…not policechieffirings.com. But I do find this interesting:
…
He also allegedly took selfies during a funeral procession for an officer who was killed in the line of duty.
This is sportsfirings.com…
September 9th, 2015Obit watch: September 9, 2015.
September 9th, 2015Obit watch: September 8, 2015.
September 8th, 2015Judy Carne. WP. She’s just at the fringes of my memory: I remember watching “Laugh-In” with my parents, and I remember “sock it to me”, but she left the show when I was four…am I inventing these memories?
Martin Milner. “Route 66” went off the air a year before I was born, but I loved “Adam-12” when I was a wee lad. I have the first season on DVD, and you know, it still holds up well.
The FARK thread is actually pretty respectful, and worth reading if you were a fan of “Adam-12”, “Emergency”, and “Dragnet”. It reminds me that I want to write a re-evaluation of both “Dragnet” and “Adam-12”, arguing that what Jack Webb was trying to represent was his vision of how policing in general, and the LAPD specifically, should work. Not the way it really did work, but the ideal that he felt they should strive for; in a way, you might say that Webb was trying to represent on television Peel’s Nine Principles of Policing.
TMQ Watch: September 4, 2015.
September 4th, 2015From the man himself, in case you don’t follow him on Twitter:
Thanks to all for thousands of Tweets about the status of TMQ. Am talking to 2 potential homes. Hope to have announcement soon.
— Gregg Easterbrook (@EasterbrookG) September 1, 2015
Obit watch: September 3, 2015.
September 3rd, 2015I was thinking this morning: the first movie I have any recollection of seeing was the original The Love Bug at a drive-in somewhere in Virginia. NYT. Nice article in the WP.
Also among the dead: Ruth Newman, who passed away at the age of 113. Ms. Newman was a survivor of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
There is one known survivor still alive.
Smart woman.
Art (Acevedo), damn it! watch. (#W of a series)
September 2nd, 2015The chief is staying in Austin. And getting a pay raise.
In other news, VonTrey Clark has been deported from Indonesia:
Oliver Sacks.
August 31st, 2015NYT. Michiko Kakutani appreciation. LAT. WP. A/V Club.
“The Oliver Sacks Reading List” from The Atlantic.
I like what Kakutani says, and I don’t think I could say it any better:
Dr. Sacks was a personal hero of mine. Unlike most of my personal heros, I actually did get to meet him once. He probably wouldn’t have remembered it, even if he wasn’t famously “face blind”…
Jesus, Joseph, and Mary.
August 31st, 2015Mostly a local story, but noted here for people who may have missed it:
Austin police and fire officials spent much of Sunday investigating a fiery crash that left four people dead at the Arbor Walk shopping center.
The accident, reported at 4:53 a.m., happened when a Nissan Altima crashed through a barrier on the Braker Lane off-ramp on MoPac Boulevard, went airborne, caught fire and crashed into a building containing several businesses, including Mighty Fine Burgers Shakes & Fries.
Obit watch: August 31, 2015.
August 31st, 2015Noted film director Wes Craven. LAT. A/V Club. NYT.
Dr. Wayne Dyer, author (“Your Erroneous Zones”) and perennial fixture on PBS. Quoted without comment:
…
Often promoted as “public television’s favorite teacher of transformational wisdom,” Dyer was a fixture on PBS for almost 40 years and became embroiled in a controversy over complaints beginning in 2006 that he was promoting a specific religious worldview in violation of PBS’ editorial policies.
Michael Getler, PBS’s ombudsman at the time, wrote in 2012 that it was “my sense” that Dyer’s advocacy strayed outside PBS’ editorial standards but that the PBS board disagreed with him.
An Oliver Sacks obit is coming, but his death was kind of personal for me, so I want to take a little more time.
Unintended consequences.
August 27th, 2015Part 1:
Part 2:
Obit watch: August 26, 2015.
August 26th, 2015Legendary Houston surgeon Dr. James “Red” Duke Jr.
Dr. Duke was one of the founders of the Life Flight service. He attended John Connally after the Kennedy assassination. He inspired a short-lived TV series with Dennis Weaver.
Edited to add 8/27: NYT obit.
TMQ Watch: August 25, 2015.
August 25th, 2015Well. Well well well. Well.
We’ve been wondering when the first TMQ of the season was going to show up. We’re well into the pre-season and there’s no TMQ on the ESPN site. We’ve been watching Easterbrook’s Twitter: usually he links to his columns there, but there’s been nothing.
Apparently we missed the news. We fired up the Googles, and according to a certain website (one we have a policy of not linking to), Easterbrook’s deal with ESPN wasn’t renewed at the end of the 2014 season.
We would figure that Easterbrook would take TMQ elsewhere, and that he’d link to it on his Twitter, but perhaps he’s grown weary of writing it?
Tonight, when we get home, we’ll pour out a blueberry-almond martini for TMQ. If the column does show up someplace else, we’ll let you know, but we won’t promise that we’ll link to it or resume TMQ Watch: if Easterbrook goes somewhere like Salon or Slate, for example, we won’t follow him there.
Historical note, suitable for use in schools.
August 21st, 2015By way of the invaluable NYT obits Twitter feed, I have learned that today is the 75th anniversary of the assassination of Leon Trotsky. I don’t know what I would have done if this anniversary had gotten past me.
(Technically, I suppose it is the 75th anniversary of Trotsky’s death. Ramón Mercader, or whatever his name was – he seems to have had multitudes – attacked Trotsky on the 20th, but he lingered until the 21st.)
I haven’t done one of these in a while, so how about a little musical interlude?
This might push a few buttons.
Obit watch: August 21, 2015.
August 21st, 2015Brigadier General Frederick Payne (USMC- ret.)
Gen. Payne was 104 when he died, and was the oldest surviving US fighter ace.
Gen. Payne received the Navy Cross, the Silver Star, and the Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions.
With Mr. Payne’s death, there are 71 surviving aces, said Arthur Bednar, coordinator of the American Fighter Aces Association.
According to Mr. Bednar, only 1,450 American pilots qualified to be called ace, a distinction reserved for pilots who downed at least five enemy planes in aerial combat during World Wars I and II and the wars in Korea and Vietnam; in addition, six aces are recognized from the Russian Civil War, the Spanish Civil War, the Sino-Japanese War and the Arab-Israeli War. Mr. Payne was credited with five and a half kills.
Art (Acevedo), damn it! watch. (#V of a series)
August 20th, 2015The question of the day is: will we get to “Z” in the series?
Austin police Chief Art Acevedo is a finalist for the police chief of San Antonio Police Department.
(As a side note, I’ve always wondered what Sue Grafton’s going to do with Kinsey Millhone after she gets to “Z”. Two books to go.)