My phone tells me it is currently 81 degrees here. I may have to turn on the AC when I get home.
Archive for the ‘Clippings’ Category
There once was a man from Nantucket.
Tuesday, January 27th, 2015Obit watch: January 26, 2015.
Monday, January 26th, 2015Alice K. Turner, fiction editor of Playboy.
I know the joke: “I just read it for the articles”. But as fiction editor, Ms. Turner was hugely influential:
I was tied up most of the weekend, so for the record:
Joe Franklin.
Edgar Froese, founding member of Tangerine Dream. How about a little musical interlude?
And Ernie Banks. Related.
You know, I have a good feeling about the Cubs this year. I think they’re going to do the memory of Mr. Banks proud. As a matter of fact, I think there’s a good chance they will win the World Series this year.
Yo, dawg.
Friday, January 23rd, 2015The bankruptcy of SkyMall and their parent company, Xhibit, has been well covered in many places.
But I wanted to link, again, to this Priceonomics article from 2013 about SkyMall, Xhibit, and their questionable dealings, just in case folks forgot about it.
God and man don’t believe in modern farmer.
Friday, January 23rd, 2015A while back, I briefly touched on the “Modern Farmer” situation. Briefly, “Modern Farmer” was a promising and National Magazine Award winning magazine:
I never actually read it – I’m not sure I ever saw a copy for sale, and it sounded a little pretentious – but I was interested in what was happening with the magazine, especially after the editor resigned.
Well, the other goat has fainted:
More:
I’d actually never heard of Shinola, the watchmaker. I guess this goes to show how effective advertising in “Modern Farmer” was.
(Hattip: Jimbo.)
But the police are the only ones who can be trusted with guns!
Thursday, January 22nd, 2015Both officers were suspended for “accidentally” discharging their “patrol shotguns”. One was suspended for three days, and the other officer was suspended for one. (The reason for the difference is not clear. Based on the Statesman‘s reporting, it doesn’t seem that there were any injuries.)
Not gun related, but another officer is being suspended for 16 days. Apparently, he violated guidelines in his handling of a sexual assault case involving a child, and became “involved in a civil matter in violation of the department’s policy”. (These were unrelated offenses, just to be clear.)
…and the gambling commission’s hanging on by the skin of its teeth.
Thursday, January 22nd, 2015(Subject line hattip, if you needed it.)
(The Chicken Man, in case you ever wondered about that lyric.)
Bad politician! No biscuit!
Thursday, January 22nd, 2015Heh. Heh. Heh. Part I:
Mr. Silver’s party affiliation is given early in the second paragraph. This bit of trivia is in the fifth paragraph:
Mike the Musicologist tipped me off to this story a while back, but I’ve been kind of waiting until something happened with it. Something did. Sort of.
The grand jury has also recommended charges of “false swearing” and “official oppression”. Ms. Kane’s party affiliation shows up in the fourth paragraph. And the newspaper in question is the Daily News (paragraph seven).
The problem here is that the grand jury recommendation is only advisory: the decision on actually filing charges is up to the local district attorney (“Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman”), and I’m not sure what the odds are on that actually happening.
I’m going to drop this in here, even though it doesn’t fit with the “bad politician” theme, because I don’t have a better place to put it. You may be asking yourself, especially in the light of past coverage on this blog, “What does it take to get yourself fired as a cop in Philadelphia?”
Well, we have an answer to that question:
Look for the label, the union label…
Wednesday, January 21st, 2015Random notes: January 16, 2015.
Friday, January 16th, 2015I’ve written previously about Al Martinez and the “get the boy his peaches” story.
Recently, some questions were raised about the story over at Romenesko’s site. I didn’t post about this at the time because it didn’t seem link worthy: more “can anybody help me track down the original story” than “it never happened”.
Well, the amazing Larry Harnisch took up the gauntlet and managed to – more or less – track down the original story. Part of the problem seems to be that Al Martinez was working from memory, and apparently combined two stories into one: the dying boy and the peaches did take place, but not at Christmas. But there was another dying boy who craved watermelons at Christmas.
Quel fromage!
I just want to say…
Thursday, January 15th, 2015…this is my favorite John Moltz post ever.
(Well, okay. My favorite John Moltz post as John Moltz at “Very Nice Web Site”. I’m not quite sure it displaces the one at Crazy Apple Rumors where he actually used a question of mine in the “Crazy Apple Help Desk”.)
Norts spews.
Tuesday, January 13th, 2015Well. Well well well. Well. Yes, I am happy about Ohio State winning; as my regular readers know, I have ties to the Ohio area.
Since I don’t have cable, I mostly followed the game on FARK until I dozed off after halftime (yesterday was a rough day at work). From what I can tell, it might be a good idea for Ohio State to spend some time in the off season working on HOLDING ON TO THE DAMN BALL!
I don’t have a lot to say about the John Fox “firing” right now, except that I think it will be interesting to see how things play out after the Superb Owl. I may have more to say once this week’s TMQ goes up.
Obit watch: Roy Tarpley, former center for the Dallas Mavericks. As my regular readers know, I’m not a basketball fan, but the Tarpley story is sad and worth noting:
He was suspended by the NBA after five games in the 1989-90 season after being arrested for driving while intoxicated and resisting arrest. In 1991, he drew another suspension after a second DWI arrest and, a few months later, had a third violation and was banned from the league for violating the NBA’s drug-use policies.
He returned to the Mavericks briefly in 1994 but then was permanently barred in December 1995 for violating terms of his aftercare program.
Obit watch: January 9, 2015.
Friday, January 9th, 2015Jethro Pugh, former player for the Dallas Cowboys.
And yes, he did play in the Ice Bowl.
I missed this one, so I’ll direct you over to Lawrence for Lee Israel.