Western Civilization is doomed.
December 6th, 2013TMQ Watch: December 3, 2013.
December 4th, 2013Instead 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…
Ja, das ist ein Wienerschnitzel.
December 4th, 2013The latest entry into the pantheon of architectural and historic landmarks?
The very first location of Der Wienerschnitzel.
Now I’m kind of hungry.
Random notes: December 3, 2013.
December 3rd, 2013Obit 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.)
…a lot like Christmas…
December 2nd, 2013It 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.)
Obit watch: December 1, 2013.
December 1st, 2013For the historical record: Paul Walker.
Throwing stuff at the wall, just to see if it sticks.
November 30th, 2013Headline 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:
- The article is behind the Statesman‘s paywall.
- Everybody knows the greatest holiday movie of all time is the original “Die Hard“.
(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?
Random notes: November 28, 2013.
November 28th, 2013Some 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.
TMQ Watch: November 26, 2013.
November 27th, 2013Over 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…
Is it just me…
November 27th, 2013….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…
Just some random krep.
November 25th, 2013The FDA has told 23andMe to stop selling their DNA interpretation service.
I note this for a couple of reasons:
- Earlier this year, they were advertising all over many of the podcasts I listen to.
- I’ve flirted with the idea of getting a 23andMe kit as a Christmas or birthday present. (Hey, you get one for a family member, you get many of the benefits of purchasing your own, plus you’ve got that whole gift thing taken care of.)
- I did not complete the purchase process, but as far as I can tell, 23andMe is still selling their product.
- “This product is a device within the meaning of section 201(h) of the FD&C Act, 21 U.S.C. 321(h), because it is intended for use in the diagnosis of disease or other conditions or in the cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease, or is intended to affect the structure or function of the body.” Nope. Not seeing it. At best, it tells you that you have some genetic markers that may indicate a predisposition towards a condition. I have serious questions about the way the FDA is interpreting the regulations here.
- What business is it of the federal government how people get their genetic information and what they do with it? “But what if they’re wrong?” Seems to me you have the same recourse as you would with any other consumer product; complain to the maker and ask for a refund or a do-over. But that’s apparently not good enough for our government, which feels like it has to do something about the scourge of non-goverment-approved genetic testing labs.
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.
- Isn’t it kind of crappy to let one of your most popular personalities go right in the middle of the annual “Bicycles For the Crippled Orphans Left Behind By the Widow of the Unknown Soldier for Christmas” campaign? Yes, his contract was apparently up (“at the end of the year”, which, to me, implies December 31st), and yes, it isn’t unprecedented to let people go around this time of year (Not that I’m bitter or anything) but couldn’t they have worked out something to at least let him stay and finish out this year’s charity campaign? I think it makes the station look bad.
- Why does a morning radio show need four on-air people?
- “In the most recent Nielsen (formerly Arbitron) ratings period, Mix 94.7 placed 12th. Its morning ratings, however, are much higher.” How much higher, you jackass? You’re the one with the AllAccess account! (According to a post from the same blogger back in October, JB and Sandy didn’t crack the top five.)
- Dudley and Bob are still on? Wow.
Obit watch: November 22, 2013.
November 22nd, 2013Jim 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
Random notes: November 22, 2013.
November 22nd, 2013What a way to start the morning:
Hunting rats. With dogs. In Manhattan.
This is legal in Bloomberg’s New York?
…
Save horce racing! Put USADA in charge!
The state of Alabama has granted posthumous pardons to Haywood Patterson, Charles Weems and Andy Wright. You know them better as three of the nine Scottsboro Boys.
November 22, 1963.
November 22nd, 2013I don’t remember where I was at the time. It was about 18 months before I was born, so depending on your belief in reincarnation…
I’m about 70-30 on the “Oswald acted alone” front. (I used to be about 60-40, but as I get older, I get more skeptical of conspiracy theories.)
My main reason for leaning that way is that I just can’t believe anybody would be able to keep a conspiracy the size of the alleged JFK one secret for 50 years.
“But altered evidence! Faked documents!” Well, maybe. But once you start letting all that stuff in, you’re really going down the rabbit hole to the point where truth and fiction are completely inseparable and indistinguishable. That way lies madness. Maybe I’m naive, maybe I just want to bury my head in the sand, but I’d rather believe Oswald acted alone than believe in a giant national conspiracy led by The Cigarette Smoking Man (or someone like him). “Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.”
I wish I could recommend a good JFK book to you, but I’m not that well read in the literature. Heck, I haven’t even been to Dallas and toured the Sixth Floor Museum, though that is on the agenda for sometime soon.
Bill James
On the other hand, James also recommends Mortal Error: The Shot That Killed JFK
(And I owe you guys a longer discussion of Popular Crime.)
Here are two of my favorite related videos. CBS News hires sharpshooters and attempts to recreate the shooting. (Bonus: the dulcet tones of Dan Rather, for those of you who have been missing the sound of his voice.)
And I’ve referenced this before, but I don’t think I’ve ever embedded it, and the link I did use is broken, so: Penn and Teller explain why JFK’s head moved the way it did, using a honeydew melon, fiberglass tape, a Carcano rifle, and a pink pillbox hat.
TMQ Watch: November 20, 2013.
November 20th, 2013There are no undefeated teams left in the NFL this season. The Kansas City Chiefs lost on Sunday.
We all know what that means, right?
Or do we?