Luke Walton out as head coach of the LA Lakers.
98-148 over three seasons. LA was 37-45 and missed the playoffs this season.
Good night, Luke.
April 12th, 2019Obit watch: April 12, 2019.
April 12th, 2019Earl Thomas Conley, musician.
…
“My stuff started with bluegrass music,” Mr. Conley once explained in an interview. “That’s what inspired me, the people that came out of those hills in West Virginia and Kentucky. And, of course, Hank Williams Sr. down in Alabama.
“I was born in ’41, and I was raised up on that early stuff,” he went on. “Coming out of those mountains, there’s a different soul and a different feeling and a whole different deal than what it would be like to come from the city.”
Forrest Gregg, legendary Green Bay Packer.
…
He also did some coaching: he was with the Browns, took the Bengals to the Super Bowl, had a controversial stint as head coach in Green Bay, and was the first coach at SMU after the scandal.
Firings watch.
April 11th, 2019Dave Joerger out as head coach of the Sacramento Kings.
Three seasons, 98-148, and the team went 39-43 this season, which was their best record since 2005. Also out: assistant GM Brandon Williams and PR director Chris Clark.
Memphis fired head coach J.B. Bickerstaff and “reassigned” GM Chris Wallace. Apologies for linking ESPN, but I can’t get the Commercial-Appeal website to load on my phone.
(Edited to add 4/12: coverage from the Commercial-Appeal.
Not exactly a firing, but Larry Drew is not coming back as head coach in Cleveland. Drew took over after head coach Tyronn Lue was fired early this past season.
BAG Day is coming!
April 11th, 2019Again. Monday, April 15th. Of course, a lot of the good smaller gun shops are closed on Monday, so (as always) I don’t have a problem if you want to start early, or extend your BAG shopping into next week.
What am I getting this year? There’s nothing that I’m really excited about or that turns my crank. I’m tempted to pick up one of the Palmetto State Armory M&P Shields (which are still on sale) but I don’t really feel like I need one.
Earlier today, I got an email from CDNN, who are selling the “Steyr Scout RFR”. I assume “RFR” means “RimFire Rifle”, as these are available in .22 Magnum, .22 LR, and .17 HMR. I didn’t even know these existed before now.
The idea of a rimfire “scout rifle” (Cooper would call it a “pseduo-Scout”) is kind of appealing, and I’ve been thinking about something in .17 HMR. The price isn’t bad, but I haven’t quite finished getting my Savage Scout set up the way I want it yet. (I’ve got the scope, I’ve got the rings, I just need to find a gunsmith I can trust to mount and boresight it.) So I’m not sure I want to put more money into another scout that will need a scope. Plus, for .17 HMR, I’m actually thinking more along the lines of the Ruger Precision Rifle than a scout.
And I’ve actually checked off all the items I had on last year’s list. Well, mostly: I have the sling and the scope, and the Dragon Leatherworks holster is on order (expected delivery at the end of May.)
If I have time over the weekend, I might run down to Cabela’s to see if there are any targets of opportunity, but I’m not counting on it. Unless I see something that really excites me, I’m probably going to be putting BAG Day money into getting more of my collection set up the way I want it.
But don’t let me stop you, and feel free to share photos of your BAG Day finds here if you want to.
Obit watch: April 11, 2019.
April 11th, 2019Ed Westcott passed away at the end of March. He was 97.
Mr. Westcott was the photographer at Oak Ridge during the Manhattan Project era. Note I said “the photographer”: Mr. Westcott was the only person authorized to take photos at Oak Ridge. (There were also photographers at Los Alamos and Hanford.)
Thousands of his negatives were stored at Oak Ridge, and then at the National Archives in Washington, before they were declassified years later.
He also developed aerial reconnaissance photos of the devastation wrought by the bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as armed guards waited outside his darkroom.
Kind of related: I got curious about the Cemestos houses, did some DuckDuckGoing, and found this piece from McSweeney’s. I know, but I actually thought this was pretty good: Anne Wheeler’s a charming writer, and I’d love to hit some nuclear tourism spots with her.
