Tweet of the day:
Guy Fawkes’s signature before and after torture. #BonfireNight pic.twitter.com/d9L7Hn3iWZ
— Helen Dale #BOBPTD (@_HelenDale) November 4, 2019
Happy Guy Fawkes Day, folks!
November 5th, 2019Obit watch: November 5, 2019.
November 5th, 2019The part of me that doesn’t really want to acknowledge reality TV stars is outweighed by the part of me that thinks Rudy Boesch deserves acknowledgement for honorable service to his country.
He joined the merchant marine in 1944 and enlisted in the Navy the next year, training in underwater demolition and serving on ships over the next 17 years.
In 1962 he was among the first SEALs, given charge of setting physical fitness and other standards for Team 2.
“Rudy Boesch had a special understanding of his men,” Mr. Watson wrote, “what they did, and why they did it. That is very rare. There was never a man more devoted to the Navy and the SEALs.”
Mr. Boesch served two tours in Vietnam, though he never talked much about what specifically he did in the service. Between the tours he worked and competed with the Navy bobsled team. He retired from the Navy in 1990 as a master chief petty officer.
Also worth noting: the Wikipedia entry on his military career. I don’t want to quote it here because it has a lot of citations, but suffice it to say that are a lot of Boesch stories.
William Gibson, call your office, please.
November 4th, 2019The street finds its own uses for things.
The paper of record would like for you to know that “drones are increasingly being used by criminals across the country“.
Their first example is a guy who was using drones to drop IEDs on his ex-girlfriend’s property.
And they all moved away from him on the Group W bench.
Other examples are more in line with what you’d expect: drug smuggling and voyeurism. Buried in the article is a decent point: the question of who has jurisdiction over drones in flight and what can be done about them is kind of up in the air.
Where have we heard something like this before?
Your loser update; week 9, 2019 (with bonus firings).
November 3rd, 2019NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
Cincinnati (bye week)
NBA teams that still have a chance to go 0-82:
None.
As I expected, the hapless Dolphins apparently acquired at least one hap on the open market during the week, and managed to beat the Jets in Miami. This may screw up their shot at the top draft pick: currently, we have
- The Bengals at 0-8
- Miami at 1-7
- The Jets at 1-7
- Washington at 1-8
- and Atlanta at 1-7
As I said last week, I think Miami has a good chance of at least one more win against the Bengals at home, and maybe wins against the Jets and Giants on the road.
Stat:
“Since Marino’s exit, 21 quarterbacks have started for Miami.”
In firings news, Willie Taggart out as head coach of Florida State after about two seasons. To be exact, 21 games, in which he was 9-12.
According to ESPN:
FSU raised about $20 million in private donations to buy out what was left of Taggart’s contract, sources told ESPN’s Mark Schlabach. However, an FSU official denied that the money was raised for Taggart’s buyout.
Under the terms of Taggart’s six-year, $30 million contract, FSU’s athletic department will owe him 85% of his remaining compensation through Jan. 31, 2024, which is between $17 million and $18 million. The Seminoles also paid Oregon a $3 million buyout when it hired him away from the Ducks in December 2017, as well as the remaining $1.3 million buyout Oregon owed South Florida when it hired him in December 2016.
Also by way of the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network:
If you feel like you’re having a stroke, you’re probably not: this is just German soccer news. (But do remember the FAST mnemonic for strokes: Face, Arms, Speech, Time.)
And now here’s something we hope you really like…
October 30th, 2019A little late on this one, but: Ken Whisenhunt out as offensive coordinator of the worthless Los Angeles Chargers.
The Arena Football League (also apparently known as Arena Football One) has “shut down all local business operations and services for all six of its teams“. I think I speak for everyone here when I say: they were still in business?
The paper of record asks the musical question:
Summary: pretty bad.
And something non-sports related for my people: the Squibb Park Bridge, a pedestrian bridge in Brooklyn, is being demolished and replaced.
Why? Well, the old bridge was designed to be bouncy. Turns out, it was a little too bouncy.
It also was moving in unintended directions. Hilarity (and lawsuits) ensued. And then it turned out the wood was rotting…
Obit watch: October 29, 2019.
