You’re going down in flames, you tax-fattened hyena! (#148 in a series)

June 6th, 2025

Marcos Lopez is the sheriff of Osceola County in Florida, though he is currently suspended.

Why is he suspended? Because he was indicted on racketeering and “conspiracy to commit racketeering” charges on Thursday.

A charging document released by Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier’s office said the case centers around a money-laundering operation through an illegal gambling house in Kissimmee known as the Fusion Social Club run by Lopez and his co-conspirators. The establishment conducted illegal lotteries while illicitly possessing slot machines as part of an operation enriching the sheriff while in office.

NYT:

The charges stem from a joint investigation conducted in 2023 by Homeland Security Investigations and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The inquiry uncovered a criminal syndicate that prosecutors say operated an illegal gambling network that generated about $22 million across Central Florida, especially in Lake and Osceola Counties.
Prosecutors said that Sheriff Lopez’s ties to the casino, the Eclipse Social Club in Kissimmee, Fla., date to 2019, a year before his election. After becoming sheriff in 2020, prosecutors said, he continued to protect the gambling ring as it expanded in Florida while collecting a portion of proceeds.
Prosecutors said that Sheriff Lopez’s involvement in the gambling enterprise continued until as recently as August 2024, months before he was re-elected in November.

Switching back to the Tampa Bay Times:

It all amounts to a disgraceful denouement for Lopez, who has been a magnet for controversy since he became Osceola’s first Hispanic sheriff in 2020. The longtime lawman has been accused of personal indiscretions such as receiving a nude photo of a co-worker, and professional missteps including his deputies’ aggressive actions in pursuing shoplifters at a Target and killing their driver. Most recently, Lopez posted on social media a picture of the corpse of 13-year-old Madeline Soto, then lied about what he had done.

Posted in Cops, Law, Politics | No Comments »

Zero Stars.

June 6th, 2025

Pete DeBoer out as head coach of the Dallas Stars.

Dallas joined the 1975-77 Islanders as the only teams in the expansion era to lose in the round before the Stanley Cup Final for three straight seasons.

(Sorry for the straight-up ESPN link, but the Dallas papers are pretty much unlinkable.)

Posted in Firings, Sports | No Comments »

Obit watch: June 6, 2025.

June 6th, 2025

Mara Corday, actress. I have not seen a THR obit for her, and the paper of records says she died on February 9th:

Her death, which was not widely reported at the time, was confirmed in an obituary published on May 30 in The Washington Post, which obtained her death certificate.

Other credits include “Peter Gunn”, “Naked Gun” (1956), and “Francis Joins the WACS”.

It is mentioned in the subhead, but Clint Eastwood’s 95th birthday was this past weekend, and they don’t show the video, so…

(Fun fact: according to IMDB, “Go ahead, make my day.” was contributed by Charles B. Pierce, who is credited as one of the writers. That’s Charles B. Pierce of “The Legend of Boggy Creek” and “Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues”.)

(No, the Saturday Movie Group didn’t watch “Sudden Impact” this past weekend. We watched “The Enforcer” because that was the next movie in our Dirty Harry rotation. I am looking forward to watching “Sudden Impact”, though, because I haven’t seen that since it was in theaters.)

Posted in Movies, Obits | No Comments »

Obit watch: June 3, 2025.

June 3rd, 2025

Shigeo Nagashima, one of the great Japanese baseball players.

