Art (Acevedo), damn it! watch. (#S of a series)

June 20th, 2015

Blayne Williams is an officer with the Austin Police Department.

Officer Williams has what might be called a “colorful” history. He was fired in October of 2013 after an incident at a local hotel. Last November, the arbitrator overturned Williams’ firing, reducing it to a 15-day suspension.

Previously, in 2011, Officer Williams was suspended for 90 days after he got into a physical altercation with an HEB employee while he was off duty. He was also charged with “assault on an elderly person”, but that charge was dismissed “and eventually wiped from his record after he completed probation and had the charge expunged”.

The hook now is that Officer Williams is suing. Why? He claims the police department “wrongly passed him up for promotion”. Yes, I kid you not: a guy who has been suspended twice in four years and was almost fired is claiming he should have been promoted to either corporal or detective.

Oh, by the way: in addition to his suit against the city, Officer Williams already has a lawsuit pending in federal court, claiming his firing over the cellphone incident was in retaliation for discrimination claims he’d filed previously.

Hand to God, people, I don’t make this stuff up.

Posted in Austin, Clippings, Cops, Law, Politics | 3 Comments »

Art (Acevedo), damn it! watch. (#R of a series)

June 18th, 2015

I would have sworn that I wrote about APD lieutenant Jason Disher back in October, but I can’t find it now. This one may have gotten past me.

Anyway, Lt. Disher was having an affair with a woman who was married. This was a long lasting affair: Disher told a detective “eight or nine years”. At some point, according to Disher, the woman’s husband “started harassing him and making threatening phone calls”. The detective issued an arrest warrant for the husband.

The woman Disher was having the affair with later came forward and said Disher’s claims that led to the warrant were false. There was an investigation, and Disher was fired.

Old news? Not so fast; if you’ve been hanging around here long enough, you can guess what happened next.

Yes! The arbitrator overturned Disher’s firing! The Statesman doesn’t go into detail on the reasons, and I hesitate to speculate. But isn’t it interesting…

Disher told investigators he was aware that some of the information in the husband’s arrest affidavit was not true, but he made no effort to have it corrected.

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

Obit watch: June 18, 2015.

June 18th, 2015

Nelson Doubleday Jr., heir to the Doubleday publishing empire and former owner of the New York Mets.

I was going to let this go by, but there were a couple of things in the NYT obit that tickled my fancy:

Mr. Doubleday was an avid outdoorsman, fond of practical jokes and not particularly bookish. He enjoyed playing golf; hunting at his plantation near Beaufort, S.C.; sailing the world on his yacht, Mandalay; and heading off to annual pheasant-hunting trips in Somerset, England. In the 1960s and ’70s, he invested in two hockey teams, the California Golden Seals and the New York Islanders. On his daily drive into Manhattan, he chatted with a group of fellow CB radio enthusiasts who called themselves the Cuckoo’s Nest Convoy. His handle was Bookworm.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Media, Radio, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: June 16, 2015.

June 16th, 2015

Blaze Starr, noted “burlesque performer” and paramour of Louisiana governor Earl Long, has passed away at the age of 83.

Edited to add: better WP obit.

Their affair was an open secret until the governor’s wife had him committed to a mental hospital in Texas in 1959. Long was released after several days, then returned to New Orleans, where he “received redheaded Blaze Starr, his favorite Bourbon Street stripper, at 2:30 a.m.,” according to Time magazine.
“At week’s end,” the magazine added, “six doctors gravely warned Long that he would risk his life if he undertook any more strenuous activity.”
He died a year later.

Posted in Clippings, Obits | Comments Closed

Today’s bulletin from the Department of WTF?! (#7 in a series)

June 16th, 2015

The FBI and Justice Department are investigating members of the front office of the St. Louis Cardinals to determine whether the organization hacked the computer network of the Houston Astros in order to steal player personnel information.

I was going to make a “how parenthetic do you have to be” joke, but the Astros are actually doing okay this year. The Times story seems to be spinning it as the Cardinals being worried about their secrets being compromised:

Investigators believe Cardinals officials, concerned that Mr. Luhnow had taken their idea and proprietary baseball information to the Astros, examined a master list of passwords used by Mr. Luhnow and the other officials who had joined the Astros when they worked for the Cardinals. The Cardinals officials are believed to have used those passwords to gain access to the Astros’ network, law enforcement officials said.

“Luhnow” is Jeff Luhnow, the current Astros general manager and previously a high-ranking member of the Cardinals management team.

I care very little about baseball, but this should be fascinating to watch. As the papers note, this is the first known instance where one team attempted to hack another team’s computer network for competitive advantage. Ignoring the possibility of some people being convicted of actual Federal crimes, what’s MLB going to do about this? Lifetime bans for anyone proven to be involved?

Posted in Clippings, Geek, Law, Sports | Comments Closed

Firing watch.

June 15th, 2015

Bud Black out as San Diego Padres manager.

Since he was hired following the 2006 season, Black had never taken the Padres to the playoffs. In 2010, they went from an apparent stranglehold on the NL West title, to losing 10 consecutive games, to official elimination on the final day of the regular season.

