From the Statesman:
Julie Taymor claims there was a ‘Spider-Man’ plot
Sadly, when you read the article, it turns out she means there was a conspiracy to kick her out of the production, not that there was actually a plot to the musical.
Headline of the day.
March 2nd, 2012Gregg Easterbrook to the white courtesy phone, please…
March 2nd, 2012Holy crap. The Saints were paying their defensive players to injure opposing players.
I’m going to out myself here as something of a closet Saints fan, at least since Katrina. I thought they had a great comeback story, and I was delighted when they won the Super Bowl (especially after being so historically bad for so long).
But this? This is beyond the pale. This doesn’t even compare to what the Patriots did; say what you will about Bill Belichick, but illegal videotaping doesn’t even begin to come close to what the Saints have been doing.
This is the kind of thing where the NFL needs to get out in front of this story now. There’s talk of suspensions, fines, and giving up draft choices; my first reaction is that some people need to be tossed from the league for life. Gregg Williams, who is now defensive coordinator with the Rams, participated. Mickey Loomis, the Saints GM, was told by both the team owner and the NFL to shut down any bounty program that may have existed (the NFL has been investigating since 2009); he did not. Coach Sean Payton “was aware of the allegations, did not make any detailed inquiry or otherwise seek to learn the facts, and failed to stop the bounty program. He never instructed his assistant coaches or players that a bounty program was improper and could not continue,” according to the NFL
I would start with lifetime bans for Loomis and Williams, and a suspension for Payton, and work from there.
In other breaking TMQ related news, Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold has been indicted on charges that he misused his personal security detail. This is still a breaking story, and details are sketchy, but the WP is currently stating that he had his security detail drive him to parking lots and wait around while he “engaged in sex acts with another county employee.” (Apparently, they used a separate vehicle for the sex acts, not the one the security detail was hauling Leopold around in. So at least he’s got that small element of class going for him.)
And more from the legal beat.
March 2nd, 2012Continuing with the Kerry Max Cook coverage, the Tyler Morning Telegraph ran a story today about the case. There are some things mentioned in the Telegraph story that were not mentioned in the previously noted Hall story.
However, Hall disputes many aspects of the Telegraph‘s coverage, and has put up a second post in response.
In non-Cook related news, Durham County, North Carolina, is about to have their third prosecutor in five years. Prosecutor #1, Mike Nifong, was notoriously disbarred for his conduct in the Duke lacrosse case.
Prosecutor #2, Tracey Cline, has been removed by a judge because…she’s apparently batshit insane.
Really. I am not making that up. Rather than go into details here, I will point you to Patrick over at Popehat (who quotes parts of Cline’s statements, and has a link to the court’s opinion removing her from office), because:
1) I haven’t linked to Popehat recently.
b) I want to encourage the Popehatters to post more.
III) Patrick works in a reference to one of my favorite Al Pacino scenes.
In addition, Durham-In-Wonderland is also on the Cline beat: here and here, so far.
Not since…
March 2nd, 2012This is a little old, but I only just stumbled across it: a revival of “Carrie” has opened in NYC.
Here’s Ben Brantley’s review for the NYT. Spoiler: Brantley makes it sound less like a fiasco, and more like an exercise in tedium.
Important safety tip (#10 in a series).
March 2nd, 2012If you’re going to have cosmetic procedures done on your body, I recommend you seek out someone qualified to do so.
Generally, I think you’re best off with someone who has a degree from a medical school you’ve at least heard of (probably a member of the Association of American Medical Colleges) and ideally a board certification from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.
I know, you’re thinking I’m just a tool of Big Plastic Surgery, and there’s nothing wrong with getting your cosmetic enhancements at a bargain price. Hey, it’s your body, you can make your own decisions.
But I think we can all agree that getting your cosmetic enhancements from “a self-described hip-hop/goth/pop and funk musician” or your beautician is a bad idea. I’d also suggest that, if you’re going in for cosmetic enhancements, and you see your doctor using the same kind of superglue you can buy off the shelf at Walgreens: run.
The strange case of Kerry Max Cook.
March 2nd, 2012Over at the Texas Monthly web site, Michael Hall has an interesting blog post about the case of Kerry Max Cook.
To be honest, I’d heard the name, I’d seen some of the press coverage, but I never quite had a handle on what happened with this case. Hall’s post is a pretty good introduction.
In brief, Cook was charged with the 1977 murder of Linda Edwards. He was convicted at his first trial in 1978: ten years later, the Dallas Morning News exposed various issues from the first trial (a lying jailhouse snitch, a detective who claimed he could tell how old fingerprints were). Cook was granted a retrial in 1991.
