Obit watch: January 9, 2023.

January 9th, 2023

Bernard Kalb, former foreign correspondent for CBS, NBC, and the NYT.

He reported for The Times from 1946 to 1962, for CBS during the next 18 years (during which he joined his brother, Marvin, on the diplomatic beat) and as NBC’s State Department correspondent from 1980 to 1985. Then, for nearly two years, he served in the Reagan administration’s State Department — a stint that ended contentiously.
As a CBS correspondent in 1972, Mr. Kalb accompanied President Richard M. Nixon on the trip to China that proved to be a major step in the normalization of relations between the two nations. He also made virtually every overseas trip with Henry A. Kissinger, Cyrus R. Vance, Edmund S. Muskie, Alexander M. Haig Jr. and George P. Shultz during their tenures as secretary of state.

…

After graduating from the City College of New York in 1942, Mr. Kalb spent two years in the Army, mostly working on a newspaper published out of a Quonset hut in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. His editor was Sgt. Dashiell Hammett, the author of the detective novels “The Maltese Falcon” and “The Thin Man.”

Russell Banks, novelist.

Joyce Meskis, former owner of The Tattered Cover.

In addition to creating a bookstore famed for its vast selection and bibliophile-friendly atmosphere, Ms. Meskis often took a stand in matters related to censorship and the First Amendment. Sometimes those positions were not easy ones to embrace.
In 1991, for instance, when she was president of the American Booksellers Association, she testified against the proposed Pornography Victims Compensation Act, a bill introduced by Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican, that would have allowed victims of sex crimes to sue distributors of pornography, including bookstores, if they could demonstrate that pornography influenced their attacker. Opponents of that bill (which died in committee) were sometimes labeled pro-pornography, but Ms. Meskis knew the real issue was that the law would make bookstores wary of selling anything controversial.
Similarly, the case she took to the Colorado Supreme Court some two decades ago pitted her against law enforcement officials, who were trying to build a case against a customer suspected of making methamphetamine. In 2000 the police found two books on drugmaking in a trailer home used as a meth lab; they also found an envelope with Ms. Meskis’s bookstore listed as the return address. Hoping to link the drugmaking to the recipient whose name was on the envelope, they sought Ms. Meskis’s sales records — and, though her stand read as pro-drug to some, she again saw the bigger picture.
“This is about access to private records of the book-buying public,” she told The New York Times in 2000. “If buyers thought that their records would be turned over to the government, it would have a chilling affect on what they buy and what they read.”
In 2002 the State Supreme Court ruled that both the First Amendment and the Colorado Constitution “protect an individual’s fundamental right to purchase books anonymously, free from governmental interference.”

Adam Rich. Other credits include “CHiPs”, “Silver Spoons”, and “Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star”.

Owen Roizman, cinematographer. “The French Connection”, “The Exorcist”, and “Network”? Wow.

Art McNally, NFL official credited as being “the father of instant replay”.

Earl Boen. Other credits (he has 291 as an actor: man worked) include video game spun offs from a minor 1960s SF TV series, “Battle Beyond the Stars”, the good “Hawaii 5-0”, and “Richie Brockelman, Private Eye”.

Posted in 1970s, Books, Law, Media, Movies, NFL, Obits, Sports, TV | 3 Comments »

Your Bloody Monday thread.

January 9th, 2023

The NFL regular season ended yesterday. You know what that means.

Yes, the firings will continue until morale improves. This is your Bloody Monday NFL firings thread, which I will try to keep updated today.

Starting with yesterday’s “Damn, you didn’t even wait to get him in the house” firing: Lovie Smith out as head coach of the Texans after one season. 3-13-1 as Texans coach. From the NYPost:

Smith had a successful nine-year run in Chicago, going 81-63 and taking the team to the Super Bowl in 2006 after a 13-3 season. Since, though, he has gone 11-35-1 in stints with the Buccaneers and now the Texans.

Smith replaced David Culley, who was also fired after one year in Houston, as head coach in February 2022.

