UnBearable.

November 20th, 2024

Jim Montgomery out as head coach of the Boston Bruins hockey team.

They were 120-41-23 in “three seasons”. 20 games into the current season, they’re 8-9-3.

The Bruins have been one of the NHL’s most notable disappointments this season. They’re 31st in team offense (2.40 goals per game) and 28th in defense (3.45 goals against per game).
Previously dependable aspects of the team have malfunctioned, in particular the goaltending. The team traded former Vezina winner Linus Ullmark to the Ottawa Senators for goalie Joonas Korpisalo. The Ullmark deal broke up the best goalie tandem in the NHL with 26-year-old Jeremy Swayman, who missed training camp during a bitter negotiation before signing an eight-year contract that will pay him $66 million.

(Apologies for the ESPN link, but I flat out cannot get around the various Boston media paywalls/”disable your ad blocker” prompts.)

Posted in Firings, Sports | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: November 19, 2024.

November 19th, 2024

Lawrence, the Guardian, and the New York Times have all noted that two drummers for the Bee Gees have died in the past few days.

Dennis Bryon, 76, the Bee Gees’ drummer starting in 1973, died on Nov. 14, according to Blue Weaver, who played in the band Amen Corner with Mr. Bryon. He announced his death on Facebook on Thursday, but gave no cause of death for Mr. Bryon.
Colin “Smiley” Petersen, the band’s first professional drummer, died on Nov. 18 at the age of 78, according to Evan Webster and Sue Camilleri, who work on The Best of The Bee Gees Show, a tribute band. Mr. Petersen died from a fall, they said.
Mr. Petersen, who joined the Bee Gees in 1967, played on the band’s first four albums. He started playing in the The Best of The Bee Gees Show five years ago, Mr. Webster said.

…

Mr. Petersen played on a string of hit ballads from 1967 to 1970, including “Massachusetts,” “To Love Somebody,” “I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You,” “I Started a Joke” and “Words.” He was also a child actor, known for his role in the 1956 film “Smiley,” which was the origin of his nickname, among a few other movies in the late ’50s.

…

Mr. Bryon, born in Cardiff, Wales, was a part of the Bee Gees for many of its greatest hits in the 1970s, including “Stayin’ Alive,” “How Deep is Your Love,” “You Should Be Dancing,” “More Than a Woman” and the rest of the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack. He started playing drums when he was 14.

Arthur Frommer, travel book guy.

Mr. Frommer built an empire of guidebooks, package tours, hotels and other services on the bedrock of his first book, published in 1957, which sold millions of copies in annually updated editions until 2007. (It was “Europe From $95 a Day” by then.)

…

“This is a book,” he wrote, “for American tourists who a) own no oil wells in Texas, b) are unrelated to the Aga Khan, c) have never struck it rich in Las Vegas and who still want to enjoy a wonderful European vacation.”

Thomas E. Kurtz, one of the great men of history. He co-created the BASIC computer language.

At 4 a.m. on May 1, 1964, in the basement of College Hall on the Dartmouth campus, the time-sharing system and BASIC were put to a test. A professor and a student programmer typed a simple command, “RUN,” into neighboring Teletype terminals and watched as both received the same answer simultaneously. It worked.

Posted in Books, Geek, Music, Obits | No Comments »

More firings!

November 19th, 2024

According to “sources”, the NY Jets have fired general manager Joe Douglas. ESPN.

Under Douglas, the Jets have a 30-64 record, no winning seasons and no playoff appearances.

The Charlotte 49ers have fired football coach Biff Poggi.

Poggi went 6-16 in his two seasons and was the second American Athletic Conference coach to be fired Monday after just two campaigns. (FAU fired Tom Herman earlier in the day.)

…

Poggi went 3-9 last year, with the team’s discipline issues spilling over with a spree of personal foul penalties in a game against FAU. Poggi suspended an unspecified number of players and issued a statement in which he said he was “extremely disappointed with our comportment as a football team.”

The good news is, former coach Biff is going to have more time to drink white wine spritzers at the club with Muffy, Buffy, and Brock.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | No Comments »

Firings watch.

November 18th, 2024

There’s been a lot going on. I’m sorry to be linking so much to ESPN, but I’m having trouble finding local coverage for some of these.

