Vikki Dougan had a brief moment of fame in the late 1950s, mostly because of the backless dresses she wore.
But she quickly disappeared.
Now. in the Internet age, she’s been rediscovered.
(Subject line hattip, which is the first thing I thought of when I read this article. You should really pay the writer and find this story somewhere. Unfortunately, I can’t find a Kindle-based collection or a reasonably cheap physical collection containing this story on Amazon.)
Another one of my half-baked book ideas is a book on this subject.
What do I mean by this? What I’m thinking about is: businesses that are built on, and depend on, another business to exist, and would not exist without that business.
The first time I started thinking about this was in the early days of widespread Internet adoption, and specifically in the context of eBay. There were several businesses that sprung up in the early days: escrow services, payment processors, and even places where you could take your stuff. In the days before digital cameras and fast Internet access being common, it was often easier to take your items to somebody’s storefront: they’d list the items for you on eBay, handle shipping and receive payment, and take a cut of your proceeds, as well as an upfront fee for the listing. (At least, I assume that was how it worked: I never actually used any of those services.)
Zynga is perhaps another good example of this, but with a twist. They were, at one point, massively tied to Facebook:
But Facebook ended that “special relationship”, and Zynga’s pivoted towards mobile gaming. Though I’ve never used Facebook, I almost want to argue (based on what I’ve heard from others) that Zynga’s games were more “parasitic” than “symbiotic”, in the sense that they possibly did some damage to Facebook and drove people away.
Which raises the question: are app developers in a symbiotic economy? Arguably, they wouldn’t exist without the Google and Apple app stores, and it’s easy for a change in policy, or a change in operating system, to wipe out a specific app. At least with Android, you (theoretically) have the option to “sideload” your app. On the other hand, eliminating third-party apps would hurt the stores as much, or more, as it would hurt the developers.
I’m not sure what the conclusion, or overarching theme, of this book would be. Other than: if you’re going to put all your eggs in one basket (like Facebook) watch that basket. And have a Plan B. And a Plan C.
What brings this to mind? Two fairly recent articles:
1. There’s this device called “Kytch”. It is targeted at a highly specific market: McDonald’s franchises. The Kytch device sits inside the notoriously finicky and often broken McD’s soft-serve and milkshake machines, connects to WiFi, and provides enhanced diagnostic information on what exactly has gone wrong with the machine.
McD’s corporate is not entirely happy with this idea, though apparently lots of the franchises who have used Kytch like it.
…
Another franchisee’s technician told me that, despite Kytch nearly doubling its prices over the past two years and adding a $250 activation fee, it still saves their owner “easily thousands of dollars a month.”
McD Truth confides that Kytch still rarely manages to prevent their ice cream machines from breaking. But before they used Kytch, their restaurants’ harried staff wouldn’t even notify them nine out of 10 times when the ice cream machine was down. Now, at the very least, they get an email alert with a diagnosis of the problem. “That is the luxury,” McD Truth writes. “Kytch is a very good device.”
2. Sports cards are big business. I think everyone knows this, even if you don’t follow sports or collect cards.
The big dog in the business is Professional Sports Authenticator. They do condition grading and authentication of cards.
Putting it into my own terms, it is kind of like having a history letter from Smith and Wesson: at the very least, having a letter will probably pay for itself if you ever go to sell your gun. If you hit the lottery – if you find out your gun was shipped to someone like Annie Oakley – your $300 gun might become a $50,000 gun.
(On a side note: $300 for a .22/32 Heavy Frame Target? This guy got a screaming deal, and it would have been one even if it wasn’t Annie Oakley’s gun.)
But I digress. As the big dog in grading and authentication, PSA was doing a land office business. Business, as a matter of fact, was too good:
So, effective March 30th, PSA suspended most of their grading services.
Uh, didn’t the Post Office kind of do that this past Christmas? (Okay, not really, but it did seem like they were coming close.)
PSA is still going to process their backlog, and hopes to resume service by July 1st. And there are other authentication and grading services, but none with the level of acceptance and prestige that PSA has. And the people with cards sitting in backlog have issues, too:
Who?
As interesting as I find this story, I have a lot of trouble shedding any tears for Ja Morant Guy.
I went back and forth on posting this, even though Lawrence sent me the obit from the Las Vegas paper. But what pushed me into posting this was that the NYT obit was from Margalit Fox, and she clearly had some fun writing it.
