Quick throw away post of two videos by way of the NYPost.
1) I don’t think that is going to buff out…
2) I’m only posting this one so I can say, “Go forth and kill! Zardoz has spoken!”
Bagatelle (#39?)
July 19th, 2021Obit watch: July 19, 2021.
July 19th, 2021William F. Nolan, SF writer. His most famous work (co-authored with George Clayton Johnson) was Logan’s Run, basis for the movie of the same name.
(Hattip: Lawrence.)
Kurt Westergaard, cartoonist.
He gained global notoriety in 2005 for his controversial depiction of the Prophet Muhammad in Jyllands-Posten, which published 12 editorial cartoons of the principal figure of Islam under the headline, “The Face of Mohammed.”
Westergaard was behind the most controversial of the cartoons published by the paper, showing the prophet wearing a turban shaped like a bomb, according to the BBC. The cartoon intended to make a point about self-censorship and criticism of Islam.
He was 86, and died in his sleep.
Very brief historical note (some parental guidance suggested).
July 17th, 2021Today is the 40th anniversary of the Kansas City Hyatt Regency skywalk collapse.
This is something that shook me up at the time, and I’m not sure I can do it justice today. KMBC 9 has put up a documentary, “The Skywalk Tapes”, which I feel comfortable embedding here. (I thought about using the “Seconds From Disaster” episode, but all the YouTube copies I could find were low quality.)
Texas A&M Civil Engineering Ethics Site case study. Photos of the failed components (nothing graphic).
Obit watch: July 17, 2021.
July 17th, 2021Quick roundup, in some haste:
Biz Markie. 57. Damn.
Dennis Murphy, founder of the American Basketball Association. Also the World Hockey Association, the International Women’s Professional Softball League, and Roller Hockey International.
“He was fun and creative,” Mr. O’Brien said, “and he was always hustling somebody.”
History repeats itself.
July 16th, 2021The first time as farce. Also the second time:
A literal ‘Malice in the Palace’ style brawl between players and fans in the stands of the NJ Jackals game just broke out while @NjTank99 was judging a hotdog contest on the other side of the stadium.
Dollar Beer night in independent baseball hits different pic.twitter.com/yBT4qthRAL
— TJ (RUTGERS) (@TJHitchings) July 16, 2021
As a side note, 10 cents in 1974 dollars works out to 55 cents in 2021 dollars, so I think those fans were getting rooked.
Fair food!
July 15th, 2021The State Fair of Texas is coming. And with that, fair food!
KXAN has a rundown of the 32 semifinalists for the “Big Tex Choice Awards”.
It seems like there’s not a lot on a stick this year. But out of 19 “savory” dishes, I see three “deep fried”, three “fried”, and seven that include “fried” in the description but not the title.
That does sort of invoke I-35 for me. Specifically, it invokes a multi-car pileup on I-35 during rush hour.
Out of 13 “sweet” dishes, I count six that contain the words “deep fried”, three more that are just “fried”, and two more that do not use the word “fried” in the name, but are fried as part of the prep.
Happy Bastille Day!
July 14th, 2021This is a little more off-the-cuff than usual, as I had to go see the bone guy this morning.
Did you know you can get casts in black? I didn’t know they offered a variety of colors.
I’m now very low speed, high drag, but with a tacticool cast. If I apply myself, I may even be able to rig some MOLLE attachment points to it.
Anyway, happy Bastille Day to y’all. Guzzle some wine and listen to “Revolutions” starting right about here. You can thank me later.
Obit watch: July 13, 2021.
July 13th, 2021Charlie Robinson, actor.
We have “Night Court” on sometimes on Saturday mornings when we’re getting ready for excursions. That was a swell show, and not just because of Harry Anderson or John Larroquette: everybody is great in it. Including Mr. Robinson.
Among other credits, he was in “Gray Lady Down”. (Which, sadly, we have watched recently, so no tribute night.)
Paul “Mr. Wonderful” Orndorff, professional wrestler.
Lawrence sent over a more local obit for Henry Parham.
Administrative note.
July 12th, 2021Saturday night, I broke my left wrist.
It was just about the stupidest accident possible: I was at the top of Lawrence’s stairs, lost my balance, and fell all the way to the bottom of the stairs. I gather it was quite spectacular to watch: as best as I can remember, it was somewhat spectacular to experience.
The broken wrist is the worst of it: I have a few bruises, but no head injuries and nothing else broken.
This is just to say that I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox…er, I mean, blogging might be a little slow while I deal with the fallout from this.
Obit watch: July 12, 2021.
July 12th, 2021Edwin Edwards, former governor of Louisiana.
In January 2011, Mr. Edwards was released from a federal prison in Oakdale, La., after serving more than eight years of a 10-year sentence for bribery and extortion by rigging Louisiana’s riverboat casino licensing process during his last term in office.
Six months later he married. And in the fall, he rode in an open convertible through cheering crowds waving Edwards-for-governor signs at an election-day barbecue. “As you know, they sent me to prison for life,” he told them. “But I came back with a wife.”
Before Mr. Edwards, no one had ever been elected to more than two terms as governor of Louisiana. Indeed, the state constitution prohibits more than two consecutive terms. But from 1972 to 1996, with a couple of four-year furloughs to stoke up his improbable comebacks, Mr. Edwards was the undisputed king of Baton Rouge, a Scripture-quoting, nonsmoking teetotaler who once considered life as a preacher.
