Bill Nack, noted sportwriter who specialized in horse racing.
That Bob Kalsu story is a great piece of work.
Mr. Nack also wrote the book on Secretariat.
And:
Obit watch II.
April 18th, 2018Obit watch: April 18, 2018.
April 18th, 2018I don’t listen to NPR much these days, but I did kind of like Kasell. And:
He loved magic tricks, and at one memorable company holiday party, he sawed Nina Totenberg in half.
“We laid her out on the table, got out that saw and grrrr … ran it straight through her midsection,” he recalled. “She said it tickled and she got up and walked away in one piece.”
I have this mental image of Carl and Harry standing around in heaven, trying to top each other with card tricks.
Barbara Bush, for the historical record. WP. (Edited to add: Lawrence.)
Bagatelle (#7)
April 17th, 2018Southwest Airlines is having a bad day.
Crying, screaming, vomiting, and texting? Sounds like every Southwest flight I’ve ever been on.
This, on the other hand, sounds more serious: an uncontained engine failure that sent shrapnel into the aircraft and possibly into the passenger cabin? I thought post-Sioux City the FAA had gotten a lot harder on manufacturers about that sort of thing. RoadRich, care to comment?
Edited to add: reports are now stating that at least one person is dead.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
–C.S. Lewis
Typically a retailer may return unsold merchandise to the manufacturer. But in this case, Dick’s Sporting Goods has decided to destroy them.
“We are in the process of destroying all firearms and accessories that are no longer for sale as a result of our February 28th policy change,” a spokeswoman told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “We are destroying the firearms in accordance with federal guidelines and regulations.”
A few points:
1. Why does Dick’s still have modern sporting rifles in stock, five years after they announced they were going to stop selling them?
(That actually has an answer: Dick’s apparently fudged the truth, and has been selling modern sporting rifles at their “specialty Field and Stream stores”.)
2. If I were a Dick’s stockholder, I would be seriously peeved at the management for destroying inventory of a perfectly legal product to make a political point.
3. If I were a Dick’s stockholder, I’d also be seeking a sweeping change of management right about now.
Obit watch: April 17, 2018.
April 17th, 2018Mike the Musicologist and I have a running joke: the decline of Western civilization began when men stopped wearing hats on a daily basis. We’re both doing our part to bring back the hat era.
I bring that up now because one of the great hat wearers of our time passed away yesterday.
Harry Anderson. Asheville Citizen-Times (more of a retrospective than an obit)
Of course, he wasn’t just a guy in a hat:
While he earned critical acclaim and amassed a devoted fan base on “Night Court,” Mr. Anderson never fancied himself an actor. “I’m a magician, or a performer, by nature, and that’s always what I’ve been,” Mr. Anderson told WGN-TV in Chicago in 2014.
“I was never really an actor,” he said. “I was a magician who fell into a part on ‘Cheers.’”
He was a good one, too. And for what it’s worth, I loved “Night Court” then, and I love it now. (I wish I could find video of Harry Stone revealing his custom bowling ball. If I could find someone to make me a bowling ball like that, I’d take up bowling.)
Harry Anderson. He was wicked smart. He was wicked funny. He had a big laugh. He had a big heart. He delighted in legerdemain especially when he caused someone to scratch their head and proclaim; How the hell did you do that? And he could eat a hamster like no one I ever knew.
— John B. Larroquette (@johnlarroquette) April 17, 2018
In honor of the late great Harry the Hat, why not go out and pick up a nice hat for yourself, or someone you love? Not a ballcap or a gimmie hat: I mean a real, genuine, honest to God hat, like a fedora or a porkpie or something. Let’s bring hats back, for Harry, and for civilization.
When guns are outlawed…
April 16th, 2018…only outlaws will have shivs.
…
Seriously? A mass stabbing incident? And not in a school this time, but in a freaking maximum security prison?
More from the WP:
…
Lawrence had much the same thought I did: why did it take seven hours to bring this under control?
I want to make it clear: I don’t take pleasure in this, and I’m opposed to extra-judicial punishments for prisoners. But if you can’t keep people from doing harm on a large scale with improvised weapons in a prison, why do you think laws on inanimate objects are going to keep people from doing harm on a large scale in the free world?
Happy (belated?) BAG Day!
April 16th, 2018As I mentioned earlier, we were doing a lot of running around yesterday, and I didn’t get home until late, so this is pretty much the first chance I’ve had to make a BAG Day post.
Of course, I’ve sort of advocated extending BAG Day for at least a few days, due to it falling on a Sunday this year, so I’m not sure that this is more than technically late. (“Technically late” is, of course, the best kind of late.)
How did things pan out? Well, we made it down to Cabela’s yesterday, and the thing I was looking at last week was still there. Photos to come, but probably not until this coming weekend. As for other people, I’ll leave it to them to decide if they want to comment or not.
