Reverend John J. Hunter’s defamation lawsuit has been dismissed.
I’ve written about this previously. In brief, Rev. Hunter was the former pastor of the very large and influential First AME church, but was removed from that post and sent over to the Bethel AME church, which didn’t want him either.
Earlier today, I was thinking to myself:
Well, I was wrong wrong wrongity wrong!
Wade Philips will be the interim coach. And Case Keenum will be the starting quarterback for the remainder of the season.
Analysis of Kubiak’s years here must include yin and yang, as his run with the Texans will be remembered for successes and failures. Triumphs and defeats. Ups and downs.
Mathematically, in fact, there is almost an equal number of each.
Unfortunately for him, mediocrity was the standard.
Kubiak’s overall record with the Texans was 61-64.
Edited to add: The team also fired Joe Marciano, special teams coordinator “who had been with the organization since its inception in 2002”.
The other one has dropped. (Previously.)
(I know, this is really inside Austin, and even more, inside Austin radio. But it was the subject of some discussion among my family. Also, there’s just really not a lot going on.)
(Edited to add: my brother forwarded a Statesman blog entry that you don’t have to pay to read. Some quotes:
…
Thank you for giving actual ratings figures.
The decision to discontinue the Mix 94.7 morning show comes during the station’s annual Bikes for Kids campaign, which raises money each year to buy bikes for hundreds of needy Central Texas children.
Bikes for Kids will go on without Hager and McIlree, Entercom officials said.
“Bikes for Kids remains a part of the fabric of our station,” Thomas said. “It will absolutely continue.”
)
(I haven’t linked to Mandela obits because I figure, at this point, they’ve crossed over into “you can’t avoid them” territory.)
(Edited to add: if you’re really craving something swell to read, try the thoughtful comment by lelnet on this week’s “TMQ Watch”.)
Instead of a musical interlude, or random snark, we’ve decided this week to bring you something we hope you’ll really like: an interview with Gregg Easterbrook about The King of Sports: Football’s Impact on America
After the jump, this week’s TMQ…
The latest entry into the pantheon of architectural and historic landmarks?
The very first location of Der Wienerschnitzel.
Now I’m kind of hungry.
Obit watch: William Stevenson, most famous as the author of A Man Called Intrepid
(I remember Intrepid being all over the place when I was growing up. Oddly, given my interests at the time, I never got around to reading it.)
Also among the dead: noted Texas historian and author T.R. Fehrenbach.
Trial update #1: Pavel Dmitrichenko has been convicted in the acid attack on Bolshoi Ballet director Sergei Filin. Dmitrichenko was a Bolshoi soloist, who (according to the WP) felt that Fillin was not giving him “the best parts”. He’ll do six years in prison. Yuri Zarutsky, the man who actually threw the acid, will serve 10 years. Andrei Lipatov, the driver, will serve 4.
The three were also ordered to pay 3.5 millions rubles (about $106,000) in damages to Filin.
(Previously.)
Trial update #2: I am keeping an eye on the Bell/Spaccia trial. It went to the jury before Thanksgiving, and, as far as I know, the jury is still deliberating. (There wasn’t much to report towards the end; just the usual “Rizzo did it”.) I suspect the holidays threw things off quite a bit; stay tuned for details as I get them.
Trial update #3: The trial of Manuel Ramos and Jay Cicinelli started yesterday. Ramos and Cicinelli were police officers with the Fullerton police department: they are charged with beating Kelly Thomas to death. (Previously. Graphic image warning.)
It seems to me that the Christmas season doesn’t really kick off here at WCD World Headquarters until we spot this year’s silly Pez dispensers. How can you follow Lord of the Rings or Millard Fillmore?
Would you believe…
From Satan’s personal representatives here on Earth (you young kids may not remember this, but there was a rumor when I was young and KISS was a going concern that “KISS” stood for “Kids In Satan’s Service” or “Knights In Satan’s Service”) to having your own set of Pez dispensers. Rock and roll. What a biz.
(Not really Christmas or Pez related, but in the same “what a biz” vein: if you have a spare $2 million, you can be the new owner of the old Johnny Rotten place in Malibu.)
For the historical record: Paul Walker.
Headline and subhead on the Statesman‘s website:
Holiday quiz time! Test your knowledge of ‘Elf,’ ‘Home Alone’ and more
Last year, we ran a hugely popular quiz from Dale Roe for what might be the greatest holiday movie of all time, “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.”