…
Playing burlesque stages in New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, the Bay Area, London and elsewhere, she was reported to earn $100,000 a year in the mid-1950s (the equivalent of about $950,000 today). Her breasts were said to be insured with Lloyd’s of London for $1 million. “Tempest in a D-Cup,” the headlines called her; “The Girl Who Goes 3-D Two Better.”
Visiting the University of Colorado in 1955, Ms. Storm precipitated a riot among eager male students that caused hundreds of dollars’ worth of damage — by doing nothing more than removing her mink coat.
…
Along the way she acquired four husbands and many lovers, among whom she said were John F. Kennedy (“He was a great man in everything he did,” she said) and Elvis Presley (“He really was the King”), while losing, night after night, her mink, gloves, gown, pearls and hat — though retaining her G-string and fishnet bra, and with them her virtue.
“I think taking off all your clothes — and I’ve never taken off all my clothes — is not only immoral but boring,” Ms. Storm told The Wall Street Journal in 1969. “There has to be something left to the imagination. If you take everything off, you please a few morons and chase all the nice people away.”
Peter Warner, sailor. You probably never heard of him, but his story is fascinating.
Especially the part about the shipwrecked boys.
The story of the 1966 rescue, which made Mr. Warner a celebrity in Australia, began during a return sail from Nuku’alofa, the capital of Tonga, where he and his crew had unsuccessfully requested the right to fish in the country’s waters. Casually casting his binoculars at a nearby uninhabited island, ‘Ata, he noticed a burned patch of ground.
“I thought, that’s strange that a fire should start in the tropics on an uninhabited island,” he said in a 2020 video interview. “So we decided to investigate further.”
As they approached, they saw a naked teenage boy rushing into the water toward them; five more quickly followed. Recalling that some island nations imprisoned convicts on islands like ‘Ata, he told his crew to load their rifles.
But when the boy, Tevita Fatai Latu, who also went by the name Stephen, reached the boat, he told Mr. Warner that he and his friends had been stranded for more than a year, living off the land and trying to signal for help from passing ships.
Mr. Warner, still skeptical, radioed Nuku’alofa.
“After 20 minutes,” he said, “a very tearful operator came on the radio, and then amongst tears he said: ‘It’s true. These boys had been given up for dead. Funerals have been held. And now you have found them.’”
The boys had been shipwrecked for 15 months.
At first the boys lived off raw fish, coconuts and birds’ eggs. After about three months, they found the ruins of a village, and their fortunes improved — among the rubble they discovered a machete, domesticated taro plants and a flock of chickens descended from the ones left behind by the previous inhabitants. They also managed to start a fire, which they kept burning for the rest of their stay.
They built a makeshift settlement, with a thatched-roof hut, a garden and, for recreation, a badminton court and an open-air gymnasium, complete with a bench press. One of the boys, Kolo Fekitoa, fashioned a guitar out of debris from the boat, and they began and ended every day with songs and prayer.
They established a strict duty roster, rotating among resting, gathering food and watching for ships. If a fight broke out, the antagonists had to walk to opposite ends of the island and return, ideally having cooled off. When Stephen broke his leg, the others fashioned a splint; his leg healed perfectly.
Mr. Warner was 90.
For the record, NYT obits for Felix Silla and Richard Rush.
Travel Thursday!
How about a trip on a defunct airline to a country that no longer exists?
“Flight to Ceylon”, from TWA at some point in the 1950s. You would know Ceylon better today as Sri Lanka.
Bonus #1: “Norway-Denmark”. This is one of those military orientation films, for personnel stationed in those countries, and dates to 1951.
Bonus #2: “Next exit, Stuckey’s”.
I always kind of liked Stuckey’s. The last time I was in one was maybe 10 or 12 years ago: there are still a few in the general East Texas area.
I also suspect that there’s a reason why “Buc-ees” sounds a lot like “Stuckey’s”, and why there seem to be things in common between the two.
Today’s stupid, broken IOT device: the Cosori Smart Air Fryer.
You know, I could almost do a day of great TV theme songs from the ‘Tube. I don’t think I’m going to, but I could…
But today: “Pattern For Progress”, “…which shows how machines increase the power of farming operations, therefore increasing production and revenue.” This is a product of the Ethyl Corporation and Esso.
Bonus #1: I’ve never heard of “Combat Dealers” before. It might be on Quest TV. It might also need subtitles.
I’ve noted before that I think an old VW Thing would be fun to hack around in, if I could afford one. Someone a while back recommended a used Jeep Cherokee as another fun hacking around car.