Speaking of comments, thanks to pigpen51 for his kind and gracious comments on the last post. You’re always welcome here, pigpen: you wear well.
And I’ll be glad to host comments and/or photos on other people’s BAG Day purchases, since I don’t see any of the usual suspects doing so. If you just want to leave a comment, you can leave it here: if there’s enough interest, I’ll do a round-up in a few days.
If you want to send photos and comments, stainles [at] mac.com or stainles [at] sportsfirings.com work. Send stuff there, I’ll post it here. Let me know how you want to be identified: pseudonyms are fine.
Obit watch: April 16, 2018.
April 16th, 2018It was another busy weekend: birthday dinner, BAG day (post forthcoming), lots of running around…so let us get caught up.
Art Bell, noted radio host.
I used to listen to a lot of late night radio, but my time preceded Art Bell. I know someone whose job requires them to drive in sometimes late at night, and back in the day they were an Art Bell listener.
Tim O’Connor, character actor. He had a long-running role on the “Peyton Place” TV series, and also did guest shots in just about everything. (Including “Mannix”.)
Milos Forman, one of the great directors. (“Amadeus”, “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”)
And finally, R. Lee Ermey. Borepatch.
Firings watch.
April 13th, 2018More blood in the streets:
Steve Clifford out as head coach of the Charlotte Hornets.
196-214 overall, two playoff appearances where they never got out of the first round, and 36-46 this season with no playoffs.
Go big or go home.
April 13th, 2018I have a theory.
If you’re going to commit a crime, make it worthwhile. Don’t throw your life away for free movie tickets or a lousy few hundred dollars. Seven figures in front of the decimal point is a good guideline.
Likewise, if you’re going to run guns to Mexico, don’t just run semi-automatic AKs and ARs. Go for all the gusto:
…
Carlson worked with others to acquire and unlawfully smuggle 200 firearms including .50 caliber rifles, plus hundreds of rounds of ammunition to Mexico, the release said.
It said he worked with Fox — who is a former law enforcement officer and federal firearms licensee — to illegally acquire multiple M-134G Minigun machine guns.
The M-134G has six barrels and can fire between 2,000 and 6,000 rounds of ammunition per minute, according to the release. As part of the scheme, Fox contacted Garwood — the owner of Garwood Industries in Scottsdale — who agreed to help build the guns and supply Fox with M-134G parts, according to the release.
For those of my readers who are not people of the gun, here’s a short video of a minigun in action:
One of my friends commented last night that the M134 sounded like a great home defense weapon, and I had to agree with him: if you are attacked by a marauding rogue home, 58 rounds per second of 7.62 NATO should stop an attacking home fairly quickly.
(I’m kind of impressed that the Statesman writer got the part about the rotor housings being the serialized part right. At least, I assume he did, not being a minigun expert: but it’s generally impressive when a writer shows some understanding of what “serialization” means in this context.)
(Insert Fast and Furious reference here.)
(Insert rant about the Second Amendment covering machine guns here.)
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#49 in a series)
April 12th, 2018I haven’t been covering the corruption trial of former Texas congressman Steve Stockman as well as I could have. Not because of my own political sympathies (though I’m sure there are people who won’t believe that), but simply because of flat-out being busy three nights a week and having a series of full weekends.
Anyway, the verdict is in: guilty on 23 out of 24 counts.
Stockman was charged with “masterminding a wide-ranging fraud scheme that diverted $1.25 million in charitable donations from wealthy conservative philanthropists to cover personal expenses and campaign debts”. Specifically, he was convicted of mail and wire fraud, the ever popular “conspiracy”, “making false statements to the Federal Elections Commission”, and money laundering. The acquittal was on a single count of wire fraud.
Two of his aides, Jason Posey and Thomas Dodd, took plea bargains and rolled on Stockman.
I’m sorry, but the fact that they bought burner phones fills me with delight.
Stockman could get “a maximum of 20 years in prison on each of the fraud charges alone” but we all know that’s unlikely to happen, right?
Firings watch.
April 12th, 2018I guess yesterday was the end of the NBA regular season.
Everyone knows how much I care about the NBA, but with the end of any regular season in sports comes the wave of firings.
Jeff Hornacek out as head coach of the New York Knickerbockers. He was 60-104 over two seasons. (Also out: assistant coach Kurt Rambis.)
Frank Vogel out as head coach of the Orlando Magic. 54-110 over two seasons. (Various assistants got canned as well.)
And just for the record, the loser trophy this year goes to…the Phoenix Suns? Yep: 21-61 this season. This would call for a coach firing, except the Suns already fired their coach back in October.
More surprising: not only did the notoriously bad Philadelphia 76ers not have the worst record this year…they were 52-30, and are in the playoffs.
