Oh, Minnesota.
Kwesi Adofo-Mensah out as general manager of the Minnesota Vikings.
And Derek Falvey out as president of the Minnesota Twins.
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Falvey’s departure was framed publicly as a mutual decision to part ways.
Missed this the other day, but Joe Lombardi out as offensive coordinator in Denver.
Wide receivers coach Keary Colbert and cornerbacks coach Addison Lynch also were fired.
I’m going to do a round-up from the past couple of days. I’m also going to draw heavily on the NYT since we’re reaching the end of the month, and I have a bunch of share links to burn off before February.
Sly Dunbar, of Sly and Robbie.
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Mr. Dunbar was known for his precise, propellant and somehow also relaxed drumming. After mastering the one-drop rhythm, a reggae standard that leaves out the kick drum on the first beat of a 4/4 measure, he pioneered the rockers rhythm, which deploys the drum on the first and third beats, and the snare on the second and fourth, making it even more danceable and energetic.
The rockers rhythm challenged the reggae orthodoxy of the 1970s. It fostered new genres like dancehall and made it easier for adjacent styles, like R&B, funk and rock, to incorporate reggae influences.
John L. Allen Jr., prominent Catholic journalist and author. I haven’t read any of his books, but I should probably at least buy the Opus Dei one. (Lawrence likes to give me a hard time about my Opus Dei membership.)
He’s not someone I’d ever heard of, but the obit is mildly interesting, so I’m just going to quote the first paragraph and send you over to the paper of record if it grabs you.
Finally, Dr. Peter H. Duesberg. That name may ring a bell for some people.
He did important early work on cancer.
In the late 1960s, when scientists had little understanding of what caused cancer, Dr. Duesberg studied a virus called Rous sarcoma, which had been associated with malignant tumors in chickens. He published the results of his experiments in 1970, showing that the virus carried a gene, known as Src, that triggered cancer in the birds.
It turned out to be the first known cancer-causing gene, or oncogene.
Dr. Duesberg’s work, at the University of California, Berkeley, set the stage for other researchers who were able to show that normal cells in many animals, including humans, carry a version of this gene, known as a proto-oncogene. Modern cancer treatments are based in part on the understanding that those proto-oncogenes can turn into cancer-spawning oncogenes when damaged over time by carcinogens, radiation or random mutations.
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But he didn’t pursue his research on oncogenes. Instead, in his work at Berkeley and at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, where he held an appointment starting in 1997, he focused on the more established theory that cancer is caused by damage to the chromosomes, the structures that carry our genetic material.
And in a startling about-face, he inexplicably contradicted his own research, insisting that oncogenes didn’t, in fact, cause cancer; he even went so far as to heckle colleagues at scientific meetings if they supported that idea.
He became more famous as an H.I.V. denialist.
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Both Bugs and Daffy are wrong. It is forgery season! And what was that about “Forgery is uncommon among the hyenas“?
Sonya Jaquez Lewis was convicted yesterday.
Apparently, Colorado has a crime called “attempting to influence a public servant”? I was under the impression that “attempting to influence a public servant”, especially an elected official, falls under the heading of “democracy”. “Forgery”, on the other hand…
The former senator got crosswise with the state senate’s Ethics Committee last year. She was accused of “mistreating” some of her aides.
She stepped down when the committee announced that Jaquez Lewis had submitted at least one fabricated letter of support, purported to be from a former aide, to the panel. The aide whose name was on the letter told legislative investigators that she didn’t write it and that she had not been in touch with Jaquez Lewis for roughly a year before the missive was sent.
When confronted, Jaquez Lewis told legislative investigators that she was relaying information she had gathered from conversations with the former aide in years past. The letter, however, appeared on letterhead with the aide’s name on it and was written in the first person.
Prosecutors found that Jaquez Lewis had actually written multiple letters purporting to be from former aides.
During a three-day trial this week, Jaquez Lewis admitted to writing the letters of support. But she denied that they were fabrications, saying they were based either on information that was relayed to her previously and, in one instance, that she misattributed a letter to the wrong former aide.
More from the Denver Post:
Yeah, don’t mess with people’s pay.
Her attorney, Craig Lewis Truman, emphasized the stress that Jaquez Lewis felt in the Capitol, compounded by an ethics committee that Jaquez Lewis felt was biased against her.
“Do you think she would put it all on the line for a letter to these kangaroo courts? Or was it because she was under the gun?” Truman said to jurors before their deliberations began.
