Archive for February 1st, 2022

Music news.

Tuesday, February 1st, 2022

By way of great and good Friend of the Blog (and official trainer to WCD) Karl Rehn, we have learned that Hookers & Blow are touring.

As you may recall, Hookers & Blow is a band formed by Dizzy Reed (former Guns ‘N Roses keyboard player) and Alex Grossi (former Quiet Riot guitarist). I assume their March 2020 tour went the way of so many other things during the early days of the Chinese Rabies, but they’re back now.

Even better, they’re getting out of California, but only to Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, and Utah. No Texas shows. Yet.

Also unfortunately, there does not seem to be a Hookers & Blow t-shirt. Yet.

But the eponymous Hookers & Blow album is available from Amazon as a MP3 download, CD, or vinyl (affiliate link).

Thanks to Karl for the heads-up on this. We will be waiting eagerly for news of Texas tour dates.

Posted in Music | Comments Closed

Obit watch: February 1, 2022.

Tuesday, February 1st, 2022

Maj. Gen. John K. Singlaub (United States Army – ret.) has died. He was 100.

General Singlaub trained resistance fighters in German-occupied France and rescued Allied prisoners of war held by the Japanese during World War II. He conducted intelligence operations during the Chinese Civil War and in the Korean War while assigned to the C.I.A., and he commanded secret Army forays into North Vietnam and neutral Laos and Cambodia during the 1960s to ambush Communist troops.
A sturdy 5-foot-7 with an enduring military brush haircut, General Singlaub seemed fit for combat long after his last war. He was “the kind of guy you’d like to have on your side in a barroom brawl,” Pat Murphy, an acquaintance and the publisher of The Arizona Republic at the time, told The New York Times in 1986.

…

But for all his military feats, General Singlaub’s career ended over issues of grand strategy.Mr. Carter removed him as the military’s chief of staff in South Korea in May 1977 after he told a reporter for The Washington Post that the president’s plan to withdraw American troops there could lead to another North Korean invasion.
General Singlaub later maintained that his remarks were off the record, an assertion disputed by The Post. But Mr. Carter was outraged at what he perceived as a challenge to civilian authority.
His order recalling General Singlaub from Korea was the first action of its type since President Harry S. Truman fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur as the Pacific commander when MacArthur advocated extending the Korean War into China.
After being reassigned to Fort McPherson in Georgia, General Singlaub criticized the Carter administration’s military policies again in April 1978, in a talk before R.O.T.C. cadets at Georgia Tech. He called Mr. Carter’s decision not to produce a neutron bomb “ridiculous” and “militarily unsound” and criticized the administration’s efforts to give up control of the Panama Canal.
The Army ordered him to report to the Pentagon immediately, announcing a day later that it had accepted his request to retire.

He was also involved (as a private citizen) in the “Iran-Contra affair”.

General Singlaub told Congress that Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, while a National Security Council staff aide, had approved of his being highly visible in his support for the contras. The goal, General Singlaub testified, was to take public attention away from the secret government program. Colonel North was eventually convicted of obstructing Congress, destroying official documents and accepting an illegal gift, but the convictions were later overturned on appeal.
General Singlaub, who acted as a private citizen in helping the contras, was never accused of wrongdoing in the investigation. But in his 1991 memoir, “Hazardous Duty,” written with Malcolm McConnell, he bristled at what he considered the defaming of his character.
“For a decade I’d been smeared as a right-wing fanatic, even a crypto-fascist, by some members of the media,” he wrote. “I’d always found this ironic, considering the fact that I was one of a handful of American soldiers who had risked torture and execution by both German and Japanese fascists while serving behind enemy lines in Europe and the Far East.”

Moses J. Moseley, actor. He was a “pet zombie” in “The Walking Dead”.

The number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). If you live outside of the United States or are looking for other help, TVTropes has a good page of additional resources.

Posted in History, Obits, TV | 2 Comments »