Obit watch: April 11, 2018.
April 11th, 2018Keith Murdoch, rugby player.
This is another one of those strange and sad stories. Mr. Murdoch was selected to tour with the New Zealand All Blacks in 1972. But after the first match of the tour, he got into a fight with a security guard at a hotel. He was thrown off the tour.
…
After “going bush,” Murdoch dropped from sight until the late 1970s, when Terry McLean, the dean of New Zealand’s rugby writers, tracked him down. McLean came upon him at an oil-drilling site near Perth, capital of the state of Western Australia, only to be advised, firmly and crisply, what he should do to preserve life and limb.
“I got back on the bus,” McLean wrote.
Master Ninja theme song!
April 10th, 2018By way of Lee Goldberg’s blog, I have just found out that the complete 1980’s TV series, The Master, is now available on DVD and Blu-ray. (Well, at least, per Amazon. I’ll believe the Blu-ray exists when I see it.)
This is slightly less obscure than other TV shows I’ve discussed (for reasons I’ll get into shortly), but for those who have never encountered The Master: Lee Van Cleef is “John Peter McAllister”, a “white ninja”. (He “stayed behind” in Japan after WWII and supposedly learned the ninja arts.) McAllister returns to the US to search for his daughter and teams up with “Max Keller” (Timothy Van Patten), a drifter with a van. Together they wander the country looking for the daughter and meddling in other people’s affairs helping others with their problems. Meanwhile McAllister is pursued by “Okasa” (Sho Kosugi), a former student who has a grudge against him for leaving the ninja clan or some other stupid horsepucky.
I never saw an actual episode of the show, so my judgement is perhaps unfair. But: it wasn’t good. Think a post-BJ and the Bear series or a variant on The A-Team, but featuring two people with no charisma.
How do I know? Well, the series was recut into “movies” (basically two episodes each) and released on video. (It is unclear to me how they got seven movies out of thirteen episodes, if they did two per movie. But I digress.) Later on, as I’m sure many of you know, Mystery Science Theater 3000 did the first two “movies” (episodes 322 and 324) which is how I saw them.
And now you know…the rest of the story.
The Master on Wikipedia.
Take us out, bots.
When guns are outlawed…
April 9th, 2018…only members of NYC’s criminal De Blasio administration will have nines with the serial numbers filed off.
Reagan Stevens, 42, the deputy director of youth and strategic initiatives, was sitting in the back of a parked 2002 Infiniti with two men on 107th St. near 106th Ave. in Jamaica when a nearby ShotSpotter detected five shots fired about 10:20 p.m. on Saturday.
Cops searched the Infiniti and discovered a 9-mm. gun in the glove compartment with a serial number scratched off — an additional offense — and a single spent shell casing.
The gun, which carries an eight-round clip, contained three rounds when police discovered it, according to a law enforcement source.
All three were busted, since none of them was willing to claim the gun.
BAG Day is coming!
April 9th, 2018National Buy a Gun Day is next Sunday. Can you feel the excitement?
Unfortunately, it seems that the BAG website no longer exists. Also unfortunately, April 15th falls on a Sunday: while that’s good for taxes, it limits your gun-buying options.
As for the first, that doesn’t mean you can’t still observe BAG Day. Indeed, I encourage you: if you’ve been thinking about picking up a modern sporting rifle, or a Marlin 60, or pretty much anything else firearms related, this is the time to pull the trigger.
As for the second, since there’s no central authority, I’ll go ahead and say: anything you purchase this week counts for BAG Day. I’ll even extend this out to Tuesday of next week, since I’m a little behind putting this up.
What about your humble blogger? What am I getting for BAG Day?
Well…actually…I may end up setting a poor example. My initial BAG Day thoughts were to hold off on purchasing an actual gun, and instead put money into a few things I’ve been needing for my existing guns:
- A scout rifle sling from Andy’s Leather.
- A scope for the scout rifle. (I was leaning in the direction of the Leupold FX-II, but now I’m not so sure that the eye relief will work. What I really want is to find a place that has them in stock.)
- And I’d like to get a Quantum holster from Dragon Leatherworks for my Browning Hi-Power.
At least, that was where my thoughts were going. Then Mike the Musicologist and I happened to be someplace on Sunday, and both of us had our attention drawn to two (separate) items. In my case, what I found seems to be a pretty good deal (and I may trade off some other items I’ve accumulated), but I didn’t want to pull the trigger then. If it’s still there next weekend, it might follow me home, as it pushes a few buttons.
(If that doesn’t pan out, I’ll probably proceed with my original plan, and I might pick up one of those $250 Bodyguards from CDNN. I kind of want something I can easily slip into the pocket of my shorts for summer, or a suitcoat/dress pants pocket for meetings of what Lawrence refers to as my shadowy criminal cabal.)