Gonzaga 76, Houston 81.
But hey, they lasted longer than the University of Texas.
All debts have been paid, in front of witnesses. Photos available on request.
GONZAGA!!!!!!!!
March 23rd, 2025And speaking of Rugers…
March 22nd, 2025…some quick random book geekery. “Quick” because I bought two copies of the same book, for reasons.
Obit watch: March 22, 2025.
March 22nd, 2025Foreman’s career spanned generations: He fought Chuck Wepner in the 1960s, Dwight Muhammad Qawi in the ’80s and Evander Holyfield in the ’90s.
With his fellow heavyweights Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali, Foreman embodied a golden era in the 1970s, when boxing was still a cultural force in America. The three great champions thrilled fans with one classic bout after another. Foreman was the last living member of the trio.
…
Success came quickly in the amateur ranks; only a year and a half later he was Olympic heavyweight champion, defeating Ionas Chepulis of the Soviet Union by a second-round knockout in Mexico City in 1968.
After the fight, Foreman, who was Black, waved a small American flag in the ring, days after the track athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised clenched fists during the national anthem to protest the country’s treatment of Black people.
“I was just glad to be an American,” Foreman said afterward. “Some people have tried to make something of it, calling me an Uncle Tom, but I’m not. I just believe people should live together in peace.”
…
Obit watch: March 21, 2025.
March 21st, 2025Other credits include “Rubber“, “Viva Laughlin“, “CSI: Original Recipe”, “CSI: Miami”, “Hardcastle and McCormick”, and “Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time”.
On a more serious note, the Saturday Movie Group watched “The Siege of Firebase Gloria” recently. I, personally, liked it. I don’t think it is a great war film, but I do think it is a pretty good one. (I would recommend “Go Tell the Spartans” if you haven’t seen it, but “Gloria” is solid.)
Drink!
March 21st, 2025Shot:
A scientist at an isolated Antarctica base allegedly assaulted and sexually harassed colleagues while the team is confined together at the edge of the Earth for a year, according to a shocking new report.
The researcher’s “deeply disturbing” behavior was shared in an email by a fellow team member who was cooped up with him in the SANAE IV base, home to a South African research team.
Inhospitable weather has made it too difficult to evacuate anyone from SANAE IV, meaning everyone is stuck together for the foreseeable future, according to authorities.
Chaser:
Packin’ (random gun crankery)
March 20th, 2025It would not be entirely unfair to say that I am a sucker for concepts. At least when it comes to guns. But a concept has to make sense to me.
I’ve bought into Cooper’s Scout Rifle concept in a big way.
One concept that ended up not making sense to me, was the “car gun” or “truck gun”. I actually did buy into this, and bought a relatively cheap (at the time) Marlin lever action in .30-30 (the poor man’s assault rifle) to use as a “car gun” when Texas instituted legal protection for guns in cars.
But the more I thought about it, the odds of being able to fight my way out to my car, grab my rifle, and go back in to confront the big bad seemed slim. If I’m already at my car, why am I not getting out of there? And it also seemed like a recipe for a rusty or stolen gun. I’m not the only person who feels that way. (I still have that Marlin, now outfitted with XS ghost ring sights.)
Another concept that makes sense to me is the late (and I feel a pang when I say that) John Taffin’s “Perfect Packin’ Pistol”.
That’s a pretty expansive definition, but I understand where he’s coming from. My old Smith and Wesson Kit Gun is, to me, a perfect packin’ pistol for things like casual walks in the woods, plinking at cans, and maybe shooting a vicious squirrel should the occasion arise. It fits easily in a pocket. And if I had to…the mere presence of a firearm, without a shot being fired, often serves as a deterrent. Or something like that, as the “Armed Citizen” column puts it.
As the linked article notes, Lipsey’s and Ruger are introducing a special John Taffin Tribute Perfect Packin’ Pistol. (I hope you can read the article: I am a Handloader subscriber, but it comes up okay for me even though I’m not signed in. I’m using a link I got in a Wolfe Publishing email.)
When I saw that, I kind of wanted one. I still kind of do. But I walked into my gun shop one Saturday, and…
Firings watch.
March 20th, 2025Keith Urgo out as men’s basketball coach of Fordham.
50-49 over three seasons. He was also suspended by the university for four games due to “recruiting violations”.
Very quick legal update.
March 20th, 2025Carl Erik Rinsch has been charged federally with fraud.
Previously on WCD. You may also remember him as “the guy who invested a bunch of the money NetFlix gave him in Dogecoin”.
Obit watch: March 20, 2025.
March 20th, 2025George Bell, actor, Harlem Globetrotter, and the tallest man in America.
He was 7’8″, and passed away at 67. He also served honorably with the Norfolk Sheriff’s Office for close to 14 years.
Nadia Cassini, Italian actress. Lawrence emailed this obit and added the observation that she was “the woman in ‘Starcrash’ who wasn’t Caroline Munroe”. IMDB.
Mark Dobies, actor. Other credits include “Nash Bridges”, “CSI: Miami”, and “Law and Order: Criminal Intent”.
Gonzaga!
March 20th, 2025Not that I care about basketball, but I love saying “Gonzaga!”
So Lawrence and I have, once again (after a few years layoff) bet on the NCAA tournament. I’m taking Gonzaga, Lawrence is taking the field.
I have a pretty good feeling about Gonzaga. I think this just might be their year…
Firings watch.
March 19th, 2025This could also be an “Art, damn it! Art!” watch, but I decided to go this way.
