Archive for January, 2023

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What goes with fajitas?

Tuesday, January 31st, 2023

Chicken wings, of course!

Remember a few years back, we had a guy busted for stealing $1.2 million worth of fajita meat in Cameron County?

The food service director of an impoverished Illinois school district was charged with stealing $1.5 million of food — most of which was chicken wings.

…

The station reported that Liddell ordered more than 11,000 cases of chicken wings for the district with school funds, but took all the poultry for herself.
“The food was never brought to the school or provided to the students,” court records claimed.

…

The auditor “discovered individual invoices signed by Liddell for massive quantities of chicken wings, an item that was never served to students because they contain bones,” prosecutors said.
The food service provider employees all knew Liddell by name “due to the massive amount of chicken wings she would purchase,” prosecutors said, according to WGN.

Posted in Food, Law | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 31, 2023.

Tuesday, January 31st, 2023

Lt. Col. Dr. Harold Brown (USAF – ret.)

Dr. Brown flew 30 missions during the war in Europe and later served in the Korean War. He spent 23 years in the military before retiring, earning a doctorate and becoming a college administrator.
He was one of the last surviving members of the Tuskegee Airmen, a group that included 355 pilots who served in segregated units operating from the war’s Mediterranean theater after beginning their training at the historically Black Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Fewer than 10 are still living, according to Tuskegee Airmen Inc., an organization dedicated to preserving their legacy.
After taking off from Italy at dawn on March 14, 1945, Dr. Brown, a second lieutenant at the time, was piloting a P-51 Mustang strafing a German freight train near Linz, Austria, when the locomotive exploded, hurling shrapnel into the engine of his single-propeller plane.
With only seconds before his plane lost power, he bailed out and parachuted to safety. But he landed not far from his target, where he was apprehended by two armed local constables and was soon surrounded by a furious mob of some two dozen Austrians whose town he and his comrades had just attacked.
“I was met by perhaps 35 of the most angry people I’ve ever met in my life,” Dr. Brown said on the PBS podcast “American Veteran.” “There’s no doubt murder’s on their mind.”
“It was clear that they finally decided to hang me,” he recalled in a memoir, “Keep Your Airspeed Up: The Story of a Tuskegee Airman” (2017), which he wrote with his wife. “They took me to a perfect hanging tree with a nice low branch and they had a rope. I can still visualize that tree today.
“I knew at that moment I was going to die.”
But he was rescued from the vigilantes by a third constable, who threatened to fire on the crowd to protect Dr. Brown as a prisoner of war.

…

Dr. Brown was turned over to military authorities and served six weeks in prison camps until being liberated when the war ended.

The Boeing 747.

FotB RoadRich sent over a link: Boeing will be live streaming the handover ceremony at 1 PM Pacific (4 PM Eastern, 3 PM Central) this afternoon.

Bobby Hull as promised. ESPN. Chicago Tribune.

Cindy Williams. Other credits include “Cannon”, “The First Nudie Musical”, and the good “Hawaii Five-0”. And if you haven’t seen “The Conversation”, you really should.

She auditioned for Princess Leia on Star Wars (1977) but knew deep down that Lucas wanted a younger actress, and Carrie Fisher was hired.

Kevin O’Neal, actor. Other credits include “The Fugitive” (the original), “Perry Mason” (the good one), and “Lancer”.

Posted in 1970s, History, Obits, Planes, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

Bagatelle (#77).

Tuesday, January 31st, 2023

Shot:

Chaser:

He remembered the advice of the old man on Sulphur Creek, and smiled. The man had been very serious when he said that no man should travel alone in that country after 50 below zero.

Posted in Bagatelle | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: January 30, 2023.

Monday, January 30th, 2023

Tom Verlaine, musician.

In 1972, inspired by the New York Dolls, they started a band called the Neon Boys. Mr. Verlaine bought an electric Fender Jazzmaster guitar for himself and picked out a $50 bass for Mr. Hell; their friend Billy Ficca joined them on drums.
In 1973 they added Richard Lloyd, a guitarist, and renamed themselves Television. They chose the name because they had a distaste for the medium and hoped to provide an alternative. Mr. Verlaine also enjoyed the resonance with his initials, T.V.
After seeing a performance by Television in 1974, David Bowie called the group “the most original band I’ve seen in New York.” However, Mr. Hell’s emotive, chaotic outlook on music clashed with Mr. Verlaine’s more controlled approach. Mr. Hell was replaced by Fred Smith in 1975 and later went on to form the punk band Richard Hell and the Voidoids.
Television signed with Elektra Records and in 1977 released its first album, “Marquee Moon,” which featured hypnotic guitar work that ranged from mournful to ecstatic.