So: “American Jeep Vs German Kubelwagen”. Neither of these is exactly a Cherokee or a Thing, but they’re kind of within shouting distance.
Bonus #2: I’m actually going to link to an entire playlist here, for bookmarking purposes and because I can’t pick just one.
There’s a guy named Felix Immler who has a channel devoted to pocket knives. Of special interest to me: his “Victorinox customize & maintenance Workshop” and “Victorinox uses and techniques“.
These are fairly short, but there are a bunch of them. Just to give you a taste: “4 Special Tricks with the Victorinox Toothpick” that don’t involve picking your teeth with it.
He had a fascinating career, which is detailed to some extent in his Wikipedia entry.
One little known fact: he was working on a “Batman” musical. A stage musical, not a movie musical. But there were plans for Tim Burton to direct.
I think a musical interlude is fitting here.
Monte Hellman, director. We haven’t seen “Two Lane Blacktop” yet, but we have watched “Cockfighter”. I can really only recommend that one to fans of Charles Willeford, but it seems like there are a lot of those folks out there…
Today’s my birthday, so I’m queuing this up in advance. I thought I’d try to do something a little different today, maybe go back to some things I haven’t done in a while.
Like trains.
“Last of the Giants”. This appears to be a Union Pacific documentary about their “Big Boy” steam locomotives, which they operated in “revenue service” until 1959. UP still operates one “Big Boy” and one “800 Series” locomotive for promotional purposes.
Interestingly, the “Big Boy” has actually been converted to run on oil:
Bonus: Do you like people speaking with Russian accents? Do you like Zippos? I like Zippos. Most of the time, I can take or leave Russian accents.
By way of “CrazyRussianHacker“, “7 Zippo Gadgets You Did NOT Know Exist”.
It doesn’t (generally) get that cold in Texas, but I kind of want one of those Zippo hand warmers anyway. I remember my dad used to have something similar kicking around, but he didn’t use it much in my memory, because it doesn’t (generally) get that cold in Texas. There have been some New Year’s Eve’s when we’ve been setting off fireworks, though…
Bonus #2: Here’s a bit of a time capsule for you. It could also fall under “Travel Thursday”, but I’m not putting it there for two reasons. One, this is different.
The “Museum of Automata” in York. Apparently, this was filmed sometime in the 1990s.
Reason number two is that, sadly, from what I’ve found on the Internet, the museum closed quite a while ago.
Bonus #3: I will freely admit, I am posting this one to tweak someone who says “‘Godzilla vs. Kong’ f–king ruled!” (My own personal opinion: the monster fight scenes were pretty good. Unfortunately, there was an excess of humans and human interaction in the movie, and I really didn’t like any of the humans. The kaiju film that would “f–king rule” for me would be the monster equivalent of “The Raid: Redemption”: maybe two minutes of introductory setup, two minutes of epilogue, and 116 minutes of giant monsters fighting.)
Anyway, C.W. Lemoine ruins the first fight scene from “Godzilla vs. Kong”.
To be honest, I thought the movie looked a lot better on the screen at the Alamo than it does in this video. Also, to be fair, it is just a TV show movie: I should really just relax.
Edited to add 4/20: Hand to God, I had no idea Lawrence was even working on this, much less planning to post it today.
Bonus #4: I see a lot of folks talking about minimizing their lifestyle, and stripping away almost everything to the point where they can live almost completely out of a van. (I see very few of these folks who have toilets in their vans: apparently, when they need a bathroom, they find one at a gym, gas station, store, or other place of public accommodation. But I digress.)
Have you ever listened to these folks talk, or read any of their praises for van life, and asked yourself, “Self, what do these people do when it is -20 degrees? -20 Communist Centigrade degrees, too, not -4 American Fahrenheit degrees.” (See, by converting from Centigrade to Fahrenheit, you’ve already made yourself feel warmer. If you go a step beyond and convert to 455 degrees Rankine, you’ll probably give yourself heat stroke.)
Well, here you go.
Bonus #5: Okay, I know I’m posting a lot of stuff today. Consider this a present on my birthday to you, my loyal readers.
Have you ever asked yourself, while stoned on your couch, “Self, what ever happened to all those paintings Bob Ross painted?”
I’m going to guess: probably not, because I don’t think most of you are stoners. But just in case, the NYT (who probably are a bunch of stoners, judging from some of the crazy (stuff) they publish these days) investigated. Here’s what they found.
