Heading to Dallas for the NRA Annual Meeting.
Reportage to come once we get checked in and etc.
On the road again…
May 16th, 2024Obit watch: May 14, 2024.
May 14th, 2024David Sanborn, jazz saxophonist. NYT (archived).
Alex Hassilev, the last surviving original member of the 1960s folk group the Limeliters.
Before Beatlemania gripped America’s youth in 1964, the country fell in love with the tight harmonies and traditional arrangements of folk music — and few acts drew more adoration than the Limeliters, a trio made up of Mr. Hassilev, Glenn Yarbrough and Lou Gottlieb.
Mr. Hassilev played banjo and guitar and sang baritone, not only in English but in French, Portuguese, Spanish and Russian, all of which he spoke fluently. His bandmates were equally brainy: Mr. Gottlieb had a doctorate in musicology and Mr. Yarbrough once worked as a bouncer to pay for Greek lessons.
Urbane and witty, they packed coffeehouses and college auditoriums with a repertoire that mixed straight-faced folk standards like “The Hammer Song” and cheeky tunes like “Have Some Madeira, M’Dear,” “The Ballad of Sigmund Freud” and “Charlie the Midnight Marauder.”
They broke up in 1965, but reformed in various arrangements through the years.
Alice Munro, Nobel prize winning author.
Ms. Munro was a member of the rare breed of writer, like Katherine Anne Porter and Raymond Carver, who made their reputations in the notoriously difficult literary arena of the short story, and did so with great success. Her tales — many of them focused on women at different stages of their lives coping with complex desires — were so eagerly received and gratefully read that she attracted a whole new generation of readers.
Ms. Munro’s stories were widely considered to be without equal, a mixture of ordinary people and extraordinary themes. She portrayed small-town folks, often in rural southwestern Ontario, facing situations that made the fantastic seem an everyday occurrence. Some of her characters were fleshed out so completely through generations and across continents that readers reached a level of intimacy with them that usually comes only with a full-length novel.
She achieved such compactness through exquisite craftsmanship and a degree of precision that did not waste words. Other writers declared some of her stories to be near-perfect — a heavy burden for a writer of modest personal character who had struggled to overcome a lack of self-confidence at the beginning of her career, when she left the protective embrace of her quiet hometown and ventured into the competitive literary scene.
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The Irish novelist Edna O’Brien ranked Ms. Munro with William Faulkner and James Joyce as writers who had influenced her work. Joyce Carol Oates said Munro stories “have the density — moral, emotional, sometimes historical — of other writers’ novels.” And the novelist Richard Ford once made it clear that questioning Ms. Munro’s mastery over the short story would be akin to doubting the hardness of a diamond or the bouquet of a ripened peach.
“With Alice it’s like a shorthand,” Mr. Ford said. “You’ll just mention her, and everybody just kind of generally nods that she’s just sort of as good as it gets.”
Obit watch: May 13, 2024.
May 13th, 2024Mark Damon, actor and producer. Other credits include “Pistol Packin’ Preacher”, “Ivanhoe, the Norman Swordsman”, and an uncredited role in “The Longest Day”, followed a year later by an uncredited role in “The Shortest Day”.
Celebrity coroner Cyril Wecht.
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Months before his death, Dr. Wecht donated his massive cache of records and research to Duquesne in the months before his death.
The collection includes his case files on such high-profile killings as David Koresh and the Branch Davidians, JonBenet Ramsey, the Menendez brothers, Casey Anthony, Scott Peterson, and Chandra Levy.
(Hattip to my brother on this. Archived because the Post-Gazette really doesn’t like adblock.)
Obit watch: May 12, 2024.
May 12th, 2024Yeah, yeah, yeah. “King of the B’s” and all that crap. But it’s worth noting that he gave a lot of obscure filmmakers – Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Jonathan Demme, etc. – their starts in movie making. It’s also worth noting that his company took chances on a lot of foreign films that ended up doing well over here.
It’s also worth noting that (from what I hear) he was responsible for the only decent “Fantastic 4” movie.
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Ever restless, Corman ventured into weightier territory, producing The Intruder (1962), a hard look at racial prejudice. It was his first “message” film, and he financed it himself when the major distributors balked at the subject. The story centered on a hatemongering racist (William Shatner) who organized violent opposition to court-ordered school desegregation. It used the N-word in a realistic, non-gratuitous manner, but the film was denied the Production Code’s seal and screened in only a few movie houses in the country.