…

While “Marquee Moon” received rapturous reviews and now regularly appears on lists of the greatest rock albums ever made, that did not translate into significant sales or airplay. “Shooting himself in the foot was a particular talent of his,” Mr. Lloyd said of Mr. Verlaine. “He had a will of iron and he would say no to big tours and big shows.”

Television is one of those seminal ’70s bands…that I just never got into.

Lisa Loring. Other credits include “As the World Turns” and “Barnaby Jones”.

Barrett Strong, Motown singer and songwriter.

Strong — who died Sunday, Jan. 29, at the age of 81 in Detroit — co-wrote some of Motown’s most enduring hits, with a variety of collaborators but primarily the late Norman Whitfield. Those included “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” for Marvin Gaye and Gladys Knight & the Pips, “War” for Edwin Starr, the Undisputed Truth’s “Smiling Faces Sometimes” and a wealth of material for the Temptations — “I Wish It Would Rain,” “Just My Imagination,” “Cloud Nine,” “Psychedelic Shack” and “Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” for which Strong shared a Grammy Award.

Annie Wersching, actress. She was only 45: cancer got her.

Hattip on the previous two to Lawrence, who also sent over this article that’s not quite an obit, but as he put it, “is the sort of thing you like to link to”. Which is true.

Breaking: Bobby Hull, hockey player. I’m going to go ahead and link to the NYT directly, since this is just a preliminary obit: if I end up doing an obit watch tomorrow, I’ll link to an archive version of the full obit.

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

The problem is not the guns.

Sunday, January 29th, 2023

(This is a guest post from FotB RoadRich, speaking in his capacity as a private citizen, and not representing any organization or group. -DB)

In this article that I found after following links from the Michigan helicopter one, it is revealed that the old man who shot up two California farms had mental problems. But of course the problem is the guns.

Set aside the fact he tried to kill his roommate with a pillow.

It’s not mental illness, it’s the guns.

Oh, and later threatened the same roommate with a knife.

It’s the guns.

And also made a thinly veiled threat to bring his vengeance to work.

Can’t be mental illness.

Must be something we can take away from people so they can’t defend themselves when one of these lunatics snaps. So that we look like we’re doing something.

I know, we will just fight back with some paper laws and voluntary-only social programs.

Because people with mental illness will naturally sign up for those on their own, they know they need help.

Posted in Guest, Guns, Politics | 1 Comment »

Memo from the Department of Gun Books.

Saturday, January 28th, 2023

I hadn’t been buying anything for a while, because I was in the “no purchasing anything for yourself” holiday period.

But we went out for a bit over the MLK weekend, and I ran across some things at Half-Price Books. After the jump, some previously undocumented purchases…

(more…)

Posted in Books, Guns, Hoplobibilophilia | 1 Comment »

Quaint and curious…

Saturday, January 28th, 2023

Lawrence sent over a link to this item that’s currently up for auction at Heritage Auctions.

Sometime between 1970 and 1972, Ernest Tidyman, who was riding high on the success of “Shaft”, thought it’d be a cool idea to do a “Shaft” newspaper comic strip. So he got together with Don Rico, who was an old-time Marvel Comics guy. Rico did a lot of work for Marvel’s precursors (Timely Comics and Atlas Comics) during the 1940s and 1950s, and is credited as a co-creator of Natasha “Black Widow” Romanova.

The comic strip never sold, unfortunately. Which is a shame, as I think I would have read the heck out of a “Shaft” newspaper comic when I was a small boy. It almost certainly would have been more interesting than “The Amazing Glacial Spider-Man”.

And think of the crossover opportunities with other strips! Mary Worth suspects one of her neighbors is selling smack, so she calls her old friend John Shaft to investigate. Shaft goes back to Africa…and teams up with The Phantom.