For the historical record, and because Lawrence has already posted: Walter Mondale. WP.
Military History Monday!
This is a little shorter than I usually do for MHM, but it is also higher quality, and I thought it was kind of interesting: “Russian Undersea Cable Recon”. I’ve heard a fair amount about US undersea cable recon, but very little about the other side’s activities.
Bonus: since that was short, I’m going to share something a little longer that I’ve been holding in reserve: “The Science Of Spying”.
This dates to 1965, and is narrated by John Chancellor.
Marie Supikova has passed on at 88.
She was one of a small number of survivors of Lidice.
Mrs. Supikova was 10 when Nazi forces arrived in Lidice, a village of about 500, on June 9, 1942. They were bent on avenging an attack by Czech parachutists on Reinhard Heydrich, a principal architect of the “final solution,” the Nazis’ plan to annihilate the Jewish people, which led to his death on June 4.
Looking to eradicate Lidice (LID-it-seh), the Nazis destroyed all the village’s buildings. They killed nearly 200 men, including Mrs. Supikova’s father, by a firing squad against a barn wall cushioned by mattresses. The women, including Mrs. Supikova’s mother, were sent to the Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany.
…
While there, she was one of seven children chosen because of their appearance to be re-educated as Germans (the others were sent to gas chambers). They were moved to a school near Poznan, Poland, where they stayed for about a year until they were adopted by German couples.
Her new parents, Alfred and Ilsa Schiller, gave Marie a new name, Ingeborg Schiller, and a tiny room behind the kitchen in their home in Poznan. In an article in The New Yorker in 1948, Mrs. Supikova recalled that the Schillers had argued about her presence in the household.
“You and your Party friends!” she quoted Mrs. Schiller saying. “Why did they pick you to take this girl?” Mr. Schiller, she said, shouted back, “They have ordered us to make a German woman out of her and we are going to do it.”
After the war, she was reunited with her mother, who was dying of TB. (Her brother was also executed by the Nazis.)
…
Before Mrs. Supikova’s mother died, she took her daughter to the ruins of Lidice.
“She told Marie, ‘We’re going to see your father,’” said Elizabeth Clark, a retired journalism lecturer at Texas State University, San Marcos, who is writing about Lidice for a faculty writing project. “Marie didn’t understand at first that they were going to the mass grave where he had been buried.”
Rusty Young, one of the founding members of Poco. I feel like I’m giving him short shrift, and perhaps tim will weigh in on this one. Poco was just a little before my time.
Catching up on a couple from the past few days when I’ve been tied up: Helen McCrory, “Harry Potter” and “Peaky Blinders” actress. She also did quite a bit of work in British theater.
Felix Silla. He was “Cousin Itt” on “The Adams Family”, and (as I understand it) played the physical role of “Twiki” on “Buck Rodgers in the 25th Century”. (Mel Blanc did the voice.)
1. There was a 1989 movie called “Return From the River Kwai”.
It was not a sequel. Really. That’s what the filmmakers said. It was supposedly based on a book of the same name.
Columbia pulled out of a distribution contract after Sony bought them, and claimed Sam Spiegel’s estate threatened to sue. The filmmakers claimed Columbia pulled out because the movie made the Japanese look bad, and, anyway, Columbia owned the rights, not Spiegel’s estate.
There was a lawsuit.
The case went to trial in 1997. Columbia argued that “if you use a name and it becomes famous you are able to use it in a certain area of commerce, such as the exclusive use of River Kwai in the title of a film. It does not matter where Pierre Boulle got the name.”
In 1998 a court ruled that the title suggested the film implied it was a sequel to Bridge on the River Kwai. It was never released in the US.
Amazon has a region 2 DVD listed.
2. Remember “Hands on a Hardbody”? Remember “Hands on a Hardbody: The Musical”?
Obviously, I knew about this. The subject came up again over the weekend as part of a discussion with Mike the Musicologist about Broadway being out of ideas, and the sheer number of recent musicals based on movies.
What I did not know: Houston’s “Theater Under the Stars” (TUTS) tried to stage a production of “HoH” in 2014. Thing is, the director of the production decided that he was going to make changes:
Having attended the opening night of Hardbody at [Bruce] Lumpkin’s [director – DB] invitation, [Amanda] Green [co-creator – DB] described to me her experience in watching the show. “They started the opening number and I noticed that some people were singing solos other than what we’d assigned. As we neared the middle of the opening number, I thought, ‘what happened to the middle section?’” She said that musical material for Norma, the religious woman in the story, “was gone.”
