Archive for October, 2016

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

Thursday, October 20th, 2016

I want to get this up while it is still fresh, but I don’t have as much time to think and write about as I’d like: I’m actually down at the cop shop tonight.

The chief recently had a closed door meeting with his commanders. Apparently, during the meeting, he laid into a few of them about not following his direction, especially with respect to relations with the minority community.

Someone taped the meeting and provided a copy to the Statesman. (Edited to add 10/21: Link fixed. Thanks, Uncle Kenny.)

Quick thoughts, based on a skim of the article:

  • Taping the meeting and giving a copy to the press strikes me as questionable.
  • I don’t see anything really outrageous in what the chief said.

I may have more to say on further reflection.

Posted in Austin, Cops, Law, Media, Politics | 2 Comments »

Art update.

Thursday, October 20th, 2016

The Jerry Orbach Memorial Art Car is funded.

I’m looking forward to getting my bumper stickers.

Questions: which one should I put on? I’m kind of partial to “My child is a honor student…”, but feel free to argue your case in the comments.

And which one should I take off to make room? Right now, I’m thinking: as much as I liked CHeston, and as much of an NRA supporter as I am, the “My President Is Charlton Heston” one is faded almost to the point of being unreadable. It might be time to let go. (And I’ve got window stickers out the wazoo.)

Posted in Art, Cops, Law, Movies, Music, NYPD, Theatre, TV | Comments Closed

NYPD blues.

Thursday, October 20th, 2016

Quickies:

Bobby Shmurda has been sentenced to seven years in prison. He does not seem to be happy with his legal representation.

(Previously.)

In Quick Response, de Blasio Calls Fatal Shooting of Mentally Ill Woman ‘Unacceptable’

…

The two men pledged a thorough investigation, and even as the inquiry was still in its earliest stages, the department took disciplinary action against the officer, Sgt. Hugh Barry, stripping him of his gun and badge and placing him on modified duty less than six hours after Ms. Danner was killed.

…

Sergeant Barry persuaded her to put down a pair of scissors she was holding in her bedroom, according to initial police accounts. But then, according to those same accounts, Ms. Danner picked up a baseball bat and tried to swing at Sergeant Barry. He fired twice, fatally wounding her, the police said. Several other officers were at the scene, but none of them, except Sergeant Barry, were in the bedroom.

I could rant about this at some length, especially the “use a stun gun” part. But that’s already been done better by somebody else.

I love this line, which Tam added since I first read her post:

The use of force spectrum is not like baseball. You do not have to touch every base. If you need to run straight home from second, that’s perfectly legal.

Posted in Cops, Law, NYPD | Comments Closed

Historical note, suitable for use in schools.

Monday, October 17th, 2016

Fifty years ago today, on October 17, 1966, members of the New York Fire Department responded to a fire at East 22nd Street in Manhattan.

The firefighters didn’t know where the fire was burning (though the smoke was obvious) so some of them went into the building at 23rd Street. The idea was to bring hoses in and hit the fire from behind.

What was burning in the 22nd Street building, a subsequent investigation showed, was paint and lacquer that had been stored in the basement by an art dealer. What the firefighters who went into Wonder Drug & Cosmetics, at 6 East 23rd Street, across from Madison Square Park, had no way of knowing was that the store and the 22nd Street building shared a basement, and that an interior basement wall had recently been moved to give the 22nd Street building more underground storage space.
That meant that the drugstore’s thick floor was poorly supported, and as the fire burned below it collapsed, sending 10 firefighters plunging into the basement. Two others were caught by the flames that quickly roared up to the first floor through the huge hole left by the collapse.

12 firefighters were killed that day. At the time, it was the worst loss of life in the history of the NYFD.

I haven’t had a chance to watch it yet, but there’s a short documentary (produced by the department) about the fire on the NYFD Foundation website.

From Wikipedia, the names of the dead:

Deputy Chief Thomas A. Reilly, FDNY 3rd Division
Battalion Chief Walter J. Higgins, FDNY 7th Battalion
Lt. John J. Finley, FDNY Ladder Co. 7
Lt. Joseph Priore, FDNY Engine Co. 18
Firefighter John G. Berry, FDNY Ladder Co. 7
Firefighter James V. Galanaugh, FDNY Engine Co. 18
Firefighter Rudolph F. Kaminsky, FDNY Ladder Co. 7
Firefighter Joseph Kelly, FDNY Engine Co. 18
Firefighter Carl Lee, FDNY Ladder Co. 7
Firefighter William F. McCarron, FDNY 3rd Division
Firefighter Daniel L. Rey, FDNY Engine Co. 18
Firefighter Bernard A. Tepper, FDNY Engine Co. 18

(I can’t find an official NYFD memorial page. There’s a unofficial historical site, NYFD.com, that does have a memorial page.)

(Does anyone remember being in elementary school and having to watch fire safety films? You know, how to behave when the fire alarm goes off and your school is burning to the ground? Was that only a thing in the mid-1970s? Or even just in certain parts of the country? It seems to me in the distant mists of memory that we were always watching one fire safety film or another when I was in elementary school.)