To give you some idea of the way my mind works, I had a terrific idea last night. Casca, the Eternal Mercenary, winds up in Harlem in the 1970s…and teams up with Shaft to fight crime. Sadly, this idea is probably infeasible for intellectual property reasons, but if the current authors of the Casca series want to take a run at it, they have my blessing.

Posted in Books | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 27, 2023.

Friday, January 27th, 2023

Wally Campo, actor.

Other credits include “Shock Corridor”, “Ski Troop Attack”, and “Hell Squad”.

Sylvia Syms, British actress.

Other credits include “Doctor Who”, “Dalziel and Pascoe”, “The Poseidon Adventure” (the TV movie), “Doctor Zhivago” (the TV series), and “EastEnders”.

Posted in Movies, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

The rabbit comes out of the hole, around the tree, and back down the hole…

Friday, January 27th, 2023

This is another rabbit hole that I attribute to McThag: the Casca book series.

I remember the Casca books from when I was a teenager: I never bought any, but I remember seeing them around.

I actually saw a bunch of them (if memory serves, it was eight or nine out of the first dozen) at Half-Price Books a month or so ago. I thought about buying them, but there were a little expensive, and this was during the “not buying anything for myself” time period.

Things I did not know until I read McThag’s post and looked up the books:

  • The series is still going on, even though Barry Sadler died in 1989.
  • Yes, yes, I know it isn’t uncommon for a series to continue after the death of the author. But this isn’t a “V.C. Andrews®” or “Tom Clancy” situation.
  • There are, sort of, 56 books in the series. The first 22 are credited to Barry Sadler, though there’s a suggestion that some of them were ghostwritten. The post-Sadler books are credited to Paul Dengelegi (two after Sadler’s death) and Tony Roberts (up through #56, the most recent book), with two exceptions.
  • I said “sort of” above because two of the later books, Immortal Dragon (#29) and The Outlaw (#33) were removed from the series…
  • …because they were allegedly plagiarized. Those were both written by someone who is not Paul Dengelegi or Tony Roberts.
  • Immortal Dragon specifically was (allegedly) plagiarized from David Morrell’s novelization of Rambo III, which does not strike me as being a smart strategy. Not just ripping off a popular movie novelization, but ripping off a best-selling author who has lawyers, money, and can get people with guns…
  • Paul Dengelegi wrote his final Casa book in 2001. In 2004, he published an unauthorized audiobook, “Casca: The Outcast”, which is considered non-canon. The publisher is defunct and the book is apparently no longer available. (I haven’t looked to see if there’s an MP3 download somewhere on the Internet.)
  • The first Casca book was published in 1979. That works out to 56 (or 54) books over 43 years, or a little more than one book a year. Not bad.
  • Panzer Warrior may be the best of the Casca books. I can’t say, because I haven’t read any. Also, I spent a lot of time reading the Paperback Warrior site last night. I respect the blogger and his scholarship, but his tastes are considerably different than my own, so I am taking that with a grain of salt.
  • Casca #50, The Commissar: “Casca joins the Red Army during the Soviet–Ukrainian War, but soon turns on them after learning of their brutality.” That would be the 1917-1921 Ukrainian–Soviet War, to be clear.
  • Casca certainly seems to make some questionable life choices: fighting for the Nazis, participating in Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, the 7th Cavalry Regiment pre-Little Bighorn, the Red Army…

I may have to go back to Half-Price and see if they still have those Casca books.

Posted in Books | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 26, 2023.

Thursday, January 26th, 2023

Paul La Farge, author. He wasn’t someone I’d heard of before, but he sounds interesting:

Mr. La Farge’s novels and short stories defied easy categorization, but they were all characterized by a sort of writer’s derring-do.
“With each novel he would set out, and then it would become clear to him that he had set what seemed like an impossible formal challenge for himself,” Ms. Stern, the artistic director of the Vineyard Theater in Manhattan, said by email, “but he would keep on, wrestling forward and sideways and backwards, and eventually the story and its form would be inextricable in a way that was awe-inspiring and yet felt inevitable.”