Just leaving this here:
And keeping with our theme for the day:
And, because Lawrence’s happiness is one of the fifteen to thirty-five most important things to me: the Colorado Sun mentions her party affiliation in the subhead and the second paragraph. The Denver Post waits until the third paragraph.
The state supposedly plans to ask for probation. Hattip to Mike the Musicologist again.
It has been a minute since we had one of these, but this one is swell. Hattip to Mike the Musicologist on it.
Ayshia “Ajay” Pittman pled guilty to felony charges yesterday, and resigned from the Oklahoma House of Representatives. This moved fairly quickly: as I understand the story, her plea and resignation came just “hours” after she was charged.
She was charged with three felonies: conspiracy to commit a felony, second-degree forgery, and “violation of the Oklahoma Computer Crimes Act”. (Trena Byas, an executive assistant, was also charged. As far as I can tell, she has not taken a plea.)
What exactly did she do? Well, she forged a cashier’s check.
Forgery is uncommon among the hyenas, so this would be noteworthy by itself. But that’s not the best part. She forged a cashier’s check…
…and sent it to the Oklahoma Ethics Commission.
The background for this is that former rep Pittman has a problem with campaign funds. Specifically, she has a problem with diverting campaign funds for personal use.
The Ethics Commission wanted to see proof she was making payments.
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Ms. Pittman agreed to a seven year probated sentence, with deferred adjudication. So if she keeps out of trouble, the charges won’t go on her record.
Her resignation was part of her plea deal.
While on probation, she cannot seek state office, cannot work in state government and cannot work for a government contractor. She must make restitution for misuse of campaign funds, with the money going to charity.
Under a separate settlement with the Ethics Commission, she agreed not to run for any state office, city office, county office, school board office “or any other elected position” in Oklahoma for 15 years.
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Thomas Fogarty, another one of those big damn heroes of medicine.
Dr. Fogarty invented the Fogarty catheter.
“When people had a blood clot in their arm or leg, they usually ended up having three operations,” he told Stanford Medicine magazine in 2006. “Fifty percent of the patients died. I thought there must be a better way.”
Dr. Fogarty, who died at 91 on Dec. 28 in Los Altos, Calif., found a solution while a student at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, from which he graduated in 1960. There, he conceived a device that would revolutionize vascular surgery — a balloon catheter that removed blood clots from patients’ limbs through a minimally invasive technique that became an industry standard.
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For the first balloon-catheter procedure — in 1960 or 1961, according to various accounts — Dr. John J. Cranley, a vascular surgeon who was Dr. Fogarty’s mentor, first made a small incision in an occluded artery in a patient’s leg. He inserted the catheter — with the balloon deflated — past the blood clot. The balloon was then inflated with saline solution and retracted, pulling the clot along with it.
His response was, “Holy Cow!,” Dr. Fogarty told the publication Endovascular Today in 2004. Dr. Cranley exclaimed, “Wow, this really works!
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In a video tribute on his 90th birthday in 2024, colleagues at Fogarty Innovation described him as unconventional, stubborn and “about as touchy-feely as a steel screw.” Colleagues also paraphrased the mantra that drove Dr. Fogarty’s career: “How can I make this better? How can I reduce pain? How can I get the patient out of the hospital more quickly?”
At the same time, Andrew Cleeland, the organization’s chief executive, said in an interview that Dr. Fogarty had been a prankster who didn’t always take himself so seriously. Thomas Fogarty Jr. added that his father “wouldn’t tolerate foolishness except foolishness of the highest quality; well into his 80s, nothing was funnier to him than a whoopee cushion.”
He was also a fly fisherman.
James Bernard, “founding editor and star writer” of the hip-hop magazine “The Source”.
His sister, Emily Bernard, who confirmed the death, said he died by suicide. His body was discovered on Dec. 29 in a wooded area in Pemberton Township, N.J., near his home.
Mr. Bernard is believed to have died around the time he was reported missing, in March 2024. He would have turned 60 last August.
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His career at The Source unraveled in 1994, when he and other staff members organized a walkout after Mr. Mays published a laudatory article about the little-known group Almighty RSO, with which he was close, without consulting other editors. When calls for Mr. Mays’s resignation went nowhere, Mr. Bernard and others left the magazine.
In 1997, he and Mr. Dennis started a rival magazine, XXL. The founders conceived the quarterly as both a hip-hop tastemaker and a broader lifestyle magazine, like Playboy in its 1960s and ’70s heyday.
The Wikipedia entry on ‘The Source” goes into more detail about this and other issues.