October 29th, 2019For the historical record (and as a general matter of policy): Kay Hagan, former Senator from North Carolina.
This is scary:
Robert Evans, noted Hollywood producer and figure. THR. Variety.
He was convicted of cocaine trafficking in 1980, though that conviction was later expunged.
I mentioned this in passing a few weeks ago at movie night, and it didn’t ring any bells with anyone: the “Cotton Club” murder.
Paul Barrere, of Little Feat.
Mr. Barrere wrote or co-wrote some of Little Feat’s best-known songs, including “All That You Dream,” “Time Loves a Hero” and “Old Folks Boogie.” He occasionally sang lead, although Mr. George remained the band’s focal point. Mr. George died in 1979, and Little Feat broke up that year.
Mr. Barrere went on to work with the group the Bluesbusters and recorded two albums as a leader, but he was largely inactive until Little Feat reunited in 1987. To fill the gap left by Mr. George’s death, the band added two members, and Mr. Barrere began doing more of the lead singing and songwriting, as well as taking more of the guitar solos.
Your loser update: week 8, 2019.
October 29th, 2019NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
Miami
Cincinnati
NBA teams that still have a chance to go 0-82:
Indiana
New Orleans
Sacramento
Since Miami lost, there will be a loser update next week, though it may not go up until Monday morning. As previously discussed, the Bengals have a bye in week 9. Miami plays at home against the 1-6 Jets Sunday afternoon: I’m thinking they have a good chance of winning that one.
Looking over the schedule, Miami plays the Jets again (on the road) in week 14, the Giants (also on the road) in week 15, and the Bengals at home in week 16.
Historically. at this point in the season, we’re averaging 1.0 winless teams, so we’re statistically a little bit ahead. But I’m skeptical that we will end up with a winless team this year: I think Miami has a good chance of beating the Jets, the Giants, and the Bengals, and I’m skeptical that the Bengals will be able to run the table the rest of the season.
Quick firings watch.
October 28th, 2019Neal Huntington out as general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Huntington has been the Pirates’ GM since Sept. 25, 2007. He was responsible for rebuilding the club into a playoff contender over three years before struggling the past four seasons.
Many of the recent trades Huntington made were flops. Players went elsewhere and thrived. The magic touch that played a part in producing those three consecutive playoff seasons disappeared.
(In case anyone was wondering: loser update tomorrow, since 0-6 Miami plays 2-4 Pittsburgh in prime time tonight. ESPN is giving Pittsburgh a 90.5% chance of winning.)
Obit watch: October 28, 2019.
October 28th, 2019John Conyers Jr., for the historical record.
Don Valentine, founder of Sequoia Capital. This came across the Hacker News Twitter: I wouldn’t have noticed it otherwise.
We all know (and I’ve previously discussed this) that obits tend to try to make the subject look good. It’s very rare to see an obit that basically says, “Christ, what an asshole!” (See also.) Taking that into consideration, though, Mr. Valentine’s obit makes him sound like a really good guy who I would have enjoyed meeting.
(Tweet of the day, though technically this is from yesterday.)
Firings watch.
October 25th, 2019I didn’t get a chance to blog this last night (I was busy down at the cop shop) and it’s been well covered elsewhere, but:
Since this is sportsfirings.com, I do have to make note of Brandon Taubman’s firing as assistant general manager for the Houston Astros. ESPN. Chron.
As Sports Illustrated first reported on Monday night and the Chronicle later confirmed, Taubman yelled toward a group of three female reporters following the team’s American League pennant-clinching victory against the Yankees.
The 34-year-old Taubman yelled “Thank God we got (Roberto) Osuna! I’m so (expletive) glad we got Osuna!”
Osuna, the Astros’ closer, was acquired last July while serving a 75-game suspension for a violation of Major League Baseball’s Joint Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Child Abuse policy.
One of the women at whom Taubman shouted was wearing a purple domestic violence awareness bracelet. The Chronicle reported on Wednesday that Taubman’s ire was directed specifically at one woman, about whom Taubman had complained in prior conversations.
Worst. Joke. Ever.
October 22nd, 2019Obit watch: October 22, 2019.
October 22nd, 2019Scotty Bowers, alleged pimp to the stars.