When the second song began, Green recalls being surprised, saying, “I thought, ‘so we did put this number second after all’ before realizing that we hadn’t done that.” As the act continued, Green said, “I kept waiting for ‘If I Had A Truck’ and it didn’t come.” She went on to detail a litany of ways in which the show in Houston differed from the final Broadway show, including reassigning vocal material to different characters within songs, and especially the shifting of songs from one act to another, which had the effect of removing some characters from the story earlier than before. She also said that interstitial music between scenes had been removed and replaced with new material. Having heard Green’s point by point recounting of act one changes, I suggested we could dispense with the same for act two.
This upset a lot of people. Including Amanda Green and Doug Wright, the other creator. It also upset Samuel French, the theatrical agency that licensed the show.
So Samuel French pulled the plug. They withdrew their license and TUTS was forced to cancel the remaining shows.
That’s what i didn’t know, and honestly, was surprised by. I thought it was extremely rare for a licensing agency to go to that length: then again, I also thought it was extremely rare for a professional theater company to make those kind of production changes without permission of the licensing agency.
I’m still not sure how common this is, but someone in one of the linked articles above mentions a production of David Mamet’s “Oleanna” which was shut down after one performance because the theater company gender-swapped a key role. This may be more common, and less newsworthy, than I think it is. But I still find it surprising that professional productions think nobody’s watching and they can do this (stuff).
Science Sunday!
It seems like it has been a while since I’ve done anything computer or computer history related. How about something from General Electric? Specifically the “Heavy Military Electronics Department”?
“Systems That Look Ahead”, a 1960s promo video on the virtues of computer information processing.
Honestly, I’m just fascinated by the idea of the “Heavy Military Electronics Department”. Was there a “Light Military Electronics Department”?
Bonus #1: They call economics the “dismal science”, right? Actually, this sits kind of at the interesection.
“Economics of Nuclear Reactor”, with our old friend Illinois EnergyProf.
Bonus #2: Periscope Films has put up some more educational videos from Shell Oil. This is actually one that they posted a while back from the 1970s that’s in color: “How an Airplane Flies: Part 1, Weight and Lift” and “Part 2: Thrust and Drag”.
I thought I’d put this up, mostly as a nod to Lawrence, and because I found it mildly amusing: “Top 5 Hilariously Bad Carry Guns” from TFB TV.
I could almost see carrying a cap and ball gun. Something like a reproduction Walker Colt would be retro cool, and pack a significant punch. Then again, I’m the guy who is thinking about getting a shoulder holster for his XP-100, so what do I know about hilariously bad carry guns?
Bonus #1: What does a flight medic carry?
Bonus #2: “The Impossible Micro Survival Kit”. I’ve been fascinated by survival kits since I was very, very young, and I like the idea of one that can fit into an Altoids tin. If I was doing this, though, I might split the first aid and the survival components out. If you wear Internet pants, you should be able to throw both into the pockets. Or you could fit both into a fanny pack.
Bonus #3: Les Stroud on survival kits.
Phone Phriday!
Okay. I’m not sure I’m going to actually make that a thing.
But for today, how about some more vintage fun from the AT&T Tech Channel?
“The Astonishing, Unfailing Bell System” from 1967.
Bonus #1: I’m sure some of my readers – the younger ones – may be asking the question “What is this ‘Bell System’ you keep going on about?”
“What is the Bell System?” from 1976.
Bonus #2: If you haven’t had enough nostalgia already, this might do it for you.
“AMPS: Coming Of Age” from 1979. This is about the early mobile phone network:
This is the only one of the three with an intro, and the only one where I’ve set it to start after the intro.
I spent far too much time last night reading about celebrity perfumes.
But that wasn’t what I did not know. What I did not know was:
Travel Thursday!
Continuing our tour of the United States, let’s visit Wisconsin! More specifically, let’s visit a place I’d really like to see, and hope to one day soon: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin.
Bonus: This is a historical oddity that I confess I haven’t watched all of yet, but am bookmarking here.
“Ridin’ the Dog” is a documentary from 1989 about taking Greyhound from Seattle to Chicago. The extra historical oddity here is: Studs Terkel narrates.
I want to wish everyone a happy National Buy a Gun Day today.
