Archive for July, 2023

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There’s a strike, in case you haven’t heard…

Wednesday, July 19th, 2023

…so why not watch something vintage?

Someone on Hacker News posted this, and I thought I’d bookmark it here for the benefit of my readers:

The UCLA Library Film and Television Archive collection of the U.S. Steel Hour.

Premiering on ABC-TV in 1953 amid a crowded broadcast landscape of similar dramatic programs, U.S. Steel Hour distinguished itself as one of the most prestigious and longest-running anthologies of the “golden age of television” before cancellation by CBS in the spring of 1963. Produced by The Theatre Guild, the series was honored with 10 Emmy Award nominations and three wins over the course of its run, including being named “Best Dramatic Program” by the Television Academy of Arts & Sciences in 1954.

You can watch “select episodes” online. Why would you want to? Well, those select episodes include:

  • “Queen of the Orange Bowl”, a rom-com featuring Anne Francis (who is always worth watching) and…Johnny Carson.
  • “The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon“, the original adaptation of Daniel Keyes’ “Flowers for Algernon”, predating “Charly” but also starring Cliff Robertson.
  • “Scene of the Crime”, a “grim and claustrophobic crime drama with a noir twist”…starring Betty White.
  • “The Thief“, featuring James Dean.
  • “The Rack“. “…a previously decorated Army officer faces court martial for actions taken while under duress of extreme torture in a Korean P.O.W. camp.” Teleplay by Rod Serling, later mode into a feature film with Paul Newman and Anne Francis.

It isn’t like I don’t already have enough stuff to watch: I should be able to survive the end of the entertainment industry with ease. But this seems like the kind of thing some folks might enjoy.

Posted in Bookmarks, TV | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: July 18, 2023.

Tuesday, July 18th, 2023

Harry G. Frankfurt, philosopher and author.

Professor Frankfurt’s major contribution to philosophy was a series of thematically interrelated papers, written from the 1960s through the 2000s, in which he situated the will — people’s motivating wants and desires — at the center of a unified vision of freedom, moral responsibility, personal identity and the sources of life’s meaning. For Professor Frankfurt, volition, more than reason or morality, was the defining aspect of the human condition.
Despite the ambition and inventiveness of this project — the philosopher Michael Bratman praised it as “powerful and exciting philosophy” of great “depth and fecundity” — Professor Frankfurt became best known for a single, irreverent paper largely unrelated to his life’s main work.
The paper, written in the mid-1980s under the same title as his eventual book, discussed what to his mind was a pervasive but underanalyzed feature of our culture: a form of dishonesty akin to lying but even less considerate of reality. Whereas the liar is at least mindful of the truth (if only to avoid it), the “bullshitter,” Professor Frankfurt wrote, is distinguished by his complete indifference to how things are.
Whether its purveyor is an advertiser, a political spin doctor or a cocktail-party blowhard, he argued, this form of dishonesty is rooted in a desire to make an impression on the listener, with no real interest in the underlying facts. “By virtue of this,” Professor Frankfurt concluded, “bullshit is the greater enemy of truth than lies are.”

That paper was republished as a book in 2005, On Bullshit (affiliate link), which became a best-seller. He also wrote On Truth (affiliate link) which seems to have been less successful.

Bold and daring in his ideas, Professor Frankfurt was somewhat aloof in style, with a dry wit and a strenuous aversion to pomposity. When asked what had inspired his interest in Descartes, the subject of his first book, “Demons, Dreamers, and Madmen” (1970), he admitted that he had liked that Descartes’s books were short.

For the record, and because Lawrence sent over an obit: Jane Birkin.

Over the weekend, my mother asked me: “How do you go from being a promising young journalist to being a swami?” I don’t have a good answer for that, but here’s the obit for Sally Kempton.

Robert Lieberman, director. Other credits include quite a few genre TV series, “Christmas in Tahoe”, “All I Want for Christmas”, and “Will: The Autobiography of G. Gordon Liddy”.