If “pimp to the stars” seems harsh, well, that’s what he called himself:
Mr. Bowers’s raunchy best seller, “Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars,” written with Lionel Friedberg, left out few details as it told of his metamorphosis from gas-station employee to hookup-provider and sex partner to the rich and famous.
Men he knew from his military service during World War II began socializing at the gas station where he worked, and he paired those who were willing with the Hollywood people who found their way to him by word of mouth. Although he described catering to all sorts of sexual combinations, he said he had often surreptitiously provided willing men to male Hollywood figures and willing women to female ones in an era when being gay could ruin a career.
He wrote of funneling women to Katharine Hepburn, of having a sexual encounter himself with Spencer Tracy, of arranging same-sex partners for the duke and duchess of Windsor.
I’m not linking to his book for the same reason I use the term “alleged” above: Mr. Bowers was, most probably, a damn liar. (Speak no ill of the dead? Mr. Bowers had no problem telling stories about people who were dead and couldn’t defend themselves, so I see no reason not to give him the same treatment.)
Larry Harnisch at the “Daily Mirror” blog did a 26 part series on the book back in 2012. Here’s his obit for Mr. Bowers, which contains links to all 26 parts.
Matthew Wong. I had not heard of him, but the NYT calls him a “painter on the cusp of fame”. Some of the pictured artwork is, to me, striking: I really like “Winter’s End”, to take one example.
He was 35 years old.
The number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). If you live outside of the United States or are looking for other help, TVTropes has a surprisingly good page of additional resources.
70s television (and aircraft) geekery.
October 22nd, 2019Those of us who are, shall we say, of a certain age, fondly remember “Baa Baa Black Sheep“.
By way of McThag (and thank you sir): a history of the Corsairs used in filming the show.
Obit watch: October 20, 2019.
October 20th, 2019Nick Tosches, fiction writer and biographer.
One of his most attention-getting biographies followed in 1992. It was “Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams,” about Dean Martin.
“Recordings, movies, radio, television: He would cast his presence over them all, a mob-culture Renaissance man,” he wrote of Martin. “And he would come to know, as few ever would, how dirty the business of dreams could be.”
For Mr. Tosches, Martin was a celebrity who beat the unrelenting fame machine, the one that often ground stars up and consigned them to early deaths. (Martin himself died in 1995 at 78.)
“I would describe Dean as a noble character in an ignoble racket in an ignoble age,” Mr. Tosches told The New York Times in 1992.
“Life is a racket,” he added. “Writing is a racket. Sincerity is a racket. Everything’s a racket.”
If everything is a racket, is anything worthwhile? Like trying to help out the poor?
…
In an era when foreign aid is largely based on charity, Dr. Polak (pronounced POLE-ack) instead advocated training people to earn livings by selling their neighbors basic necessities like clean water, charcoal, a ride in a donkey cart or enough electricity to charge a cellphone.
Although the nonprofit companies he created did accept donations, their purpose was to help poor people make money. His target market was the 700 million people around the world surviving on less than $2 a day, and he traveled all over the world seeking them out.
…
His most successful project was in foot-powered treadle pumps to pull water out of the ground. Beginning in 1982, he sold millions for about $25 each in Bangladesh and India, he said. The company he created for the project, iDE for International Development Enterprises, now operates in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
The cost included the mechanism, which could be built in a local welding shop, and drilling the well. Dr. Polak’s organization trained thousands of welders and drillers. The customers — small farmers — supplied the foot power and long bamboo handles for the pumps, the device resembling a crude elliptical trainer.
To sell them, Dr. Polak ran a publicity campaign: a singing, dancing Bollywood-style movie about a couple that could not marry because her father could not afford a dowry. But once he bought a pump and could grow vegetables in the dry season, when they fetch more money, love triumphed.
…
By contrast, he said, the World Bank was subsidizing expensive diesel pumps that drew enough water to cover 40 acres. They were handed out by government agents, who could be bribed, he said, and the richest landowner would thus become “a waterlord,” who could drain the aquifer supplying everyone else’s wells and then charge them for water.
“It was very destructive to social justice,” Dr. Polak said.
