, they should know the utter devastation that will be left in their wake. While those who have died may have thought the world a better place without them, we survivors are living witness to the fact that it is not, that our worlds will not ever be whole without them in it.

Edited to add: sometimes there’s just nothing else you can say.

Posted in Cycling, Obits, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 11, 2019.

Monday, March 11th, 2019

Bill Powers, former University of Texas president.

Powers was the second-longest-serving president in UT history, holding the post for more than nine years until he stepped down in June 2015 to return to the Law School, where he previously was dean. Under his watch as president, UT overhauled the undergraduate curriculum; completed an eight-year fundraising campaign that netted $3.1 billion; launched the ESPN-owned Longhorn Network in a deal giving the campus $300 million over 20 years; and collaborated with local, state and UT System leaders to establish the Dell Medical School.

Quoting Lawrence:

Powers is probably most famous to BattleSwarm readers for his central role in the UT admissions scandal, in which well-connected students were admitted to the University of Texas despite not having the necessary grade averages or test scores. Powers eventually resigned over the scandal.
The UT admissions scandal was not only real, but several of the state’s most powerful politicians (including then-speaker Joe Straus) and media outlets conspired to bury the story.

I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to see how the Statesman addressed this in their obituary. Hint: you will need a (metaphorical) shovel.

Sidney Sheinberg, film executive best known as an early and influential supporter of Steven Spielberg.

Just being a celebrity’s kid doesn’t automatically get you an obit watch. But if the child had an interesting life outside of, or in relation to, their famous parent: absolutely, I’ll mention it here.

In that vein: Julia Ruth Stevens, Babe Ruth’s daughter. She was 102. Ruth adopted her when he married Claire Hodgson, his second wife. (He had a daughter, Dorothy, from his first marriage to Helen Woodford. Ms. Woodford died in a house fire in 1929: Ruth married Ms. Hodgson in 1930, she adopted Dorothy, and the family lived together.)

Claire Hodgson Ruth died in 1976 and Mrs. [Dorothy Ruth – DB] Pirone died in 1989. Mrs. Stevens ultimately became the spokeswoman for the Ruth family.
She was at Yankee Stadium in May 1998 for the unveiling of a postage stamp portraying Ruth admiring one of his home run drives. That August, she threw out the first pitch at a Red Sox game in Fenway Park at ceremonies marking the 50th anniversary of Ruth’s death.
She was at Fenway Park in October 1999 to toss the first pitch before the decisive Game 5 of the American League Championship Series. Having lived for many years in Conway, N.H., she had become a Red Sox fan.
“I went to see the Red Sox beat the Yankees tonight,” she said.

…

When the Yankees played their last game at the old Stadium, the House That Ruth Built, in September 2008, she threw out the first pitch. And she threw out the first ball at a Red Sox game at Fenway Park on July 10, 2016, to mark her 100th birthday three days earlier.

Freeda Foreman, one of George Foreman’s daughters, passed away over the weekend. She was 42, and had a 5-1 record as a professional boxer.

Edited to add: prompted by the exchange with Lawrence below, here’s a little lagniappe for you.

Posted in Movies, Obits, Politics, Sports, Texas | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: March 9, 2019.

Saturday, March 9th, 2019

I held back on these yesterday because I wanted to give them 24 hours to shake out.

Dan Jenkins, noted Texas author (Semi-Tough) and sports writer. NYT.

If you want to get a taste of his work, you could do worse than browse through the “SI 60“, especially “The Disciples Of St. Darrell On A Wild Weekend: A Texas football odyssey” and “The Sweet Life Of Swinging Joe: Joe Namath, celebrity and New York City“.

Jan-Michael Vincent, for the historical record.

Carmine “The Snake” Persico, noted Mafia boss.

“He was the most fascinating figure I encountered in the world of organized crime,” said Edward A. McDonald, a former federal prosecutor who was in charge of a Justice Department unit that investigated the Mafia in the 1970s and ’80s. “Because of his reputation for intelligence and toughness, he was a legend by the age of 17, and later as a mob boss he became a folk hero in certain areas of Brooklyn.”

…

The extent of Mr. Persico’s influence and authority in the Mafia was exposed at a watershed federal trial in 1986 in Manhattan. He and the reputed bosses of the Genovese and Lucchese crime families were convicted of being members of the Commission, the select body that resolved major disputes and set policies for the five New York crime families: the Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese and Lucchese factions.
At the trial, Mr. Persico, a high school dropout, decided to represent himself, and he won the praises of lawyers and judges for his acumen in questioning witnesses, writing legal briefs and raising points of law.
His unorthodox trial tactics failed, however, and he was convicted, along with Anthony Corallo, the accused boss of the Lucchese family, and Anthony Salerno, a high-ranking member of the Genovese family. Each man was sentenced to 100 years in prison without the possibility of parole after being found guilty of conspiracy to commit murders, racketeering and leading a criminal enterprise, the Commission.

Posted in Books, Law, Obits, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 8, 2019.

Friday, March 8th, 2019

Ralph Hall, former Republican House rep from Texas.

