Oh, mama, can this really be the end?
To be stuck inside of TMQ with those NFL blues again…
After the jump, this week’s (possibly last?) TMQ…
TMQ Watch: December 11, 2018.
December 11th, 2018Firings watch.
December 11th, 2018Reggie McKenzie done as general manager of the Oakland Raiders.
Surprisingly, this week’s TMQ does not contain an item in which Gregg Easterbrook complains that McKenzie was a scapegoat for Jon Gruden’s failings as manager. (TMQ Watch will probably be up tonight.)
I’ve suffered for my art. Now it’s your turn.
December 10th, 2018I was in San Antonio over the weekend for an event. We stumbled across this memorial outside the Tobin Center, and were all struck by the wording.
“Honoring the mothers whose sons fought in the world war.
Erected by San Antonio Chapter No. 2, 1938.”
“the world war”.
This one’s just for fun. I saw this in front of a restaurant we went to, and I know someone who would appreciate it. They did, but I thought the rest of you might get a kick out of it as well.
You don’t tug on Superman’s cape…
December 7th, 2018…and you don’t mess around with The Joy of Cooking.
Shot: Brian Wansink, a professor at Cornell University (he runs the “Food and Brand Lab”) published a paper in 2009: “The Joy of Cooking Too Much”.
The people currently behind Joy were a little upset by this, and a little skeptical. But they didn’t really get fed up until 2015. They started looking at Wansink’s research and found that some of his claims didn’t quite add up.
Recently, Buzzfeed came into the picture:
Here’s the Buzzfeed article.
And here’s chaser #1: Wansink’s paper has been retracted. Per “Retraction Watch”, this is retraction number 17 for Wansink.
Chaser #2: Wansink has been found guilty of academic misconduct, and has “resigned” effective June 2019.
TMQ Watch watch.
December 5th, 2018We are seeing unconfirmed rumors that the Weekly Standard is shutting down, or will be shutting down very soon (after December 14th).
It isn’t clear if this is just the print magazine, or both the magazine and the website. It also isn’t clear what this will mean for me, Al Franken “Tuesday Morning Quarterback”.
Losing his column in the middle of an NFL season wouldn’t exactly be unprecedented for Easterbrook, but (as far as we are aware) this would be the first time it has happened because the publication shut down.
We plan to keep a weather eye on the situation, and will be checking Easterbrook’s Twitter feed for updates.
TMQ Watch: December 4, 2018.
December 4th, 2018If we had thought ahead (and hadn’t been putting out fires all day long) we would have scheduled this week’s TMQ Watch to post at 4:20 PM.
Why? After the jump, this week’s TMQ…
Y’all say what?
December 4th, 2018Fred Hoiberg out as head coach of the Chicago Bulls. Since Chicago still has two newspapers, here’s the Sun Times story.
And the Carolina Panthers fired two defensive assistants (defensive line coach Brady Hoke and assistant secondary coach Jeff Imamura).
Obit watch: December 3, 2018.
December 3rd, 2018Ken Berry, noted television actor. (“Mama’s Family”, “Mayberry R.F.D.”, “Dr. Kildare”, and he did a bunch of work on “Fantasy Island”, among his other credits.)
Yeah, I was going to put up the “F Troop” opening credits, but you know what? The paper of record beat me to it.
Firings watch.
December 3rd, 2018Mike McCarthy out as head coach of the Green Bay Packers.
The Pack is not exactly noted for random coach shuffles, but McCarthy was 4-7-1 this season, lost to Arizona on Sunday, and Green Bay is pretty much out of the playoffs for the second season in a row.
McCarthy is 125-77-2 overall in 13 seasons, 10-8 in the playoffs, and has one Super Bowl win (and three NFC Championship losses) to his credit.
I don’t think he’s a bad coach, and someone’s going to be lucky to get him. But it does seem like it just wasn’t working out in Green Bay.
Terry Bowden done as coach of the University of Akron Zips. 35-52 overall, 4-8 (2-6 in conference) this season.
Obit watch: December 1, 2018.
December 1st, 2018Obit watch: November 30, 2018.
November 30th, 2018Lady Trumpington (Jean Alys Campbell-Harris).
She was a member of the House of Lords from 1980 to 2017, and held various other governmental positions.
But she gets her obit linked here because she was one of the Bletchley Park codebreakers.
This month, she was among a group of Bletchley Park veterans awarded the Légion d’Honneur, France’s highest honor, for their contributions to the liberation of France.
“Oh, I had such fun in Paris after the war,” she said after receiving the medal in a ceremony at her home. “While this award recognized my time at Bletchley, I still find it difficult to discuss my time there, as we were taught to never talk about it.”
…
During her husband’s tenure at the Leys School in Cambridge, Lady Trumpington kept up her society habits. “I smoked and drank and did everything naughty,” she said.
Once, when presenting awards to Leys athletes, she jumped fully clothed into the school’s swimming pool, followed by the students. “My husband was furious,” she said.
TMQ Watch: November 27, 2018.
November 29th, 2018NFL announcers are maroons. At least, according to Gregg Easterbrook.
Why?
After the jump, this week’s TMQ…
Obit watch: November 28, 2018.
November 28th, 2018For the historical record: Stephen Hillenburg, creator of “SpongeBob SquarePants”.
Jeeez. 57 is way too young. Also, ALS stinks.
Obit watch: November 27, 2018.
November 27th, 2018For the historical record, because I really have nothing to say about the man: Bernardo Bertolucci.
Ricky Jay.
November 25th, 2018He was a personal hero of mine, but I never met him or even saw him perform. Somehow, it seems like he never came through Austin. (A friend of mine told me a great story about seeing him live: I hope that person will post that story on their own blog.)
I’ve said before that my three favorite magicians are Penn, Teller, and Ricky Jay. But I admired Jay as a magic historian as well.
NYT. The legendary New Yorker profile.
It is the Daileys’ impression—a perception shared by other dealers in rare books and incunabula—that Jay spends a higher proportion of his disposable income on rare books and artifacts than anyone else they know. His friend Janus Cercone has described him as “an incunable romantic.”
“Probably, no matter how much money he had, he would be overextended bibliomaniacally—or should the word be ‘bibliographically’? Anyway, he’d be overextended,” William Dailey has said. “The first time I met him, I recognized him as a complete bibliomaniac. He’s not a complete monomaniac about books on magic, but within that field he is remarkably focussed. His connoisseurship is impeccable, in that he understands the entire context of a book’s emergence. He’s not just interested in the book’s condition. He knows who printed it, and he knows the personal struggle the author went through to get it printed.”
I don’t know what else I can say, except that the world is a smaller, colder, and less interesting place today.