Jackson Arn was the art critic for the New Yorker.
Note the past tense. Mr. Arn has been canned by the magazine. And not because the New Yorker has money troubles.
The New Yorker had a big 100th birthday celebration in February at some trendy place in NoHo.
…
I almost wish I had been there, just so I could walk up to Calvin Trillin and ask him, “Do you want to blow this Popsicle stand and go get some dumplings in Chinatown?”
Here’s the NYT article, but it doesn’t add much detail.
Obit watch: March 18, 2025.
March 18th, 2025Group Captain John A. Hemingway (RAF- ret.) died on Monday. He was 105. NYT. BBC.
Gp Capt Hemmingway was the last known survivor of the Battle of Britain. He flew Hurricanes.
…
…
Flying afterward in defense of Britain, Mr. Hemingway was intercepting German bombers over the English Channel on Aug. 18 when his Hurricane was shot up.
“Somebody clobbered me,” he told The Daily Mirror in 2018. “They hit me in the engine. It covered the inside of the cockpit with oil, and things got very smelly and hot. I had no hope of getting to England, so I bailed out and landed in the sea.
“There were jellyfish everywhere,” he continued. “I started swimming. Two hours later, a rowboat from a lightship bumped into me.”
He climbed aboard, grabbed an oar and helped the crew return with him to England.
Later in August, Mr. Hemingway survived a third close call, this time while pursuing a German bomber over southeastern England. As he told The Daily Mirror: “I got a Dornier in my sight and started to pull around and have a second go. That was it — ‘bang, bang’. There was smoke everywhere.” He bailed out. “I landed in the Pitsea marshes, where I faced the local Home Guard,” he said.
He added wryly, “I could speak reasonable English, so they didn’t shoot me.”
Mr. Hemingway was an Allied flight controller during the D-Day invasion of Normandy in June 1944. The next year, in April, he was a squadron commander in Italy when his Spitfire fighter was downed by the Germans. He bailed out again and was rescued by farm workers, who disguised him in peasant clothing and smuggled him to the British lines.
…
(Hattip: Borepatch, who actually beat me to an obit for once.)
Obit watch: March 17, 2025.
March 17th, 2025Guns magazine and American Handgunner are reporting the passing of John Taffin last week. Podcast.
I was fortunate enough to meet him in 2012, shake his hand, and say “thank you”. And I’ve written about some of his books, too.
I’m hoping at some point this week (or by next Sunday) I can get a special gun crankery post up in memory of the late Mr. Taffin. He struck me as a swell guy, and he knew his Smith and Wessons.
Gene Winfield, custom car builder. He did a considerable amount of work in Hollywood.
(Also “Bewitched”.)
He also designed cars for “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”, “Get Smart”, “Sleeper”, and “Blade Runner”. And he designed the famous shuttle craft from a minor 1960s SF TV series.
Obit watch: March 15, 2025.
March 15th, 2025I lost pretty much the entire day yesterday to various things. I didn’t even get any pie.
One of the things that went by the wayside was obits, so here’s a quick and lazy roundup from the past few days. I have to rush off in a little bit to a wedding shower, and I’m not sure when I’m going to be back.
John Feinstein, sports writer and author. The only one of his books I’ve read is The Punch, which I wrote about a while back and thought was pretty good.
Chris Moore, artist. He illustrated quite a few SF books, and also did album covers for Fleetwood Mac and Rod Stewart.
Carl Lundstrom, who was one of the people behind the Pirate Bay website, died in a plane crash on Monday.
Ron Nessen, Gerald Ford’s press secretary, and one of the 892 Saturday Night Live hosts who have not committed murder. (I think that count is right, but it may be a little out of date.)
Larry Buendorf, retired Secret Service agent. He’s the guy who wrestled the gun away from Squeaky Fromme.
“Squeaky was back in the crowd, maybe one person back, and she had an ankle holster on with a .45,” he said, referring to a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol. “That’s a big gun to have on your ankle. So, when it came up, it came up low, and I happened to be looking in that direction, I see it coming, and I step in front of him, not sure what it was other than that it was coming up pretty fast, and yelled out ‘Gun!’ When I yelled out ‘Gun!’ I popped that .45 out of her hand.”
He added: “I got a hold of her fingers, and she’s screaming — the crowd is screaming — and I’m thinking, ‘I don’t have a vest on, I don’t know where the next shot is coming from,’ and that I don’t think she’s alone. All of this is going on while I’m trying to control her.”
“She turns around, and I pulled her arm back and dropped her to the ground, and agents and police come from the back of the crowd” as Ms. Fromme shrieked in disbelief, he said.
“She’s screaming, ‘It didn’t go off!’” he continued. “I had it in my hand. I knew what she was doing, she was pulling back on the slide, and I hit the slide before she could chamber a round. If she’d had a round chambered, I couldn’t have been there in time. It would’ve gone through me and the president.”
If the Times account is to be trusted, she had four rounds in the magazine and the hammer cocked, but she hadn’t chambered a round.
Kevin Drum, leftist political blogger.
Alan K. Simpson, former Republican senator from Wyoming.
Raul M. Grijalva, current Democratic House rep from Arizona.
Happy Pi Day!
March 14th, 2025I’m sorry that today’s post is short and perfunctory. A confluence of events (Lent, eye doctor appointment, getting both eyes dialated) has left me unable to celebrate the day in the way I would like.
For those of you who are celebrating, please celebrate responsibly. Don’t contact your local math department saying you’ve squared the circle.