Kevin Abrams out at the New York Football Giants. I can’t exactly figure out what his title was: at one point, he was assistant general manager, but he gave that up in 2022, according to the linked article.
Also out: defensive line coach Andre Patterson, inside linebackers coach John Egorugwu, secondary coach/pass game coordinator Marquand Manuel, and cornerbacks coach Jeff Burris.
All of this is being attributed to John Harbaugh coming in and cleaning house.
This isn’t quite an obit, but Mike the Musicologist sent it to me a few days ago, and I’ve been waiting for a chance to use it: a tribute to Phil Schreier. (Previously.)
Rob Hirst, drummer for Midnight Oil.
As I’ve observed before, if our Earth isn’t turning, our ability to dance will be the smallest of our possible problems. And if our beds are burning and we want to sleep…maybe get a hotel room? Or a fire extinguisher?
I’ve been silent the past few days because there hasn’t been a lot to write about. Now there is.
The Buffalo Bills fired coach Sean McDermott.
This is very breaking: the Buffalo News story is short and mostly video. ESPN. NFL Network.
98-50 over nine seasons, with an 8-8 playoff record.
Sounds like a good start. Now, if they would just shut down the team, ban the players from the NFL for life, burn the stadium, practice facilities, and offices, plow the rubble into the earth, sow the ground with salt, and drive the players and staff before us in chains while we listen to the lamentations of their women, I’d be well on my way to happy.
(Subject line hattip. Shoutout to Lawrence Block.)
Mike Tomlin is out as coach of the Steelers.
But is it a firing?
This sure sounds like a resignation, not a firing. But there was a lot of speculation around the Steelers: many people expressed a belief that the team had grown stagnent under Tomlin, and there might be a change coming.
Nineteen years, never a losing season. But seven straight playoff losses, including to the Texans last night.
ESPN.
In other news, offensive coordinator Greg Roman and offensive line coach Mike Devlin are out at the worthless LA Chargers.
Sounds like a good start. Now, if they would just shut down the team, ban the players from the NFL for life, burn the stadium, practice facilities, and offices, plow the rubble into the earth, sow the ground with salt, and drive the players and staff before us while we listen to the lamentations of their women, I’d be well on my way to happy.
Kevin Patullo out as offensive coordinator in Philadelphia.
I used to be a pretty avid follower of “Dilbert”. Back at one of my previous jobs, the running joke was that “Dilbert” was a documentary about my life. Then something happened. Mr. Adams’s…eccentricities, for want of a better word, got on my nerves. (Remember the “Dilberito“, and Mr. Adams’s idea that we didn’t need to actually, you know, eat food? We could just pills with all the nutrients we needed.)
He was still on my radar, because how could he not be? But he didn’t have the relevance for me that he once had. I’m sad he’s passed on, though.
(These days, the documentary about my life is called “The Wire”.)
Elle Simone Scott, of “America’s Test Kitchen”. I get a kick out of having “ATK” on in the background while I work.
Jirdes Winther Baxter. She was 101.
Ms. Baxter was the last known survivor of the 1925 Nome diphtheria epidemic.
A copy of medical records from 1925, possessed by Mr. Baxter, a retired lawyer, indicates that Jirdes (pronounced JER-diss) Winther, then 11 months old, was hospitalized in Nome on Jan. 30 with diphtheria and what she later called a high fever. Highly contagious, diphtheria is a dangerous bacterial disease that can clog airways, severely restricting breathing, and damage the heart and kidneys.
Jirdes’s Norwegian-born mother, Ragnhild, and one of her brothers, John, were admitted on Feb. 2. Her father, Johan, and another brother, Gudmund, did not contract the disease.
At the time, there was only one doctor, Curtis Welch, in Nome, a gold-rush town of 1,400 inhabitants. After two young children died of diphtheria by mid-January, officials there instituted a quarantine advised by Dr. Welch, who had realized that a pandemic seemed “almost inevitable.”
He sent alerts, by radio telegram, to other towns in Alaska and pleaded for emergency help from the U.S. Public Health Service. The nearest supply of antitoxin, made from the blood of horses, was at a hospital in Anchorage, 1,000 miles away.
They couldn’t fly antitoxin in by plane, the port was frozen over, and there was no train service directly to Nome.
A plan was devised to carry 300,000 units of antitoxin by train from Anchorage to the railhead of Nenana in interior Alaska, about 300 miles north. From there, sled dogs would ferry the serum 674 miles west to Nome, a relay that would involve 20 mushers and about 150 dogs. It would come to be known as the 1925 Serum Run and the Great Race of Mercy.