Although it received commendations from such critics as The Hollywood Reporter‘s Arthur Knight and The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther, it was to be Corman’s first money-losing film. He vowed never again to make a movie with “so obviously a personal statement.”
I’m hoping Lawrence is going to do his own tribute to Corman later, and he’ll almost certainly talk about “The Intruder”, so I’ll just say: if you haven’t seen it, go watch it. Shatner is amazing.
Susan Backlinie. Other credits include “Two Minute Warning”, “The Fall Guy” (the TV show), and “Quark”.
Mary Wells Lawrence, noted advertising executive.
Obit watch: May 10, 2024.
May 10th, 2024Dennis Thompson, drummer for the MC5. He was also the last surviving member.
Pete McCloskey (R – California). He may be more famous for having run against Nixon for the presidential nomination in 1972.
I’ve been holding this one for a few days for reasons, but KVUE has a nice tribute to Robert “Bob” Reale. Mr. Reale was the founder and owner of Reale’s Italian Cafe, which is a swell Italian restaurant and a favorite of both myself and Lawrence.
Firings watch.
May 10th, 2024Obit watch: May 8, 2024.
May 8th, 2024Wow. Busy.
Susan Buckner, actress. We may have to add “Deadly Blessing” to the movie list. Other credits include “B.J. and the Bear”, “Switch”, and “Police Academy 6: City Under Siege”.
Judy Devlin Hashman, badminton champion.
Before badminton established a world championship or joined the Olympics, the All England Open Badminton Championships was the sport’s pinnacle. Hashman won the women’s singles title in that event for the first time in 1954 at age 18. Then she added her record-setting nine more, the last in 1967.
She also won seven women’s doubles titles, six of them with her sister Susan Devlin, later known as Susan Peard.
Ian Gelder, actor. NYT (archived). Other credits include “EastEnders”, “Father Brown”, and “Rumpole of the Bailey”.
The paper of record finally ran an obit for Dick Rutan.
Milton Diamond, who the NYT describes as a “sexologist and advocate for intersex babies”.
I probably would have skipped this one for notability, but the obit starts off with an account of the 1973 International Symposium on Gender Identity, at which Dr. Diamond got into a confrontation with Dr. John Money. Dr. Money was an advocate of “genital correction” surgery, while Dr. Diamond advocated leaving them alone.
Dr. Money rushed over to Dr. Diamond, getting in his face, furiously insisting he was right.
Dr. Diamond only replied, “The data is not there.”
At one point, eyewitnesses reported that Dr. Money slugged Dr. Diamond, though Dr. Diamond later said he didn’t remember it.
Turns out Dr. Diamond may have been right, and Dr. Money was (at best) a crank and possibly worse.
You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#118 and #119 in a series)
May 8th, 2024Some people might question whether these are actual “flames”, but I think they’re close enough for government work.
1. Here comes the judge?
No. There goes the judge.
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Investigations began into Ademiluyi on Sept. 27, 2022, after allegations arose that she bypassed the judicial nomination process and vetting, ultimately beating a previously seated judge.
Court documents noted concerns from the Commission of Judicial Disabilities with a campaign ad from Ademiluyi that detailed her personal experience as a sexual assault survivor, claiming that the ad could “reasonably be perceived as inconsistent with the independence and impartiality of judicial office.”
While in office, two of Ademiluyi’s employees told the commission that the judge would routinely “demand, demean, and belittle” them, leading to both seeking medical attention for stress and anxiety
In 2023, Ademilyi was suspended without pay and barred from a courthouse.
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She has alleged in complaints and court documents that her outsider status drew hostility from her judicial colleagues, creating a working environment that prompted her to file what she said was a whistleblower complaint against her supervisors in 2022.
In a statement, she asserted that her removal from the bench is retaliation for that complaint. After reporting her supervisors to the Maryland Commission on Judicial Disabilities, they responded with a complaint of their own, alleging misconduct by Ademiluyi in hundreds of pages of documents that the commission and Maryland Supreme Court deemed valid.
