Obit watch: January 26, 2024.

January 26th, 2024

Herbert “Cowboy” Coward.

Generally, I like to give credits beyond the ones in the headline. But Mr. Coward’s other credits as an actor are “Ghost Town: The Movie” and one episode of the “Hillbilly Blood” TV series. That’s it. (He also produced “Ghost Town” and it looks like he appeared as himself in an episode of “Moonshiners”.)

The NYT ran a very nice obit for David J. Skal. (Previously.)

Jon Franklin, journalist. I’d never heard of him before today, but he had an interesting career:

In 1979, Mr. Franklin won the first Pulitzer ever given for feature writing for his two-part series in The Baltimore Evening Sun titled “Mrs. Kelly’s Monster.”

…

He won his second Pulitzer, this time under the new category of explanatory journalism, in 1985, for his seven-part series “The Mind Fixers,” also in The Evening Sun. Delving into the molecular chemistry of the brain and how neurons communicate, he profiled a scientist whose experiments with receptors in the brain could herald treatment with drugs and other alternatives to psychoanalysis.

“Mrs. Kelly’s Monster” online.

David L. Mills, Internet guy. He developed the Network Time Protocol, and did a lot of other leading edge work as well.

Carl Andre, “minimalist sculptor”. I thought this was worth noting because I haven’t done anything with (regular) art recently, and because Mr. Andre was also famous for a lengthy interruption in his career.

On Sept. 8, 1985, he was arrested and charged in the death of Ms. {Ana] Mendieta, 36, who plunged from a window of their 34th-floor Greenwich Village apartment after a long night of drinking with her husband, whom she had married eight months earlier.

He was aquitted of second-degree murder, but there were a lot of people in the art world who thought he’d gotten away with it and the prosecution botched the case.

NYT obit for Fred Chappell. (Previously.)

Posted in Art, Books, Movies, Obits | 2 Comments »

Firings watch.

January 24th, 2024

No big firings still, but a few coordinators lost their jobs. I’m playing catch-up here, so please forgive the ESPN links.

Vic Fangio has been let go as defensive coordinator of the Miami Dolphins, supposedly by “mutual decision”.

Joe Barry fired as defensive coordinator of the Green Bay Packers. That’s the Green Bay Packers who made it as far as the divisional round of the playoffs.

Sean Desai out as defensive coordinator of the Eagles.

Posted in Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 24, 2024.

January 24th, 2024

Dr. Arno A. Penzias has passed away at the age of 90.

While this is another one of those obits for a relatively obscure figure, I feel there’s a good chance many of my readers have actually heard of Dr. Penzias.

Dr. Penzias (pronounced PEN-zee-as) shared one-half of the 1978 Nobel Prize in Physics with Robert Woodrow Wilson for their discovery in 1964 of cosmic microwave background radiation, remnants of an explosion that gave birth to the universe some 14 billion years ago. That explosion, known as the Big Bang, is now the widely accepted explanation for the origin and evolution of the universe. (A third physicist, Pyotr Kapitsa of Russia, received the other half of the prize, for unrelated advances in developing liquid helium.)

…

In 1961, Dr. Penzias joined AT&T’s Bell Laboratories in Holmdel, N.J., with the intention of using a radio antenna, which was being developed for satellite communications, as a radio telescope to make cosmological measurements…
In 1964, while preparing the antenna to measure the properties of the Milky Way galaxy, Dr. Penzias and Dr. Wilson, another young radio astronomer who was new to Bell Labs, encountered a persistent, unexplained hiss of radio waves that seemed to come from everywhere in the sky, detected no matter which way the antenna was pointed. Perplexed, they considered various sources of the noise. They thought they might be picking up radar, or noise from New York City, or radiation from a nuclear explosion. Or might pigeon droppings be the culprit?…
The cosmological underpinnings of the noise were finally explained with help from physicists at Princeton University, who had predicted that there might be radiation coming from all directions left over from the Big Bang. The buzzing, it turned out, was just that: a cosmic echo. It confirmed that the universe wasn’t infinitely old and static but rather had begun as a primordial fireball that left the universe bathed in background radiation…
The discovery not only helped cement the cosmos’s grand narrative; it also opened a window through which to investigate the nature of reality — all as a result of that vexing hiss first heard 60 years ago by a couple of junior physicists looking for something else.