I’ve been kind of playing it down this year because, frankly, try finding a gun to buy in today’s environment. I encourage you to shop (since BAG day falls in the middle of the week, you can have through the weekend) but really, good luck.
As for myself, Mike the Musicologist and I plan to do some gun shopping over the weekend. But unless I find something extremely compelling, my plan for this year is to put more money into improvements and updates to my existing guns.
Also, Midway is offering me a screaming birthday deal on a chronograph with Bluetooth that I may just have to take advantage of…
Frank Jacobs, one of the old time “Mad” magazine guys.
…
When you’re a Red
You’re a Red all the way
From your first Party purge
To your last power play!
When you’re a Red,
You’ve got agents galore;
You give prizes for peace
While they stir up a war.
John Naisbitt, Megatrends guy.
Finally, Burt Pugach died on Christmas Eve last year, though his death was not widely reported until now.
I wrote a little about this case when his wife died, but that was a long time ago. In brief: Mr. Pugach was married, and carrying on an affair with Linda Riss. She found out he was married and broke it off. He wasn’t having any of that and continued to pursue her.
Finally, he hired thugs – he claims to “beat her up”. The thugs threw lye in her face and left her blind. Mr. Pugach was disbarred, his wife divorced him, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison, released after 14 years…
…and after being released, he married Linda Riss, and they stayed married until her death in 2013.
Mr. Pugach left a legacy of recriminations and legal challenges over changes in his will that left a majority of his $18 million in assets to his caregiver. The latest version of the will disinherited several friends and reduced a planned bequest to the foundation for the visually impaired that he had established to honor his wife, Linda Riss Pugach, who died in 2013.
His assets have been frozen while the challenges are adjudicated, said Peter S. Thomas, a lawyer for the foundation, and Peter Gordon, who had drafted earlier versions of Mr. Pugach’s will. Those earlier versions had provided about $10 million for the foundation and roughly $5 million for Shamin Frawley, the 52-year-old caregiver with whom Mr. Pugach (pronounced POO-gash) had been living in Flushing since last year.
Two quasi-general aviation themed videos today.
First up, from AVWeb: “Why Aircraft Engines Quit”.
Spoiler: I may just be naive, or not terribly smart, but I was frankly surprised that 29% of the time, the answer is “Dunno”.
This one is longer, but I wanted to put it up for two reasons: both McThag and I wrote about the Snowbirds accident when it happened, so I wanted to follow up here.
The second reason is, while the accident report has been released, the full report is apparently not available on the Internet: only the “Epilogue” to the report, which I am linking here.
C.W. Lemoine posted his analysis of the report, which is about 45 minutes long, and which I have not had a chance to watch all the way through yet. He did manage to get a copy of the full report.
If you want to skip to his summary of the findings, it starts at about 33:16.
Ray Lambert, another Amercian badass, has passed away at 100.
A native of Alabama, Staff Sgt. Lambert was leading a unit of medics with the Second Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment, part of the Army’s First Division. He had taken part in the invasions of North Africa and Sicily and had already earned three Purple Hearts and two Silver Stars before his war came to an end on the morning of June 6, 1944, on Omaha Beach.
He was in the first wave of Allied forces as they crossed the English Channel and stormed German defenses strung along the coast of northern France, beginning the long offensive that would culminate in Germany’s defeat. His brother Bill, also a medic, was with him.
In heavy surf, Ray Lambert was helping a wounded soldier when a landing craft’s ramp dropped on him, pushing him to the bottom. The water was deep as the medics scrambled off the craft.
“When we went under the water, they had barbed wire and you had to try to get through that,” Mr. Lambert said in an interview in 2019 with the American Homefront Project, a public radio effort, “and there were mines tied to that. So we had a lot of guys get tangled up. A lot of the underwater mines went off and killed some guys.”
But he made his way to the beach to tend to the wounded, amid withering fire from German bunkers above.
At one point he scanned the beach for something behind which he could safely treat the wounded. He spotted a lump of leftover German concrete, about eight feet wide and four feet high.
“It was my salvation,” he said. (A plaque installed in 2018 recognizes the concrete as “Ray’s Rock.”)
“Again and again, Ray ran back into the water,” President Trump told a crowd gathered for the ceremony at the Normandy American Cemetery, on a bluff overlooking the beach. “He dragged out one man after another. He was shot through the arm. His leg was ripped open by shrapnel. His back was broken. He nearly drowned.”
