Archive for March 29th, 2011

¿Dónde está el dinero?

Tuesday, March 29th, 2011

The NYT has an interesting investigative story on the Fiesta Bowl. Or, rather, on the Fiesta Bowl’s money.

The Fiesta Bowl management and staff have apparently been spending the money taken in by the Fiesta Bowl’s 501(c)3 on some questionable items. And when I say questionable, I mean “jail time is a possibility” items: campaign contributions, strip clubs (of course. It always has to be strip clubs.), a $30,000 birthday party (how do you spend $30,000 on a birthday party for an adult human? Unless that birthday party is at a strip club. Or, apparently, Pebble Beach.), airfare and hotel for an employee’s honeymoon (plus airfare for Fiesta Bowl employees to attend the wedding). Those are the high points.

The item that really leaps out at me is $75 for flowers. The flowers were for someone at the University of Texas, and were apparently sent in an attempt to influence that person into accepting the CEO’s daughter into “a honors program” (Plan II?). $75 is such a penny-ante amount; surely the CEO could have come up with $75 out of his own pocket. And why send flowers at all? A phone call would have done just as well. “Nice football team you have there. It’d be a shame if you didn’t get a bowl bid this year because my daughter didn’t get accepted into Plan II.”

The best thing about this? It could cost the Fiesta Bowl both tax-exempt status and BCS bowl status. As a matter of fact, it appears some of the impetus for this investigation came from an anti-BCS group. I wonder what other skeletons are going to turn up in the Orange and Sugar Bowl closets. I also wonder if this is the first hammer blow at the Berlin Wall of the BCS.

Edited to add: For those who don’t want to deal with the NYT, here’s a HouChron story on the firing of bowl CEO John Junker, which covers some of what was in the NYT report. Here’s a direct link to the public release version of the special committee report (which has some information redacted due to “contractual confidentiality provisions”).

Posted in Clippings, Law, Sports | 2 Comments »

Mono no aware.

Tuesday, March 29th, 2011

Tam has a post up at her site that leaves me with a small sadness. I’m not entirely sure I can, but I’ll see if I can explain it.

When I was in high school, I bought every gun magazine I could find on the newsstands (note to my younger readers: “newsstands” were places where you could buy magazines and newspapers), at the bookstores, and in the grocery stores. Grocery stores, in particular, had large magazine sections, and many of those magazines were gun magazines. (Also, people were shorter, and lived near the water. But I digress.)

I grew up reading Elmer Keith (in Guns and Ammo, towards the end of his career) and Skeeter Skelton. I remember visiting my Uncle Dick in Pennsylvania, and him letting me read his just purchased copy of Hell, I Was There. I liked Cooper a lot, but I don’t recall him writing with great regularity for any of the gun magazines I could find.

These days? I read American Handgunner. I get a kick out of John Connor, I like Ayoob’s work and Clint Smith a whole lot, and Venturino and Taffin are usually good for a smile. Also, the editor of AH at one point did me a great personal favor, so I have pretty strong feelings about the magazine.

I also pick up SWAT when I can find it. And that’s pretty much it.

What are the gun-crazy kids of America doing for reading material these days? Do they know how good we had it back then? Did we? At least Keith has been collected (though those books are pricey). Has anyone collected Skeeter’s writings? (Answer: yes, and if you thought Elmer Keith books were pricy…wow.) When those kids go to read Pale Horse Coming, are they going to get the meta-joke?

I don’t know where I’m going with this, and I’m not sure I have answers. It just seems like a shame to me.

Posted in Clippings, Guns | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: March 29, 2011.

Tuesday, March 29th, 2011

David E. Davis, Jr., former editor and publisher of Car and Driver and Automobile. (LAT obit.)

When I was in high school, I read the Davis Car and Driver religiously. It was full of great stuff: road tests of radar detectors, explanations of why the 55 MPH speed limit was wrong, my first exposure to P.J. O’Rourke (“Ferrari Refutes the Decline of the West”, which is still one of my favorite pieces of writing in, like, ever), Patrick Bedard…the list goes on.

Eighty’s a pretty good run for a guy who destroyed his face in an M.G. crash. Rest in peace, Mr. Davis. I hope you’re driving something fast on heaven’s equivalent of the Nürburgring.

This has been noted elsewhere, but here’s the NYT obit for Diana Wynne Jones. (Edited to add: here’s a short but nice tribute from Michael Dirda in the WP.)

Edited to add 2: Bill Crider had these first, but the deaths of Farley Granger and the mystery writer H.R.F. Keating are being reported. I’ll have more to say after better obits are published.

Posted in Books, Cars, Clippings, Obits | Comments Closed