Charles Osgood. THR. I feel like I’m giving him the short end of the stick, but there’s really nothing I can add to what others have said about him.

Gary Graham, actor. Other credits include “Crossing Jordan” (the “Quincy” of the 2000s except it sucked), “Walker, Texas Ranger”, and the 2003 “Dragnet”.

Melanie (aka Melanie Safka), who sang at Woodstock. This is another one where there’s not much I can say: pigpen51 may be more familiar with her music than I am.

Posted in Geek, History, Music, Obits, TV | 1 Comment »

Happy birthday, John Moses Browning!

January 23rd, 2024

Excuses, excuses.

I had fancy plans for a JMB birthday post. (And pants to match!)

I was going to post a triptych (not really, but you know what I mean) of three JMB designs, including one that I’m not sure most people associate with JMB. But the weather here the past few days has been awful: not just cold (by Austin standards) but also overcast and wet. That’s not good for taking firearm photos.

And I don’t really have a good space inside where I could set up a three-gun photo shoot. Not right now, anyway.

So some substitute links for your pleasure:

John M. Browning, American Gunmaker: An Illustrated Biography of the Man and His Guns. I can remember when this was easily available, at extremely reasonable prices, at Half-Price Books. I wonder what’s going on with those prices?

The Guns of John Moses Browning: The Remarkable Story of the Inventor Whose Firearms Changed the World. Haven’t decided if I’m going to read this or The Rifle next.

Bob Rayburn’s Colt Woodsman Home Page. Mike-SMO asked a while back for some more Colt links, so I think this is going on the firearms reference sidebar. (Also, I have another reason. Hint. Hint.) Bob Rayburn was a serious Woodsman collector (he sold off his collection a few years ago) and this seems to be one of the best Internet references on the Woodsman.

Posted in Guns, History | Comments Closed

TMQ Watch: January 23, 2024.

January 23rd, 2024

Last week, we quoted TMQ:

The Lions won a playoff game for the first time in 32 years, and are now on a pace to win another playoff game in 2056.

Final score: Detroit 31, Tampa Bay 23. What’s the pace now, Gregg?

(To be honest, we don’t have a lot of faith in Detroit beating San Francisco. But, as FotB pigpen51 notes, “On any given Sunday…“. Stranger things have happened. And we’d love to see Detroit in the Superb Owl.)

After the jump, this week’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback (which you won’t be able to read in its entirety unless you subscribe to “All Predictions Wrong”, which is the actual title of Gregg Easterbrook’s Substack)…

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in NFL, Sports, TMQ watch | Comments Closed

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

January 23rd, 2024

Art Acevedo is not taking the job in Austin. Repeat: Art Acevedo is not taking the job in Austin.

Acevedo notified Interim City Manager Jesús Garza Tuesday morning, following a firestorm about his appointment as an assistant city manager over the Austin Police Department (APD). On Tuesday afternoon, he posted a statement on X, the platform previously known as Twitter.
“It is clear that this newly created position has become a distraction from the critical work ahead for our city, the Austin Police Department, and the Austin Police Association,” Acevedo said in part, adding that he has always loved and admired the members of APD and, “as a long time member of their extended family, I will continue to support them in any way I can. Their well being has and will always [be] a priority for me, which is one of the reasons I have made this decision.”

I was actually surprised by the reaction to this, but haven’t had a chance to cover it. Many city leaders said, in essence, they felt bushwhacked by the decision and resented not being consulted.

“The biggest reaction, aside from surprise, is how does this make the Austin Police Department stronger and better,” Councilmember Ryan Alter, who represents a large portion of South Austin, told KVUE. “There were real problems that happened under his watch. To bring him back … Doesn’t honor the victims and the work that had to be done after he left.”

It was also particularly upsetting to victims of sexual assault. The city had a special apology ceremony this afternoon:

According to previous KXAN reporting, in 2016, an audit showed that APD lab technicians weren’t using proper techniques when calculating the odds of DNA results, potentially botching thousands of cases. The audit also found that evidence had been contaminated in at least one case and that lab technicians were using expired materials. The DNA lab closed in 2017.