As Mr. Trump spoke, Mr. Lambert sat behind him wearing a purple “D-Day Survivor” cap. At the end of his speech, the president turned to him and said, “Ray, the free world salutes you.”
Only seven of the 31 soldiers on Mr. Lambert’s landing craft survived. He and his brother, who was also badly wounded, were hospitalized in England.
Mary Ellen Moylan, early and influential ballet dancer who worked with George Balanchine. Noted here because this is one of those odd ones: she actually died almost a year ago, but her passing went unnoticed until recently.
Lee Aaker. This is a sad one. He was a child actor: he played “Rusty” on “The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin”, and appeared in “Hondo” and “The Atomic City”, among other credits. His last one in IMDB was an episode of “The Lucy Show” in 1963, when he was 20.
Aaker had suffered a stroke and died April 1 near Mesa, Arizona, Paul Petersen, the former Donna Reed Show star who serves as an advocate for former child actors, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Aaker had battled drug and alcohol abuse during this life and was alone with one “surviving relative that could not help him,” Petersen said, adding that Aaker’s death certificate lists him as an “indigent decedent.”
For Petersen, it marked another sad end to the life of a Hollywood child actor. “You are around just to please everyone,” he said, “and when there’s nothing left, they are done with you.”
Lawrence sent over an obit from ZeroHedge, and the NYT now has it as breaking news: Bernie Madoff is burning in Hell.
I’ve written a lot previously about the LA County Sheriff’s Department (motto: “dumber than a bag of hair“). But not in a while: I haven’t been following the LAT as much, as it is basically unreadable unless you pay for it.
This came across Hacker News, however, and is a Justice Department press release, so I can cover it here.
Marc Antrim, who used to be a LACSD deputy, was sentenced to 84 months in federal prison on Monday.
Why? He conspired to rob a marijuana warehouse.
I love “conspiracy to deprive rights under color of law” and “deprivation of rights under color of law”. Those are two of my favorite charges in the Federal system.
More details:
During the early morning hours of October 29, 2018, Antrim and his co-conspirators dressed as armed LASD deputies and approached the warehouse in an LASD Ford Explorer. Upon arrival, Antrim flashed his LASD badge and a fake search warrant to the security guards to gain entry to the warehouse. To perpetuate the ruse that they were legitimate law enforcement officers, Antrim and two fake deputies sported LASD clothing, wore duty belts, and carried firearms. One fake deputy also visibly carried a long gun to further intimidate the guards into submission.
At the beginning of the two-hour robbery, Antrim and his co-conspirators detained the three warehouse security guards in the cage of the LASD Ford Explorer. Soon after the guards were detained, a fourth man arrived at the warehouse in a large rental truck, and all four men began loading marijuana into the truck.
When Los Angeles Police Department officers legitimately responded to a call for service at the warehouse during the robbery, Antrim falsely told the LAPD officers that he was an LASD narcotics deputy conducting a legitimate search. To facilitate the sham, Antrim handed his phone to one of the LAPD officers so that the police officer could speak to someone on the phone claiming to be Antrim’s LASD sergeant. The individual on the phone was not Antrim’s sergeant, and Antrim did not have a legitimate search warrant for the warehouse.
…
Six other people have been convicted and sentenced, including the ever-popular “disgruntled warehouse employee” who is serving 14 years. Former deputy Antrim testified at his trial, which is one reason why he only got seven years.
The big question in my mind: when is the movie coming out, and who’s going to play former deputy Antrim?
Two recent stories from the Statesman that I find interesting, but haven’t sorted out yet. So they’re noted here with minimal comment.
1. The Pflugerville Police Department (Pflugerville is a small-ish suburb of Austin) hired a new chief in 2017. She left in February and got a six-figure payout (including unused sick leave and vacation time).
Did she leave because she was a Hispanic lesbian (that’s an actual statement from the article) fighting a “good old boy” system?
As an example, Robledo pointed to complaints by Alicia Fitzpatrick, a patrol officer since 2019, who accused a small group of officers in the Police Department of targeting and undermining her professional credibility to prevent her from being selected for specialized assignments.
Fitzpatrick similarly said that a good ol’ boy network dominated the department and that the network complains that female officers receive preferential treatment for promotions and are not subjected to the same disciplinary consequences as their male counterparts. She said the same “subculture” had an agenda to remove Robledo as chief, according to written reports.