This team was so inept, they couldn’t even get the first draft choice. What the heck happened? The Texans used to be at least competitive.

Joe Woods out as defensive coordinator in Cleveland. At least the Browns were competitive (7-10 this season).

More later, if there are any more firings today.

Edited to add: Kliff Kingsbury out as head coach of the Cardinals, and Steve Keim stepping down as GM. Keim’s resignation is apparently for health reasons.

Kingsbury was 28-37-1 overall, and the team was 4-13 this season. Interestingly, both Kingsbury and Keim had their contracts extended last March.

Posted in Firings, NFL, Sports | Comments Closed

Preview of coming attractions. (Random gun crankery.)

January 8th, 2023

Saturday did turn out to be The Day of the .45. Didn’t plan it that way, it just worked out.

Posts on both guns to come as soon as the cedar stops trying to kill me and I can get some better photos. But that’s 100+ years of history right there.

What was it some jerk said a while back?

Posted in 1911, Guns, History, Holsters, Smith and Wesson | 3 Comments »

The Whipped Cream Difficulties Home for Unloved Firearms. (Random gun crankery)

January 6th, 2023

I like guns that have a story. Even if I don’t always know what that story is.

There are people who throw conniption fits when they see a vintage military gun that someone has modified. For me, it depends on two things:

  • How good the modifications are. There’s a reason people refer to “Bubba gunsmithing”.
  • The relative rarity of the gun. Someone who hacks on a vintage M1917 Enfield these days is doing something stupid and appalling. Someone who modified one of those guns back in the day when you could pull them out of barrels at the Army Surplus store and they were cheap enough to use as tomato stakes…that’s a different story.

I’ve written before about my fondness for esoteric small bore cartridges, like the .22 Jet and the .224 Harvey Kay-Chuk. This isn’t just limited to handguns, but extends to rifles as well. Indeed, I’ve been kind of looking for a good .22 Hornet. (CZ made nice ones for a while, but they seem hard to find now. The ideal would be a heavy-barrelled pre-64 Model 70, but those are not cheap.) I also wouldn’t mind finding a nice .22 Magnum rifle, to go with my two .22 Magnum revolvers, but those are more common and fairly easy to find.

Mike the Musicologist and I were out a few months ago and visited Provident Arms in Spicewood. This was on the used rack and, while it isn’t in .22 Hornet, it was nicely priced ($400 plus tax, out the door). I heard it softly calling my name, and well…it followed me home. In addition to the nice price, it opens up several new rabbit holes for me. And it feels like this gun does have a story, though I don’t know what that story is.

This is a custom gun. The base is a M1903A3 receiver. Some of the markings are obscured by the scope mount, but as best as I can figure out from what I can read, and this serial number table, it was made by Remington in 1942.

(This one says September 1943.) I’m pretty sure this is safe to shoot as it falls outside of the low serial number range, but I would welcome hearing from any 1903A3 experts out there. If you know anything about 1903A3 rifles, you know more than I do, and are thus an expert.

The scope is a Bushnell 3-14. It seems like a pretty good scope, though I won’t know for sure until I shoot the rifle. We’ll talk about that later. Assuming it holds zero and isn’t otherwise broken, I could probably take it off and get back at least $100 of the purchase price. But that would leave me with a gun with no sights, so why would I want to do that?

The other thing is, someone rechambered this in .220 Swift. No, really.

.220 Swift is one of those super-odd cartridges. Factory ammunition is “available”: Remington makes one loading, Federal makes one loading, and Winchester makes one. Good luck finding those in stock anywhere, though. Most folks seem to handload for .220 Swift.

And there are good reasons for that. You can really push .220 Swift, if you want. It uses a .224 diameter bullet, same as the .221 Fireball, .223/5.56, .22 Hornet, 5.7×28, and some other cartridges. I’ve seen claims that it is the fastest commercially produced rifle cartridge, and, based on skimming reloading data, that seems accurate. With lightweight bullets (35 grains or so) you can get over 4,000 feet per second out of the .220 Swift. That’s…astonishing. At that velocity, from what I’ve seen claimed, you can sight in 1.5″ high at 100 yards, and (depending on the the load) hold dead-on target out to 300 yards without the bullet being more than 1.5″ above or below your aim point. This would be a really great cartridge for varmint hunting.