Own goal.
April 10th, 2019When I was a small child, I had a book.
Well, actually, I had more than one book. But this one was about planes: I don’t remember the title, or if it was about planes in general, or just military aircraft.
But I do remember a casual mention in that book of a plane shooting itself down by running into its own cannon fire.
What brings this to mind?
(Translation by Google Translate. Original is in Dutch.)
More from Military Times, which is in English, and actually mentions the incident I think I remember.
Obit watch: April 10, 2019.
April 10th, 2019Charles Van Doren has passed away at the age of 93.
I wrote a little about this a while back, but to recap: Mr. Van Doren was from a cultured and educated family, had batchelor’s and master’s degrees, taught at Columbia University, and was “handsome, personable” with “an honest look about him”.
He was recruited by Albert Freedman to appear on the quiz show “Twenty-One” (he didn’t even own a TV at the time), and knocked off Herb Stempel, the reigning champion. (From some accounts I’ve seen, the producers basically felt Mr. Van Doren was “more appealing” to the audience than Mr. Stempel.)
Mr. Van Doren won $129,000 in 1956 money (the paper of record claims that’s equivalent to $1 million today).
In succeeding months, as rumors and skepticism over TV quiz shows grew, some contestants admitted that the programs had been fixed. The networks denied it, and Mr. Van Doren insisted that he had not taken part in any deceptions. Besides misleading the press and public, he continued to deceive his family and friends, and even lied to a Manhattan grand jury about his performances.
But on Nov. 2, 1959, he told congressional investigators that the shows had all been hoaxes, that he had been given questions and answers in advance, and that he had been coached to make the performances more dramatic.
Mr. Van Doren served a suspended sentence for second-degree perjury (for lying to the grand jury), went on to work for Encyclopaedia Britannica, and wrote a couple of books after he retired. (He also collaborated on some books with Mortimer Adler.)
The famous New Yorker article from 2008.
As far as I can tell, Herb Stempel is still alive at the age of 92.
Obit watch part 2: April 9, 2019.
April 9th, 2019Lt. Colonel Richard E. Cole (United States Air Force – Ret.)
He was 103.
Lieutenant (at the time) Cole was Jimmy Doolittle’s co-pilot on the Tokyo raid. He was the last survivor of Doolittle’s Raiders.
…
Doolittle, Lieutenant Cole and the other three crewmen of their plane bailed out in rain and fog soon after their bomber crossed the Chinese coast as darkness arrived. Lieutenant Cole landed in a pine tree atop a mountain and was unhurt except for a black eye. He made a hammock from his parachute and went to sleep. At dawn, he began walking, and late that day he made contact with Chinese guerrillas.
He was soon reunited with Doolittle, who had come down in a rice paddy, and their three fellow crewmen. The five joined up with other stranded airmen who had been rescued. The Chinese took them all on an arduous journey, much of it by riverboat, to an air strip, where they were picked up by a United States military transport plane and flown to Chungking, the headquarters for the Nationalist Chinese.
For the record:
Lt. Cole went on to fly transport planes over the Hump. He also served with the 1st Air Commando Group.
Lt. Cole’s page on doolittleraider.com which contains some great photos. Obit from MySanAntonio.com. I had no idea the gentleman lived in Comfort (about 90 minutes up the road from me). Cool story from the Express News in 2018.
Dick Cole’s War: Doolittle Raider, Hump Pilot, Air Commando sounds like a fascinating book.
Rest in peace, soldier.
Sometimes there’s just nothing you can say.
April 9th, 2019A while back, I noted the death of Kelly Catlin, Olympic cyclist.
There’s a follow up article in today’s NYT.
The number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). If you live outside of the United States or are looking for other help, TVTropes has a surprisingly good page of additional resources.
Obit watch: April 9, 2019.
April 9th, 2019Seymour Cassel, character actor.
As the obit notes, he did a lot of work with John Cassavetes and Wes Anderson. But his list of credits goes beyond that. He did a guest shot on “Convoy” (the TV series) and was in “Convoy” (the movie). He did several episodes of “12 O’Clock High” and “The F.B.I.”, was in two “Batman” episodes, guested on “Matlock”, and was even in one “ST:TNG” episode.