Henry Parham. He served in the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion during D-Day.
…
His battalion hoisted large balloons to heights of up to 2,000 feet over Omaha and Utah beaches between D-Day and August 1944, carrying out the mission during the night hours so the balloons would not be spotted by incoming German planes. The balloons were tethered to the ground by cables fitted with small packets of explosive charges. German planes that became entangled in them were likely to be severely damaged or downed.
Mr. Parham’s section of the balloon battalion had reached Omaha Beach in the hours after the arrival of the first waves of infantrymen. (The other section was assigned to Utah Beach.) When the balloonists stepped off small boats, they witnessed a scene of carnage. The American forces, raked by German fire from high ground, had taken heavy casualties.
“We landed in water up to our necks,” Mr. Parham once told The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “Once we got there we were walking over dead Germans and Americans on the beach. Bullets were falling all around us.”
Mr. Parham told CNN in 2019: “I prayed to the Good Lord to save me. I did my duty. I did what I was supposed to do as an American.”
He was 99.
Thomas Cleary, noted translator and writer.
William Smith, prolific actor. He has 274 credits in IMDB, including the good “Hawaii 5-0”, “Rich Man, Poor Man”, “Darker Than Amber”, “Any Which Way You Can”, and “Kolchak: The Night Stalker”.
Pointless trivia (suitable for use in schools).
July 9th, 2021Obit watch: July 9, 2021.
July 9th, 2021Maegle was an all-American as a senior in the 1954 season, when he ran for 905 yards and 11 touchdowns and finished sixth in the balloting for the Heisman Trophy, presented annually to college football’s most outstanding player. The trophy was won that year by the Wisconsin back Alan Ameche (who went on to fame with the Baltimore Colts for scoring the winning touchdown in overtime in the storied 1958 N.F.L. championship game against the New York Giants).
The San Francisco 49ers drafted Maegle in the first round of the January 1955 N.F.L. draft. He was a 49er for five seasons, playing mostly at right safety and occasionally as a running back, then concluded his pro career with the 1960 Pittsburgh Steelers and the 1961 Dallas Cowboys. He intercepted 28 passes, running one of them back for a touchdown.
He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1979.
But he’s best remembered for something that happened in 1954 at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas:
Taking a handoff at Rice’s 5-yard line in the second quarter of its matchup with Alabama, Maegle cut to the right and raced down the sideline. When he passed the Alabama bench while crossing midfield, on his way to a virtually certain touchdown, the Crimson Tide fullback Tommy Lewis interrupted his rest period and, sans helmet, sprang onto the field and leveled Maegle with a blindside block at Alabama’s 42-yard line.
The referee ruled that Maegle was entitled to a 95-yard touchdown run. Rice, ranked No. 6 in the nation by The Associated Press, went on to a 28-6 victory over 13th-ranked Alabama.
Chick Vennera, one of those knock-around actors. Credits include “Thank God It’s Friday”, “The Milagro Beanfield War”, and a lot of TV, including “The Golden Girls” and voice work on “Animaniacs”.
James Kallstrom, FBI guy.
In his 27 years with the F.B.I., Mr. Kallstrom helped convict the bosses of New York City’s five Mafia families with cleverly concealed wiretaps and spiked meatballs. And he investigated the 1993 terrorist bombing of the World Trade Center, expanded the bureau’s surveillance purview to include cellular phones, and recovered a half-million dollars in diamond jewelry that had been stolen by a baggage handler at Kennedy International Airport in 1995 and that had belonged to Sarah, the duchess of York.
In the investigation of the crash of Flight 800, he became the face of the F.B.I. in daily briefings as he and other authorities sought to understand what caused the explosion that sent the jetliner plummeting into the waves off Long Island on July 17, 1996 — one of the deadliest aviation incidents in American history.
He may also be known to some folks as the guy who introduced episodes of “The F.B.I. Files”.
Deep philosophical question.
July 8th, 2021Fans were barred from the pandemic-postponed Tokyo Olympics that will open in two weeks, following a state of emergency issued on Thursday.
The ban was announced by the International Olympic Committee and Japanese organizers, reducing the games to a made-for-TV event.
Why are we still doing this?
(Yes, Lawrence, I know what your answer is: “M-O-N-E-Y!”)
Obit watch: July 8, 2021.
July 8th, 2021Noted for the hysterical record: four of the alleged six assassins of Haitian president Jovenel Moïse have been killed. Two are in custody.
Robert Downey Sr. Variety. THR.
Suzzanne Douglas, actress. She did some theater work:
She also did some film (“How Stella Got Her Groove Back”, “School of Rock”, among others) and a lot of TV work.
Lawrence sent over a memo from the Burning in Hell Department: Ahmad Jibril. He headed the Palestinian terror group PFLP-GC:
He was 83, and it sounds like he died of “natural causes”. (And not the “He was hit by one of those sword missiles fired from a drone, so naturally he died” sort of “natural causes”.)
Real estate watch.
July 8th, 2021For those of you in the UK.
The asking price is £1,100,000 (which works out to about $1.5 million). But: five beds, three bathrooms, 2,954 square feet, a “utility room” and a cellar (that’d be great for your wine collection), plus “reception room”, “garden room”, and “dining room”.
And you can’t put a money value on the prestige of being able to say, “Yes, I live in the old Alan Turing place.”