Archive for October, 2019

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Obit watch: October 12, 2019.

Saturday, October 12th, 2019

By way of Lawrence, Robert Forster.

Yeah, he was great in “Jackie Brown”, which I still think is Tarantino’s most restrained and disciplined movie. But he did a lot of other movie and TV work to varying degrees of success. As I’ve said before, I wasn’t a “Twin Peaks” guy, so I missed him there. But he was in “Avalanche”, “Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence”, and “The Black Hole”, he did guest shots on many series (“Magnum, P.I.”, “Jake and the Fatman”, “Police Story”), and he was in a few unsuccessful series (“Banyon”, “Nakia”, “Karen Sisco”).

Aleksei Leonov, Russian cosmonaut and the first man to walk in space.

What Mr. Leonov did not reveal until many years later was that he and his fellow cosmonaut, Pavel I. Belyayev, who was also an Air Force pilot, were fortunate to have survived.
Mr. Leonov’s specially designed suit had unexpectedly inflated during his walk, and its bulk was preventing him from getting back inside the Voskhod.
“I knew I could not afford to panic, but time was running out,” he recalled in the book “Two Sides of the Moon” (2004), written with the astronaut David Scott, about their experiences in space.
Mr. Leonov slowly deflated the suit by releasing oxygen from it, a procedure that threatened to leave him without life support. But with the reduced bulk, he finally made it inside.
“I was drenched with sweat, my heart racing,” he remembered.
But that, he added, “was just the start of dire emergencies which almost cost us our lives.”
The oxygen pressure in the spacecraft rose to a dangerous level, introducing the prospect that a spark in the electrical system could set off a disastrous explosion or fire.
It returned to a tolerable level, but the cosmonauts never figured out the reason for the surge.
When it came time for the return to Earth, the spacecraft’s automatic rocket-firing system did not work, forcing the cosmonauts to conduct imprecise manual maneuvers during the descent that left them in deep snow and freezing temperatures in a remote Russian forest, far from their intended landing point.
It took several hours for a search party to find them and drop supplies from a helicopter, and they spent two nights in the forest, the first one inside their spacecraft and the second one in a small log cabin built by a ground rescue crew, until rescuers arrived on skis. They then took a 12-mile ski trek to a clearing, where a helicopter evacuated them.

He also survived an attempt to kill Leonid Brezhnev, but you’ll have to read the obit for that story.

Anna Quayle. The name didn’t ring any bells with me, but she was in a bunch of stuff: “A Hard Day’s Night”, “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”, “Casino Royale” (the first one, with David Niven), “Stop the World – I Want to Get Off”, and the list goes on.

…died on Aug. 16, although her death was not announced by her family until early October. She was 86.
Her family did not say where she died or specify the cause. She had received a diagnosis of Lewy body dementia in 2012.

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

Obit watch: October 11, 2019.

Friday, October 11th, 2019

The Francis Currey obit provoked a lively and delightful string of comments. Please go read them, if you haven’t already. And my thanks to Lawrence, pigpen51, and thinkingman.

I held this one from yesterday because I didn’t want to detract: Karen Pendleton, one of the original Mouseketeers.

In 1983, Ms. Pendleton was a passenger in a car accident that injured her spinal cord and left her paralyzed from the waist down. Eight years later, she earned a bachelor’s degree from California State University, Fresno; she went on to earn a master’s in psychology there.
After the accident, she became an advocate for disability rights — she served on the board of the California Association of the Physically Handicapped — and worked as a counselor at a shelter for abused women.

…

Ms. Pendleton was often reminded that fans of the Mouseketeers felt great affection for the show. In 1986, when she was a judge for a beauty pageant for women in wheelchairs, she met a woman with polio who said she had been abused by her parents.
“She said, ‘Being able to see you on “The Mickey Mouse Club” was the only happy part of my childhood,’” Ms. Pendleton recalled in 1995. “My eyes just filled up with tears.”

Bjorn Thorbjarnarson. This is one of those obscure but interesting obits: Dr. Thorbjarnarson was a surgeon who specialized in operations involving the biliary tract. Among his patients: the Shah of Iran.

Dr. Thorbjarnarson led a team of surgeons in removing the shah’s gallbladder, a portion of his liver and several gallstones blocking a bile duct — all under highly unusual circumstances.
“Armed guards controlled the traffic to the patient’s room, and all blinds were always down,” Dr. Thorbjarnarson wrote in a letter in response to “The Shah’s Spleen: Its Impact on History,” an article in The Journal of the American College of Surgeons, in 2010. “Threatening calls were received by nurses attending, but none to me. Outside, the hospital was surrounded by a howling mob, controlled by barricades, calling for the shah’s head.”