In response, the city manager hired an outside investigator, the Austin Institute, to evaluate the department’s workplace culture. The institute’s December 2020 report was not made public but was recently obtained by the Statesman. The investigation confirmed that the subculture Fitzpatrick described exists within the Police Department.
“Given the voluminous amount of evidence that supports a finding of hostile work environment, gender bias and discrimination by Sgt. (Tyler) Summers, Sgt. (Richard) Thomas, Sgt. (Nathan) Hubel, Cpl. (Mark) Neff and Dispatcher (Alana) Kamp in targeting Officer Alicia Fitzpatrick … comparable misconduct, atrocious judgement, and behavior at such an unacceptable level has serious consequences in all police departments and should not be tolerated from a Sgt. of the Pflugerville Police Department,” the report said.
Or was she forced out because she was a bad leader?
Two former officers, in interviews with the Statesman, dismissed the notion that the department was unkind to anyone other than white men. Instead, they said Robledo caused the hostile work environment with her style of leadership and said she destroyed the careers of some of its longtime employees.
Reiff, who was not involved in either investigative report, said he received a dishonorable discharge after a 22-year career as an officer. In his dealings with the chief, he said, she often belittled officers and behaved with hostility toward them if they questioned policy changes, even if they were only seeking to clarify her new rules.
“I can attest to it personally when I was once working a homicide. She came into the conference room and the investigations division and told us, ‘Don’t f— this up,’” Reiff said. “You’re the chief of police. What do you think saying something like that does to everybody?”
He said the morale in the Police Department was so low and the stress so constant under Robledo that it was common for the officers to discuss how they did not feel comfortable.
“Nobody wanted to come to work. Everybody would have rather been off or was looking to get out,” Reiff said. “When she would get angry, she’d always say it was her passion coming through. But if another officer demonstrated the same type of behavior she did, it was a problem. Someone being afraid isn’t pushing someone to do better. She was a bully, and she hid behind her authority to push people around.”
2. Millie Thompson was elected as a County Court of Law judge in Hays County last fall.
Now she’s suing the other two judges.
Apparently, she wants her own court coordinator, specifically for her court, rather than court coordinators being appointed by (and answering to) the court as a whole.
The employee whom Thompson attempted to fire — Chris Perez — is one of two court administrators who wrote to human resources to report that they were victims of a hostile work environment under Thompson, according to documents the American-Statesman obtained via an open records request.
“I love my job and the people that I work for and with,” Perez wrote in the email to HR. “However, the stress of this situation — and that includes the fact the Judge Thompson’s actions have already led to the resignation of two extremely valuable employees as well as the retirement of a 30+ year veteran employee of this office — is causing me extreme anxiety.”
Closed records on personnel matters make it unclear which employees have resigned since Thompson took office.
Thompson attempted to fire Perez because of a docket scheduling issue, Perez told the Hays Free Press/News-Dispatch. Thompson missed a hearing because she was unaware of it. Perez emailed Thompson about the hearing, and it was listed on the judges’ calendar.
However, Thompson’s attorney, George Lobb, said Perez didn’t make enough attempts to communicate that schedule to her.
For what it may be worth (I’m trying to be objective and honest here) Judge Thompson is a Democrat, and the other two judges are Republican.
Richard Rush, film director.
He doesn’t have a lot of IMDB credits, but two significant ones: “Freebie and the Bean”, which I’ve seen described as “the first buddy cop movie” (citation needed), and “The Stunt Man” (which I remember as being a very good movie I’d love to watch again).
He also directed “Color of Night”, which I have heard is a completely ridiculous film with Bruce Wills full frontal nudity.
I started out doing police training videos, but those have become thin on the ground. So when a new one shows up in my feed it is a cause for celebration.
Especially this one. I believe it is called “Out Numbered” and dates to 1968 according to the notes. Those same notes also point out that it features “Martin Milner of Adam 12 Fame”.
I want to point out that, while a lot of people knew Mr. Milner best from “Adam-12” (and I include myself in that category) he had a much broader and more interesting career beyond one cop show: “Route 66”, “Sweet Smell of Success”, both “Dragnet”s (the 1950s one and the late 1960s-early 1970s one)…
Bonus #1: totally unrelated to police work, but something I found kind of cool. This is a vintage (1969, maybe) promo film by Canadair for their CL-215 water bomber.
Bonus #2: “Testing a $600 survival tool”.
$600? At that price, not only should it include a tent, but it had better be setting up that tent for me automatically. And making me breakfast in the morning and dinner at night.