Apropos of nothing in particular:
Don’t forget your mittens.
January 12th, 2018Knife porn.
January 11th, 2018Neat profile in the HouChron of Dr. Stephen Pustilnik, who is:
- a forensic pathologist
- an amateur chef, and
- a custom knife maker, who specializes in knives for chefs and forensic pathologists.
…
Pustilnik, after spending years examining human bodies, speaks easily of the particular mechanics of the hands. He measures his customers’ palms and observes where the metacarpophalangeal joints – the hinges at the knuckles – rest on a knife handle.
The goal, he said, is for the chef to focus solely on the food, not the way the knife feels.
“When the hand and the blade come together in an ergonomic way, it’s seamless,” he said. “It’s just the chef executing his vision.”
TMQ Watch: January 9, 2018.
January 10th, 2018We’ve finished the first week of the playoffs. Would you expect TMQ to be longer, shorter, or about the same?
We expected shorter. We got “about the same”: almost 5,200 words by our count. Of which the first 1,600 (nearly 31%) are devoted to one theme, which we can summarize in four words.
After the jump, this week’s TMQ…
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#45 in a series)
January 10th, 2018Pamela Harris, a Brooklyn assemblywoman, was indicted yesterday.
Ms. Harris is a “retired New York City correction officer” who took office in 2015. She is, of course, innocent until proven guilty, but it sounds like her fraud was wide-ranging, and the prosecution has plenty of evidence:
…
The charges suggest a striking degree of planning and elaborate attempts to cover up illegal actions. Prosecutors said, for example, that Ms. Harris used a forged lease to draw down discretionary funds from the City Council, money that was supposed to be used to rent a studio space for the nonprofit, which seeks to involve children and young adults in the arts. Instead, Ms. Harris diverted the money to her personal checking account. All told, some $35,000 was received in two separate instances using such funds, prosecutors said.
In the Hurricane Sandy scheme, Ms. Harris is accused of creating fake lease agreements and receipts, and forging a landlord’s signature, to receive housing assistance money from FEMA for 14 months after the storm, a ploy that she also used to receive financial assistance to repair her Coney Island home in 2016. And once she became aware of a federal investigation last year, Ms. Harris told potential witnesses to lie to federal agents, the authorities said.
(Hattip to Mike the Musicologist, who pointed out that the NYPost coverage waits until paragraph 21 to mention Ms. Harris’s party affiliation. Say what you will about the NYT, but they got that into paragraph 2.)
Obit watch: January 8, 2018.
January 8th, 2018A roundup of obits from the past couple of days:
John Young, Gemini, Apollo, and Shuttle astronaut. NASA.
Jerry Van Dyke, noted television actor (“My Mother the Car”).
Peggy Cummins. She’s mostly forgotten now – she stopped acting in the 1960s – but she was the female lead opposite John Dall in the famous 1950 noir film “Gun Crazy”.
Start with a badass, end with a badass: Ulrich Wegener, founder of the German Border Protection Group 9 (aka Grenzschutzgruppe 9):
One of his first accomplishments: Lufthansa Flight 181.
…
…
Briefly held by American troops as a prisoner of war, he returned home, to what became East Germany, to finish his schooling.
Caught handing out leaflets critical of the Communist government, he was jailed for 18 months. Upon his release in 1952, he fled to West Berlin, where he went on to join the police.
(I haven’t found a source I consider completely trustworthy for this, but there are reports that Colonel (at the time) Wegener also participated with the Israeli Sayeret Matkal in the raid on Entebbe.)
An embarrassment of Rich.
January 3rd, 2018Rich Rodriguez fired last night as head coach of the University of Arizona.
Why? Would you believe…sexual harassment?
Arizona Daily Star (really obnoxious about ad blockers). NYT. ESPN.
Part of what makes this interesting is that RichRod was fired, but the university admits it wasn’t “for cause”: this means that they have to pay his contract buyout ($6 million) plus whatever the plaintiff wins (or settles for) in their pending claim against the university. So this could add up quick. And, as the Daily Star notes, this isn’t the only sports related problem the university has.
(Also: why does a university football coach need representation from CAA?)
“publicly traded units on the so-called ‘Longevity Fund'”? Have I just not had enough coffee this morning? Or did RichRod have some sort of weirdly structured deal?
TMQ Watch: January 2, 2018.
January 2nd, 2018Yeah, we can’t believe it, either. We want to try on our best Don LaFontaine voice. “In the future world of 2018…”
And that’s as far as we’ve gotten. “…you will believe that a famous chef sends out an apology for sexual harassment that includes his recipe for cinnamon buns“? Nobody would believe that.
“You will believe that Gregg Easterbrook watched football on New Year’s Eve”? That might work.
After the jump, this week’s TMQ…
Blood watch.
January 2nd, 2018The Houston Texas have let several assistants go:
- special teams coordinator Larry Izzo
- secondary coach John Butler
- assistant special teams coordinator Doug Colman
Mr. Izzo’s departure is described as “a mutual parting of the ways” rather than a firing, while Mr. Butler’s and Mr. Colman’s are described as actual firings.
Running backs coach Charles London is leaving the staff on his own without being dismissed. London wants to pursue a quarterback coaching position.
Meanwhile, Texans director of football research Jim Bernhardt is retiring.
Dom Capers out as defensive coordinator for Green Bay. Also inside linebackers coach Scott McCurley and defensive line coach Mike Trgovac. It feels kind of crappy to fire guys after a season disrupted by a quarterback’s injury. But then again, as ESPN points out, the Pack’s defense ranked 22nd out of 32 teams: you can’t blame not having a quarterback for that.
Monday, bloody Monday…
January 1st, 2018It has begun.
Jim Caldwell fired as head coach of the Detroit Lions.
Give the man credit though: in four seasons, none of his teams went 0-16.
John Fox gone as coach of da Bears. He was 14-34 over three seasons, and 5-11 this year.
Edited to add: Not a firing, but Bruce Arians has retired as coach of the Arizona Cardinals, ostensibly to spend more time with his family. (Some coverage has also mentioned that Mr. Arians has suffered from various health issues, too.)
Snoop, call your office, please…
December 31st, 2017Chuck Pagano out as head coach of the Colts.
The team was 4-12 this year.
Edited to add: And now, Jack Del Rio out as coach of the Raiders, according to ESPN. Haven’t found a good link for this yet. Rumor for the past couple of days has been that the Raiders really want Jon Gruden and are prepared to offer him everything, including equity in the team.
Gregg Easterbrook is going to be more insufferable than usual.
Your loser update: week 17, 2017.
December 31st, 2017Honorable readers:
As of 3:06 PM Central on December 31st, 2017, the Cleveland Browns became the third team in the modern NFL era to go an entire season without winning a game, and the second to finish an entire season 0-16.
Only the 2008 Detroit Lions match Cleveland’s record for futility: the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers finished their first season 0-14.
In other news, the New York Football Giants actually won their game, improving to 3-13. This may be good enough for second place in the draft: the Colts beat Houston and finished 4-12.
More later, maybe. There will be a ceremonial toast drunk tonight.
Edited to add: Yep. Looks like it’s going to be Browns-Giants for sure. I think the third and subsequent positions are still up in the air until the late games are over.
ETA2: Cleveland.com coverage.
ETA3: Per NFL.com, it’s going to be:
Browns
Giants
Colts
Browns again (traded with Houston for this pick)
I expect Bloody Monday to be interesting. If there are any “Damn, you didn’t even wait to get him in the house” firings tonight, I’ll try to update.
Obit watch: December 31, 2017.
December 31st, 2017It looks like the NYT replaced the incomplete Sue Grafton obituary I linked to on Friday with a full obituary, without changing the link. Okay fine. LAT. WP.
I wish I had more to say about her: I’ve never read any of the books. They are sort of on my list, but I have it in my head that I want to start with “A” and read them in alphabetical order, and I’ve just never gotten around to doing that.
They missed one, and I think this is a nice tribute:
Hey, since the @nytmag didn’t do a “The Lives They Lived” for Jim Nabors, who died on Nov. 30, permit me to do one here…
— David Kamp (@MrKamp) December 31, 2017
Damn it all to Hell and Hong Kong.
December 29th, 2017The NYT is reporting the death of Sue Grafton, author of the Kinsey Millhone “alphabet” mysteries, at the age of 77.
The paper of record does not have a full obit up yet: I will try to post a follow-up when I can.
Obit watch: December 29, 2017.
December 29th, 2017I’m too young to remember the “Dick Van Dyke Show” (and oddly, never caught it in reruns).
Yeah, that Selma Diamond. I did not know this.
This is where I remember her from. And here’s a neat piece of trivia:
TMQ Watch: December 26, 2017.
December 27th, 2017We’re still unclear on why this was the case. Especially on Christmas Day: the first game started at 3:30 PM Central, and was over with enough time left to watch the good “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” and promptly flip over to the second game before the bad “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” came on. (Really, whose bright idea was it to show the vastly superior animated special before the feature length movie that should never have been made?)
So. Many. Possible. Punch. Lines.
Can we return this and get something actually useful? Like socks?
Reactions to Socks as a Christmas Gift by Calendar Age:
0-3: blurb nurg (eats socks)
4-12: oh, socks
13-18: (SIGH) socks are you FUCKING serious
19-39: oh thank god, something useful, thank god
40+: Warm feet are the solitary joy remaining to me in this dark and fallen world— The Lynch who Stole Christmas (@scottlynch78) December 23, 2017
After the jump, this week’s substitute for a TMQ…