I don’t want this to dissolve into “All Mattis, All The Time”.
But this story made me choke up almost as much as the Christmas story did.
I also like this because it calls back to two recurring “Leadership Secrets” tropes:
Leadership Secrets of Non-Fictional Characters (part 13 in a series)
January 2nd, 2017Obit watch: January 2, 2017.
January 2nd, 2017William Christopher, most famous as Father Mulcahy on “M*A*S*H” and “AfterMASH”.
(My mother observed that she saw him recently on a “Murder She Wrote” rerun, in which he was the bad guy. It looks like he knocked around a bit before “MASH”:
)
(And I was reading up a little on “AFterMASH” over the weekend. Yes, it was probably a bad idea in retrospect: even the executive producer thinks so, though I disagree with his assertion that it featured “the three weakest characters”: I don’t think he gives Harry Morgan enough credit.
But the thing that surprises me (I never watched an episode) is that it was actually a top 10 show in the first season. The thing that killed it wasn’t quality, or the lack thereof: it was that CBS, in their infinite wisdom, decided “AfterMASH” could go head-to-head against “The A-Team” for the second season. That…didn’t quite work.)
Blood in the streets!
January 2nd, 2017This used to be the “Bloody Monday” thread, where I covered all the firings after the last day of the NFL regular season. But we’ve reached the point now where teams aren’t waiting for Monday to start firing people.
For example, general manager Trent Baalke and head coach Chip Kelly are both out in San Francisco. The official announcement came after the game, but there was widespread “speculation” that they were both out: Baalke actually appeared on San Francisco radio before the games and confirmed his firing.
San Francisco was 2-14 this year.
(On a side note, is it just me, or are San Francisco’s newspapers mostly really bad? On a second side note, Gregg Easterbrook would be totally insufferable, if he’d been writing TMQ this year.)
Speaking of bad teams, San Diego fired head coach Mike McCoy, which is a good start. Now if they’d just fire the entire rest of the team.
McCoy was 28-38 in four years with the team, and 5-11 this year. You may recall that San Diego gave hapless the Cleveland Browns their only win this season.
This is not a firing, but worth noting: Gary Kubiak is out as head coach in Denver. This seems to be tied to his personal health issues, which I’m really not comfortable discussing or speculating on. I hope he comes back at some point.
There’s speculation that Sean Payton may be moving to the Rams, which should be interesting. Do the Saints want to keep him? If so, why? It seems to me that since their one Super Bowl win, the Saints have been a giant ball of disappointment: almost as if the football gods were out to get them for Bountygate. Is Payton a good coach? Can he do something with the Rams? Or did he just get lucky once?
I’ll try to post updates here if anybody else gets axed today.
Edited to add: more from the “not quite a firing, but” department: Lane Kiffin will be leaving Alabama before the national championship game. It’s not quite a firing because he’d already signed on as head coach of Florida Atlantic, but the general expectation seemed to be that he’d at least hang around for the title game. However, there were complaints about the Lanester showing up late for events: it kind of sounds like Bama got tired of his (stuff) and suggested he leave now.
There are rumors that Jim Irsay may clean house in Indianapolis, but nothing definite yet. Chuck Pagano just held a press conference and said he hadn’t talked to Irsay, and that he expected to be back; I’m sure Irsay is filled with joy at hearing this.
Obit watch: December 30, 2016.
December 30th, 2016George S. Irving has died. He was 94.
Mr. Irving was a Tony award winner (for a revival of “Irene” in which he acted opposite Debbie Reynolds):
He was also a television spokesman for White Owl cigars, and narrated episodes of “Underdog”.
But he was perhaps best known as the voice of Heat Miser in “The Year Without a Santa Claus”. He was also in “A Miser Brothers’ Christmas” (which I’d never even heard of, but I was apparently in my 40s when that premiered).
Quick random notes.
December 29th, 2016Well, found my 2017 calendar. (Okay, it is a little expensive, and I already have a Gunsite 2017 calendar that I picked up in Tulsa. But I’m taking a flyer on the CIA one because the thumbnails of the art look incredible: I’m seeing this described as more of an art book that you hang on the wall. I’ll do a follow-up once I get it.)
I’ve never liked the Philadelphia Eagles, but this story makes me feel a bit better about them: Quarterback Carson Wentz bought his offensive line a present.
Each of them is getting a personalized Beretta shotgun.
The great thing about this? Not only is a cool present, but it should make all the right people’s heads explode.
Obit watch: December 29, 2016.
December 29th, 2016The Grim Reaper finally caught up with Vesna Vulovic (or Vesna Vulović). She was 66 years old, and had managed to outrun him for nearly 45 of those years.
If that sounds callous, well, Ms. Vulovic had an amazing story. You might even remember it if you were an obsessive reader of the Guinness Book of World Records when you were young.