…

Mr. La Farge began “Haussmann: Or the Distinction” (2001) by presenting it as a translation of an unearthed French text from 1922. The novel goes on to tell a made-up tale about the real-life French official Georges-Eugène Haussmann, who oversaw the redesign of Paris in the 1800s.“The Facts of Winter” (2005) was another exercise in fiction-as-reality. Mr. La Farge presented it as his translation of a minor French poet, Paul Poissel, whom he had invented out of whole cloth.

…

“Luminous Airplanes” (2011), about a San Francisco programmer who returns to upstate New York to sort through his dead grandfather’s possessions, is perhaps the most realistic of Mr. La Farge’s novels, but it had its own unexpected element: Readers were invited to go to a website where Mr. La Farge posted elaborations on and continuations of the story.
His most recent novel, “The Night Ocean” (2017), again takes a real historical figure — the writer H.P. Lovecraft — and weaves a story around him.

…

A La Farge novel could be packed with history, and, Mr. La Farge told the literary magazine TriQuarterly in 2017, that meant research. For “Haussmann,” after spinning the story, “I went back to check all the little things,” he said. “Were the street lamps in Paris in the 1850s gas lamps or oil lamps? It was surprisingly hard to find out.”

Lance Kerwin. Other credits include “FBI: The Unheard Music The Untold Stories”, “The Fourth Wise Man”, and “Young Joe, the Forgotten Kennedy”.

Posted in 1970s, Books, Lovecraft, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 25, 2023.

Wednesday, January 25th, 2023

Victor S. Navasky, former editor and publisher of The Nation.

Posted in Obits | Comments Closed

Administrative notes.

Tuesday, January 24th, 2023

I haven’t forgotten about part two of Day of the .45. I do want to get that up. Unfortunately, the weather on Saturday was bad for photo taking, Sunday was entirely consumed by battleship, and the weather so far this week is also kind of hinky.

This weekend is looking less busy, so if the weather holds up and we get some sunlight, I may be able to take some photos and get a post up.

Also have some more books to post about as well, but that should be an easier process as it does not depend so much on good weather. Possibly Thursday?

And I also have not forgotten that I need to update the City Council/Commissioner’s Court/Congressional Representatives lists. That is, for sure, on the agenda, especially in light of recent events. As I think everyone knows, I try to wait until after January 20th to update those lists, as it takes time for people to get sworn in and websites to get updated. Updating those lists is also part of my evil master plan for this week.

Posted in Admin | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: January 24, 2023.

Tuesday, January 24th, 2023

Yoshio Yoda, actor.

He only has five acting credits in IMDB, but one of those was 163 episodes of “McHale’s Navy” as “Fuji Kobiaji”. He was also in two “McHale’s Navy” movies.

Betty Sturm, actress. “The World’s Greatest Sinner” is her only IMDB credit. (I have not seen “Sinner”, and I’m not aware of anyone ever screening it while I’ve lived in Austin. Apparently it is on Amazon Prime. I have seen “200 Motels”, and would have to think hard about repeating that experience. And I’m a Zappa fan.)

Posted in Obits, TV | Comments Closed

One more.

Monday, January 23rd, 2023

Last boat post of the day, and until Memorial Day (I think), just because I think people might be getting tired of me going on about the Texas.

Did the stern, pretty much have to do the bow as well.

Posted in Boats, History | 3 Comments »

Legal news of the weird.

Monday, January 23rd, 2023

1. The Alex Murdaugh murder trial starts today.

I probably will not be covering it in detail, but I will try to keep half an eye on it, and will link anything I find interesting and not offensive.

(I specify “not offensive” because: there was a story in the media last week which summarized the autopsy reports on Maggie Murdaugh and Paul Murdaugh. It went into enough detail that I decided not to link it, because I felt it was just too much detail for my readers.)

2. Back in 2021, a 15-year old boy hit a mother and child in Venice, California.

The video shows a stolen vehicle speeding the wrong way down a one-way backstreet. It plowed into a woman walking her infant son in a stroller. Then he hit the gas, accelerating away from the scene, where a good Samaritan in a pickup truck rammed the suspect vehicle head on.
Los Angeles police responded and found drugs in the driver’s system and marijuana in the car, according to an incident report obtained by Fox News.

