Because it is an extraordinarily dangerous sport?

September 3rd, 2016

Bu way of the Hacker News Twitter, an article from National Geographic:

Why Are So Many BASE Jumpers Dying?

In spite of the headline, this is actually a pretty good (though long) article.

This has already become the deadliest year on record for BASE jumping, with at least 31 deaths thus far. Twenty-three of those fatalities occurred this summer—six deaths in June, two in July, and 15 in August.

What’s the answer to the question? The big problem seems to be wingsuits. And specifically:

“There are a lot of people saying a lot of things about wingsuit BASE deaths. There is no single factor, and there is truth in every statement about ego, video, complacency, access, summer vacations, etc. But if we were to work on just one thing, it would be education … The simple truth is that wingsuit BASE jumpers don’t know what they are getting into, don’t know how to practice the sport safely, and don’t even know enough to know how little they know. “

Posted in Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: September 3, 2016.

September 3rd, 2016

The late great Jon Polito.

I hate to be lazy here, but I’m going to point to the respectful and comprehensive A/V Club obit. (Though couldn’t they have found something better for Detective Crosetti than the misguided “Homicide” movie?)

(And I need to see “Miller’s Crossing” again.)

Also among the dead: Jim Pruett, legendary Houston radio personality turned prominent (and often quoted in the media) gun store owner. Mike the Musicologist tells me he sold the store a while back; I’ve actually wanted to visit it, but the last few times I’ve been down to Houston it just hasn’t worked out for one reason or another.

Posted in Guns, Movies, Obits, Radio, TV | Comments Closed

Important safety tip (#19 in a series)

September 1st, 2016

I understand the desire to Instagram your travels. Especially if you are on an long cruise going to exotic places. And especially if you are a decently attractive woman.

But you might want to think twice about drawing attention to yourself.

Especially if you are carrying nearly 210 pounds of cocaine in your luggage.

“Traveling is one thing,” Roberge wrote on Instagram. “But traveling with an open mind, ready to taste everything, see everything, learn everything and get yourself out of your comfort zone … is probably the best therapy and lesson ever. I used to be afraid to get out of my little town and now I feel like I don’t want to see that little town anymore cause it’s beautiful out there and it’s sooo worth it.”

Yeah, she’s probably going to be spending a long time out of her comfort zone.

On Monday, the trio appeared in court in Sydney, charged with importing a commercial quantity of cocaine, which carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, authorities said.

I don’t know if Australian law is anything like US law, and that “maximum penalty” is more public relations than reality, especially for a first offense with no previous criminal record. I’m also guessing, though, that only one of them is going to get to play “Let’s Make A Deal”, and that the other two will be spending at least some time making new friends.

The cocaine was packed into suitcases so tightly, agents said in a Facebook post, that “these three Canadian nationals did not have much room for clean underwear or spare toothbrushes.”

Ewwwww. Then again, this was a cruise ship, right? I’ve never been on one, but I assume they have a little store where you can at least get a spare toothbrush and perhaps some clean underwear? I actually checked the Princess cruise lines website, and while they claim the ship has “boutiques”, there aren’t many specifics beyond that. Maybe you have to pick up clean undies and a toothbrush when you go ashore?

Posted in Boats, Law, Safety | Comments Closed

Obit watch: September 1, 2016.

September 1st, 2016

There’s a nice obituary in today’s Statesman for Tom Anderson, who passed away a few weeks ago.

Mr. Anderson was the carillon player at the University of Texas since…well, since Jesus was a private:

He played from 1952 until 1956 while a graduate student. In 1967, a year after he returned to UT to work in the international office, where he was assistant director, UT President Harry Ransom asked him to serve as carillonneur, and he continued to play until about three years ago.

I never met Mr. Anderson, but I remember when we toured the Tower some years back, he came up in conversation: the tour guide told us that he always said he was going to keep playing until he could no longer physically make the climb.

He was 93 when he died.

Marvin Kaplan has also passed away. He is perhaps best remembered as Henry Beesmeyer on “Alice”. though he was also in “It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” and “The Great Race”.

Finally, I intended to note this one earlier in the week, but the past few days have been hard. Jeremiah J. O’Keefe passed away on Tuesday. He was 93.

Mr. O’Keefe was a Corsair pilot with Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 323, the “Death Rattlers”. During the course of his first combat mission, on April 22, 1945, he shot down six enemy planes.

The squadron claimed 23 of the 54 Japanese planes downed that day. Two other Death Rattlers also scored five or more kills. Maj. Jefferson D. Dorroh Jr., the squadron’s executive officer, downed six planes. Maj. George C. Axtell Jr., the commanding officer, scored five. An article on the battle in Time magazine carried the headline “One Deal, Three Aces.”