He also operated on Andy Warhol, and was sued.

Warhol’s estate continued a private investigation, however, and in 1991 filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the hospital (now known as NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center) and individuals involved in his care. At a trial in State Supreme Court in Manhattan that year, the estate’s lawyers argued that doctors and nurses had neglected Warhol’s postoperative care and given him an unsafe amount of intravenous fluids.

…

Lawyers for the hospital, as well as for Dr. Thorbjarnarson and Dr. Denton S. Cox, the attending physician and Warhol’s longtime doctor, contended that Warhol had been well enough to watch television and make telephone calls from his hospital room as he recovered. An autopsy gave the cause of death as cardiac arrhythmia, which the hospital argued was related to Warhol’s poor health and not caused by medical error or negligence.

I know it is an obit (De mortuis nil nisi bonum) and it is from the NYT, but i do think the paper makes a good case that Dr. Thorbjarnarson and the hospital weren’t responsible for Warhol’s death. Warhol was a gravely ill man who was deathly afraid of hospitals (being shot by Valerie Solanas will do that to you). He put off treatment until he couldn’t any longer, and even tried to talk Dr. Thorbjarnarson into treating him at Warhol’s home.

“Dr. Thorbjarnarson refused Warhol’s entreaties and found himself justified three days later, when the sick man was at last on the operating table,” Mr. Gopnik said, adding, “The surgeon found a gallbladder full of gangrene.”

The case was settled out of court.

Posted in Geek, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Oh, oh! Mr. Kapler! Me. Kapler!

Thursday, October 10th, 2019

Gabe Kapler our as manager of the Phillies.

81-81 this past season.

Posted in Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: October 10, 2019.

Thursday, October 10th, 2019

My morning went down the drain (for reasons I’m not authorized to talk about) so I’m only getting to this now:

Francis Currey, American badass.

Here is his citation from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society’s website:

He was an automatic rifleman with the 3d Platoon defending a strong point near Malmedy, Belgium, on 21 December 1944, when the enemy launched a powerful attack. Overrunning tank destroyers and antitank guns located near the strong point, German tanks advanced to the 3d Platoon’s position, and, after prolonged fighting, forced the withdrawal of this group to a nearby factory. Sgt. Currey found a bazooka in the building and crossed the street to secure rockets meanwhile enduring intense fire from enemy tanks and hostile infantrymen who had taken up a position at a house a short distance away. In the face of small-arms, machinegun, and artillery fire, he, with a companion, knocked out a tank with 1 shot. Moving to another position, he observed 3 Germans in the doorway of an enemy-held house. He killed or wounded all 3 with his automatic rifle. He emerged from cover and advanced alone to within 50 yards of the house, intent on wrecking it with rockets. Covered by friendly fire, he stood erect, and fired a shot which knocked down half of 1 wall. While in this forward position, he observed 5 Americans who had been pinned down for hours by fire from the house and 3 tanks. Realizing that they could not escape until the enemy tank and infantry guns had been silenced, Sgt. Currey crossed the street to a vehicle, where he procured an armful of antitank grenades. These he launched while under heavy enemy fire, driving the tankmen from the vehicles into the house. He then climbed onto a half-track in full view of the Germans and fired a machinegun at the house. Once again changing his position, he manned another machinegun whose crew had been killed; under his covering fire the 5 soldiers were able to retire to safety. Deprived of tanks and with heavy infantry casualties, the enemy was forced to withdraw. Through his extensive knowledge of weapons and by his heroic and repeated braving of murderous enemy fire, Sgt. Currey was greatly responsible for inflicting heavy losses in men and material on the enemy, for rescuing 5 comrades, 2 of whom were wounded, and for stemming an attack which threatened to flank his battalion’s position.

He was 94. His death leaves two surviving recipients of the Medal of Honor from WWII.

Posted in Heroism, History, Obits | 4 Comments »

Obit watch: October 8, 2019.

Wednesday, October 9th, 2019

Marshall Efron, public television personality of the early 70s.

I’d heard the name, but really didn’t have any association with him: I was very young when “The Great American Dream Machine” was on the air, and I wasn’t much older when “Marshall Efron’s Illustrated, Simplified and Painless Sunday School” came around the first time. (The latter was supposedly re-run frequently, but I’ve never seen an episode.)