Her fellow judges alleged that she behaved inappropriately at the courthouse, including insubordination, unprofessionalism, tardiness and lack of participation in critical judicial training sessions.
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Soon after Ademiluyi became a judge, tensions with her colleagues began to develop, according to court and commission documents.
But Ademiluyi took the first action before the commission, filing a complaint against Sheila Tillerson Adams, then serving as the county’s longtime chief administrative judge, and Daneeka Varner Cotton, who would soon take over for Tillerson Adams.
Ademiluyi alleged that Tillerson Adams forged her signature on a ruling and that the two had been monitoring her emails in an attempt to sabotage her, according to commission and court documents. In a letter to the commission, Cotton replied that it would be “extremely difficult to respond to the blatant falsehoods” alleged in Ademiluyi’s complaint.
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Tillerson Adams told investigators that dealing with Ademiluyi had been a “nightmare.” The commission ultimately dismissed Ademiluyi’s complaint, ruling that there was not sufficient evidence to support her allegations.
Then came a second commission complaint from Tillerson Adams against Ademiluyi, alleging misconduct. The commission would ultimately find that, among other conclusions, she refused to talk to certain judges, instructed her law clerks to not speak to other judges and sent emails saying, “I don’t look forward to meeting you or communicating with you at anytime.” They also found that her election campaign content could have led to perceptions of her not being impartial in sexual violence cases.
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The Maryland Supreme Court’s decision Monday went far beyond the punishment the commission had unanimously recommended in February, which included a censure and six-month unpaid suspension, with two months served immediately and four months suspended depending on her compliance with certain conditions.
Those conditions included that the Supreme Court institute a one-year probation with a monitor; an assigned mentor judge who would provide monthly reports; “a complete emotional, behavioral and prosocial assessment” followed by Ademiluyi’s cooperation and compliance with any recommended treatments; and attendance at Maryland judiciary, educational and ethics trainings.
As I understand it, she beat Jared McCarthy in the 2020 general election for the position. Mike the Musicologist, who tipped me off to this story, also sent over a tweet:
"McCarthy had led by about 7,000 votes on election night, but with a large number of mail-in and provisional ballots remaining to be counted, he finally lost by 5,200 votes."
History will come to know this as THE BIDEN MANEUVER.
— Byl Holte (@SirBylHolte) May 8, 2024
2. Troy Finner, the chief of police for the Houston Police Department, retired yesterday.
This sounds more like a “retirefiring” than an actual retirement, even though he’s been on the job for 31 years. The HPD has been under a lot of fire recently over closing 264,000 cases. The cases were “suspended” with a code indicating “lack of personnel”…
Former Chief Finner had said repeatedly he knew nothing about this, but an email surfaced recently in which he was told that a road rage incident had been closed with that code:
And, as a special bonus for reading all the way to the end:
Headline of the day.
May 7th, 2024Slain beauty queen Landy Párraga may have tipped off killers by posting photo of octopus ceviche
I really do need to do that OPSEC post, don’t I?
They didn’t even have to look at the EXIF data.
Also, she was making the sign of the two-backed beast with a convicted drug lord, who was married to someone else.
“If my wife comes across anything about her, I’m screwed,” Norero had said of Párraga to Ángulo.
He reportedly added: “My friend, her name cannot come out anywhere. Otherwise, my world will come crashing down.”
The drug lord got whacked in prison. Authorities suspect that his widow is behind the assassination of Ms. Párraga.
Obit watch: May 7, 2024.
May 7th, 2024Both Lawrence and Joe D. sent over additional obits for Dick Rutan: AP. AVWeb (which was not there when I looked yesterday). Air Force Times. My thanks to both gentlemen.
C.J. Sansom, mystery author. I’d never heard of him, but now I want to read his books. He specialized in historical mysteries, and had an ongoing series with “Matthew Shardlake”, a “hunchbacked lawyer-turned-detective” in Tudor England.
His first book, “Dissolution,” is set in a remote monastery in 1537, as Henry VIII is dispossessing Catholic monks of their lands and riches after the king’s rupture with Rome. Shardlake is sent there by his patron, Cromwell, Henry’s chief minister, to investigate a murder. He finds corruption, sexual depravity and more suspicious deaths.