Posted in Heroism, History | 3 Comments »

Firing watch.

Monday, October 17th, 2016

Darrell Hazell out as Purdue football coach.

9-33 in “three and a half” seasons.

Posted in Firings, Sports | Comments Closed

Your NFL loser update: week 6, 2016.

Monday, October 17th, 2016

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

Cleveland

Don’t have anything witty or profound or perceptive to add here.

Posted in Loser, NFL | Comments Closed

As seen at the grocery store…

Wednesday, October 12th, 2016

For when you really want to get hammered.

(7.5% ABV. The label describes this as a “breakfast IPA”.)

(I’ll be here all week. Try the veal and remember to tip your waitress.)

Posted in Mixology | Comments Closed

The story you are about to hear is true.

Tuesday, October 11th, 2016

Today was pretty much a write-off. You know how it is, one of those days where you end up feeling you got nothing productive done, and all you can do is give up on the day and tell yourself you’ll do better tomorrow.

I was at loose ends for dinner, so I went down to the Mandola’s Italian Market in Bee Cave. (They have some good happy hour appetizer specials, and a soup I like. I wasn’t really that hungry, having had a bowl of noodles from DFG Noodles (one of the few bright spots in the day) for lunch, so I figured a cup of soup and some cheese would do me.)

Anyway, guy behind the counter asks me how my day’s been. It’s slow (this is before the dinner rush on a weekday) so I tell him what I just told you about the whole day being a write-off, etc. I pay, they bring my food out to me, I eat…

…and as i’m sitting there sipping my drink, the guy from behind the counter, Jonathan (not 100% on the spelling there) walks up to me, hands me a chocolate eclair, and says, “Here. This is on me. I hope it makes your day a little better.”

Which it did. What can you say to that except, “Thanks, Jonathan.”? Which I did say, just for the hysterical record.

I’ll also be emailing Mandola’s tomorrow morning, but I wanted to get this up tonight.

Posted in Endorsements, Food | Comments Closed

Your NFL loser update: week 5, 2016.

Sunday, October 9th, 2016

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

Cleveland

At this point in 2015, there was only one team left in contention for the Owen Sixteen trophy. At this point in 2014, there were only two teams left standing (and one had a bye that week.)

Do the Browns have a shot? Ask me again in week eight.

Posted in Loser, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: October 3, 2016.

Monday, October 3rd, 2016

Sir Neville Marriner, noted conductor.

Oscar Brand, folkie. I actually do own one of his albums: Presidential Campaign Songs: 1789 – 1996 is kind of fun, if you have a sense of history.

This is one that I also thought was kind of “amusing” (to the extent an obit can be “amusing”): Carroll Wainwright Jr. He was kind of a sensation in 1934.

Wainwright’s mother divorced his father and remarried (“hours later”, according to the NYT) in 1932. In 1934, the family went to Bermuda for the winter.

“Tousle-headed Carroll Jr. didn’t like Bermuda,” the 1935 newspaper article declared. “He had visions of Christmas in America, of sledding at East Hampton, and of a Christmas tree at his grandmother’s Park Avenue home.”

So, one fine late November day, the young Wainwright stowed away on the S.S. Queen of Bermuda, only to emerge when the ship was out to sea and he got hungry.

What he had not bargained for was the effect his disappearance would have on his mother and stepfather. The terrible fate of the Lindbergh baby, kidnapped and murdered just two years before, was still fresh in the public mind, and the couple, fearing Carroll had been abducted for ransom, called in the Bermuda police.
The police were stymied until someone thought to radio the ship. The captain radioed back that Carroll was aboard, safe and sound.

The ship arrived safely in New York, and Wainwright’s grandmother paid his full (first class) fare. I kind of wonder what her reaction was to a) having an eight-year-old show up unexpectedly at her door, and b) having to come out of pocket for his fare. But reading between the lines, it feels like there may have been more going on than a desire for sledding and Christmas trees: Wainwright’s mother died in 1937 of what the paper describes as “alcohol-related liver disease”.

He did not return to Bermuda. In the coming years he would divide his time between the Malcolm Gordon School, a boarding school in Garrison, N.Y., and the home of an uncle, Loudon Wainwright (grandfather of the singer and songwriter Loudon Wainwright III), in Hewlett, on Long Island.

And this is a nice note to end on:

An enthusiastic outdoorsman, Mr. Wainwright was for decades a keen traveler throughout the United States and far beyond. To the end of his life, he paid his own passage.

Posted in Music, Obits | 2 Comments »

Your NFL loser update: week 4, 2016.

Monday, October 3rd, 2016

NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:

Cleveland

At some point, I’m thinking I should post an analysis of the loser update. I want to say that I have fairly ready access to about ten years worth of data: I’d like to do an actual breakdown of, on average, how many teams remain standing at each point in the season.

I’ve also been thinking, based on a comment from Lawrence, about doing a breakdown of time between winning national championship and getting fired for college coaches, but that may require more work.

Posted in Loser, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

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