Worse than Ashley Madison?
December 22nd, 2015Obit watch: December 18, 2015.
December 18th, 2015British mystery writer Peter Dickinson. The Telegraph.
Dickinson is a writer who’s fascinated me since I read HRF Keating’s Crime and Mystery: The 100 Best Books
Unfortunately, I’ve also always had some difficulty finding his work in the US: somewhere I have a paperback of The Poison Oracle
Hmmm. Hmmm. Hmmm. I may have to revisit this after Christmas…
Cahiers du cinéma: The Library of Congress recommends…
December 16th, 2015I just have one thing to say about the latest list of movies added to the National Film Registry…
TMQ Watch: December 15, 2015.
December 15th, 2015After last week’s “slit your wrists” opening, we were hoping to find something light and funny for this week. We didn’t have much luck, alas.
We did briefly consider doing something with “All I want for Christmas is a goat”. But then we listened to “Holy Night”. Or at least we tried to; we had to shut it off 30 seconds in. With all due respect to ActionAid, they could use this to torture prisoners at Gitmo.
So the heck with trying to find something light and funny. Let’s just jump into this week’s TMQ…
TMQ Watch: December 8, 2015.
December 10th, 2015Instead of snark, and before jumping into this week’s TMQ, we wanted to throw up a link to something we found by way of a retweet from Popehat:
…
When I tell people the insane details of my childhood, they have the same two questions.
Why in the hell would anyone do this to their own son?
And then …
Why in the hell didn’t anyone put a stop to it?
Please go read this now, if you haven’t already. This week’s TMQ will be here when you return…
Yearly administrative note.
December 4th, 2015This is your yearly reminder: if you use the Amazon search box on the right hand side of the page to buy stuff, I get a small kickback.
Said small kickback, as you all know, goes to purchasing toys for crippled orphans supporting this blog, mostly by enabling our purchases of Robert Ruark and Jack O’Connor books, along with other crap in general.
(Speaking of Ruark, I’m reminded that I have two historical notes coming up back to back before the year is over. One of those should be of some interest to Lawrence…)
(And speaking of Lawrence, I would be remiss if I did not note, as I do every year, that books from Lame Excuse Books make fine presents for the holidays, especially if you have SF or horror fans on your shopping list.)
I believe I recommended Amy Alkon’s Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck
Another book that was loaned to me by a friend, and that I’ve almost finished – I will be purchasing my own copy, so I have no qualms about recommending it – is Susan Cain’s Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking
I don’t see a shipping date for Archer Season 6
cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra cobra
Edited to add: Also. If I’ve managed to irritate you, please consider supporting the fine folks at Popehat through their Amazon link instead.
Also also: I haven’t given them any money, but I’ve always been kind of fond of the HouChron‘s “Goodfellows” program.
Also also also: the Reason Foundation is having their annual fundraising drive. And they will accept bitcoins, too.
TMQ Watch: December 1, 2015.
December 3rd, 2015Have you ever had one of those days when you don’t want to even look at the newspaper, or do much of anything except curl up in a ball and shut out the world?
Yeah. Us too. After the jump, this week’s TMQ…
Art, damn it, art! watch (#49 in a series)
December 1st, 2015By way of Borepatch: Cassius Marcellus Coolidge’s most famous work sold at auction for $658,000.
Sotheby’s auction link. Yes, that did include the buyer’s premium.
Flames, hyenas, etc.
December 1st, 2015I wanted to wait a little bit for the paper of record to fully update their coverage. Now that they have:
Sheldon Silver, former speaker of the New York State assembly: Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!
I am worried, though, about the jury issues:
…
I’m hoping this doesn’t give Silver grounds for a successful appeal.
Bloody Sunday.
November 29th, 2015Bad day for college football coaches.
Mark Richt out at the University of Georgia. He’d been there for 15 seasons…
Rutgers fired both head coach Kyle Flood and AD Julie Hermann. Flood was 27-24 overall, and the team went 4-8 this year. But it looks like the main reason for this firing was off-field issues:
Flood was suspended three games earlier this season for emailing a professor and later scheduling an in-person meeting to discuss the academic standing of former Scarlet Knights defensive back Nadir Barnwell.
In addition, seven Rutgers players were arrested this season for offenses varying from home invasion to assault.
Mike London is out as head coach at the University of Virginia. This is being called a “resignation”, but it sounds like “you can’t fire me, I quit”.
…
Time flies.
November 27th, 2015Damn. It has been a year since that asshole tried to shoot up the police department and got center-punched for his trouble? Where does the time go?
One year later article from the Statesman, which has some details I either didn’t know or forgot.
…
Yes. That was a 100 yard, one-handed shot with an M&P .40.
It was also the decisive one.
I can’t find it online, and my memory is a little sketchy, but I’m reminded of an “Ayoob Files” from some years ago. Briefly: bad guy armed with a rifle is holding off cops (and kills one dead). Cops are only armed with handguns, and try to take the guy out, but he has them pinned down 80 to 100 yards away. My recollection of Ayoob’s account is that at least one of the responding officers tried making shots at that range with his duty gun; when the bad guy was finally taken down (as I recall, by someone who arrived on scene with a shotgun and hit him with a rifled slug), they found a fairly tight group of bullet holes…just above where the bad guy’s head would have been.
One of Ayoob’s points, which I thought was well taken was: maybe every once in a while you should try taking long range shots with your duty weapon, just so you have some idea of what it can do and where you might need to hold. Then again…
…if you grew up shooting off the back porch, maybe you don’t need that advice.
(Also, Massad Ayoob, if you happen to be reading this: this incident, and Sgt. Johnson in particular, might make for a good “Ayoob Files” installment. Just saying.)
A small dose of the unusual for Black Friday.
November 27th, 2015Just in case you’re stuck at work, or have decided to stay home and avoid the rush, here’s a couple of things you might find interesting:
1) Lawrence sent me this link the other day: Showmen’s Rest: Chicago’s Clown Graveyard.
The story behind this is that Showman’s Rest is where many of the dead from the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus train disaster were buried.
The Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus train disaster? Yes: on June 22, 1918, the train carrying the members of the circus was rammed by another train whose engineer had fallen asleep. 86 members of the circus were either killed outright or burned to death in the fire that resulted.
2) A retweet from Popehat led me to look up Count Dante, who I was previously unaware of. Count Dante was “The Deadliest Man Alive!” and the founder of the Black Dragon Fighting Society; he advertised heavily in comic books during the 1960s and 1970s.
Count Dante (really John Keehan; he changed his name in 1967 to “Count Jerjer Raphael Danté, explaining the name change by stating that his parents fled Spain during the Spanish Civil War, changed their names, and obscured their noble heritage in order to effectively hide in America.“) was one of Chicago’s leading martial artists during the 1960s.
He and a buddy were arrested in 1965 for trying to blow up a competing dojo. In 1970, he and some friends went to another competing dojo to “settle a beef with a member”: in the process, one man died.
Count Dante may also have been involved in a 1974 robbery of $4 million. He died in May of 1975 at the age of 36.
Chicago Reader article, “The Life and Death of the Deadliest Man Alive”. The article is tied to a documentary in progress, “The Search for Count Dante”: film website here.
Obit watch: November 27, 2015.
November 27th, 2015Obit watch: November 25, 2015.
November 25th, 2015The NYT is reporting the death of actor Rex Reason.
Mr. Reason was perhaps most famous for playing Cal Meacham in “This Island Earth”, which I almost think I’d like to watch again for real (as opposed to the MST3K movie version).