But it is also a very controversial one. The sources I’ve read say that the factory ammo makers originally loaded it at the 4,000 fps level, but shooters found that it tore the crap out of barrels quickly, like within 500 rounds. The factories backed off their loads some in an attempt to improve barrel life. It’s also worth keeping in mind that the .220 Swift was introduced in 1935 (Winchester chambered it in the Model 54 at first, and then in the Model 70 when that was introduced the next year.) Since 1935, our knowledge of metallurgy and barrel-making has advanced considerably, and apparently newer barrels don’t get shot out as fast. Especially if you don’t feed them a high-volume of maximum loads in a short time: the consensus seems to be one or two shots on a varmint, then letting the gun cool down before taking more shots, is the way to go.

The other issue seems to be people trying to make .220 Swift do things it wasn’t designed to do, like take larger game. There was a guy in the 1940s who claimed it was the best cartridge he’d found for “feral burros”, while other people used it for deer, elk, and even tiger. On the other hand, if you’ve read Ruark’s Horn of the Hunter (and if you have, first drink’s on me next time we meet) the rifle he attempted to use to take a hyena (and threw away in disgust) was allegedly a .220 Swift. This may have been a bullet construction issue: fast moving hollow points would blow up on impact, while other bullet types (such as monolithic copper) give better penetration to vital areas.

Personally, I’d stick to game not much bigger than coyotes (Call me, Martha).

Of course, I’d welcome hearing from any .220 Swift experts out there. If you know anything about .220 Swift, you know more than I do, and are thus an expert.

I haven’t had a chance to shoot this yet. The temperatures are mild enough that I can finally go rifle shooting, but I need to find an outdoor range with open lanes. If I go to an indoor range, that makes it much harder to chronograph loads, and I do want to do some chrono work: not just with this gun, but with the Scout and the XP-100. And it seems like whenever I go indoor, there’s always someone there who has brought their .22 Eargesplitten Loudenboomer or something that produces an equal amount of concussion.

Mike the Musicologist, RoadRich, and I went shooting last Sunday at Lone Star. But the only range they had open without more of a wait than we wanted was the .22 rimfire range. That was fine, we brought .22s with us, but it did mean that I didn’t have a chance to check any of my other guns.

I actually do have ammo for this gun, oddly enough. I ordered some of the Remington load from Midway. Mike and I went down to Cabela’s the day after I bought the rifle: while they had no factory .220 Swift ammo, they did have two boxes of Hornady unfired .220 Swift cases, and RCBS loading dies for .220 Swift. Someone in my extended circle reloads, and did a batch of .220 Swift for me using those dies and cases. (As I recall, I bought 55 grain Hornady bullets for those loads.) I’ve also managed to accumulate some factory loaded ammo from various places (gun shows, gun shops, etc.).

This might turn into a fun project. It’s already been an interesting diversion.

And I’m still looking for a .22 Hornet. And a .22 Jet: I’m thinking a Jet might be my target of opportunity at the Symposium in June.

(This article from Outdoor Life was a useful source of background in writing this blog entry.)

Posted in Books, Guns, Ruark | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: January 6, 2023.

January 6th, 2023

Kenneth Rowe, also known as Lt. No Kum-Sok of the North Korean Air Force.

This is an interesting historical footnote (recommended for use in schools) that I was previously unaware of.

Lt. Kum-Sok was born in what was then “the northern part of the Japanese-occupied Korean Peninsula”. He became a navel cadet, transferred to the North Korean Air Force, and learned to fly MIGs.

He got his wings at 19.

…

Mr. Rowe had become a member of North Korea’s Communist Party and “played the Communist zealot,” as he put it, while serving in the Korean War. But he had been influenced by his anti-Communist father and his mother’s Roman Catholic upbringing to yearn for life in a democracy. He had been thinking of a way to get to America since Korea was divided after World War II and the Soviet-backed Kim Il-sung imposed Communist rule over what became North Korea.

On the morning of September 21, 1953, while flying in a patrol of 16 planes, he broke off from the formation and flew across the DMZ to Kimpo AFB in South Korea.

Luck was with him. The American air defense radar just north of Kimpo had been shut down for routine maintenance, and neither American planes aloft nor antiaircraft crews had spotted him.
During the late stages of the Korean War, the Air Force had dropped leaflets over North Korea offering a $100,000 reward to the first North Korean pilot to defect with a MIG. Mr. Rowe maintained that he knew nothing of that reward and said he had simply wanted to live a free life. But he accepted it.

This was the first intact MIG that the United States was able to analyze. (At least, according to the NYT: Wikipedia claims that Franciszek Jarecki, a Polish pilot, defected in one on March 5, 1953.)

Seeking to determine the MIG’s strengths and weaknesses in anticipation of future conflicts with the Soviet Union and its allies, the Air Force dispatched some of its most accomplished test pilots — including Maj. Chuck Yeager, who had gained fame in 1947 as the first flier to break the sound barrier — to put the MIG-15 through strenuous maneuvers. Their verdict: The F-86 was the superior warplane.

Again per Wikipedia (quoting Yeager’s autobiography), “the MiG-15 had dangerous handling faults…during a visit to the USSR, Soviet pilots were incredulous he had dived in it, this supposedly being very hazardous.”

He came to the United States in May 1954 and was something of a celebrity. He was introduced to Vice President Richard M. Nixon, was interviewed by Dave Garroway on NBC’s “Today” program and appeared on broadcasts for the Voice of America. He received an engineering degree from the University of Delaware, became an American citizen in 1962 and worked as an engineer for major defense and aerospace companies. He was later a professor of engineering at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach.

He was 90 when he passed.

And his plane?

Seven decades later, that plane still exists, and resides at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force near Dayton, Ohio.
Its red star repainted, it is on display alongside an American F-86 Sabre jet, a remembrance of the dogfights of the Korean War in the swath of sky known as MIG Alley.

Posted in History, Obits, Planes | Comments Closed

Firings watch.

January 5th, 2023

Chris Beard out as head coach of Texas basketball.

His UT record was 29-13, including the school’s first NCAA Tournament win since 2014 last season.

The problem wasn’t his record: Texas is currently ranked 6th, and is 12-2 this season.

The problem is: Mr. Beard got arrested.

He had been suspended without pay by the university since Dec. 12 after his fiancée Randi Trew called Austin police and told them Beard had strangled her, bit her and caused her abrasions. He was booked in the Travis County jail and released later that day after posting $10,000 bail.

…

Police said they were dispatched to Beard’s house in his Tarrytown neighborhood around 2 a.m. on Dec. 12 after Trew called 911 to say the coach had attacked her.According to the arrest affidavit, Trew said the couple had been arguing about their relationship for several days. She told police she approached Beard in a guest bedroom and, after Beard ignored her, she became frustrated and took his eyeglasses from his hand and broke them. She also told police that she “did not feel safe.”
Even though Trew later clarified that Beard may have acted in self-defense and had never strangled her, Beard has never spoken publicly about the episode. Her statement was given to the American-Statesman and the Associated Press. 
Perry Minton, a lawyer representing Beard, issued a statement after the arrest saying Beard is innocent and that the woman wanted all charges dismissed.

Posted in Firings, Sports | 1 Comment »

Happy New Year! Have some more gun books!

January 5th, 2023

But first, answers to a couple of questions:

“Did you get any guns for Christmas?” No, not as presents. I expect to pick up one gun on Saturday, and may pick up a second one off of layaway at the same time. I’ll blog them once I have them, as I think folks will find these guns historically interesting. (Hint: if everything works out the way I want it to, Saturday will be The Day of the .45.)

“Did you get any gun books for Christmas?” Not yet: my beloved and indulgent sister has been wrestling with Amazon, but I don’t know what she got me, I’m not looking (that’d ruin the surprise!), and so I don’t know if there are any gun books in the lot. (Speaking of new gun books, though, this interests me: I liked American Gunfight, his book with Stephen Hunter, so I’m willing to take a chance. And speaking of Stephen Hunter, I pre-ordred a signed copy of The Bullet Garden from The Mysterious Bookshop, but that won’t be released until later this month.)

(And before you say “Isn’t it kind of late for Christmas?”, as all people of goodwill know, the Christmas season runs through January 6th, the Feast of the Epiphany, and so anything given, or even ordered, in this period earns you full faith and credit. Also, you can leave your Christmas decorations up until after the 6th. If the Judgy McJudgersons say anything to you, tell them I have spoken. So let it be written, so let it be done.)

Anyway, some more gun books. One was ordered before Thanksgiving, one was picked up at Half-Price Books while I was out after the holiday.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Books, Christmas, Guns, Hoplobibilophilia | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 5, 2023.

January 5th, 2023

Fay Weldon, British novelist. (The Life and Loves of a She-Devil).

In 2001, she struck an unusual brand-placement deal with the jeweler Bulgari, reportedly worth £18,000 (about $23,000), to mention the company’s name and products in a book. The ensuing novel, “The Bulgari Connection,” raised eyebrows among purists, but she brushed the criticism aside.
At first, she said, she thought: “‘Oh, no, dear me, I am a literary author. You can’t do this kind of thing; my name will be mud forever.’ But then after a while I thought, ‘I don’t care. Let it be mud. They never give me the Booker Prize anyway.’”

James “Buster” Corley, co-founder of Dave and Busters. He was 72: according to his family, he suffered a stroke four months ago that caused “severe damage to the communication and personality part of his brain”, and his death was a suicide.

Posted in Books, Obits | Comments Closed

Obit watch: January 4, 2023.

January 4th, 2023

Walter Cunningham, Apollo 7 astronaut. NASA.

Mr. Cunningham, a physicist and a former Marine pilot, joined with Capt. Walter M. Schirra Jr. of the Navy and Maj. Donn F. Eisele of the Air Force on a virtually flawless 11-day mission in October 1968. They completed 163 orbits of the Earth (four and a half million miles) in a reconstructed space capsule with many safety modifications and became the first NASA astronauts to appear on television from space.

…

Apollo 7 — which blasted off on Oct. 11, 1968, following unmanned Apollo flights in the wake of the disastrous fire — passed its maneuverability and reliability tests. The capsule rendezvoused with an orbiting stage of the Saturn 1-B rocket that had sent it into space, indicating that it would have no trouble docking with a lunar module that would carry two astronauts from the capsule to the moon and back. The Apollo 7 astronauts, who comprised NASA’s first three-man crew, also successfully tested an engine in the rear of their capsule designed to put the spacecraft into and out of lunar orbit on a future mission.
And for the first time, astronauts carried a camera providing TV images. They demonstrated how they could float in their weightless environment in what became known as “The Wally, Walt and Donn Show,” and they put together a hand-lettered sign that said, “Hello From the Lovely Apollo Room, High Atop Everything.”
There was a problem, though: Captain Schirra had a heavy head cold, Major Eisele had a lesser cold and Mr. Cunningham, as he would later recall, felt “a little blah.” NASA feared that the colds could result in the bursting of eardrums as the astronauts returned to Earth.
They were, in fact, just fine when they splashed down some 325 miles south of Bermuda, less than a mile off target. Their mission was so successful that Apollo 8 orbited the moon, another important prelude to the moon landing in July 1969.
But Apollo 7 had its blemishes. It would be remembered for Captain Schirra’s disputes with NASA controllers in Houston. Speaking on an open microphone monitored by the press, he protested the agency’s ambitious schedule for TV transmissions, which he felt took valuable time away from the astronauts’ work. He also insisted that the astronauts dispense with the rule requiring pressurized helmets on re-entry, fearing that this could damage their eardrums in light of their colds. He got his way.
Captain Schirra, who flew in the Mercury and Gemini programs, had told NASA he planned to retire after Apollo 7. That mission proved to be not just the first but also the last for both Mr. Cunningham and Major Eisele.

…

Chris Kraft, the director of flight operations for the Apollo program, wrote in his memoir, “Flight: My Life in Mission Control” (2001), that Mr. Cunningham and Major Eisele had supported Captain Schirra on the helmet issue. Mr. Kraft said he regarded their collective stance as “insubordinate” and recalled telling Donald Slayton, who selected crews for the Apollo missions, that “this crew shouldn’t fly again.”

…

The Apollo 7 crewmen did have to settle for NASA’s second-highest award, the Exceptional Service Medal, while subsequent Apollo crews and the crews of the Skylab program were given the top award, the Distinguished Service Medal.
NASA upgraded the Apollo 7 astronauts’ medals to the Distinguished Service citation at an October 2008 ceremony, citing the mission’s success, notwithstanding the arguments with flight controllers. But Mr. Cunningham was the only crewman alive by then. Major Eisele, who died in 1987, was represented by his widow, Susan Eisele-Black; Captain Schirra, who died in 2007, by the astronaut Bill Anders.
Mr. Kraft struck a conciliatory stance. “We gave you a hard time once, but you certainly survived that and have done extremely well since,” he told Mr. Cunningham in a recorded message. “You’ve done well by yourself, you’ve done well for NASA, and I am frankly very proud to call you a friend.”

Posted in History, Obits | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: January 3, 2023.

January 3rd, 2023

Very quick roundups from the past few days:

Fred White, drummer for Earth, Wind and Fire.

Anita Pointer, of the Pointer Sisters.

Jeremiah Green, drummer for Modest Mouse.

Uche Nwaneri, former offensive lineman for the Jacksonville Jaguars. He was 38.

RoadRich sent over an obit for Ken Block, rally driver and YouTuber. He was 55, and died in a snowmobile accident.

Chris Ledesma, music editor for “The Simpsons”. He worked on every episode through May of 2022.

Posted in Cars, Music, NFL, Obits, Sports, TV | Comments Closed

Cereal experiments lame.

January 2nd, 2023

Mike the Musicologist and I have a tradition, dating back quite a while: if we find ourselves in a grocery store, we go look in the cereal aisle…for silly cereals.

Over the weekend, we went by a WalMart Supercenter because we were looking for a specific silly cereal.

Yes, that is “Elf on the Shelf Hot Cocoa Cereal with Marshmallows”. That was the only flavor (and the only box) WalMart had, but there’s also “Sugar Cookie” flavor and “North Pole Snow Creme” flavor.

Other things that we found, but did not buy, because we’re not that silly.

Kellogg’s Frosted Pandora Flakes. Do you suppose that anyone at Kellogg’s thought about the symbolism of opening a box labeled “Pandora”?

“Wendy’s Frosty Chocolatey Cereal With Wendy’s Frosty Flavor”. “Frosty” is not a flavor.

“IHOP Mini Pancake Cereal”, for when you want the taste of IHOP pancakes, but don’t want to deal with the Mongolian fire drill that IHOP has become.

Not cereals, but on the same aisle:

“Mrs. Butterworth’s Fruity Pebbles Flavored Syrup” and “Cap’n Crunch’s Ocean Blue Artificially Maple Flavored Syrup”. There are so many things wrong with these, I can’t even.

I’ll throw in one more photo from the weekend that’s totally unrelated. I like the way this came out, though I did manually adjust the exposure and crop. (I thought it came out a little dark: it was more overcast than I thought it was.)

Christmas “tree” at Garrison Brothers Distillery in Hye, Texas.

Posted in Christmas, Food, Mixology | 1 Comment »

Historical note, suitable for use in schools.

January 1st, 2023

The Diary of Samuel Pepys begins their third read-through today.

I’ve said before that I think this is the way Pepys’s diary should be read: in blog form. It genuinely surprises and delights me that they’ve already gone through the diary twice, and I’m looking forward to following this third read-through.

Posted in History | Comments Closed

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