Tom Herman out at Florida Atlantic. 6-16 in two seasons, and 0-6 in the AAC this season.

Don Brown out at the University of Massachusetts. 6-28 over “two plus seasons”, and they’re 2-8 so far.

Phil Longo out as offensive coordinator of the Wisconsin Badgers. I have not heard anything about mushrooms or the snake.

Stan Drayton out at Temple. 9-25 in “two plus” seasons, 4-18 in the AAC, and 0-15 on the road. But they actually won (in overtime) Saturday.

Noted: “Temple’s firing of Stan Drayton should open the door to dropping the football program“.

Posted in Firings, Sports | 4 Comments »

Obit watch: November 18, 2024.

November 18th, 2024

Bela Karolyi, gymnastics coach.

You may remember him from such hits as Nadia Comaneci:

Karolyi helped usher in an exciting and more challenging era of women’s gymnastics as the Romanian coach who turned Nadia Comaneci into an Olympic champion in 1976. Under his tutelage, Comaneci, then 14, scored the first perfect 10 in Olympic competition.

Mary Lou Retton:

In 1981, Karolyi and his wife defected from Romania and tried to make a name for themselves in the United States. He took on a young gymnast named Mary Lou Retton as a pupil. In 1984, she became the first American woman to win a gold medal in gymnastics.

And Dr. Larry Nassar:

As early as the 1980s, some said that Karolyi’s insatiable drive to win fostered a culture of abuse. Yet accusations about unhealthy diets, unsafe treatment of injuries and even physical attacks did not halt his rise. When, amid fighting with fellow coaches, he stepped down as national coordinator of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team, he was replaced by his wife, who ran the program for another 15 years. At the same time, the couple owned a Texas ranch that served as the team’s training headquarters.

…

Yet after 2016, the Karolyis found themselves in the news not for gymnastics triumphs but for their relationship with Dr. Nassar, who as a doctor at their ranch spent years sexually abusing girls who were training with the couple. Around the same time, many gymnasts accused the Karolyis themselves of being abusive in their coaching.

…

In fact, a reckoning was already underway. That August, accounts emerged that Dr. Nassar had regularly molested young female athletes at the Karolyis’ ranch and at Michigan State University, where he was a faculty member and sports doctor. Gymnasts began discussing publicly how, while training with the Karolyis, they had practiced with fractured bones, suffered ridicule of their developing bodies, faced food restrictions and felt discouraged from complaining about hunger or pain.
Many former gymnasts said they had dreaded going to the Karolyis’ ranch. One testified that she once purposefully hit her head against a bathtub to avoid the abuse.

…

The Karolyis denied knowing about Dr. Nassar’s behavior and rejected the abuse accusations against them. A district attorney in Texas who brought charges against Dr. Nassar did not file charges against the Karolyis, saying they had fully cooperated with the investigation.

Posted in Obits, Sports | No Comments »

Obit watch: November 15, 2024.

November 15th, 2024

Theodore B. Olson, noted lawyer. I sort of vaguely remember him from the Reagan administration:

He was a founding member of the Federalist Society, the influential conservative legal group, and a leading figure in many conservative legal triumphs of the 2000s, including Bush v. Gore (2000) and Citizens United (2010).

Later on, he became involved in the effort to overturn California’s gay marriage ban, and opposed the first Trump administration’s efforts to repeal the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

His political views emerged in college, centered on a particularly Western, libertarian brand of conservatism. During a debate trip to Texas, he watched as a restaurant manager in Amarillo refused to seat a Black teammate. Mr. Olson shouted down the manager, telling him they would all leave if he wouldn’t serve everyone.

…

Mr. Olson worked on the White House’s behalf during the initial stages of the Iran-contra affair, Congress’s investigation into the illegal arms sales to Iran to support right-wing rebels in Nicaragua. He was also accused of committing perjury during a congressional investigation into the White House’s withholding of environmental records.
That investigation, which lasted five years and personally cost Mr. Olson $1.5 million, ended without charges. It made him a darling among conservative commentators, but left many Democrats convinced that he was dangerously partisan.