By the time “Dream Machine” appeared, Mr. Efron had also begun acting in movies, including the first feature by a young director named George Lucas, the science fiction thriller “THX 1138” (1971). He would continue to act and do voice work in films and television throughout his career. His voice credits included the series “The Smurfs” and “The Biskitts” in the 1980s and the animated films “Ice Age: The Meltdown” (2006) and “Horton Hears a Who!” (2008).

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

Quick notes from the forensic beat.

Wednesday, October 9th, 2019

Both by way of Hacker News.

“Obsessed fan finds Japanese idol’s home by zooming in on her eyes“.

Gil Grissom, call your office, please.

Ken Thompson’s UNIX password has been cracked.

I wonder if it would be worthwhile to add a dictionary of common chess openings to your hashcat runs?

Posted in Geek | 1 Comment »

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#59 in a series)

Wednesday, October 9th, 2019

Hempstead, Texas, is perhaps best described as a suburb of Houston. (Technically, it is in Waller Caunty, while Houston is Harris County. Apple Maps says it is roughly an hour’s drive from Houston to Hempstead.)

Hempstead isn’t a big city: just under 6,000 people. Mike the Musicologist, who tipped me off to this, tells me that Mayor Michael Wolfe has been in that post for 15 years.

Now, being mayor of any decent sized city is probably a full time job, and being mayor of a 6,000 person city probably doesn’t pay very well. This is significant for reasons I’ll get into shortly.

Back a few months ago, the Texas Rangers started looking into “financial irregularities” discovered “during an audit of the city budget”. They turned up something interesting. You see, folks in Hempstead had until the 20th of each month to pay their utility bills, or else they’d get cut off. One of the city employees was responsible for generating a list of folks who hadn’t paid up. But that employee would then take the list over to the mayor, who’d mark off certain accounts on the list as being exempt from utility cutoffs.

Among those names: the mayor. And his daughter. Apparently, they were over $20,000 behind in their utility payments. Mayor Wolfe’s personal account was over $10,000 behind.

Okay, so this is sleazy. The good citizens of Hempstead who were paying their bills had to absorb the delinquency of the mayor and his daughter. No question about it, this is bad behavior. But is it a crime?

Yes!

The Mayor of Hempstead has been arrested on a state jail felony charge of abuse of official capacity, the Waller County District Attorney’s Office says.

…

According to an affidavit, Shayne is believed to have “intentionally or knowingly misused government property, services, personnel, or any other thing of value belonging to the government that has come into the public servant’s custody or possession by virtue of the public servant’s office or employment”.
The document cites Texas Penal Code 39.02(a), Abuse of Official Capacity.

Texas Penal Code 39.02(a), Abuse of Official Capacity, for your reference and because I don’t trust nested links.

I kind of like “Abuse of Official Capacity”. It has a ring to it, though it doesn’t quite stir the soul in the same way “barratry” or “misprision” does.

And, once again, someone throws away their life and becomes a convicted felon over a relatively small amount of money. Seriously, dude, pay the darn bill. (Yes, yes, presumption of innocence, but according to the report, he’s pretty much confessed to the crime already, and is using the ‘nobody would have known about it if it wasn’t for those meddling auditors” defense.)

Posted in Law, Politics | Comments Closed

Obit watch: October 7, 2019.

Monday, October 7th, 2019

Ginger Baker, noted drummer.

Both as a member of the ensemble and as a soloist, Mr. Baker captivated audiences and earned the respect of his fellow percussionists with playing that was, as Neil Peart, the drummer with the band Rush, once said, “extrovert, primal and inventive.” Mr. Baker, Mr. Peart added, “set the bar for what rock drumming could be.”

Random thought: could Mr. Baker play “YYZ”?

Mr. Baker’s appearance behind the drum kit — flaming red hair, flailing arms, eyes bulging with enthusiasm or shut tight in concentration — made an indelible impression. So, unfortunately, did his well-publicized drug problems and his volatile personality.
Mr. Baker, who by his own count quit heroin 29 times, was candid about his drug and alcohol abuse in his autobiography, “Hellraiser,” published in Britain in 2009.

Got to give it to the man: he was persistent.

He was also, by all accounts, not a very likable man. Journalists who interviewed him tended to find him uncooperative at best, confrontational at worst. The hostility between Mr. Baker and Mr. Bruce, which sometimes led to onstage altercations, was the stuff of rock legend. The 2012 documentary “Beware of Mr. Baker” — the title is taken from a sign outside the house in South Africa where he was living at the time — begins with footage of Mr. Baker physically attacking the film’s director, Jay Bulger.