This case was in the news last year:

…Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón’s office sought a five- to seven-month sentence in juvenile probation camp, a punishment for young offenders described as less severe than military school but harsher than summer camp.

…

The teen was already on felony probation for poisoning a high school girl’s drink at the time of the hit-and-run – which surveillance cameras captured on Aug. 6, 2021.

Last week, someone shot the (now 17-year old) boy.

Sources close to the investigation told FOX News that he had been at a fast food restaurant earlier trying to “get with a girl.”
“As he walked home alone, a car pulled up next to him and an argument broke out. Someone in the vehicle opened fire, then sped off,” FOX News reported.

The police don’t currently think there is any relationship between the hit-and-run and the shooting. It seems more like a violation of the Rule of Stupids.

3. Former Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Melanie Andress-Tobiasson died by suicide last Friday. She resigned in 2021.

Her problems began when her daughter Sarah, then 16, started working at a clothing store that Andress-Tobiasson claimed was a front for criminal activities and tried to stop it, first by reporting the issue to the police, the Daily Mail reported. She said the store, Top Knotch, was involved with prostitution and trying to recruit her daughter.
She called out Las Vegas cops for ignoring information about the alleged sex trafficking at the store. She claimed that the store was an unlicensed, underage nightclub and added that she was “terrified” of Shane Valentine, who ran the store at the time.

…

Andress-Tobiasson said she had to go to the FBI with the information after being ignored by local police — which resulted in officers investigating her for allegedly breaching judicial rules by making an allegation to federal agents.
A complaint filed against Andress-Tobiasson alleged that she failed to comply with and uphold the law, and allowed family interests and relations to influence her conduct, the Daily Mail reported.

I’m not clear on why “judicial rules” would preclude making a complaint to federal agents if you believe there’s wrongdoing or corruption, and can’t get any results at the local level. I understand the “family interests and relations” part, but I wonder how much truth there is to that.

And before you say I’m giving the innocent Mr. Valentine a hard time…

Valentine was later linked to a shooting where a couple was found dead.
They did not officially link him to the killings of Sydney Land, 21, and Nehemiah “Neo” Kauffman, 20, until months later, according to the Daily Mail.

Here’s the Daily Mail article, which includes a photo of Mr. Valentine. Neither article, however, is specific about what “linked to a shooting” means: there’s no mention of Mr. Valentine actually facing any charges.

But Andress-Tobiasson contacted Land’s mother and “began to personally investigate the case” because she thought that Valentine was responsible, the complaint stated.
It added that she used “burner phones” to contact Land’s mother and sent texts to another woman she thought was involved in the murder.
The commission alleged that Andress-Tobiasson stated publicly that she reached out to Valentine’s lawyer at the time and “told him to tell Valentine that if he called her daughter again, she would ‘take care of it herself,’” and that one time she “went to Shane Valentine’s house and kicked in the door.”

Yay, burner phones! Been a while since I’ve seen a case with those.

Detectives learned of Andress-Tobiasson’s activity, according to the charges, and launched an investigation into the judge, going as far as tracking her phone records.
They also alleged that she had links to a man called “Anthony Danna” who was a “known and documented organized crime figure.”

“known and documented organized crime figure”. Again, what does that mean? (As best as I can tell, he’s not in the Black Book.)

Posted in Law, Murdaugh | 1 Comment »

It isn’t just steel…

Monday, January 23rd, 2023

…it is battleship steel.

And it isn’t just battleship steel, it is (I’m pretty sure) low background steel.

Sadly, though, low background steel ain’t what it used to be.

You know, I wonder if you could forge a knife out of Battleship Texas steel…probably, if you could get enough of it from the Foundation. That’d be a cool gift shop item.

On a semi-related note, I find this slightly weird. No shade on Drachinifel: I’ve watched a few of his shorter videos, but don’t have time for his longer stuff. I guess it just seems odd that they’re using him as a draw. Even more so at $100 a head (drinks and “light snacks” extra).

Posted in Geek, Knives | 3 Comments »

You dry-docked my battleship!

Monday, January 23rd, 2023

You don’t really realize how big these things are until you’re standing right next to them.

You also don’t realize just how large the infrastructure supporting these things is until you see it.

(If you live in Texas, or want to make a trip, the Battleship Texas Foundation is doing these tours through April 30th, only on Sundays. You can find details here if you’re interested.)