…

His third wife, the conservative commentator Barbara (Bracher) Olson, was aboard American Airlines Flight 77 to Los Angeles from Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, when Al Qaeda terrorists hijacked it, crashing it into the Pentagon and killing everyone aboard.
She had planned to leave the day before, but had stayed an extra day to be with Mr. Olson on the morning of his birthday. As the plane veered back toward Northern Virginia, where they lived, she called him from a bathroom, and Mr. Olson was able to record some of the call. His telephone is now in the collection of the National Museum of American History.

Gerry Faust, former coach at Notre Dame.

John Robinson, former coach at the Universty of Southern California and of the Rams.

…Attending Our Lady of Perpetual Help School, he met a fellow fifth-grader, John Madden, the future Hall of Fame coach and broadcaster, and they became lifelong friends.
“Just two doofuses from Daly City,” Robinson told The Los Angeles Times in 2021.

Timothy West, noted British actor. Other credits include “EastEnders”, “Nicholas and Alexandra”, “Crime and Punishment” (the 1979 TV miniseries)…

…and what was, according to the obit, a disastrous production of “Macbeth” with Peter O’Toole.

Mr. O’Toole, who had not appeared on the London stage for 15 years, had insisted on complete artistic control over the production, Mr. West wrote in a memoir — “a sure recipe for dissent if not disaster” — and refused to make any suggested changes.
The first night was a critical failure (“Not so much downright bad as heroically ludicrous,” The Daily Mail wrote), and ignited a public war of words (“West Disowns MacBeth,” one headline blared). But the play drew so many curious theatergoers that it became a box office hit.

He was also married to Prunella “Sybil Fawlty” Scales, who I did not know (until I read the obit) has Alzheimer’s. Damn.

Posted in Law, Movies, NFL, Obits, Sports, TV | No Comments »

Obit watch: November 11, 2024.

November 11th, 2024

Playing catch-up here:

Tony Todd, actor. NYT (archived). Other credits include “Crossing Jordan” (the “Quincy” of the 2000s except it sucked), “Homicide: Life on the Street”, “Cop Rock”, “Jake and the Fatman”, and multiple spinoffs of a minor SF TV series from the 1960s.

Bobby Allison. NASCAR. ESPN.

This is a little old, but as I recall, it came up while Mike the Musicologist and I were wandering around: Jonathan Haze, actor. Other credits include OG “Dragnet”, “Highway Patrol”, “The Fast and the Furious” (1954), and “The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent”.

Finally, Baltazar Ushca has passed away at 80. He is believed to have been the last of the Andean ice harvesters.

Once or twice a week, he climbed snow-capped Mount Chimborazo, Ecuador’s highest peak, to hack ice from a glacier with a pickax, wrap the 60-pound blocks in hay and transport them on the backs of his donkeys. He would then sell them to villagers who did not have electricity and needed refrigeration to conserve their food.

…

“The natural ice from Chimborazo is the best ice,” Mr. Ushca said in a short documentary, “El Último Hielero,” or “The Last Ice Merchant” (2012), directed by Sandy Patch. “The tastiest and the sweetest. Full of vitamins for your bones.”

Posted in Cars, Movies, Obits, Sports, TV | No Comments »

Armistice Day.

November 11th, 2024

I apologize. I have been more than a little distracted, with recovery from the previous eye surgery and planning for the next eye surgery (which is tomorrow). So I haven’t really had a chance to write anything special for Armistice Day.

In lieu of something from me, I’m going to point you to this recent article/book review from American Handgunner: “Fearless: The Adam Brown Story“.

I had not heard of Adam Brown before reading this, but cheese louise, what a guy.

One year after losing his eye, Adam completed Navy sniper school, shooting left-handed and using his left eye. Adam once again graduated at the top of his class.

…

…here’s a man who lost his dominant eye, re-trained himself to shoot weak-handed, to the rigorous standards of a top-tier anti-terrorist unit, and completed the tough physical standards with reattached fingers and one eye.

Since there’s not a link in the article, if you want to read Fearless: The Undaunted Courage and Ultimate Sacrifice of Navy SEAL Team SIX Operator Adam Brown, you can find it at the above affiliate link.