Never did a “Mannix”, though, as far as I can tell.
(Noted: “Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos Tonight”. Just read the summary.)
Obit watch: April 7, 2019.
April 7th, 2019Vonda N. McIntyre, noted SF writer, passed away on Monday, but I did not know about this until Lawrence mentioned it last night. The NYT obit is datelined Friday, but I’m thinking it must have been posted late in the day.
Ernest “Fritz” Hollings, for the historical record.
Ly Tong. He was a pilot with the South Vietnamese Air Force.
So, in 1992, he…
…hijacked a commercial airliner after takeoff from Bangkok, ordered the pilot to fly low over Ho Chi Minh City — known as Saigon, South Vietnam’s capital, before the Communist victory — and dumped thousands of leaflets calling for a popular uprising.
He then strapped on a parachute and followed the leaflets down to certain capture. He was released six years later in an amnesty and returned to the United States, where he had become a citizen after the war.
That takes us to 1998. In 2000…
Later that year…
He spent another six years in a Thai prison for that. The paper of record states he was unarmed and nobody was hurt during either of his hijackings, which makes me wonder about the definition of “hijacking”. But I digress.
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#53 in a series)
April 5th, 2019Kind of a brief one, but I didn’t get to use this trope last night, so what the heck:
The Baltimore Sun has a good summary of the “Healthy Holly” scandal that’s threatening to take down Mayor (and former state Senator) Catherine Pugh.
There’s also a “special section” that collects links to their other stories. My personal favorite so far:
How the rise of the self-publishing industry contributed to the problems for Baltimore’s mayor
I’m not kidding. That’s an actual headline from an actual article.
Come on. It’s Baltimore, gentlemen: if it wasn’t this, it would have been something else. Grifters gonna grift, and technology doesn’t change that.
Decisions, decisions…
April 4th, 2019If I was a book collector and had $100,000 to spend, what should I spend it on?
Let’s see. For that money, I could maybe get two copies of the UK first of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Or maybe just one.
Or I could be like this guy, who paid $100,000 for one book from “Healthy Holly LLC”.
Should I even mention that this guy does business with the city of Baltimore? And that “Healthy Holly LLC” is the mayor’s publishing company?
It doesn’t sound as interesting as Harry Potter, but it may be equally rare:
Bonus: the mayor has an “upscale second hand boutique” that’s been selling Groupons. (Groupons? Those are still a thing?) But when a reporter bought one and went to visit yesterday afternoon…
Getting back to the books, it’s a shame nobody can find them: Lawrence has a birthday coming up, and he’s a connoisseur of books published by political hacks to get money under the table.
Obit watch: April 4, 2019.
April 4th, 2019David Fechheimer, private investigator. Noted here because this is one of the better NYT obits for a not-so-famous person I’ve read in a while.
Ron “The Ghoul” Sweed, late night TV host in Cleveland during the 70s.
Sweed broke into Cleveland TV in 1971 on WKBF Channel 61. He wore a lab coat and was armed with an assortment of low-rent props, from Cheez Whiz to firecrackers to flying pierogis, kielbasa and slime. He quickly was syndicated in six other markets — Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
He got his start working as an assistant for another late-night TV legend, Ernie “Ghoulardi” Anderson. He received Anderson’s permission to appear as the Ghoul in 1971.
(Previously. Hattip: Lawrence.)
Brief notes from the legal beat.
April 4th, 2019Following up on a few things:
The Waco biker trials turned into a huge nothingburger.
All charges have been dropped against Chauna Thompson. You may remember her as the Harris County Sheriff’s deputy who was fired and indicted after her husband choked a man to death during an altercation outside a Denny’s. Her husband has been sentenced to 25 years. (Previously. Previously. Previously.)
From the Department of Well, That Will Show Them: The Texas Department of Corrections has banned all chaplains, regardless of religion, from the death chamber. (Previously. More from Reason.)
