The Dallas Stars have fired Marc Crawford. I think I speak for many of my readers when I say “People still play hockey? That’s a thing?”
The California Legislature is considering revoking the city charter of Vernon, a notoriously corrupt city in L.A. County. But business owners are worried…
Pierre Celis, of Celis Brewery fame. Celis made some swell beers back in the 90’s.
There’s an old saying, “In heaven there is no beer, that’s why we drink it here.”
I think this is wrong, and I think Mr. Celis is sitting on God’s right hand, trying out Heaven’s own homebrew.
I wanted to note the passing of Sidney Lumet.
There have been some surprisingly good discussions of Lumet’s career at both FARK and the Onion A/V Club. I don’t have much to add to those, but I did want to link to one of my favorite moments in a movie; a movie directed by Lumet, of course. Those who know me well, or pay attention to my blog taglines, probably already know which moment that is. But there’s more to it than just Howard Beale yelling “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore.” Note how this opens, with the disheveled crazed prophet walking through the rain.
“…all we say is, ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.'” How many of us think that?
“You’ve got to say, ‘I’m a HUMAN BEING, God damn it! My life has VALUE!'”
“Things have got to change. But first, you’ve gotta get mad!.”
Much of this is, of course, also attributable to Paddy Chayefsky’s script, and Peter Finch’s acting. But I suspect this would have failed and come off as strident or ridiculous in the hands of a lesser director.
101 Nook Color Tips, Tricks, and Hacks: The Unofficial Guide to Getting the Most Out of the Newest Nook eReader By William Percy
Link goes to the Kindle edition.
We have previously noted the issues at the troubled Thoroughbred Racing Foundation.
The NYT offers a summary of a report by Dr. Stacey Huntington. Dr. Huntington was hired by the TRF to evaluate the horses under the care of the foundation:
(Her report is based on evaluating 860 of the horses.) Continuing:
It looks like these people got trapped by the economy, and by a desire to take care of more horses then they really could (almost like crazy cat ladies, but on a much larger scale). But the NYT also makes it look like the TRF is still in denial that it has problems, while at the same time hoping for someone to bail them out.
Okay, that title is misleading. The Library of Congress did not pick “Pena” as one of the 25 recordings added to the National Recording Registry this year.
They did, however, pick “The Blimp”.
Here’s a link to the complete list with audio samples.
A few things that jumped out at me:
recording.I promised folks an update on the fortunes of spamming scumbag Sven Alstrom in his race for a seat on the Lawrence, Kansas City Commission.
Well, the election was yesterday, and…
…Sven finished fifth in a field of five candidates running for three open seats.
Here’s a breakdown by precinct.
Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Sven you spamming scumbag.
The NYT has discovered the underground trade in “loosies”: sales of loose cigarettes. A “legal” pack, with taxes, goes for $12.50 (thus sayeth the Times); the “loosie” dealer profiled in the article sells loose cigs for 75 cents each, two for a buck, or $8 a pack ($7 if he knows you). And business is good, Mayor Bloomberg.
Tilman Fertitta and the Landry’s chain are trying to purchase McCormick & Schmick’s Seafood Restaurants. Good luck with that.
Should the Chowchilla school bus kidnappers be paroled?
Sagra Italian Restaurant damaged by fire. The SDC ate there, and, well…we wish the owners the best, even if we can’t say we were wild about the restaurant.
I intended to blog this a few days ago: the latest APD suspension is for 90 days. In this case, the officer in question “was rude to a citizen and initially gave misleading statements to investigators”.
Oh, sure, you laugh at me for picking the Cubs to win it all. But I’ll point out that the Cubs have actually won a game this year, unlike certain other teams (cough cough Houston cough cough) I could name.
Things that have made me laugh today, as of about noon:
EFFector 24.11. “…undergraduate degrees in Facebook Privacy Settings”.
The PLAYMOBIL ™ Apple ™ Store playset.
The new project from His Scalziness. (The prologue is up at Tor’s site.)
The NYT falls for another April Fool’s joke. Popehat has the details.
Paolo Bacigalupi and the bacterial colony formerly known as Peter Watts are collaborating on a new shared world anthology. “‘We expect suicides,’ said Watts. ‘And maybe a Nebula.'”
Updated about 1:30 PM:
“‘Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark’ Gains Sentience, Hungers For The Flesh Of the Living“. (Hattip: Pope Scalzi the First.) Mostly because this line had me rolling on the floor:
In the comments to this thread, Lawrence notes that former Fiesta Bowl CEO John Junker was a heavy contributor to John McCain and other Republican politicians.
The Fiesta Bowl Special Committee Report (as I also noted in that thread) contains a list of political figures and organizations receiving contributions from Fiesta Bowl employees; contributions that were reimbursed by the Fiesta Bowl. This is, of course, illegal. (The report uses the phrase “a Class 6 felony violation”. If you check out the link, a Class 6 doesn’t sound all that awful; but remember, it is a felony, with all the burdens that come with a felony conviction.)
I want to quote this from the report:
Although we have not interviewed any of these individuals or entities, no one we spoke to alleged that any of these candidates had any knowledge that the Fiesta Bowl reimbursed contributions to their campaigns or related entities.