Posted in Heroism, History | 2 Comments »

You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#133 in a series)

November 8th, 2024

Winter is coming, if it hasn’t showed up already in your neck of the woods. We need something to keep us warm, and what better than flaming hyenas?

The mayor of Jacksonville, Mississippi, Antar Lumumba, has been indicted on federal bribery charges.

Also indicted: Aaron Banks, who is a councilman, and Jody Owens, the county DA.

I missed this, but another city council member, Angelique Lee, pled guilty to “conspiracy to commit bribery” charges in August. I get the impression she hasn’t been sentenced yet, and I’m wondering if she’s now a “cooperating witness”.

Owens is facing eight felony counts; Lumumba is facing five felony counts and Banks is facing two felony counts.
Owens faces one count of conspiracy, three counts of federal program bribery, one count of use of an interstate facility in aid of racketeering, one count of wire fraud, one count of money laundering and one count of making a false statement.
Lumumba faces one count of conspiracy, one count of federal program bribery, one count of use of an interstate facility in aid of racketeering, one count of wire fraud and one count money laundering.
Banks faces one count of conspiracy and three counts of federal program bribery.

…

According to the recently unsealed indictment, Owens facilitated over $80,000 in bribe payments to Lumumba, Lee and Banks in exchange for their agreement to take official action on the city’s long-sought after hotel development project across the street from the Jackson Convention Complex. It is a project the city has been trying to build since the mid-2000s. The city released a statement of qualifications, or SOQ, for the project on Jan. 31.
Owens accepted at least $115,000 in cash and “promises of future financial benefits” from two developers from Nashville who turned out to be undercover FBI agents. The agents used Owens’ relationships with the elected officials “to act as an intermediary” for the bribes. Smith helped Owens facilitate the bribes.
“Owens, Banks, Lumumba, Lee and Smith were not aware that, in reality, the Developers were working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” the indictment states.

…

On Jan. 11, Banks allegedly requested $50,000 in exchange for his future vote in favor of the “developers” bogus real estate company that was bidding on the city’s SOQ. In February, Banks allegedly accepted an “initial payment” of $10,000 from the undercover agents through Owens, along with a promise of an employment opportunity for a family member. Additionally, Lee accepted nearly $20,000 in February and March also in exchange for her vote in favor of the undercover agents’ company.
During the meeting, Owens dismissed Banks then told the agents:
“We never give them the asking price. I buy [expletive for women’s genitalia], I buy cars, I buy cows, I buy drugs, whatever. My point is like [Banks] need 50, you get 30. He gets installments. That’s my game,” according to the indictment.

…

On Feb. 12, 2024, Owens arranged a dinner with the agents, Lumumba and Smith. After introductions, Owens told Lumumba, “I’ve done background checks. They’re not FBI by the way.” He also told the mayor the agents’ focus “shifted” to the hotel project across from the convention center.

…

Owens then allegedly stated:
“I don’t give a [expletive] where the money comes from. It can come from blood diamonds in Africa, I don’t give a [expletive]. I’m a whole DA. [Expletive] that [expletive]. My job, as I understand it, with a little paperwork, is to get this deal done, and get it done most effectively … We can take dope boy money, I don’t give a [expletive]. But I need to clean it and spread it. I can do it in here. That’s why we have businesses. To clean the money. Right? I don’t give a [expletive]. You give us cash, we deposit it and give it back that way. That’s easy.”

NYT coverage. I think this is better organized for non-locals, but it lacks a lot of the more colorful quotes from DA Owens.

Posted in Law, Politics | 1 Comment »

Bagatelle (#122).

November 7th, 2024

A few food related things Mike the Musicologist and I saw while running around:

The New Braunfels Rotary Club has gone up to $16! for the sausage and potato pancakes plate. Thanks, Joe Biden!

(Seriously, I think it was $12 the last time I went to Wurstfest.)

Because it just isn’t charcuterie unless it is on a stick. Also, that raclette sounds really good.

(We’ve driven past that cheese shop when we’ve been in New Braunfels, but I’ve never been in. May have to fix that.)

They’re not just pork rinds. They’re “small batch” pork rinds. I don’t think they are “artisanal”, however.