(This was a Christmas present from my beloved and indulgent brother and his family. Thanks, folks!)

Posted in Boats, Christmas, History, Photography | 4 Comments »

O Canada!

Monday, January 23rd, 2023

I didn’t get a chance to blog this yesterday, as I was busy pretty much all day (for reasons I hope to be able to post shortly).

Bruce Boudreau out as coach of the Vancouver Canucks. That’s a NHL team, for those who might be wondering: I was a little confused at first myself and thought they were a CFL team.

The Canucks have lost 28 out of 46 games this season.

Boudreau is the second coach Vancouver has fired in under 14 months. Boudreau took over in December 2021 when previous coach Travis Green and general manager Jim Benning were let go 25 games into the 2021-22 season.
The Canucks have missed the playoffs the past two seasons since reaching the second round in the bubble in 2020.

…

Teams coached by Boudreau for a full season have made the playoffs nine out of 10 times. His .626 points percentage ranks fourth among coaches with at least 500 games behind the bench, and his 617 wins are tied for 20th in league history with Hall of Famer Jacques Lemaire.

Posted in Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Firings watch.

Saturday, January 21st, 2023

Former NFL player Ed Reed out as football coach of Bethune-Cookman University.

The question is, does this count as a firing?

He was “hired” less than a month ago, but stated yesterday:

“Bethune-Cookman University has been working with my legal team to craft contract terms with the language and resources we knew were needed to build a successful football program,” Reed wrote on Twitter. “It’s my desire to not only coach football, but to be an agent of change that most people just talk about being. However, after weeks of negotiations I’ve been informed that the University won’t be ratifying my contract and won’t make good on the agreement we had in principle, which had provisions and resources best needed to support the student athletes.”

Mr. Reed also went on a rant a few days ago “about the conditions at Bethune-Cookman”.

Posted in Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Firings watch.

Friday, January 20th, 2023

Matt Weiss out at Michigan. (Previously.)

Ed Donatell out as defensive coordinator for the Vikings.

Posted in Loser, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 19, 2023.

Thursday, January 19th, 2023

Yukihiro Takahashi, drummer and vocalist for the Yellow Magic Orchestra.

Mr. Takahashi and Yellow Magic Orchestra, which he founded in 1978 with the musicians Ryuichi Sakamoto and Haruomi Hosono, were often ranked alongside the German electronic group Kraftwerk as pioneers in electronic music and significant influences on emergent genres like hip-hop, New Wave and techno.
Yellow Magic Orchestra was among the first bands to employ in live shows devices like the Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer and the Moog II-C synthesizer, which they used to complement Mr. Hosono’s funky guitar and Mr. Takahashi’s tight, driving drums.
Unlike their German counterparts, who leaned into the avant-garde nature of electronic sound and referred to themselves as automatons, Yellow Magic Orchestra found ways to bend it toward pop music, blending in elements of Motown, disco and synth-pop.
In a 1980 appearance on the television show “Soul Train,” the band performed a souped-up version of Archie Bell and the Drells’ “Tighten Up,” after which a bemused Don Cornelius, the show’s host, interviewed Mr. Takahashi. Kraftwerk, it might go without saying, never appeared on “Soul Train.”

Jonathan Raban, writer.

Mr. Raban’s literary narratives of the places he visited and the people he met combined travelogue, memoir, reportage and criticism. What he was not, he insisted, was a travel writer.
“Travel writing seems to me a too-big umbrella, full of holes to let the rain in,” he told Granta magazine in 2008. “Anyone commissioned by a newspaper to write up meals and hotels in foreign holiday resorts is a travel writer. Anyone who does a guidebook is a travel writer.”

David Crosby, of Crosby, Stills & Nash and The Byrds. This seems to be breaking news: hattip on this to Lawrence. (Edited to add: NYT obit.)

Arthur Duncan, noted tap dancer.