Another franchise company he started in India was Spring Health, which uses battery power to convert salt into chlorine. The bleach is used to disinfect local water, which is then sold door-to-door in refillable containers.
Franchisees get caps and shirts with distinctive blue raindrops, and street theater troupes help uneducated people make the connection between dirty water and diarrhea, which sickens millions of children every day and, when chronic, can leave them mentally and physically stunted.
Bill Macy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Maude’s husband. But he knocked around a bunch of other stuff too.
Samuel Hynes, literature professor, author, and WWII torpedo bomber pilot. I’ve heard that Flights of Passage: Recollections of a World War II Aviator is a terrific book: anyone out there care to comment?
Not an Oracle guy, but for the historical record: Mark Hurd.
Sara Danius. She was the first woman to head the Swedish Academy. The Academy gives out the literature prize, and she was behind Bob Dylan winning in 2016. She was forced out in 2018.
I note this obit here less because of interest in the literature Nobel, and more because I find that it contains a remarkably high level of editorializing for a NYT obit.
She herself was never accused of wrongdoing. But she was the public face of a global institution whose reputation had been severely damaged.
Behind the scenes, her enemies within the academy sought to protect the accused man. They resisted her attempts to bring in law enforcement and forced her out.
When she left, Ms. Danius acknowledged that her colleagues had lost confidence in her leadership. She also defiantly suggested that arrogant and anachronistic forces within the academy had invoked the institution’s traditions to deny accountability.
“Not all traditions are worth preserving,” she said.
Her abrupt departure infuriated many women — and many men as well — across Sweden, a country that prides itself on gender equality. She was widely viewed as a scapegoat.
…
The man at the center of the sex scandal, Jean-Claude Arnault, was found guilty last year of raping a woman in 2011 and sentenced to two years in jail. In his appeal of the verdict, the appeals court found him guilty of raping the same woman twice and extended his sentence.
In addition, his wife, Katarina Frostenson, a poet who resigned from the academy, was accused of leaking the names of prize recipients to Mr. Arnault on at least seven occasions so that their friends could profit from bets. The two have denied all charges and said they were the objects of a witch hunt.
Your loser update: week 7, 2019.
October 20th, 2019Even though this isn’t quite loser update material, and even though my feelings about baseball are well known, I think I need to say something about the Houston Astros beating Satan’s minions on Earth, the New York Yankees, and going to the World Series again.
With that said, NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
Miami
Cincinnati
My historical data is mostly at work, but I think we’re a little ahead of the average for NFL week 7.
The Bungles Bengals bye comes in week 9, for those keeping score at home.
Clippings.
October 18th, 2019I went back and forth on linking this one: as I’ve said before, I don’t really like ESPN. But this morning’s Linkswarm (with the Deshaun Watson article) pushed me into it.
Profile of Sabrina Greenlee, mother of Houston Texans receiver DeAndre Hopkins.
Every time the Houston Texans play at home, DeAndre Hopkins’ mother, Sabrina Greenlee, sits in the same spot in the end zone, close enough to the field to hear the ball smack against the turf. It’s Week 2, and Houston is playing the Jacksonville Jaguars; she’s flanked by her two daughters, sitting perfectly still as the countdown clock ticks down to zero. When it’s time for the home team to run through the gate, a massive flamethrower erupts nearby. Greenlee recoils, and her eyes, which are the same cloudy shade of white as an overcast sky, glisten from the heat. A few minutes later, Hopkins emerges from the tunnel — he’s always the last player on offense to come out, Greenlee explains — and she smiles.
She can’t see her son, but she knows he’s there.
This is old, but still interesting, and it just came across the Hacker News Twitter: I survived the “Destroying Angel”.
Amazingly, the author lived. Without a liver transplant.
I think part of the reason I like this is that it reminds me of one of my favorite Berton Roueché “Annals of Medicine” essays: a first-hand account by a professional snake handler of being bitten by a red diamond rattlesnake. If you’re a subscriber, you can read that on the New Yorker web site here.
The lazy man’s obit watch: October 17, 2019.
October 17th, 2019I thought about covering this myself, but Lawrence did a much better job on the death of Patrick Day.
For the historical record: Rep. Elijah E. Cummings.