Posted in 1970s, Heroism, History, Movies, Music, Obits, Planes, TV | Comments Closed

Headline of the day.

September 1st, 2016

Everyone was loving Montreal’s family-friendly puppet festival until the prison rape part

Posted in Media, Theatre | 1 Comment »

The police beat.

August 31st, 2016

A while back, I mentioned the case of an APD officer who allegedly pepper-sprayed a suspect who was handcuffed in the back of a police van.

The officer and the chief have made a deal: 45 days of unpaid suspension, along with some additional conditions (“requiring him to be evaluated by a police psychologist and to have a one-year probationary period”).

Despite the reprimand, Acevedo said that Caldwell was right to try to gain compliance from Wilson, noting that Wilson wasn’t being cooperative. Acevedo said Caldwell had other options — such as asking other officers for help to pin him down and restrain his legs — but described him as an officer with no previous disciplinary issues who “but for this incident has done a pretty good job.”

Part of the deal is that Officer Caldwell will not appeal the decision, since he just got an unpaid suspension instead of a firing.

Posted in Austin, Cops, Law, Politics | Comments Closed

Obit watch: August 30, 2016.

August 30th, 2016

Your Gene Wilder round-up: NYT. LAT. A/V Club.

In a statement, his nephew Jordan Walker-Pearlman said that the decision not to disclose his condition was not made out of vanity but so that the many children who loved Wilder from his role as the eccentric candy-maker Willy Wonka wouldn’t feel worried or confused. “He simply couldn’t bear the idea of one less smile in the world,” Walker-Pearlman said.

And:

In his first major role on Broadway, Mr. Wilder played the chaplain in a 1963 production of Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage and Her Children.” The production ran for less than two months, and he came to believe that he had been miscast. The good news was that he met the boyfriend of the star, Anne Bancroft: Mel Brooks, who wore a pea coat the night he met Mr. Wilder backstage and told him, “You know, they used to call these urine jackets, but they didn’t sell.”

Posted in Movies, Obits, Theatre, Urine | Comments Closed

Random notes: August 29, 2016.

August 29th, 2016

I almost want to give Maywood, California a category of their own.

Today’s update: the city hired ECM Group, an engineering firm, to do some work for them. Nothing wrong with that, is there?

Nothing except that ECM Group was fired by the city of South El Monte for “questionable practices” after an audit earlier this year.

The audit slammed the company, saying that among other things, workers were reporting as many as 27 hours for some work days.

More:

Already facing a state audit and scrutiny by the district attorney’s office over whether the city violated open-meeting laws, Maywood this year hired a laid-off Boeing project manager whom the mayor had met as a customer at his auto shop to be its city manager, even though he had no municipal experience.

This one is kind of old, and I have no excuse except pure laziness for not blogging it before now. But it is still one of the more popular stories on the Statesman‘s website, and illustrates two important points.

Point 1: you know what weapon has a lot of stopping power? A 4,000 pound Lexus.

A woman ran over a man in her silver Lexus after he fired shots at her and her boyfriend in a Round Rock parking lot, according to an arrest affidavit.

More:

It said the man challenged Viera to fight in the parking lot of the Concentra Clinic at 117 Louis Henna Blvd. The man then called his girlfriend — the driver of the silver Lexus — and told her he was going to be involved in a fight and asked her to pick him up, the affidavit said.

Note a: The strip club in question is Rick’s Cabaret, for those who know Austin.

Note b: Where do guys find these women? With all due respect, most of the women I’ve known, if I called them and said, “Honey, can you pick me up at the strip club? Some guy wants to beat my ass.”, they would show up…with a big bag of popcorn to watch the beatdown.

This leads to point 2: you know what matters more than stopping power? Shot placement.

It said Viera then stepped out of his car and pointed his handgun at the woman’s boyfriend. The woman told police she then sped toward Viera to try to hit him, but Viera fired toward her car and stepped out of the way, the affidavit said.

The woman told investigators that she then turned her car around and saw Viera pointing his gun again at her boyfriend and running after him, according to the affidavit. The woman said she tried to hit Viera with her car again but he fired another shot at her vehicle, the document said.

Third time’s the charm:

It said Viera then fired a shot at the woman’s boyfriend. The woman then ran over Viera and struck a parked car, according to the affidavit. The woman’s Lexus became inoperable and rolled to a stop a few feet away from Viera, the affidavit said.