Posted in Books, Media, Movies, Obits, Religion, TV | 1 Comment »

Firings watch.

Friday, July 14th, 2023

Jim Foster out as baseball coach at Northwestern.

Foster had been investigated by the university’s human resources department before the season. The probe found evidence that Foster “engaged in bullying and abusive behavior,” according to a document obtained by the Chicago Tribune, and made an inappropriate comment about a female staff member.

…

Northwestern had several coaches depart the program in February, and the team struggled to a 10-40 record. After the season, 16 players reportedly entered the transfer portal.
Radio station 670 The Score in Chicago reported that Foster discouraged players from seeking medical attention for injuries and that players hid their injuries from him. The station also reported that Northwestern coaches and other staff members attempted to meet with Gragg but were denied an opportunity.

This seems like fallout from a story I missed covering earlier this week: football coach Pat Fitzgerald got canned on Monday, for pretty much the same reason.

The firing of Fitzgerald, 48, comes after the school announced Friday that he’d be suspended without pay for two weeks this summer following the conclusion of a university-commissioned investigation into allegations made by a former Northwestern football player. The school said the investigation, which was initiated in January and conducted by an outside law firm, did not find “sufficient” evidence that the coaching staff knew about ongoing hazing — though there were “significant opportunities” to find out about it.
The school then reversed course Saturday night after The Daily Northwestern published a story detailing allegations from the former player, who described specific instances of hazing and sexual abuse. That led Schill to write an open letter to the university community in which he said that he “may have erred in weighing the appropriate sanction” for Fitzgerald and acknowledged focusing “too much on what the report concluded (Fitzgerald) didn’t know and not enough on what he should have known.”

Posted in Firings, Sports | 1 Comment »

Happy Bastille Day, everyone!

Friday, July 14th, 2023

Don’t have much to say, but didn’t want to let the holiday pass without notice.

If you live in Austin, the French Legation is having their celebration tomorrow.

Posted in History | Comments Closed

Obit watch: July 12, 2023.

Wednesday, July 12th, 2023

Kenneth Eberhart. He was one of my uncles on my mother’s side of the family, and passed away over the weekend. I’ve been waiting until I had something I could link to.

Milan Kundera. THR.

…he was twice expelled from the party he had supported from age 18, when the Communists seized power in 1948.
His first expulsion, for what he called a trivial remark, was imposed in 1950 and inspired the central plot of “The Joke.” He was nevertheless allowed to continue his studies; he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in 1952 and was then appointed to the faculty there as an instructor in world literature, counting among his students the film director Milos Forman.
Mr. Kundera was reinstated to the party in 1956 but kicked out again, in 1970, for advocating reform. This time it was forever, effectively erasing him as a person. He was driven from his job and, as he said, “No one had the right to offer me another.”

Jimmy Weldon, voice actor and ventriloquist. He also did some TV work.

Posted in Books, Obits | 2 Comments »

Noted.

Wednesday, July 12th, 2023

Leslie Van Houten is out of prison on parole.

Rosemary LaBianca was unavailable for comment.

“And I took one of the knives, and Patricia had one — a knife — and we started stabbing and cutting up the lady,” Van Houten testified in 1971. (Patricia Krenwinkel was a co-defendant and family member.)

Posted in California Über Alles, Law | Comments Closed

Obit watch: July 11, 2023.

Tuesday, July 11th, 2023

Andrea Evans, soap star. IMDB.

Evans came to fame by playing Tina — People magazine nicknamed her “Daytime’s Diva of Dirt” — on One Life to Live from 1979-81 and from 1985-90. However, she had to abruptly quit the soap after a stalker accosted her in the lobby of the show’s Manhattan studio in 1987 and later sent her death threats, some of them written in blood.

Mikala Jones, surfer.

Jones had been staying at the Awera Resort with his family, when around 9:15 a.m., he likely impaled his left groin on his surfboard fin, suffering a 4-inch-long gash, according to the surfing website Surfline, citing official reports.
While the exact circumstances of Jones’ death remained unclear, those close to Jones wrote on social media that he died after slashing his femoral artery, leading to massive blood loss.

Remember: Stop The Bleed isn’t just for shootings.

Lawrence emailed obits for Manny Coto, producer, and Betta St. John, actress.

I don’t think this quite qualifies for the “Burning In Hell Watch”, but it does belong at the bottom: James W. Lewis, who was suspected, but never actually charged, in the Chicago Tylenol poisonings.

Mr. Lewis spent more than four decades under scrutiny in connection with the notorious unsolved poisonings, in which someone laced Extra-Strength Tylenol with deadly potassium cyanide, killing seven people in the Chicago area in September and October 1982.
Mr. Lewis was never charged in the murders, and he denied any involvement in them. But in October 1982, he sent a letter to Johnson & Johnson, the parent company of MacNeil Consumer Products, the manufacturer of Tylenol, saying he would “stop the killing” if he were paid $1 million. He was convicted of extortion in 1983 and spent 12 years in federal prison.

Posted in Law, Obits, Safety, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

Obit watch: July 10, 2023.

Monday, July 10th, 2023

The sports department of the New York Times.

The shuttering of the sports desk, which has more than 35 journalists and editors, is a major shift for The Times. The department’s coverage of games, athletes and team owners, and its Sports of the Times column in particular, were once a pillar of American sports journalism. The section covered the major moments and personalities of the last century of American sports, including Muhammad Ali, the birth of free agency, George Steinbrenner, the Williams sisters, Tiger Woods, steroids in baseball and the deadly effects of concussions in the National Football League.

The paper of record plans to shift sports coverage to The Athletic, which it purchased last year.

As a business, The Athletic has yet to turn a profit. It reported a loss of $7.8 million in the first quarter of this year. But the number of paying subscribers has grown to more than three million as of March 2023, from just over one million when it was acquired.

Evva Hanes, popularizer of Moravian cookies.

Mrs. Hanes, the youngest of seven, grew up watching her mother, Bertha Foltz, make and sell hundreds of the thin cookies to supplement what little money the family’s small dairy farm brought in. Other Moravian women sold cookies, too, adhering to a recipe with molasses and warm winter spices, like clove and ginger, that were popular around Christmas.
Mrs. Foltz began baking a crispy vanilla-scented version as a way to differentiate herself and extend the selling season. By age 8, Evva could bake them on her own. By 20, she had taken over her mother’s business and slowly begun to expand it, selling the original sugar crisps as well as the traditional ginger version but eventually other flavors, too, like lemon and black walnut.

I feel a little guilty about saying this, but now I kind of want to order a tin of Moravian cookies.

Roy Herron, Tennessee state legislator. He was injured in a jet ski accident on July 1st, and passed away on Sunday.

I’ve written previously about both the Dutch resistance and about the NYT‘s “Overlooked No More” obits. In that vein: Hannie Schaft.

In June 1944, Schaft and a fellow resistance fighter, Jan Bonekamp (with whom she was rumored to have had a romantic relationship), targeted a high-ranking police officer for assassination. As the officer was getting on his bicycle to go to work, Schaft shot him in the back, causing him to fall off the bike. Bonekamp finished the killing but was injured doing so. He died shortly after. Schaft managed to escape on her own bike, which was how she got around doing her resistance work.
Schaft was also involved in killing or wounding a baker who was known for betraying people, a hairdresser who worked for the Nazis’ intelligence agency, and another Nazi police officer.
Before confronting her targets, Schaft put on makeup — including lipstick and mascara — and styled her hair, Jackson said. In one of the few direct quotations that have been attributed to Schaft, she explained her reasoning to Truus Oversteegen: “I’ll die clean and beautiful.”

Posted in Food, History, Media, Nazis, Obits, Sports | 3 Comments »

Your loser update: July 10, 2023.

Monday, July 10th, 2023

The All Star break is upon us. It seems like a good time to update the fortunes of hapless the Oakland Athletics.

Tragically, they seem to have gotten a little better: they are currently at 25-67, for a .272 winning percentage. If this continues, that would put them at about 118 losses: that’s bad, tending towards historically bad, but not as bad as I’d like to see. (I’m personally rooting for at least 120 losses, if not more.)

Interestingly, Kansas City is only slightly better: 26-65, .286, 115 losses if trends continue.

And Dillon Lawson is out as hitting coach of the New York Yankees.

Posted in Firings, Loser, Sports | Comments Closed

Obit watch: July 7, 2023.

Friday, July 7th, 2023

Margia Dean, actress. She was 101.

Other credits include “I Spy”, the “Dick Tracy” TV series, and an uncredited appearance in “Mesa of Lost Women”.

For the historical record (this has gotten a lot of attention elsewhere), Coco Lee.

The number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-TALK (8255). You can also dial 988 to reach the Lifeline. If you live outside of the United States or are looking for other help, TVTropes has a good page of additional resources.

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

Obit watch: July 5, 2023.

Wednesday, July 5th, 2023

Léon Gautier has passed away at the age of 100.

On D-Day, Mr. Gautier and his comrades in the Kieffer Commando unit were among the first waves of Allied troops to storm the heavily defended beaches of occupied northern France, beginning the liberation of western Europe. In a huge invasion force made up largely of American, British and Canadian soldiers, Capt. Philippe Kieffer’s commandos ensured that France had feats to be proud of too, after the dishonor of its Nazi occupation, in which some chose to collaborate with Adolf Hitler’s forces.
“For us it was special,” Mr. Gautier recalled in the 2019 article. “We were happy to come home. We were at the head of the landing. The British let us go a few meters in front.” He added, “For us it was the liberation of France, the return into the family.”
The commandos came ashore on what was code-named Sword Beach, carrying four days’ worth of rations and ammunition. As they sprinted up the beach, they cut through barbed wire under a hail of bullets. They spent 78 days on the front lines, in ever-dwindling numbers. Of the 177 who had waded ashore, just two dozen escaped death or injury.

Mr. Gautier was the last survivor.

Mr. Gautier devoted much of his life after the war to giving interviews, taking part in commemorations and helping put together a museum in Ouistreham that commemorates the French commandos who helped liberate Normandy.
“He was a father to us, a grandfather to us, an important figure of daily life,” the mayor said. “He was the hero of 1944, the hero of June 6, but also the little old guy that everyone knew.”

Edward Fredkin, noted computer scientist.

Fueled by a seemingly limitless scientific imagination and a blithe indifference to conventional thinking, Professor Fredkin charged through an endlessly mutating career that could appear as mind-warping as the iconoclastic theories that made him a force in both computer science and physics.
“Ed Fredkin had more ideas per day than most people have in a month,” Gerald Sussman, a professor of electronic engineering and a longtime colleague at M.I.T., said in a phone interview. “Most of them were bad, and he would have agreed with me on that. But out of those, there were good ideas, too. So he had more good ideas in a lifetime than most people ever have.”

This hasn’t been well reported elsewhere, but Don Lancaster has passed away.

He was kind of an obscure figure to most people, but he was famous in a certain circle as a hardware hacker.

Always glued to his computer, either researching or writing, Don authored over 2,200 technical papers. and was a contributor to major electronics magazines. He wrote an incredible 44 books related to computers and electronics including the million+ seller TTL Cookbook and a unique self-help book, The Incredible Secret Money Machine.

Tribute from Charles Petzold.

Posted in Geek, History, Obits | 1 Comment »

Bagatelle (#90)

Saturday, July 1st, 2023

Shot:

Taylor Swift was forced to rush backstage after her stage door failed to open properly during her Eras Tour in Cincinnati Friday.

Chaser:

Spicy bar snack:

“Seventy or 80 percent of the time—well, 65 percent at least—I got out of that pod straight away. He doesn’t show that.”

Posted in Bagatelle, Music | Comments Closed

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