Black was 649-713 over roughly eight seasons.

Posted in Clippings, Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: June 11, 2015.

June 11th, 2015

It seems like all I’m doing this week is posting obituaries. I could do with a week where good people don’t die.

Ornette Coleman, noted jazz musician.

Christopher Lee: NYT. WP. A/V Club.

Not exactly an obit, but:

Spain gave its greatest writer, Miguel de Cervantes, a formal burial Thursday nearly 400 hundred years after his death, unveiling a funeral monument holding recently unearthed bone fragments believed to include those of the author of “Don Quixote.”

Edited to add: A/V Club obit for Ornette Coleman.

Lawrence challenged me to find some Coleman on YouTube that isn’t “unlistenable” (his word, not mine). I’ve never really acquired the ability to appreciate jazz, but I like this well enough.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Movies, Music, Obits | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: June 10, 2015.

June 10th, 2015

Vincent Musetto passed away yesterday. NYT. NY Post.

I’ve written about Mr. Musetto before. For those who don’t remember, he was a long-time employee of the NY Post, and the man behind one of the greatest headlines in the history of newspapers:

Posted in Clippings, Media, Obits | Comments Closed

Obit watch: June 9, 2015.

June 9th, 2015

Vincent Bugliosi, former LA County deputy DA, the man who prosecuted Charles Manson, and co-author (with Curt Gentry) of Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders. (Edited to add: NYT obit.)

(I’m back home now and slowly dipping my toes into the water. After action report to come soon-ish.)

Posted in Admin, Books, Clippings, Law, Obits | Comments Closed

I’ll be your huckleberry…

June 5th, 2015

huckleberry

…cheesecake, that is.

I’m on the road, so expect sporadic updates. I would say that I’m in an undisclosed location, but it turns out my hotel is within a very short walk of a certain university. I didn’t plan it that way (it also happens to be the convention hotel), but it does amuse me how this worked out.

One more photo. I took this last night, after I finished dinner and while I was waiting for the hotel shuttle.

power

Posted in Food, Photography, Travel | Comments Closed

The time has come…

May 29th, 2015

…to purchase a nice holster.

Hmmmmm. You can get a Dragon Leatherworks Quantum for a Browning Hi-Power…

Posted in Guns, Law, Politics, Texas | Comments Closed

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#20 in a series)

May 28th, 2015

J. Dennis Hastert, a former speaker of the House of Representatives, has been charged with lying to the F.B.I. and making cash withdrawals from banks in a way that was designed to hide that he was paying $3.5 million to someone for his “misconduct” from years ago, a federal indictment released on Thursday said.

My quick thoughts on this mostly resemble Ace of Spades‘:

Point 1: The structuring law is bullshit, and has been frequently abused by the government. The Justice Department actually promised last October that they’d stop seizing assets for “structuring” unless there was some underlying crime. What was Hastert’s underlying crime? Paying someone off, as far as I know, isn’t illegal.

If Hastert voted to make “structuring” illegal, ’tis the sport to have the enginer hoist with his own petard. But a foolish moral consistency makes me believe that if it’s wrong for the Feds to go after other people over this, it’s wrong in Hastert’s case as well.

Point 2:

Last Dec. 8, Mr. Hastert was interviewed by agents. He told federal agents that he was not paying anyone with the money, but was keeping the withdrawals for himself because he felt unsafe with the banking system.
“Yeah,” Mr. Hastert told the agents, according to the indictment. “I kept the cash. That’s what I’m doing.”

Once again, I’m able to quote the timeless wisdom of Ken White:

Really, seriously, just shut the fuck up.

Edited to add 5/29: And speaking of Ken White…

Posted in Clippings, Law | Comments Closed

Everything that rises must get a stamp.

May 26th, 2015

The Postal Service is issuing a Flannery O’Connor stamp.

To which I say, “Good.”

My relationship to O’Connor’s writing is a bit complicated. I had to read “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” when I was in school, and I hated it; it seemed like a collection of random cruelty with no point to it. But much later on in my life, something made me pick up The Complete Stories. I pretty much loved almost every story in that book, especially “Everything That Rises Must Converge” and “A Good Man Is Hard To Find”.

But I still hate “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Stamps | Comments Closed

Well, isn’t THIS a shocker?

May 21st, 2015

Don Carlos Mexican Restaurant is suing Twin Peaks’ ownership company for damages related to the deadly biker gang shootout that left nine dead and 18 others wounded.

Also:

Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton now says crime scene officers have made a new weapons count and come up with 318 “and still counting.” Swanton said he expected the count to continue to rise.
Of those weapons counted so far, 118 are handguns, one is an AK-47 assault-style rifle and 157 are knives. Swanton says weapons still uncounted are clubs, knives, brass knuckles, firearms and chains with padlocks attached.

Yes, 118 plus one plus 157 does not add up to 318.

Posted in Clippings, Cops, Guns, Law | 1 Comment »

…it’s the hole.

May 21st, 2015

From the NYT, a short documentary about Chris Burden and “Shoot”.

(Subject line hattip.)

Posted in Art, Clippings, Guns | Comments Closed

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