John Harbaugh out as head coach of the Baltimore Ravens.
193-124 in 18 seasons. He was the “second-longest tenured coach” in the NFL (behind Mike Tomlin of the Steelers).
Five!
January 6th, 2026Firings watch.
January 6th, 2026Steve Phelps out as NASCAR commissioner.
Technically, this is a resignation, but I’m counting it as a firing because it seems to be one of those “resign and keep your dignity, or stay on and get fired” situations. This is all fallout from the great NASCAR anti-trust case.
Two teams, Front Row Motorsports and 23XI Racing (the latter partially owned by Michael Jordan) sued NASCAR over alleged monopolistic behavior. The case was settled in December.
But anybody who knows anything about the legal system knows that stuff comes out in discovery. Often, that’s stuff you don’t want to come out. (“Don’t put anything in writing that you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of the Washington Post.”) Mr. Phelps apparently said some regrettable things, though the NYPost only cites one specific example:
In one exchange, Phelps called Hall of Fame team owner Richard Childress “a stupid redneck” who “needs to be taken out back and flogged.”
That led Bass Pro Shops founder Johnny Morris, an ardent supporter of both NASCAR and Richard Childress Racing, to write a letter demanding Phelps’ removal as commissioner.
In other news, Matt Eberflus out as defensive coordinator in Dallas.
The above by way of Lawrence, who also sent over an interesting fact from Yahoo Sports that I don’t have room for elsewhere:
Edited to add: and, of course, within minutes of my posting this, Lawrence emailed again to let me know Kliff Kingsbury and Joe Whitt Jr. are out as offensive and defensive coordinators (respectively) for the Washington Commanders.
Blood! Blood in the streets!
January 5th, 2026As foretold in the prophecy, this is your annual Monday morning after the end of the season NFL firing thread.
Raheem Morris out as coach in Atlanta. Also fired: GM Terry Fontenot. (Sorry about the ESPN link: the Atlanta newspaper won’t even let you look at the front page with an adblocker on.) Morris had been with the team for two seasons and had a 16-18 record: Fontenot had been with the team for five years.
One of my Christmas presents was a delightful little book: Cleveland’s Greatest Disasters! Speaking of Cleveland and disasters, Kevin Stefanski out as head coach of the Browns. But they kept GM Andrew Berry. Stefanski had been with the team for six seasons, and went 45-56 in the regular season. The Browns finished 5-12 this year, and 8-26 over the past two seasons.
I’ll update this post if there are more firings today.
Edited to add: and now, as expected by pretty much everyone, Pete Carroll is out as head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders. He was 3-14 in his one season. But hey! The Raiders have the number one draft choice! And they’re keeping John Spytek as GM! (Again, sorry about the ESPN link, but the Oakland newspaper is…not good.)
Edited to add 2: Four! A-ha-ha! (Okay, technically, the Atlanta firing was the yearly “you didn’t even wait to get the [man] in the house” firing.)
Jonathan Gannon out as head coach of the Arizona Cardinals. They were 3-14 this year, and 15-36 in three seasons with Gannon as the coach.
Obit watch: January 2, 2026.
January 2nd, 2026Back on the train.
Philip Schreier, director of the NRA Museums, passed away on Monday.
I never had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Schreier, but by all accounts he was a swell guy.
Ben Nighthorse Campbell, former senator from Colorado.
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Isiah Whitlock Jr., actor. Other credits include “Cocaine Bear”, “Law and Order”, “L&O: Criminal Intent”, “L&O: SVU”, and “Lightyear”.
Cecilia Giménez. You probably don’t recognize the name, but you may recognize this:
The group called her “a great painting enthusiast” and acknowledged Mrs. Giménez’s efforts to restore the nearly century-old fresco of Jesus. “Because of the poor state of conservation, Cecilia, with the best intentions, decided to repaint over the work,” it said.
But when Mrs. Giménez’s handiwork came to light in August 2012, the authorities initially suspected that the church had suffered an act of vandalism. The delicate misery on the face of Christ en route to the crucifixion had been replaced by a misshapen head.
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But her artistic mishap created an economic boon for Borja, a town of 5,000 inhabitants.
Tourists flocked to see her efforts. Less than three years later, more than 150,000 visitors from Japan, Brazil, the United States and elsewhere had made a trip to Borja, paying one euro, about $1.20, to view her work under a protective clear cover.
Local officials told The Times in 2014 that the tourism spike had stabilized the town’s restaurant industry and helped the area’s institutions. The nearby Museo de la Colegiata, which houses religious medieval art, experienced a rise in annual visits to 70,000, from 7,000. Vineyards in the region squabbled over the rights to put Mrs. Giménez’s Christ on their labels. In 2016, two Americans even staged an opera about the affair in the same church.
Louis V. Gerstner, former IBM CEO.
Obit watch: December 28, 2025.
December 28th, 2025After making nearly 50 features, she dedicated her life to defending animal rights. Through her Fondation Brigitte Bardot, created in 1986, she took on such issues as seal hunting, poaching, the fur trade, bullfighting, the captivity of wild animals in zoos and circuses, conditions in slaughterhouses and the farming of horse meat.
“I gave my beauty and my youth to men,” she said. “I am going to give my wisdom and experience, the best of me, to animals.”
Bardot supported National Front candidates including Catherine Megret and Marine Le Pen and spoke out against the “Islamisation” of France. A 1996 interview in Le Figaro had her condemned for inciting racial hatred, while a paragraph in her book comparing homosexuals and pedophiles was widely criticized.
Obit watch: December 27, 2025.
December 27th, 2025Robert Lindsey, author and NYT reporter.
He ghostwrote autobiographies of Ronald Reagan and Marlon Brando. He also wrote A Gathering of Saints (about the Mormon forgery murders). He may be most famous for The Falcon and the Snowman: A True Story of Friendship and Espionage (which won the Edgar for best fact crime in 1980).
“Front Page Farrell” on the Internet Archive.
“With a notebook and a great deal of curiosity, I traveled the world, top to bottom, from the Arctic Circle to the South Pole,” he wrote in his memoir. “I hung out with murderers, spies, a president, mobsters, generals, movie stars and scientists who helped shape our future. I watched history unfold and wrote about it.”
He added, “What could be more fun than being a reporter?”
Annette Dionne, last of the Dionne quintuplets. I don’t want to seem like I’m giving her, or the very sad story of the quints, short shrift. But I wrote about this back in August when Cécile Dionne passed away, and the obit also does a good job of recapping the story.
Flaming hyena watch.
December 26th, 2025From my family to yours, wishing you a Merry Christmas and a joyful, safe holiday season. 🎄#SCM #FL20 pic.twitter.com/rO7VVjCggA
— Congresswoman Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (@CongresswomanSC) December 25, 2025
Merry Christmas!
December 25th, 2025The great and good Pat Cadigan posts her favorite Christmas story every year (Merry Christmas, Pat!) so I’m going to post my favorite Christmas joke. This year’s version comes from the Straight Dope Message Board: my favorite joke is at the very top, but there are some other great ones in there too.
Mike and I were making a tour of gun stores over the past weekend. We went into the Gun Connection in Taylor (endorsed: this is the kind of funky store that I like) and they were playing this.
My kind of Christmas music.
Merry Christmas, one and all. Special regards to Jimmy McNulty, T Migratorious, Pigpen51, Lawrence, and Borepatch.
And I’m pretty sure I’ve used this song before, but not this version.
The Spirit of Christmas 5.
December 24th, 2025For all the issues I have with Gregg Easterbrook, I do think this is a pretty swell meditation on model trains and Christmas.
While this is on the “All Predictions Wrong” substack, it is a re-run, so Easterbrook doesn’t have it paywalled.
Obit watch: December 23, 2025.
December 23rd, 2025This is a couple of days old, but it got past me because the weekend was busy: May Britt.
She had a career as an actress, including the original “Mission: Impossible” and the 1959 “The Blue Angel”. She married Sammy Davis Jr. in 1960.
There was a lot of backlash at the time, and the marriage pretty much cost Ms. Britt her career.
Chris Rea, musician. I wouldn’t say I was a big fan of his work, but back in the day when I listened to the radio, KGSR would play “Texas”. I thought that was a pretty swell song.
And it is Christmas, right?
Crazy horse people update.
December 22nd, 2025Tatyana Remley took her own life outside a bar in San Diego Thursday night, authorities confirmed to the Daily Mail.
Remely, 44, died from a “gunshot wound to the head” after she called her estranged husband from the bar, complaining about her new partner, her husband, Mark Remeley said.
“She FaceTimed me while in the bathroom stall and told me, ‘I’m with this guy and he’s being a jerk,”‘ Mark Remely told the Mail.
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In August 2023, she was charged with trying to take out a hit on her ex, along with charges of carrying a concealed weapon in a vehicle and possessing a firearm in public.
She pleaded guilty to the charges and served one year of her nearly four-year prison sentence.
The Spirit of Christmas 4.
December 22nd, 2025A 2025 RevolverGuy Christmas Story.
It isn’t required, and it isn’t a Christmas story, but it might help put some of the “theology” here in context if you also read “Homecoming Day” from earlier this year as well.
Obit watch: December 22, 2025.
December 22nd, 2025James Ransone, actor. NYT (archived). Other credits include “Oldboy” (the Spike Lee remake), the bad “Hawaii Five-0”, and “Law and Order”.
Theodor Pistek, artist. As the NYT notes, he won an Academy Award for costume design for “Amadeus”. He was also a racing driver, and did paintings inspired by racing. I find “Ecce Homo” (reproduced in the obit) particularly striking.
Obit watch: December 19, 2025.
December 19th, 2025Peter Arnett, noted war correspondent.
From Vietnam’s jungles to Iraq, where he interviewed President Saddam Hussein, Mr. Arnett broke news and rules, infuriated national leaders and inspired generations of journalists. He was twice among the last Western TV broadcasters in Baghdad — as the Persian Gulf War began in 1991 and as an American-led coalition invaded in 2003.
Over 45 years, by his own account, he covered 17 wars in Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Latin America, first for The Associated Press and later for CNN and other television and print organizations. He made television documentaries, wrote two books, lectured widely and in 1997 interviewed Osama bin Laden, the leader of the Al Qaeda terrorist organization, somewhere in Afghanistan.
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Sue Bender, author.
Greg Biffle, former NASCAR driver. He, his wife and two children, and three other passengers were killed yesterday when their small plane crashed on approach to Statesville Regional Airport.
The Spirit of Christmas 3.
December 19th, 2025Another good Christmas story, this one from Dr. Dabbs. And I’m not just saying that because the story features a F-4 Phantom II jet.