The DNA lab problems, and the case mishandling, all took place under Chief Acevedo’s watch.

If we find out anything about what he’s doing next, we’ll post another Art Watch here. To be honest, we’re a little surprised he never got a position in the Biden administration…

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

Firings watch.

January 23rd, 2024

Adrian Griffin out as head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks. I’ve been having intermittent problems with archive.is again, so here’s the ESPN link as well.

This was his first year coaching (he was hired over the summer) and the team is currently 30-13.

Dave Heeke out as athletic director of the Arizona Wildcats.

(TMQ Watch is about 90% done, and will be going up later. It would be going up now, but I have two breaking news stories to do.)

Posted in Firings, Sports | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: January 22, 2024.

January 22nd, 2024

Norman Jewison. THR.

What a career. Other credits include “The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming”, “A Soldier’s Story”, and…

Mary Weiss, lead singer of the Shangri-Las.

Beatrix Potter.

Okay, in a restricted technical sense, Beatrix Potter died on December 22, 1943. This is from the paper of record’s “Overlooked No More” series. While the paper of record ran followup articles after her death, for some reason (and even the NYT staff can’t figure out that reason) they never actually ran an obit for her until now.

Posted in Books, Movies, Music, Obits | Comments Closed

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

January 20th, 2024

Seriously. I bet you never expected this item to come back around. I certainly didn’t.

But Art Acevedo is back in Austin, baby!

Doing what?

He will be paid $271,000 as an interim assistant city manager. Acevedo will supervise the Austin Police Department (APD) and serve as a liaison between APD and the city manager’s office. Interim City Manager Jesús Garza said he created the position and hired Acevedo for the job to help lead the department through staffing challenges and continued reform in the aftermath of community demands following the May 2020 protests, among other issues.

Excuse me, but aren’t the city manager and city council supposed to be supervising the Austin Police Department? Doesn’t the chief report to the city manager? Why do we need to pay $271,000 a year for another layer of bureaucracy?

“…lead the department through staffing challenges”? Is Art going to have the ability to authorize new academy classes on his own? Because that’s how you’re going to get through “staffing challenges”: by staffing the department.

The position does not require city council approval and received no public input. Garza said that is consistent with how he has hired other executives, some of whom he said are “people I know and have tapped to help see if they can do the work that needs to be done.”

Am I unreasonable in thinking that a new position that pays over a quarter of a million dollars a year, plus benefits, should be signed off on by the city council? Doesn’t this seem strange to anybody?

As a recap, since it has been a minute since I posted one of these: Art Acevedo was, until this week, the police chief in Aurora, Colorado. Somewhere in there was also a gig as a CNN commentator. The job in Aurora was, according to reports, “interim”.

In 2021, Acevedo was hired to lead the Miami Police Department in what became a tumultuous tenure. He referred to the “Cuban mafia” that controlled the city, igniting a firestorm, and was fired six months later.

Before that, he was the chief in Houston.

…where he marched with protesters after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis and incorrectly blamed “radicals” from Austin for unrest there.

It was on his watch that HPD narcotics detectives murdered two innocent people.

Acevedo served as Austin’s police chief from 2007 to 2016 with mixed reactions. He achieved near-celebrity status, appearing on magazine covers and marching in parades and rallies, but also led the department during multiple controversial shootings that critics said showed a lack of cultural shift. Acevedo was often criticized for cultivating the limelight more than leading the department.

Posted in Austin, Cops, Law, Politics | 1 Comment »

Happy National Buy an AK Day!

January 20th, 2024

I’m a little later than I would like on this one, but you still have time to get to your local gun shop, or to place an order online. Online orders count.

As I have written in the past:

Contrary to what some may believe, this holiday has nothing to do with any political events that take place on January 20th: rather, it is inspired by the classic Ice Cube song “It Was a Good Day” (“Today I didn’t even have to use my A.K./I got to say it was a good day“) and the hard work done by Donovan Strain who determined that the “good day” in the song was January 20, 1992.