For days, millions were enthralled by radio and newspaper accounts of the rush to keep a threatened town alive. A front-page headline in The New York Times reported, “Serum Relief Near for Stricken Nome.”
Bill Shannon, the first musher on the relay, retrieved the serum — a 20-pound package containing glass vials housed in a metal cylinder — from the train in Nenana. He insulated the container with bearskin and took off on a 52-mile stretch as midnight approached on Jan. 27.
Mushers handed off the antitoxin and rested at roadhouses along the relay, enduring aching cold and wind and blizzards that sometimes made the trail disappear. On Feb. 2, the serum arrived in Nome after five days and seven hours, frozen but quickly thawed by Dr. Welch and administered to the sick.
Ms. Baxter had a few words to say on a subject of historical interest:
Ms. Winther Baxter believed — as many now do — that Balto, a husky that helped lead his team on the final 55-mile stretch into Nome, received heroic acknowledgment, including a statue in Central Park, at the expense of Togo, another husky who was the lead sled dog for a celebrated Norwegian-born driver named Leonhard Seppala.
Togo led his team for 261 miles — 170 to meet up with the relay and 91 on the longest, most hazardous stretch, involving a treacherous crossing of a frozen bay. Decades later, Togo received his own statue in New York, but in a less prominent location, Seward Park on the Lower East Side.
“No, no, you have it all wrong,” Ms. Winther Baxter corrected people when they mentioned the Balto statue, her granddaughter recalled her saying. “Togo was the real hero.”
Bob Weir, of the Grateful Dead.
(the sound of eight confused men getting paid)
Stewart Cheifet. My older readers may remember him from back in the day as the host of “Computer Chronicles” on PBS.
Hessy Levinsons Taft. I confess she wasn’t that notable, but this is a fun story in historical retrospect.
When she was six months old, in 1934, her family hired a photographer to take a portrait of her. The photographer, feeling whimsical, submitted the photo as an entry for a contest “to find a baby representing the epitome of the Aryan race”.
Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister of public enlightenment and propaganda, chose the winner.
She won the contest. Which made things rather complicated, as she and her family were Jewish.
T.K. Carter, actor. Other credits include “The Corner” (For those of you who have read the book or watched the mini-series, he was Gary McCullough. For those of you who haven’t read the book, I commend it to your attention.), “A Rage In Harlem” (1991), “Runaway Train”, and “Quincy, M.E.”.
Erich von Däniken, crank.
Mr. von Däniken was 32 and managing a hotel in Davos, Switzerland, when he published his first and by far most popular book, “Chariots of the Gods,” in 1968. In breathless prose, saturated with exclamation points and folksy interjections such as “Hey, presto!” Mr. von Däniken posited that virtually the sum of human knowledge and ability had been bestowed by extraterrestrials.
With little evidence and a lot of innuendo, he proclaimed that the Egyptian pyramids could have been built only with alien expertise. (“Is it really a coincidence that the height of the pyramid of Cheops multiplied by a thousand million — 98,000,000 miles — corresponds approximately to the distance between the earth and sun?” he wrote.)
The birdman cult of Easter Island, Mr. von Däniken declared, developed as a way to honor the supreme beings who had flitted down from the outer atmosphere to land on that remote spot in the Pacific, off the coast of South America.
Because an iron rod in a temple in Delhi, India, appeared impervious to rust, it must have been made from a celestial alloy, he insisted. Similarly, he said, when viewed from the air, the geoglyphs of Nazca, Peru, are obvious landing strips for spaceships. And artwork on a Mayan sarcophagus depicts not a king descending into the underworld, he concluded, but an astronaut-god piloting a spaceship.
It sounds ridiculous, but people bought into this [stuff]. Including me. In my defense, I was left unsupervised. Also, I was very young at the time. (See also.)
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Mr. von Däniken wrote his second book from prison. In 1970, a Swiss court convicted him of fraud, forgery and embezzlement, determining that, as a hotel manager, he had falsified financial records to subsidize what the court called a “playboy” lifestyle. He served about a third of a three-and-a-half-year sentence.
Critics pointed to Mr. von Däniken’s criminal history as proof of a penchant for deception. But Mr. von Däniken seemed unfazed, even comparing himself to Jesus. “People don’t ask if Christ was convicted of a crime,” he told Playboy in 1974. “What has that to do with the message Christ brought?”