The second trial ended in a hung jury. During that trial, even more evidence of prosecutorial misconduct came out in court. Cook was tried a third time in 1994, and was found guilty (again) and sentenced to death (again).
That third conviction was reversed in 1996 by the Court of Criminal Appeals, which specifically called out the misconduct on the part of the prosecution and police.
Cook, for various reasons, ended up entering a no-contest plea “in which Cook would maintain his innocence while only acknowledging the evidence the state would offer to try and convict him” before the fourth trial. DNA testing (the results of which became available only after Cook’s plea) seems to point to another man as the actual culprit. Cook is attempting to get additional DNA testing done, and to get a declaration of actual innocence from the Texas courts.
The entire case is much more complex than I’ve outlined here; I commend Hall’s post to your attention.
(Hattip: GFB.)
Another go around at the rodeo.
March 2nd, 2012The HouChron is running a second story on rodeo food, complete with (Warning! Slideshow!) a 90-slide slideshow (Warning! Slideshow!) of various offerings. The slideshow in the previous rodeo food article appears to have been updated, so both articles point to the same photos.
The hook for this article is the “2012 Goldie Buckle Foodie Awards”. The fried red velvet cake sounds interesting, as does the banana split funnel cake. I don’t see any photos of the fried Kool-Aid, sauerkraut hush puppies, or fried Fruty Pebbles, and that’s probably just as well; I’m having dinner at Cajun Pizza Place tonight and would prefer to keep my appetite.
Skippy update.
March 1st, 2012The homeowner’s association has called off the dingos.
Edited to add: It appears that that was the same link as in the previous entry, but the HouChron just updated it in place rather than putting up a new link (note the 5:25 PM timestamp).
Throwing some stuff at the wall to see if it sticks.
March 1st, 2012The HouChron has an updated story about Skippy the Therapy Kangaroo.
Well, generally, gerbils, hamsters, dogs, and cats are considered “household pets”. If the HOA went to court over those, they’d almost certainly lose; I think you’d have a hard time convincing a judge and/or jury to rule otherwise. Snakes may be a little more questionable as household pets (depending on the size and perhaps the number of snakes), but I think there’s enough precedent that the pet owner would probably win. A kangaroo? I still think that’s pushing things.
I’m Larry, this is my brother Darrell, and this is my other brother Clipper Darrell. I think the most shocking aspect of this story, and one that I have not seen mentioned elsewhere, is: the Clippers have fans? We are talking about one of the most incompetently run franchises in sports history here…
I think everyone knows by now that Andrew Breitbart passed away. I don’t have much to say beyond that; if you’re looking for discussion, I’d recommend Patterico or your other favorite web sites. I feel certain Battleswarm will have a lively discussion once Lawrence has time to put up a post.
This is a few days old, but worth noting: a longish LAT piece on HitmanForHire.net.
Pssst, buddy. Want a free e-book?
March 1st, 2012Passing along a hot tip from Tam, you can get the Kindle edition of Matthew Bracken’s Enemies Foreign And Domestic
I’ve heard a fair amount about Bracken’s work, but haven’t read any of it yet. My passing along this link should not be interpreted as an endorsement of the book, the ideas, or the writing, simply because I haven’t read the work yet.
But, hey, free book!
Obit watch: March 1, 2012.
March 1st, 2012Edna Milton Chadwell, the last madam at the notorious “Chicken Ranch” in La Grange.
Important safety tip (#9 in a series).
February 29th, 2012Let us say, just for the sake of argument, that you are a police officer.
Let us say, also just for the sake of argument, that you like to go to bars in your off-duty hours and meet women (or men, depending on your particular gender bias).
Let us also say that you are at a bar one night, meet an attractive person of the appropriate gender, and you’d like to get their phone number and address.
Now, as a police officer, you have extraordinary access to look this kind of thing up. You may be tempted to make use of that access. You might want to wait until your next shift and then run your subject through police databases, the way the Mafia Cops did. If you’re desperate enough, you may think you can call up someone who is on duty, tell them you’re investigating a crime, and get information that way.
Yeah, that kind of desperate. Anyway, all of this may sound like a good idea at the time. It isn’t.
Because when the police department gets a complaint from the woman whose door you were banging on early in the morning, they are going to fire your ass.
Extra bonus point 1: It also doesn’t help if you’ve spent 10 months on suspension, with pay, while the police department looks into your relationship with an “unlicensed bounty hunter”.