There were more renowned tap dancers during his long career — Bill Robinson, Sammy Davis Jr. and Gregory Hines among them — but only Mr. Duncan had a regular national television showcase like the one he had on Saturday nights on the popular if square Welk show, from 1964 to 1982.
“‘Lawrence’ was not the hippest show around,” Mr. Hines told The Daily News of New York in 1989, when he was headlining “An Evening of Tap” at Carnegie Hall with Mr. Duncan and other dancers, including Bunny Briggs, Brenda Bufalino and Savion Glover. “But I’ll tell you, when nobody was home, I’d tune in, hoping to catch Arthur.”
He added, “He’s one of the most underrated dancers around, and a lot of that has to do with the association of the show. But other dancers know he’s great — and for a while he was the only one keeping tap in the public eye.”

…

“He did a number almost every day, and he could always count on knocking me out when he did ‘Jump Through the Ring,’” Ms. White wrote in her 1995 autobiography, “Here We Go Again: My Life in Television, 1949-1995.”
But broadcast during the Jim Crow era, some Southern stations threatened to boycott the show because of Mr. Duncan’s presence on it, a response that came as a “frightfully ugly surprise,” she wrote.
In the 2018 documentary “Betty White: First Lady of Television,” Mr. Duncan said, “People in the South resented me being on the show, and they wanted me thrown out.”But Ms. White did not yield.
“I’m sorry, but, you know, he stays,” she recalled saying to NBC. “Live with it.”

Posted in Books, Music, Obits, TV | 2 Comments »

Quick lazy firings watch.

Thursday, January 19th, 2023

Josh Boyer out as defensive coordinator for the Miami Dolphins. Also out: safeties coach Steve Gregory, outside linebackers coach Ty McKenzie, and assistant linebackers coach Steve Ferentz.

Byron Leftwich out as offensive coordinator in Tampa Bay.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Day of the .45, part 1.5 (Brief random gun crankery)

Wednesday, January 18th, 2023

That FOIA request took about five days. The people at Redstone Arsenal (especially “Stephanie”) are a nice bunch of folks.

The following information was found in the Department of Defense (DoD) Small Arms/Light Weapons Registry for M1911A1, .45mm Automatic Pistol, NSN: 1005-00-726-5655, Serial Number XXXXXX.

1. 26 May 1995 - United States Property and Fiscal Office (USPFO) of Michigan (MI) National Guard (MIARNG), Lansing, Michigan performed multi-field corrections on the weapon.

2. 01 October 1996 - Rock Island Arsenal - Joint Manufacturing and Technology Center, Rock Island, Illinois received the weapon from United States Property and Fiscal Office (USPFO) of Michigan (MI) National Guard (MIARNG), Lansing, Michigan.

3. 28 January 1997, 30 November 1998, 18 March 2003, 13 August 2003, 08 October 2003, 07 January 2004, 02 March 2004, 21 April 2004, 01 July 2004, 04 October 2004, 03 January 2005, 22 February 2005, 18 April 2005, 15 July 2005, 31 January 2006, 04 April 2006, 05 February 2007, 22 January 2008, and 11 August 2008 - Rock Island Arsenal - Joint Manufacturing and Technology Center, Rock Island, Illinois performed reconciliations on the weapon.

4. 20 November 2008 - Rock Island Arsenal - Joint Manufacturing and Technology Center, Rock Island, Illinois shipped the weapon to Army General Supply (Logistics Modernization Program (LMP) Stock Records), Anniston, Alabama.

5. 17 April 2009 - Army General Supply (Logistics Modernization Program (LMP) Stock Records), Anniston, Alabama received the weapon from Rock Island Arsenal - Joint Manufacturing and Technology Center, Rock Island, Illinois.

6. 24 January 2010, 06 March 2011, 03 December 2011, 19 January 2013, 07 March 2015, 01 May 2016, 05 March 2017, 04 June 2017, 31 March 2019, 26 April 2020, 25 April 2021 - Army General Supply (Logistics Modernization Program (LMP) Stock Records), Anniston, Alabama performed reconciliations on the weapon.

Yes, I did edit out the serial number, which is plainly visible in the photos. But photos are not text, and I just feel better leaving that information out.

I’m slightly disappointed that the available information only goes back to 1995 (“The DoD Small Arms/Light Weapons Registry history only goes back to 1975 when the Registry was started.”) but that’s not Redstone’s fault. And I can talk myself into believing that this gun sat in a National Guard armory or depot in Lansing for a long time.