And that was as far as I got, since:
(Speaking of the holidays, I guess now I can start listening to my favorite Christmas song and get my favorite Christmas book
(Though the less cynical side of me thinks The Annotated Christmas Carol
And speaking of annotated books, I was delighted to learn of this (by way of the Publishers Weekly blog): Undiluted Hocus-Pocus: The Autobiography of Martin Gardner
When I was younger, my family had a subscription to Scientific American, and I loved “Mathematical Games” (though I didn’t really have the mathematical background at the time to follow many of Gardner’s columns). When I was older, I encountered him as a skeptic, in the pages of the Skeptical Inquirer as well as in Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus
And, of course, Gardner memorably annotated a few books: his The Annotated Innocence of Father Brown
Anyway, my point (and I do have one) is that this a very good thing. I’m not sure how many Gardner fans are out there in my audience, and if any of them already knew about this; but if you did know, why didn’t you tell me?
Some thoughtful posts on the FDA and 23andMe: Derek Lowe. Popehat. Overlawyered.
This is how I want Lawrence‘s tax dollars to be spent: safety tips on turkey frying from the Round Rock Fire Department.
All the Vermeers on the Eastern Seaboard.
(There was a period of time when I was going to see a lot of movies at the Dobie Theater here in Austin; this was before the Alamo Drafthouse, and Dobie was the “art” film theater. Anyway, it seemed like every movie I went to see had the trailer for “All the Vermeers in New York” in front of it. Drove me absolutely bugf–k nuts. The trailer was so annoying, it killed any desire I might have had to see the movie.)
Photographer Saul Leiter passed away on Tuesday. I had not heard of Saul Leiter until I started listening to the “On Taking Pictures” podcast (which is my new favorite podcast in the world): Saul Leiter is an obsession of theirs, to the point where he made it into the OTP drinking game.
To be serious, I wish I had found Leiter’s work much earlier. There’s some good stuff over at the NYT Lens blog about him as well.
Over the past few years, we have come to the conclusion that the word “professional” is becoming the most abused word in the English language. “Professional grade” pickup trucks; as a dedicated amateur, can I save a few bucks by purchasing a non-professional grade one? “That’s not professional” has become a commonly used phrase in business; what that really means, as we see it, is “I don’t like it, but if I invoke the word ‘professional’, you can’t argue with me.”
What does this have to do with TMQ? Well, in this week’s edition, after the jump…
….or is the whole “Elf on the Shelf” phenomenon simultaneously stupid and creepy?
“Hi, kids, you’re being watched all the time!” I guess that prepares them for a lifetime of NSA surveillance…
The FDA has told 23andMe to stop selling their DNA interpretation service.
I note this for a couple of reasons:
The Treasure Island casino in Las Vegas is dumping the pirate show. I can remember seeing it (more or less) twice: once in the “original” version, which was more of a straight-forward pirate battle, and once in the “Sirens of TI” incarnation, where the “pirates” included scantily clad young women. Treasure Island is dumping the pirates in favor of more retail space. Sigh.
Questions. So many questions.
Jim over at the Travis McGee Reader made a good point a few days ago: both Aldous Huxley and C.S. Lewis died on this date 50 years ago, but it seems like they got lost in the shuffle. (Although, according to Wikipedia, “In 2013, on the 50th anniversary of his death, Lewis will be honoured with a memorial in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey.” Good.)
(If I was going to have a fantasy dinner party, I’d actually have two: one with C.S. Lewis and G. K. Chesterton. I have a tremendous admiration for both men, and think it would be fascinating to sit and talk with them.)
(The other dinner party would be with Robert Ruark and Peter Hathaway Capstick. And maybe some other folks, too; I’d think I’d also invite Harry Selby and Tam. But I digress.)
And the day before, Robert Stroud passed away. I’d have to go back to the morning papers from the 22nd to see what kind of play Stroud’s death got, but if he got lost in the shuffle, I’d have to say “Good”.
I’m sure I don’t need to tell my readers (all of whom are strong, smart, and if they have children, their kids are all above average) this, but for those who may be coming here for the first time and don’t know: contrary to popular belief and “Birdman of Alcatraz” (both the book and movie), Robert Stroud was a nasty piece of work. Bill James offers a pretty pithy summary in Popular Crime
Stroud, among his other charming qualities, liked to write violent pornography in which he fantasized about abducting, raping, and murdering small children. Alvin (Creepy) Karpis, a famous criminal from the 1930s who was confined with Stroud at Alcatraz, wrote in his account of life on Alcatraz that Stroud talked constantly about raping and killing children, and insisted that he wasn’t bluffing: if he had gotten a chance, he would have done it. This led to a Kafkaesque scene at a parole hearing for Stroud in 1962. Outside the building protestors marched, holding placards demanding the release of the kindly bird doctor portrayed by Burt Lancaster in the movie, while inside the hearing parole officials dealt with a distinctly disturbed old man who mumbled about getting out of prison soon because he had a long list of people he wanted to kill and not much time left to kill them.
(And, yes, Stroud may have been abused by the prison system. Even nasty pieces of work deserve humane treatment and the protection of the law. But between the book by Gaddis
Herbert Mitgang, reporter and editor for the NYT, and author of Dangerous Dossiers