Obit watch: October 16, 2019.
October 16th, 2019I’m sorry I’m a little late on these: I had one of those “don’t feel much like blogging” days yesterday.
Harold Bloom, noted critic.
…
Armed with a photographic memory, Professor Bloom could recite acres of poetry by heart — by his account, the whole of Shakespeare, Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” all of William Blake, the Hebraic Bible and Edmund Spenser’s monumental “The Fairie Queen.” He relished epigraphs, gnomic remarks and unusual words: kenosis (emptying), tessera (completing), askesis (diminishing) and clinamen (swerving).
He quite enjoyed being likened to Samuel Johnson, the great 18th-century critic, essayist, lexicographer and man about London, who, like Professor Bloom (“a Yiddisher Dr. Johnson” was one appellation), was rotund, erudite and often caustic in his opinions. (Professor Bloom even had a vaguely English accent, his Bronx roots notwithstanding.)Or if not Johnson, then the actor Zero Mostel, whom he resembled.
“I am Zero Mostel!” Professor Bloom once said.
John Giorno, avant-garde poet. Back when I shopped for compact discs, I used to see copies of “You’re the Guy I Want to Share My Money With” all over the place. Never bought one, though: I’m a big Laurie Anderson fan, but how often was I going to listen to spoken word stuff by Giorno and William S. Burroughs? Probably not very often, was my considered opinion.
(There’s a little bit of Giorno available from iTunes, mostly as tracks on compilation albums. They do have “The Best of William S. Burroughs from Giorno Poetry Systems”, but that’s $40 for 69 tracks.)
NYT obit for Robert Forster, just for the historical record.
Your loser update: week 6, 2019.
October 14th, 2019I knew that at least one team was going to come off the list (because of Washington – Miami). But I don’t think anyone was expecting Dallas to lose to the hapless Jets.
NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
Miami
Cincinnati
I went back over my historical records, and it looks like we’re pretty much on track: the average number of teams with 0 wins at week 6 of the season is 1.6.
Obit watch: October 12, 2019.
October 12th, 2019By way of Lawrence, Robert Forster.
Yeah, he was great in “Jackie Brown”, which I still think is Tarantino’s most restrained and disciplined movie. But he did a lot of other movie and TV work to varying degrees of success. As I’ve said before, I wasn’t a “Twin Peaks” guy, so I missed him there. But he was in “Avalanche”, “Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence”, and “The Black Hole”, he did guest shots on many series (“Magnum, P.I.”, “Jake and the Fatman”, “Police Story”), and he was in a few unsuccessful series (“Banyon”, “Nakia”, “Karen Sisco”).
Aleksei Leonov, Russian cosmonaut and the first man to walk in space.
What Mr. Leonov did not reveal until many years later was that he and his fellow cosmonaut, Pavel I. Belyayev, who was also an Air Force pilot, were fortunate to have survived.
Mr. Leonov’s specially designed suit had unexpectedly inflated during his walk, and its bulk was preventing him from getting back inside the Voskhod.
“I knew I could not afford to panic, but time was running out,” he recalled in the book “Two Sides of the Moon” (2004), written with the astronaut David Scott, about their experiences in space.
Mr. Leonov slowly deflated the suit by releasing oxygen from it, a procedure that threatened to leave him without life support. But with the reduced bulk, he finally made it inside.
“I was drenched with sweat, my heart racing,” he remembered.
But that, he added, “was just the start of dire emergencies which almost cost us our lives.”
The oxygen pressure in the spacecraft rose to a dangerous level, introducing the prospect that a spark in the electrical system could set off a disastrous explosion or fire.
It returned to a tolerable level, but the cosmonauts never figured out the reason for the surge.
When it came time for the return to Earth, the spacecraft’s automatic rocket-firing system did not work, forcing the cosmonauts to conduct imprecise manual maneuvers during the descent that left them in deep snow and freezing temperatures in a remote Russian forest, far from their intended landing point.
It took several hours for a search party to find them and drop supplies from a helicopter, and they spent two nights in the forest, the first one inside their spacecraft and the second one in a small log cabin built by a ground rescue crew, until rescuers arrived on skis. They then took a 12-mile ski trek to a clearing, where a helicopter evacuated them.
He also survived an attempt to kill Leonid Brezhnev, but you’ll have to read the obit for that story.
Anna Quayle. The name didn’t ring any bells with me, but she was in a bunch of stuff: “A Hard Day’s Night”, “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”, “Casino Royale” (the first one, with David Niven), “Stop the World – I Want to Get Off”, and the list goes on.
…died on Aug. 16, although her death was not announced by her family until early October. She was 86.
Her family did not say where she died or specify the cause. She had received a diagnosis of Lewy body dementia in 2012.
Obit watch: October 11, 2019.
October 11th, 2019The Francis Currey obit provoked a lively and delightful string of comments. Please go read them, if you haven’t already. And my thanks to Lawrence, pigpen51, and thinkingman.
I held this one from yesterday because I didn’t want to detract: Karen Pendleton, one of the original Mouseketeers.
In 1983, Ms. Pendleton was a passenger in a car accident that injured her spinal cord and left her paralyzed from the waist down. Eight years later, she earned a bachelor’s degree from California State University, Fresno; she went on to earn a master’s in psychology there.
After the accident, she became an advocate for disability rights — she served on the board of the California Association of the Physically Handicapped — and worked as a counselor at a shelter for abused women.
…
Ms. Pendleton was often reminded that fans of the Mouseketeers felt great affection for the show. In 1986, when she was a judge for a beauty pageant for women in wheelchairs, she met a woman with polio who said she had been abused by her parents.
“She said, ‘Being able to see you on “The Mickey Mouse Club” was the only happy part of my childhood,’” Ms. Pendleton recalled in 1995. “My eyes just filled up with tears.”
Bjorn Thorbjarnarson. This is one of those obscure but interesting obits: Dr. Thorbjarnarson was a surgeon who specialized in operations involving the biliary tract. Among his patients: the Shah of Iran.
Dr. Thorbjarnarson led a team of surgeons in removing the shah’s gallbladder, a portion of his liver and several gallstones blocking a bile duct — all under highly unusual circumstances.
“Armed guards controlled the traffic to the patient’s room, and all blinds were always down,” Dr. Thorbjarnarson wrote in a letter in response to “The Shah’s Spleen: Its Impact on History,” an article in The Journal of the American College of Surgeons, in 2010. “Threatening calls were received by nurses attending, but none to me. Outside, the hospital was surrounded by a howling mob, controlled by barricades, calling for the shah’s head.”
He also operated on Andy Warhol, and was sued.
…
I know it is an obit (De mortuis nil nisi bonum) and it is from the NYT, but i do think the paper makes a good case that Dr. Thorbjarnarson and the hospital weren’t responsible for Warhol’s death. Warhol was a gravely ill man who was deathly afraid of hospitals (being shot by Valerie Solanas will do that to you). He put off treatment until he couldn’t any longer, and even tried to talk Dr. Thorbjarnarson into treating him at Warhol’s home.
The case was settled out of court.
Oh, oh! Mr. Kapler! Me. Kapler!
October 10th, 2019Gabe Kapler our as manager of the Phillies.
81-81 this past season.
Obit watch: October 10, 2019.
October 10th, 2019My morning went down the drain (for reasons I’m not authorized to talk about) so I’m only getting to this now:
Francis Currey, American badass.
Here is his citation from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society’s website:
He was 94. His death leaves two surviving recipients of the Medal of Honor from WWII.
Obit watch: October 8, 2019.
October 9th, 2019Marshall Efron, public television personality of the early 70s.
I’d heard the name, but really didn’t have any association with him: I was very young when “The Great American Dream Machine” was on the air, and I wasn’t much older when “Marshall Efron’s Illustrated, Simplified and Painless Sunday School” came around the first time. (The latter was supposedly re-run frequently, but I’ve never seen an episode.)
Quick notes from the forensic beat.
October 9th, 2019Both by way of Hacker News.
“Obsessed fan finds Japanese idol’s home by zooming in on her eyes“.
Gil Grissom, call your office, please.
Ken Thompson’s UNIX password has been cracked.
I wonder if it would be worthwhile to add a dictionary of common chess openings to your hashcat runs?