Published in 2003, “Dissolution” was a popular success, and Mr. Sansom was signed to a multibook deal. He went on to publish six more Shardlake mysteries over 15 years. More than three million copies are in print.
His second installment, “Dark Fire” (2005), set during a sweltering London summer, includes child murder and culminates in Cromwell’s real-life execution in 1540. A reviewer, Stella Duffy, writing in The Guardian, praised Mr. Sansom for offering a dizzying window on the times: “Tudor housing to rival Rachman, Dickensian prisons, a sewage-glutted Thames, beggars in gutters, conspiracies at court and a political system predicated on birth not merit, intrigue not intelligence.”
You know, I feel like between Mr. Sansom and Hilary Mantel, at some point, I’m going to have to go to the Cromwell…
Noted.
May 6th, 2024There was an election in Austin this past weekend.
Because of changes in state law, areas of Austin that were previously annexed by the city could vote to de-annex from the city.
Some of those results are interesting.
For example, Proposition B, “Disannex Mooreland Addition” received 0 votes against…and 0 votes for.
Proposition C, “Disannex Blue Goose Road”, got 3 votes for…and none against.
Proposition E, “Disannex Wildhorse/Webb” also ended up in a 0-0 tie.
And Proposition F, “Disannex River Place Outparcels”, won, 1-0. See, one vote can matter.
In case you were wondering, Proposition A, “Disannex Lost Creek”, won, 1,447 – 138. Proposition D, “Disannex Lennar at Malone”, won lost 110 – 2.
Edited to add 5/7: Actually, I mis-read the results. Proposition D, “Disannex Lennar at Malone”, was defeated.
I don’t know that there’s any major trends to be drawn from this. I want to say that the results prove general unhappiness with the city, and a desire to be well separated from it. But I feel like that can only be said for the areas covered by propositions A and D, since those seem to be the only ones with a significant number of voters.
Edited to add 5/7: Thanks to T. Migratorious for his comments.
Also, KVUE has a post election follow-up article.
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“My grandfather fought the annexation of this little area the whole time here until he died in 2015,” Kizer said. “He was the kind of guy that would call the county … call the city and tell them, ‘You need to come do things.’”Kizer said they never got any benefits from the city in the seven years they were annexed and that their roads and water infrastructure deteriorated.
“I did call and contact the city for services, and they’re like, ‘No, we’re not up to date in your area to provide those services,'” Kizer said. “Huge potholes everywhere … They didn’t actually come and fix our road until they started doing new construction in the rest of the area. It was only to benefit the newcomers to the area, not anybody that’s already been here and paying taxes.”
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Disannexing means the residents will no longer receive certain city services, like fire or police protection, street maintenance, public health sanitation and more.
“There weren’t a lot of things to look forward to or that they were giving us,” Kizer said. “So, the major benefit is that I get to go back to being county taxed.”
Obit watch: May 6, 2024.
May 6th, 2024Bernard Hill. NYT. IMDB.
Frank Stella, artist.
Mr. Stella was a dominant figure in postwar American art, a restless, relentless innovator whose explorations of color and form made him an outsize presence, endlessly discussed and constantly on exhibit.
Few American artists of the 20th century arrived with quite his éclat. He was in his early 20s when his large-scale black paintings — precisely delineated black stripes separated by thin lines of blank canvas — took the art world by storm. Austere, self-referential, opaque, they cast a chilling spell.
Jeannie Epper, stuntwoman. 161 stunt credits in IMDB (and another 39 actress credits). Seems like she was working pretty steadily from 1964 all the way to 2021, including “Play Misty For Me”, “Soylent Green”, “Blazing Saddles”, “The Blues Brothers”, and “Road House” (the good one).
Lawrence sent over an obit for Edgar Lansbury. I had seen this elsewhere and didn’t think he was noteworthy enough, but Lawrence pointed out that he produced “Squirm“.
Lawrence also sent over an obit for Dick Rutan, legendary pilot. He’s the guy who, with Jeana Yeager, flew non-stop around the world in nine days, three minutes, and 44 seconds in “Voyager”. Unfortunately, the obit Lawrence sent me came from a blog by way of a blog, and I’d rather have something more substantial to link to: none of the flying news publications I know of have this story yet. I’ll link to a better obit when I find one.