I’m not sure what “multi-field corrections” means: it might imply that the pistol was serviced at that time. But since the 1911 was replaced in service in 1985, it seems a little weird that they’d be working on them nine years later. Could be, though, that the military was keeping them in inventory and servicing them, just in case they were needed again. (See: the shortage of 1911 pistols during WWI.)

I am pretty sure “reconciliation” just means that they verified the serial number in question was still in inventory, and hadn’t grown legs and walked off.

Anyway, still a neat gun, and I see nothing in the historical record that refutes my theory this one may have seen action in WWII.

And thank you again, McThag!

Edited to add 1/19: according to this thread on the CMP Forums, “Multifield Correction” is “Used for correcting erroneous or invalid national stock number (NSN), owner DoDAAC/UIC, or weapon serial number (WSN) on the UIT Central Registry file”. So this seems to be more paperwork corrections than any sort of servicing/rebuilding/reworking of the gun.

Posted in 1911, Guns, History | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: January 18, 2023.

Wednesday, January 18th, 2023

Lucile Randon, better known as Sister André. She was 118.

The French nun became the world’s oldest known person after the death of Japan’s Kane Tanaka, who died last year at 119, according to Guinness World Records. With Sister André’s death, the oldest known person, according to the Gerontology Research Group, which validates those thought to be 110 or older, is Maria Branyas Morera. She was born in the United States, lives in Spain and is 115.

…

She was known to be a gourmet. For her 117th birthday, she ate foie gras, roasted capon, cheese and a dessert similar to a baked alaska. She said in several interviews that she enjoyed a daily diet of wine and chocolate.

Frank Thomas, one of the original Mets.

...Frank Thomas was an All-Star with the Pirates in 1954, 1955 and again in 1958, when he had his best season, hitting 35 home runs, driving in 109 runs and batting .281.
He later played for the Cincinnati Reds, the Chicago Cubs and the Milwaukee Braves, who traded him to the Mets in November 1961 when they were forming the roster for their National League debut.
Usually playing in left field for Manager Casey Stengel’s 1962 Mets team, which lost a record 120 games, Thomas drove in 94 runs in addition to his 34 homers — a club record that stood until Dave Kingman broke it with 36 in 1975 — taking advantage of the short left-field foul line at the Polo Grounds, the Mets’ home for their first two seasons.

…

He later played for the Houston Astros and again for the Milwaukee Braves before rejoining the Cubs, who released him early in the 1966 season, ending his career.
In addition to his 286 home runs, Thomas drove in 962 runs in his career and had a .266 batting average.

I encourage you to click over to the obit so you can read the “Yo la tengo!” story, which I think is too long to put here.

K. Alex Müller, winner (with J. Georg Bednorz) of a Nobel Prize for advances in high-temperature superconductivity.

Jay Briscoe, pro wrestler with Ring of Honor.

The Briscoes — Jay, and his brother Mark — are 13-time tag-team champions of the promotion, which included a present reign.

He was 38, and died in a car accident. He had two daughters in the car with him, who are currently hospitalized.

Wayne “Gino” Odjick, NHL player. The obit describes him as a “beloved enforcer”. He was 52, and died of a heart attack: he’d been diagnosed with AL amyloidosis in 2014. (Hattip: Lawrence.)

Wear your seatbelts, people. (Hattip: Lawrence.)

Posted in Obits, Religion, Sports | Comments Closed

At the weird intersection of sports firings and legal news…

Wednesday, January 18th, 2023

Firings news (sort of): Matt Weiss, “co-offensive coordinator” for the University of Michigan, has been placed on leave.

Legal news: He’s involved in a criminal investigation.

Weird news: It doesn’t involve domestic violence or any of the usual crimes.

“The University of Michigan Police Department is investigating a report of computer access crimes that occurred at Schembechler Hall during December 21-23, 2022,” University of Michigan Deputy Chief of Police Crystal James said in the statement. “Since this is an ongoing investigation there is no additional information to share.”
An entry from the university police’s online daily crime log on Jan. 5 notes that police received a report about “fraudulent activity involving someone accessing university email accounts without authorization” at Schembechler Hall. It is the only report of police activity at the football facility in the past month.

Posted in Firings, Law, Sports | Comments Closed

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