Mr. Hall was 91 when he left the House after 34 years. He was defeated in a Republican primary runoff in 2014 by John Ratcliffe, a former United States attorney less than half his age.
An avid jogger who began his days with two-mile runs, Mr. Hall celebrated Memorial Day 2012, when he was 89, by skydiving. That Christmas he became the oldest member of the House, breaking the record set by Charles Manly Stedman of North Carolina, who died in office in 1930 at the age of 89 years, seven months and 25 days.

…

Mr. Hall, who flew Hellcat fighters during World War II, was known in Congress for promoting NASA and energy production. Hailing from a small town east of Dallas, he was fond of saying that he often voted with his party but always voted with his district.

(Hattip: Lawrence.)

Jerry Merryman. You’ve probably never heard of him, but to my mind, he was one of the great men of history.

While working at Texas Instruments, Mr. Merryman co-created the first pocket calculator.

With this device, Mr. Merryman and his collaborators, Jack Kilby and James Van Tassel, also pioneered rechargeable batteries and “thermal printing,” which used heat to print numbers onto a special kind of paper. Speaking with NPR, Mr. Merryman said he was reminded of their work whenever he used a cellphone or was handed a thermally printed receipt by a grocery store cashier.

…

Years later, when a friend mentioned that Mr. Merryman had designed the calculator’s circuitry in only three days, Mr. Merryman leaned toward him and said, “And three nights.”
He, Mr. Kilby and Mr. Van Tassel initially built a prototype, which spanned an entire room at their Texas Instruments lab. Then, over the next two years, they packed the same circuit design into a hand-held casing using microchips.
The device had 18 keys, and it could handle addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, printing calculations on a tiny spool of paper. It reached the market in 1970 after Texas Instruments licensed the technology to Canon, carrying a $400 price tag. Soon a second partner, Bowmar, introduced a $250 version called the Bowmar Brain.

The first calculator I ever used only supported six digits (not eight) and the basic math operations. I don’t know how much it cost. I think my dad paid around $300 for a Rockwell scientific calculator sometime in the 1970s. It wasn’t that many years later that I got a TI-30 for Christmas: I think by that time they were somewhere around $20 or $30.

Moore’s Law, man.

Posted in Geek, Obits, Politics | Comments Closed

Totally random stuff: March 6, 2019.

Wednesday, March 6th, 2019

I’ve been getting more and more depressed by what seems to be the constant stream of obit watches, so I decided it was time to do another variety post. (Not to be confused with variety meats, although that’s an easy mistake to make.)

Obit watch: King Kong Bundy, pro wrestler.

In one memorable match at the first WrestleMania, in 1985 at Madison Square Garden, Bundy snatched Special Delivery Jones in a bear hug, slammed him into the turnbuckle, hit him with an avalanche and then finished him with a splash, pinning him in a matter of seconds.

Legal update #1: sentences in the basketball bribery case.

James Gatto, the former head of global basketball marketing at Adidas, was sentenced to nine months by U.S. District Court Judge Lewis A. Kaplan. Merl Code Jr., another former Adidas employee, and Christian Dawkins, an aspiring agent, were given six months each. Code and Dawkins, who are also defendants in next month’s trial, were ordered to pay restitution of a little more than $28,000 each, with Gatto’s amount of restitution still to be determined.

(Previously.)

Legal update #2: no, the government can’t seize the trademark of the Mongols motorcycle club. Again.

Denying Mongol members the ability to display the logo on their leather riding jackets and elsewhere would overstep the right to free expression embedded in the 1st Amendment, as well as the 8th Amendment’s ban on excessive penalties, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter found.

(Previously. I actually saw this over the weekend, but have been waiting for a better link: the LAT has become increasingly obnoxious.)

Posted in Law, Media, Obits, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: March 5, 2019.

Tuesday, March 5th, 2019

Luke Perry, for the record. I wish I could say more, other than 52 is too young.

Nathaniel Taylor. He was perhaps best known as “Rollo” on “Sanford and Son”.

Last and least, serial killer Juan Corona.

I thought about using the “is burning in Hell” line for the late Mr. Corona. But if you read the NYT obit (and I’ve seen these facts referenced elsewhere), there were some…questionable things that went on during his two trials:

Prosecutors were found to have misplaced or mishandled evidence, and forensic tests that ought to have been done early on were delayed. At one point a prosecutor improperly suggested that Mr. Corona’s refusal to testify suggested that he was guilty.
The judge, who repeatedly expressed dismay at the prosecutors’ performance, reminded the jury that the burden of proof rested totally on the prosecution. Mr. Corona was convicted on Jan. 18, 1973, and sentenced to life in prison. (The California Supreme Court had overturned the state’s death penalty months before the trial.)

…

Even after finding Mr. Corona guilty, some jurors said they were “shocked” and “flabbergasted” that his defense had presented no psychiatric evidence on his behalf. His original public defender had planned to have him plead not guilty by reason of insanity, but the family retained a lawyer who spurned that approach. Later, the lawyer was found to have been angling for a book deal about the case.
In May 1978, a California appeals court overturned the conviction, declaring that Mr. Corona’s defense had been inept and compromised.

During the second trial, Mr. Corona’s new lawyers suggested that the actual killer was his half-brother, Natividad Corona, who had disappeared somewhere in Mexico. Mr. Corona was convicted again. As far as I can tell, he’d been in jail or prison since 1971.

Posted in 1970s, Law, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

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