Lawrence put “Beware of Mr. Baker” on our big movie list. We actually want to watch this, but man! That is a hard movie to find: the DVD and Blu-Ray are “unavailable” from Amazon, and they do list it under “Prime Video” but it’s currently “unavailable” there as well. The movie’s website is apparently now owned by a domain squatter who uses it to advertise casinos, and we haven’t been able to check Netflix or Hulu (not being subscribers to either one).

Rip Taylor, comedian and game show guy.

Mr. Taylor was often confused with the character actor Rip Torn, who died in July.

This.

I kind of got overtaken by stuff over the weekend, so here’s your historical record obit for Diahann Carroll. Little mentioned in her obits, but well known to us common sewers connoisseurs: she was also in “The Star Wars Holiday Special“.

Posted in 1970s, Movies, Music, Obits, TV | 2 Comments »

Your loser update: week 5, 2019.

Monday, October 7th, 2019

I didn’t think there was a whole lot to say this morning, but:

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

New York Jets
Miami (bye week)
(Edited to add) Cincinnati (I think I accidentally deleted them when I was deleting Denver: thanks to Lawrence for pointing that out.)
Washington

As I was pulling this together, I started seeing reports that Jay Gruden is out as head coach of the Redskins. The reports are all “sources say” but there’s a press conference scheduled for 1 PM EDT.

Gruden had been the longest-tenured Redskins head coach in the two decades that Daniel Snyder has owned the franchise, but his 35-49-1 record in a little more than five seasons and the team’s inability to make the playoffs more than one time ultimately cost him his job.

Worth noting: next Sunday is this year’s edition of the “Who Cares?” bowl, in which Washington plays at Miami. I’m halfway tempted to watch this, as I kind of expect epic ineptitude on display.

Posted in Firings, Loser, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Well, how do you like them apples?

Saturday, October 5th, 2019

I went over to GT Distributors this morning for Glocktoberfest. Oddly, while it isn’t terribly far from my office, I don’t make it over there that often: they tend to be more police and tactical oriented, and have less on the vintage S&W side. (Bill Orr, the founder, is a highly respected member of the S&W Collectors Association. It’s just that vintage Smiths aren’t their main line of business.)

But I had some Glock related stuff I was kind of looking for, and thought I’d swing by and check out Glocktoberfest.

Of course, they were doing door prize drawings. I went ahead and signed up, even though I never win door prizes. Then I browsed a little and waited for the door prize drawing at the top of the hour.

I’ve got my ticket out and am listening to them call the numbers. As I said, I never win door prizes, but hope springs eternal, right?

Then they called my number.

Well, okay, then. I don’t want to make a big deal about it: this was one of the hourly door prizes, not the big final prize (a new Glock). But the hourly prize was one of those snazzy 5.11 Tactical RUSH 24 backpacks. It’s kind of like walking into some place, hanging out for a bit, and then someone hands you a $100 bill right out of the blue.

(And I did pick up a few relatively small items: they were selling used Glock 22 and S&W M&P .357 SIG/.40 standard capacity magazines for $10 each. At that price, I figured I’d pick up a couple of each as a hedge. I also picked up some of the tchotchkes they were giving away for free, a Glock 42 magazine +1 mag extension for experimental purposes, and some FMJ .380 auto.)

They did take my photo for promotional purposes (with my enthusiastic consent) but I don’t see it on Facebook yet. I hope I didn’t break the guy’s phone…

Posted in Endorsements, Geek, Guns | Comments Closed

Firings watch.

Friday, October 4th, 2019

Mickey Callaway out as manager of the Mets. 163-161 over two seasons.

Lawrence tipped me off to this last night, but since it was cop shop night, I didn’t have a chance to blog: Sports Illustrated fired everybody just as hard as they could go.

Posted in Firings, Media, Sports | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#58 in a series)

Thursday, October 3rd, 2019

By way of Lawrence:

Atlantic City Mayor Frank Gilliam pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court to defrauding a local youth basketball program of more than $87,000 instead using the money to purchase luxury clothing, expensive meals, and personal trips.

The Press is kind of obnoxious,but local. More from nj.com:

Gilliam, 49, defrauded a basketball club of more than $87,000, prosecutors said, spending that money on luxury designer clothing, expensive meals, and personal trips to various locations. More than $41,000 was recovered when his house was raided in December 2018.