Extra bonus point 2: Guess the city and police department. Go on, guess.
I’m not generally a big fan of Justice Department supervision of police departments, but Spokane is starting to look like a place that needs adult supervision for their police department. Or maybe they just need to fire everyone and let the National Guard police the city while they rebuild the department from scratch?
Ah, Spokane.
February 29th, 2012Garden city of Washington state.
Brad Thoma was a sergeant with the Spokane Police Department up until 2009. That year, he was charged with driving while intoxicated and hit and run: apparently, he hit a pickup with his personal vehicle and fled the scene.
Thoma received “deferred adjudication” in the case, which basically meant that if he kept his nose clean for a certain amount of time, the charges would go away. As part of the agreement, he had to have an ignition interlock installed on any vehicles he drove, according to state law at the time. This would be awfully inconvenient to put on a police car, so Thoma was offered a non-driving desk job. He turned down that offer, so the Spokane PD fired his butt.
Now we’re in 2012. Thoma, of course, complained after he was fired, and the “Washington State Human Rights Commission” negotiated a settlement in which Thoma would be rehired as a detective and get $275,000 in back pay.
The Spokane City Council, in their infinite wisdom, rejected the settlement.
And Thoma is suing, claiming he was discriminated against due to his disability, namely alcoholism.
If you want to read the FARK discussion, I’d recommend hitting yourself repeatedly with a ball peen hammer until the urge goes away. If it doesn’t go away, the thread is here.
And, yes, I usually don’t cover stuff that is on FARK, but:
1. Mike the Musicologist sent it to me as blog fodder, and
b. It reminded me of another former Spokane police officer that I hadn’t checked on recently. So how’s Karl F. Thompson Jr. doing these days? (You remember former officer Thompson, don’t you? He beat Otto Zehm to death.)
Well…
- Former officer Thompson still hasn’t been sentenced. A date hasn’t been set yet.
- Former officer Thompson says that he’s “taken responsibility” for his actions, and is requesting a reduced sentence. Sentencing guidelines call for a sentence of between 27 and 33 months, but Thompson is requesting that his sentence be reduced to below that level. Originally, the prosecution was asking for a sentence of between six to eight years.
- Former officer Thompson is still seeking a new trial; this time, his attorneys are claiming that the expert testimony of a witness was “mischaracterized” by the prosecutors.
- “A special panel – including a former U.S. attorney, a retired state Supreme Court chief justice and others – is set to investigate the Spokane Police Department’s use-of-force training and practices next month in a review that will extend beyond the Zehm case.”
Here is a particularly noteworthy quote:
- The Zehm family has agreed to mediation with the city in their lawsuit.
- The city is considering the use of body cameras. I’m not sure how much good that would have done in this case; there was video evidence of what happened (that’s what hung Thompson). And one of the major issues (as I see it) is the city’s instance that everything that happened was proper and consistent with the Spokane PD’s operating procedures.
- Here’s a great example of karma coming back around:
Skippy the Therapy Kangaroo.
February 29th, 2012This one goes out to Mike the Musicologist, who was a big fan of Skippy when he was younger.
So there’s a family in the Spring area (near Houston) that has a special needs child. (According to the press coverage, the child is 16 years old; the nature of her special needs is unspecified.)
In order to assist the child, the family got a service animal for her.
And now the family’s HOA wants the kangaroo gone, asserting it is “not a household pet.”
I have a hard time deciding who to side with here. I don’t have a high opinion of most HOAs, but I figure they’re a choice you make when you buy a home. However, I question whether this is an enforceable requirement; what defines a “household pet”, and does Federal law trump the HOA restrictions when it comes to “service animals”?
On the other hand, getting your special needs child a vicious Australian animal (yes, I realize “vicious Australian animal” is redundant) as a “service animal” doesn’t exactly strike me as being the smartest thing in the world, either.
(Here’s the opening of “Skippy the Bush Kangaroo”. Apparently, you can get the first season on DVD, at least in some parts of the world.)
Edited to add: Actually, you can get the entire series
The latest news from Bell.
February 28th, 2012A judge has tossed out one of the felony charges against a former mayor of the city of Bell, and two felony charges against a former council member.
According to an earlier LAT piece, Robert “Ratso” Rizzo was also asking for the charges against him to be dropped; I can’t tell from this article if the judge turned down that request, or simply hasn’t ruled yet.
Edited to add: Update: Ratso and Angelia Spaccia lost their bids to have the charges dismissed.