Posted in Bagatelle, Cheese, Food, On a stick | No Comments »

Sorry, not sorry.

November 7th, 2024

Part of me thinks I should apologize for not posting yesterday. The other part of me doesn’t.

I got about 3.5 hours of sleep Tuesday night, though I did nap some on Lawrence’s dog couch. So I was pretty worn out yesterday and still had to put in a full day at work. Plus, as I’ve said before, I am not a politics or geo-politics person. I have some things I could say about politics and gun politics, like what I’m hoping for out of the new boss (same as the old boss) but I’d just be stirring the metaphorical pot with a metaphorical stick.

There are plenty of other people who are smarter about politics than I am. I’d suggest Lawrence and Borepatch to start with. I’d also recommend the folks on Lawrence’s sidebar.

At least I can stop muting political ads, and continue muting Medicare supplement ads and lawyer ads.

In other news, I wanted to bookmark this article from American Handgunner, “Sixguns To The Rescue: The M1917 In World War One” about the M1917 revolvers. (Previously on WCD.)

From the obit front: Geoff Capes. I’d never heard of him, but he was hugely popular in the United Kingdom. He was a multiple time winner of the World’s Strongest Man competition, a six-time winner of the Highland Games, and won the “U.K. Truck-Pulling Championship” in 1986.

At 6-foot-6 and 365 pounds, Mr. Capes was a crushing Adonis whose daily diet consisted of seven pints of milk, two loaves of bread, a dozen eggs, two steaks, a jar of baked beans, two tins of sardines, a pound of butter and a leg of lamb.
His gargantuan caloric intake powered his extraordinary feats in strongman competitions: pulling 12-ton trucks uphill, flipping cars, tearing London phone books in half and tossing five-pound bricks as if they were Kleenex boxes. He could run 200 meters — nearly the length of two American football fields — in under 25 seconds.

…

His physical prowess made him a favorite of Queen Elizabeth II, who howled in laughter after her glove stuck to his sweaty, sticky hands when she congratulated him on winning the Braemar Games, another Scottish skills competition, in 1982. Prince Charles and Princess Diana stood nearby having a giggle.

He was also a world-class breeder of budgies.

He competed in budgerigar shows throughout Europe, winning a world championship in 1995. He was named president of the Budgerigar Society in 2008 and frequently judged competitions.
“There’s something about their color and beauty that fascinates me,” Mr. Capes told The Sunday People. “They bring out my gentler side.”

This is one that I’ve been a little behind on: Richard A. Cash, big damn hero.

One of the things that people don’t understand until they’ve read at least a little bit about medicine is: dehydration will kill you. And there are lots of diseases, such as cholera and dysentery, that trigger fatal dehydration.

Patients could go “from a grape to a raisin” within hours, Dr. Cash often said.

Dr. Cash and Dr. David Nalin were working in Pakistan in 1967, and together developed an experimental oral rehydration therapy. It worked exceptionally well in trials.

Their approach was put to the test in 1971, when Bangladesh’s war of independence drove tens of thousands of refugees into camps across the border in India. Cholera and other diseases soon spread rapidly.
An Indian pediatrician helping with the response, Dilip Mahalanabis, made oral rehydration a cornerstone of his strategy, with astounding success — proof for all the world that a simple solution could be brought to bear against one of the world’s greatest killers.

…

The World Health Organization estimates that oral hydration therapy has saved more than 50 million lives, a majority of them children. In 1978, the British medical journal The Lancet called their innovation “potentially the most important medical advance this century.”

Posted in Admin, Birds, Bookmarks, Guns, History, Obits, Politics, Smith and Wesson, Sports | No Comments »

Please to remember…

November 5th, 2024

Happy Guy Fawkes Day to all my peeps everywhere!

(Still busy as all get out running around with Mike the Musicologist. I did accomplish something yesterday, though: I managed to get one of the Lipsey’s/S&W Ultimate Carry guns. Mine is a 442 in .38 Special: Cabela’s, it turns out, had a few and I think I got the last non-display one. They had no .32 Magnums. I hope to be able to post at least a brief range report, maybe even with chronograph data, once my eye doctor clears me to shoot.)

Posted in Guns, History, Smith and Wesson | No Comments »

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