Mayor Gilliam pled out to one count of wire fraud, and has agreed to pay restitution.

{Harry] Rimm [the mayor’s defense attorney – DB] said Gilliam has already started paying back the money, making a voluntary payment Thursday in connection with his plea.
“To date, and in advance of sentencing, Mr. Gilliam has paid back almost half of the restitution amount that the parties have agreed is owed,” said the attorney.

Now I’m wondering: does that “almost half the restitution amount” include the “recovered” $41,000?

Guess the party watch: paragraph nine of the NJ.com story. Criminal Mayors Against Law-Abiding Gun Owners Watch: status of Mayor Gilliam unknown. I need to dig deeper into that.

But:

Even before the FBI raid on his house, Gilliam found himself in an unwelcome spotlight. The mayor was accused of simple assault and harassment stemming from a 2:30 a.m. brawl outside the Golden Nugget Casino’s Haven nightclub last year.
He was cleared of criminal charges in March by a municipal court judge in nearby North Wildwood, where the case had been transferred to avoid a conflict of interest.

Gilliam, who was released on $100,000 unsecured bond, could face 20 years in prison when he is sentenced on Jan. 7.

But we all know he’s probably not going to get that, right?

And as far as I can tell, he hasn’t resigned as mayor. Yet.

In a statement following the plea, defense attorney Harry Rimm said the charge to which he pleaded guilty related only to his conduct as a private citizen, and not conduct in his official capacity as mayor.
“He is not charged with taking any public or taxpayer funds,” the attorney said, adding that the mayor “is accepting responsibility for his actions and is genuinely remorseful.”

Edited to add: he’s out now.

Posted in Law, Politics | Comments Closed

Obit watch: October 3, 2019.

Thursday, October 3rd, 2019

Bill Bidwill, owner of the Arizona (formerly St. Louis) Cardinals.

Under Bidwill’s ownership, the Cardinals toiled in mediocrity. They had five winning seasons from 1972 until Ken Whisenhunt was hired as head coach in 2007, Michael’s first year in charge. The Cardinals went to their first and only Super Bowl the next season.

I’m wondering if we’re going to see an NFL team for sale soon, and if that’s going to result in a possible relocation. LA and Las Vegas are off the map…but with the St. Louis Rams gone, and a past history for the Cardinals there…?

John Rothman. Kind of an obscure figure, but interesting: he pioneered electronic access to the NYT archives.

Working on the index led Mr. Rothman to think about how computers could store, sort and deliver abstracts of Times content to users at the paper and other locations, like public libraries, universities and major corporations. He proposed the Information Bank — the Times Index writ large — in 1965 and began working on it with IBM the next year.

…

In 1972, Times staff members began testing the Information Bank as a research tool. It would soon augment the paper’s archives, known as the morgue, where file cabinets are packed with clippings dating to the 19th century. In Times Talk, the paper’s in-house newsletter, Mr. Rothman assured colleagues that “once the basic methods” of searching the Information Bank were mastered, “retrieving the information is quite simple.”
In late 1972, the first installation of the Information Bank outside The New York Times was made at the University of Pittsburgh’s Hillman Library. Within six months, its 14 customers included NBC, The Associated Press, the State Department, the C.I.A., the Library of Congress, Exxon and the Chase Manhattan Bank.

I’ve been running behind, so for this historical record: Jessye Norman.

Posted in Geek, Music, NFL, Obits, Sports | 2 Comments »

Your loser update: week 4, 2019.

Tuesday, October 1st, 2019

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

New York Jets (bye week)
Miami
Cincinnati
Denver
Washington

In other news about minor sports, it looks like I was wrong in thinking there wasn’t going to be a historically bad baseball team this year. At least, depending on how you define “historically bad”.

The Detroit Tigers finished 47-114 (one game towards the end of the season was cancelled and they didn’t have a chance to play a make-up) for a .292 average. Wikipedia’s cutoff for “worst Major League Baseball season records” is .300 or below, which puts them 16th on the list for the “modern” era. (Wikipedia has them at .291, or .001 better than the 2018 Baltimore Orioles. I’m not sure why they give different numbers than MLB.com, but I’m going to blame floating point math.)

Speaking of Baltimore, they finished 54-108, with a .333 winning percentage. 108 losses is kind of pathetic, but…

Orioles GM Mike Elias finds positives in rebuild after 108-loss season

“Hey, we stank. But at least we weren’t the worst team in MLB this year! And we didn’t lose as many games as we did last year!”

Posted in Loser, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

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