At last report, the bad guy is in jail, the woman wasn’t charged, and there’s no word about the state of the boyfriend or the Lexus.

Posted in California Über Alles, Guns, Law | 1 Comment »

Like sand through the hourglass…

August 24th, 2016

According to King Arthur Flour, today is National Waffle Day.

According to Knifecenter.com, today is National Knife Day.

Posted in Food, Knives | Comments Closed

Obit watch: August 23, 2016.

August 23rd, 2016

Steven Hill. A/V Club.

My “Law and Order: Original Recipe” fan window is very narrow. I never took to Sam Waterston’s Jack McCoy. For me, the idea lineup was Logan and Briscoe (and Cragen)/Stone and Kincaid. But I did like Hill’s Adam Schiff: he served as a much needed counterweight to, shall we say, the enthusiasms of the other folks in the DA’s office.

I’m pretty sure most folks remember him for that. But let us not forget his other semi-famous role, especially since that gives me an excuse to use this clip:

Even decades later, Mr. Hill declined to discuss his reasons for leaving the series, other than to say that the first season had been a bad experience. Other sources, including Patrick J. White, author of a book on the series, “The Complete Mission: Impossible Dossier,” said Mr. Hill was dismissed and learned the news only when he read a Daily Variety announcement that Mr. Graves was being hired.

Posted in Law, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: August 21, 2016.

August 21st, 2016

Convicted Ponzi scammer and boy-band impresario Lou Pearlman.

(Remember O-Town? I do, but only because I had a friend who was into “Making the Band” at the time.)

Jack Riley has also passed away. He was in a whole bunch of stuff, including some of the lesser Mel Brooks movies, but he was best known and regarded (at least to me) as Elliot Carlin on “The Bob Newhart Show”.

I can’t really find a clip I like, but this one comes close:

Posted in 1970s, Law, Movies, Music, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

More from the police beat.

August 18th, 2016

Lawrence put up a post yesterday on Austin’s murder rate, which is “up nearly 80 percent from the same time last year”.

So what is the cause of Austin’s rising murder rate? Possibly just random statistical variation. Possibly the result of understaffing the police department.

I’m not totally convinced on the “understaffing the police department” argument. It kind of seems to me that the police basically come along and clean up after the murder’s already been done. Even with more cops on the street, what are the odds that one of those cops is going to run across the guy with the knife raised in time to stop him from stabbing a woman to death?

The flip side of this is the “broken windows” theory of policing: by concentrating on reducing disorder in neighborhoods, serious crime can be reduced. When disorder increases:

…many residents will think that crime, especially violent crime, is on the rise, and they will modify their behavior accordingly. They will use the streets less often, and when on the streets will stay apart from their fellows, moving with averted eyes, silent lips, and hurried steps. “Don’t get involved.” For some residents, this growing atomization will matter little, because the neighborhood is not their “home” but “the place where they live.” Their interests are elsewhere; they are cosmopolitans. But it will matter greatly to other people, whose lives derive meaning and satisfaction from local attachments rather than worldly involvement; for them, the neighborhood will cease to exist except for a few reliable friends whom they arrange to meet.

(Hattip to the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy for the link.)

This probably isn’t news to most of you, but I bring it up here because of a second item, from yesterday’s Statesman:

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Austin, Clippings, Cops, Law, Politics | Comments Closed

As seen at the fun show this past weekend…

August 18th, 2016

I don’t know why, but I got a big kick out of this particular gun.

Not that I’m going to buy one (I need another .22 rifle like I need another hole in my head) but I think it would be very useful.

If I was Finnish.

And if I was hunting Germans Russians.

During the winter.

With a Ruger 10/22.

Posted in Guns | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: August 18, 2016.

August 18th, 2016

Arthur Hiller, noted director. (“Love Story”, “Silver Streak”, “The In-Laws”, “The Americanization of Emily”, “National Lampoon’s Pucked”.) A/V Club.

For the record: John McLaughlin. Should have noted this yesterday, but the day got past me.

John F. Timoney, a blunt Irish-born cop who could outrun crooks and quote Yeats and who, as a ranking police official in New York, Philadelphia and Miami, plotted innovative strategies that reversed years of skyrocketing crime, died on Tuesday in Miami. He was 68.

Posted in Cops, Law, Movies, NYPD, Obits, TV | Comments Closed

Citizen Kane.

August 16th, 2016

Kathleen G. Kane, the Pennsylvania attorney general whose aggressive investigation of her predecessor unleashed a chain of scandal that ended with her conviction this week on felony and conspiracy charges, said Tuesday that she is resigning.

Posted in Law, Politics | Comments Closed

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »