My beloved and indulgent family gave me a copy of Surely You Can’t Be Serious: The True Story of Airplane! for Christmas. I think part of the motivation for this (other than it being on my wish list) is that everyone in my family wants to borrow it when I’m done. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Fun fact I’ve learned from the book, which I did not know previously. Remember “Gunderson”?
Whatever happened to that guy? Would you believe he went on to bigger things?
Mike the Musicologist sent me a text the other day mentioning that there’s a superseding indictment against Democratic Senator Robert “Buffalo Bob” Menendez.
This seems like reason enough to link the NYT: “What We Know About the Menendez Bribery Case”.
Donald Wildmon has passed away at 85. I believe he was mostly forgotten now, but I remember a time when he was a hugely controversial figure in American politics.
Rev. Wildmon was a Methodist preacher. As the story goes, one night at Christmas he and his family gathered around the warm glowing glow of the TV set…and Rev. Wildmon discovered that the TV was full of what he considered to be vulgarity.
To make a long story somewhat shorter, he ended up founding an organization called the National Federation for Decency, which later became the American Family Association. AFA was one of the leaders in the controversy over the National Endowment for the Arts:
…
The effectiveness of the AFA is questionable. They don’t seem to have any impact on “Last Temptation”, but they got 7-11 to pull “Playboy” and “Penthouse”, and were partially responsible for Proctor and Gamble pulling advertisements from “50 TV shows”.
I’m a First Amendement absolutist, and I didn’t care much for Mr. Wildmon or his organization at the time. But now that I’m older, and see stuff on TV airing during children’s waking hours, I wonder if the man may have had a point.
Of course, there’s alway the V-chip, which didn’t come into existence until 1996…
Welcome to the exciting future world of 2024! Which looks a lot like 2023. Except a university is missing a president. Hey, you know who would make a good president for Harvard?
After the jump, this week’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback (which you won’t be able to read in its entirety unless you subscribe to “All Predictions Wrong”, which is the actual title of Gregg Easterbrook’s Substack)…
Crazy horse woman took a plea.
As part of the plea, she’s taken a stipulated sentence of three years and eight months, but it isn’t clear to me if she has a chance at parole or some other form of early release.
It was a busy weekend, so I’m playing obit catch-up here. Administratively, I plan to get TMQ Watch up at some point during the day.
Tom Wilkinson. THR. IMDB.
This has been pretty well covered, but I did want to make an observation. When I was at St. Ed’s, for my “Film and Literature” class, we had to watch “In the Bedroom” and read Andre Dubus’s “Killings”. I thought “Bedroom” was a pretty terrific movie: both Wilkinson and Sissy Spacek give career peak performances. If you have not seen it, I commend it to your attention.
(The Dubus story is good, too.)
Shecky Greene, comedian. THR. IMDB.
…
Although never known as the most decorous of comedians, Mr. Greene made news in the comedy world in 2014 when he stormed out of a Friars Club event in Manhattan and announced that he was resigning from the club after his fellow comedian Gilbert Gottfried did material that Mr. Greene, who had been scheduled to speak, found offensive.
“He got dirtier and dirtier,” Mr. Greene told a radio interviewer, without providing details, “so I got up and I said, ‘That’s it.’”
Cale Yarborough, one of the NASCAR greats.
I think everyone knows that I am not a basketball fan.
However, I am compelled to note that the Detroit Pistons are setting records.
They lost their 28th consecutive game last night. This ties the record for longest NBA losing streak, and sets the record for longest losing streak in a single season.
(Philadelphia lost 28 consecutive games, but that was across the 2014 and 2015 seasons.)
Their next game is on Saturday against Toronto: ESPN currently has Toronto as a 70-30 favorite.
Detroit is currently 2-29, for a .065 winning percentage.
Gaston Glock has passed away at 94. TFB. NYT (gift link, should work for others). Glock website.
Tom Smothers, of the Smothers Brothers. THR.
Lee Sun-kyun, Korean actor (“Parasite”).
All of my readers this year have been good. So I’m not going to post any of the accordion versions of “I Saw Three Ships” I found on YouTube.
A short one from AvE:
May 2024 be better for everyone than 2023.
“Thank’ee,” said Scrooge. “I am much obliged to you. I thank you fifty times. Bless you!”
A short one for you. My book buddy in the Association sent me scans from a 1928 Smith and Wesson catalog, along with a scan of a letter from the great Walter Roper. This was a very nice Christmas present, and one I can’t thank him enough for.
You will find each of our arms fully described in the catalog we are enclosing but we want you to ask any questions you may wish about either guns or ammunition, as it will be a real pleasure to help you select a revolver.
The past was another country.
I don’t want to reproduce the whole thing, as I’m not sure about the copyright status and I don’t want to make my book buddy mad. However, I thought people might find this one page interesting, and I think it qualifies as fair use. Keep in mind, this is 1928 data.
I would not have expected to find a swell Christmas story on the Revolver Guy blog.
How do you feel about gunstocks?
Not gun stocks, but gunstocks. The kind made out of wood, back in the day before synthetics became common.
After the jump, some more Samworths for those of you who still like wood.