I had a nice chat with one of the folks at my local gun shop. Sadly, they didn’t have a lot of AKs that I liked, and my budget has a car-sized hole in it right now. His comment to me was that there really aren’t a lot of good AKs out there these days. But he did also observe (and I have heard this from other people as well) that the Palmetto State Armory AK-47 pattern guns are surprisingly good.

My own personal feeling is that I want something in 7.62×39 (though that’s not as important right now, since Russian ammo can’t be imported any longer, so it is harder to get cheap 7.62), and something that’s (as I put it to the gun guy) “reasonably accurate”. I’m not looking for a minute-of-angle AK-47, but I also don’t want something that just sprays bullets randomly all over the place.

I think we’ve probably got another year before we have to start seriously worrying, so I may wait until January 20, 2025. Then, depending on the election results, I might just pull the trigger on a PSA AK-47.

(In a technical sense, I sort of do have an AK already. But it’s complicated.)

Posted in Guns | 1 Comment »

Assassins (random gun crankery).

January 19th, 2024

Some time back, I wrote about the guns of the presidential assassins.

GunsAmerica has an article up by Will Dabbs (who also writes for American Handgunner and is rapidly becoming the gun writer who amuses me the most): “The Assassination of William McKinley: Of Hopeless Causes and One Seriously Pathetic Pistol“.

Given the gun’s advanced age and questionable personality, I lack the fortitude to fire it. However, I am reasonably certain that the gun would be soft-shooting and easily pointed. So long as you mind the spurred hammer it should run well from concealment.

…

Czolgasz chose a truly horrible handgun for his mission. A coat button actually successfully deflected one round, while the other took eight days to end the life of his victim. McKinley’s wounds would have presented a technical challenge to a proper trauma surgeon today but should have been reliably survivable. McKinley’s obese habitus and a previously undiagnosed cardiomyopathy found on autopsy undoubtedly contributed to his death.

Dr. Dabbs’s article includes photos of the musuem display (which is not the actual gun, but an identical one) and the actual gun (which is kept in storage, along with the handkerchief Czolgasz used to conceal the gun, and which is “available for viewing by appointment only” in the Buffalo museum).

Hattip on this to Active Response Training and their “Weekend Knowledge Dump- January 19, 2024“. You really should be reading Greg Ellifritz, or at least these Friday Weekend Knowledge Dumps.

From KRTraining’s blog: “Annual Maintenance Tasks“. Or gun related things you should be checking at the start of the year.

Replace batteries in optics, flashlights, smoke detectors, and anything else that uses batteries.

As a personal thing, I remind my teams at work to check and replace the batteries in their smoke, carbon monoxide, and other detectors twice a year, at the time change. I think I picked this tip up from one of the fire prevention associations by way of “Dear Abby” (or “Ann Landers”, I disremember which one).

Posted in Guns, History | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: January 19, 2024.

January 19th, 2024

“Sports Illustrated”. They are supposedly laying off all of their staff, and (according to other stories I’ve seen) Authentic Brands Group (ABG) who owns SI, has terminated the license of Arena Group to actually run SI.

“Pitchfork”, at least in current form. Conde Nast says they are folding it into “GQ”.

Some follow up housekeeping:

Michael Swanwick’s obit for Howard Waldrop.

The other day, Mike the Musicologist texted me:

Have I told you I performed in a Schickele world premiere?

This is a story I had not heard before. Below, and with his permission, is his version of the story.

One of my professors at CUNY, Leo Treitler, was a close friend of Schickele’s, and for Leo’s retirement party, Schickele wrote a short, 3-4 minute, choral piece for him.

I think there were twelve of us students of Leo’s (three per part) who briefly rehearsed and performed it for him at the party.

Although he has published scholarship on every historical period, Leo is mostly known as an early music scholar, and Schickele wrote him a mensuration canon. It’s a very difficult and restrictive form composers usually use demonstrate their skill. Mostly associated with Renaissance music, composers still use it up to this day; Arvo Pärt’s “Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten” is probably the most well-known, contemporary one. Schickele was not at the party, so, being an occasional piece, I doubt he ever heard “Leo, Don’t Slow Down” or that it was ever performed again.

MtM says this is a good version of the Britten Cantus, done by an Estonian orchestra and conducted by a friend of Pärt.

Posted in Media, Obits | 2 Comments »

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