Ms. Vulovic was a flight attendant on JAT Flight 367 between Stockholm and Belgrade on January 26, 1972. She had actually swapped places with another girl and wasn’t originally scheduled to work this flight. As we see so often in movies and television, this never ends well…
An hour into the flight, the plane, a DC-9, blew up over the Czech village of Srbska Kamenice. As others were believed to have been sucked out of the jet into subfreezing temperatures, Ms. Vulovic remained inside part of the shattered fuselage, wedged in by a food cart, as it plunged.
Trees broke the fall of the fuselage section and snow on the hill cushioned its landing.
Ms. Vulovic is believed to have fallen 33,000 feet, which (according to Guinness, at least) is the longest documented fall survived without a parachute. She was badly injured, but Ms. Vulovic was the only survivor of Flight 367. It is generally believed that the plane was blown up by a terrorist bomb in the forward cargo hold.
I think the Wikipedia page (I know, I know) on Flight 367 has a fairly good explanation of why this theory is bolshie bushwa. Here’s a hint: the black boxes…
I could buy a couple of Communist countries being in on the conspiracy. But the Dutch?
Sometimes there’s just nothing you can say. Debbie Reynolds: NYT. LAT. A/V Club.
From the firings beat.
December 28th, 2016Missed this one on Monday: Bob Diaco out as head coach of the University of Connecticut football team. 11-26 over three seasons, and had his contract extended in May.
Bob Bradley, who is American, was fired yesterday as the manager of Swansea City, which is apparently an English Premier League soccer club with American owners. I gather he was the first American to manage a Premier League club, and lasted 11 games before being fired, but I don’t follow soccer at all, so this mostly just baffles and confuses me.
Obit roundup: December 28, 2016.
December 28th, 2016Obit watches, firings, ocelots, and other stuff: December 27, 2016.
December 27th, 2016I think I’m going to wait until tomorrow to try to pull together the Carrie Fisher obits. Not that it was entirely unexpected (though I think we were all hoping for the best for her), but I feel better letting things sit for a day.
By way of Lawrence: Richard “Watership Down” Adams. A couple of pithy quotes:
…
“If I saw a rabbit in my garden I’d shoot it,” he once said.
By way of my beloved sister-in-law: Vera Rubin, noted female astronomer.
Rex and Rob Ryan both OUT in Buffalo.
…
Babou (either one), call your office, please.
Meanwhile, the BBC reports that the cheetah is “rapidly heading towards extinction”. While sad, this comes as no great shock to us…because, as we all know, cheetahs never win.
This is kind of cool, at least to me: a homebrew short-range transmitter that sends out time signals on the WWVB 60 KHz frequency. Why would you want to do this, other than for the challenge?
Merry Christmas, everyone.
December 25th, 2016Your NFL loser update: week 16, 2016
December 24th, 2016Looks like I had good reason to be worred about this game.
NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
None.
One the one hand, I’m glad that my Browns fan relatives don’t have to see their team be the second one in history to go 0-16. On the other hand: seriously, San Diego?
And on the gripping hand, this is just more evidence for my belief that San Diego is a horrible team, that Philip Rivers should be drummed out of the NFL, and that (instead of letting the team move to LA) the Chargers franchise should be revoked, the team disbanded, the current stadium burned to the ground, the rubble plowed into the earth, and the earth sown with salt.
Merry Christmas, Lee Baca.
December 23rd, 2016The former sheriff of LA county got to open his present a few days early:
The LAT reports that the jury was “split 11 to 1 in favor of an acquittal”, which makes me wonder if the prosecution is even going to attempt a re-trial. As noted previously, Baca is also in “the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease”; an attempt at a retrial may run into competency issues.
Related LAT editorial:
If hypocrisy, mismanagement and detachment were crimes, Baca would surely be staring down a long prison term.
But they are not, and they do not warrant criminal conviction or incarceration.
…
How hard is it not to beat prisoners and obstruct justice?
Overheard in the office…
December 21st, 2016“It’s just not Christmas until I see Hans Gruber fall from the Nakatomi Tower.”
Well, that was fast.
December 18th, 2016The Jacksonville Jaguars have already fired head coach Gus Bradley.
But at least they let him take the plane home.
He was 14-48 overall with Jacksonville:
By season, the Jaguars were 4-12, 3-13, 5-11 and 2-12 under Bradley.
Obit watch: December 18, 2016.
December 18th, 2016Finally found a reliable source to confim: Zsa Zsa Gabor. (Edited to add 12/19: NYT. A/V Club.)
You know, I have seen “Touch of Evil”, but I don’t remember Zsa Zsa at all. (It was a while ago, though. It might be worth watching that again, especially since I think the current version is slightly different than the restored version I saw.)
Well covered elsewhere, but for the historical record: Dr. Henry J. Heimlich, inventor of the epinonimous maneuver.