Which is an interesting statement. Why would the Fiesta Bowl be giving money to these people, if they didn’t want these people to know they were giving money and were looking for something in exchange? That’s also strange in the light of quoted statements such as this one:
John: I spoke with Senator Carloyn [sic] Allen and said we would round-up some checks for her campaign: [¶] Checks should be made out to CAROLYN ALLEN 2006 [¶] The maximum individual contribution is $296.00 [¶] I told her we would have them by Friday. Thanks. GH168
(John is former Bowl CEO John Junker. “GH” is attorney Gary Husk, “an attorney and public affairs professional on retainer with the Fiesta Bowl.” “Husk, and his company Husk Partners, were public-affairs consultants or lobbyists for the Fiesta Bowl.”)
Here’s the list of political figures and organizations that received contributions later reimbursed by the Fiesta Bowl. I’ve added notes of political affiliation when I could find it, along with links to websites.
So it may be too early to speculate on the future of the Fiesta Bowl.
At least that’s what Bill Hancock, executive director of the BCS, says.
Oh, by the way…
What is “Fiesta Frolic”?
And the BCS has created a seven member task force to review the allegations against the Fiesta Bowl.
Speaking of the report, I’m slowly going through it. There’s some stuff I haven’t seen reported yet. For example, someone seems to have been a gold bug: there’s an estimated $22,300 worth of gold coins (including $20 gold pieces “ranging in date from 1877 to 1924”) that are supposedly in the possession of the Fiesta Bowl. (I do not see anything in the report, though, that states possession of those coins was actually verified.) In addition, the bowl apparently paid for subscriptions to:
Note that all of these were personal subscriptions for former CEO John Junker, for which he was reimbursed by the Bowl (according to the report).
I’m also amused by the discussion of payments to someone identified in the report only as “Person X”. Mr. “X” was apparently being paid somewhere around $40,000 a year (the amount varied from year to year, but $40,000 seems to be a good average) plus six tickets to the game. And nobody knows what he did for that money. Literally. That’s a direct quote from the report: “I don’t know what he does. Kelly doesn’t know what he does.” The Arizona Republic has managed to identify Mr. X.
This is to note that once again, I’ve bet Lawrence $5 even money that the Cubs will win the World Series this year.
Also, my bet with Lawrence on Gonzaga has been paid.
Here’s the LAT obit for Farley Granger (fixed – thanks, Lawrence).
I don’t have much to add to this, except I seem to have a much higher opinion of “Rope” than most of my friends do: I thought Granger pretty much carried both that movie and “Strangers on a Train” on his back. He was brilliantly twitchy in a way matched only, perhaps, by Anthony Perkins.
I wonder what Frankenheimer’s “Manchurian Candidate” would have been like with Granger instead of Laurence Harvey. Not that I dislike Harvey, but I think Granger could have pulled it off; he was only three years older, and I believe he would have brought an interesting dimension to the role of Raymond Shaw.
I haven’t been able to find an obit in a US paper for H.R.F. Keating, but by way of Bill Crider, here’s the Telegraph‘s obit.
My mother used to subscribe to Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. That was my first exposure to many writers, including Keating: his Inspector Ghote stories were regularly in EQMM. As a critic of the field, his Crime and Mystery: The 100 Best Books
Rest in peace, Mr. Keating.
The NYT has an interesting investigative story on the Fiesta Bowl. Or, rather, on the Fiesta Bowl’s money.
The Fiesta Bowl management and staff have apparently been spending the money taken in by the Fiesta Bowl’s 501(c)3 on some questionable items. And when I say questionable, I mean “jail time is a possibility” items: campaign contributions, strip clubs (of course. It always has to be strip clubs.), a $30,000 birthday party (how do you spend $30,000 on a birthday party for an adult human? Unless that birthday party is at a strip club. Or, apparently, Pebble Beach.), airfare and hotel for an employee’s honeymoon (plus airfare for Fiesta Bowl employees to attend the wedding). Those are the high points.
The item that really leaps out at me is $75 for flowers. The flowers were for someone at the University of Texas, and were apparently sent in an attempt to influence that person into accepting the CEO’s daughter into “a honors program” (Plan II?). $75 is such a penny-ante amount; surely the CEO could have come up with $75 out of his own pocket. And why send flowers at all? A phone call would have done just as well. “Nice football team you have there. It’d be a shame if you didn’t get a bowl bid this year because my daughter didn’t get accepted into Plan II.”
The best thing about this? It could cost the Fiesta Bowl both tax-exempt status and BCS bowl status. As a matter of fact, it appears some of the impetus for this investigation came from an anti-BCS group. I wonder what other skeletons are going to turn up in the Orange and Sugar Bowl closets. I also wonder if this is the first hammer blow at the Berlin Wall of the BCS.
Edited to add: For those who don’t want to deal with the NYT, here’s a HouChron story on the firing of bowl CEO John Junker, which covers some of what was in the NYT report. Here’s a direct link to the public release version of the special committee report (which has some information redacted due to “contractual confidentiality provisions”).