Along with his teammate Sadaharu Oh, Japan’s home run king, Nagashima was the centerpiece of the country’s most enduring sports dynasty. He hit 444 home runs, had a lifetime batting average of .305, won six batting titles and five times led the league in runs batted in. He was a five-time most valuable player and was chosen as the league’s top third baseman in each of his 17 seasons. He was inducted into Japan’s Baseball Hall of Fame in 1988.
In his first season, 1958, he led the league in home runs and was second in stolen bases and batting average, earning him rookie of the year honors. And then, early in his second season, he made history in the first game attended by a Japanese emperor, Hirohito, and an empress, Nagako. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Nagashima hit a 2-2 pitch into the left field stands for a game-winning home run, considered one of the most dramatic sports events in Japanese history.
One of Nagashima’s trademarks was his work ethic, a character trait that was particularly celebrated during Japan’s postwar rise. Under the guidance of manager Tetsuharu Kawakami, Nagashima practiced from dawn to dusk, enduring an infamous 1,000-fungo drill that required him to field ground ball after ground ball. In the off-season, he trained in the mountains, running and swinging the bat to the point of exhaustion. He bought a house by the Tama River in Tokyo so he could run there, and he added a room to his home where he could practice swinging.

Baseball Reference.

Jim Marshall, defensive end for the Minnesota Vikings.

Marshall joined the Vikings in their inaugural season in 1961 and played in every game thereafter. His record of 282 consecutive games played (270 with the Vikings), which he established upon retiring in 1979, stood until quarterback Brett Favre broke it — while also in a Vikings uniform — in 2009.

…

Marshall gained a permanent place in NFL Films lore in 1964 when he returned a fumble the wrong way in a game against the San Francisco 49ers, celebrating what he thought was a touchdown but instead was scored a safety. But his career accomplishments far outweighed that gaffe.
He was a Vikings captain for 14 seasons and appeared in four Super Bowls as part of the franchise’s famed Purple People Eaters defense. Although sacks did not become an official statistic until 1982, a research project coordinated by Pro Football Reference credited him with 130.5, which would tie him for No. 22 in NFL history.

Posted in NFL, Obits, Sports | 1 Comment »

Knick knack paddy whack…

June 3rd, 2025

This is still breaking news, but: The New York Knickerbockers just fired head coach Tom Thibodeau.

In five seasons with the Knicks, Thibodeau led them to a 226-174 regular-season record, and they made the playoffs in four of his five seasons at the helm.
When it came to the postseason, however, a 24-23 mark with the Knicks didn’t cut it.

ESPN.

Posted in Firings, Sports | 2 Comments »

Obit watch: May 31, 2025.

May 31st, 2025

Loretta Swit.

NYT (share link).

She took voice lessons and dance lessons, but her parents were horrified by her choice of entertainment as an actual career. As Ms. Swit told The Toronto Star in 2010, after they saw her in a play at a small Greenwich Village theater, “My mother said to my father, ‘If you don’t stop her now, she may wind up doing this for the rest of her life.’”

I would like to think she ended up with piles and piles of sweet “M*A*S*H” residuals, especially given how long she was on the show. But there’s a quote in Larry Linville’s IMDB entry:

…after his agent, business manager, accountant, US government and ex-wives all got their cut, his royalties from M*A*S*H (1972) were enough to make his car insurance payment.

Then again, she only had one ex-husband.

I have a lot of problems with “M*A*S*H”, and those problems only increase the more MeTV reruns it. But it is interesting that Major Houlihan was actually permitted to have a character arc. This is a nice moment. (It used to be on YouTube, but I think they’re scrubbing anything from “M*A*S*H” that isn’t official.)

Other credits include “Freebie and the Bean”, the good “Hawaii Five-O”, “The Bold Ones: The New Doctors”, “Mission: Impossible”, “Supertrain”…

…and she was a “Mannix” two-timer. (“Only One Death to a Customer“, season 3, episode 20. She was “Dorothy Harker”. “Figures in a Landscape“, season 4, episode 4. She was “Jill Packard”.)

Posted in 1970s, Leadership, Mannix, Obits, TV | No Comments »

Obit watch: May 30, 2025.

May 30th, 2025

Bernard B. Kerik, former commissioner of the New York Police Department.

He was in charge on September 11th.

Like the mayor himself, Mr. Kerik received kudos for his response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He and Mr. Giuliani rushed to the site to speed the evacuation of the World Trade Center. They were showered by debris from the collapse of the towers and were temporarily trapped in a nearby building.

He was also convicted of several crimes, including tax fraud, and served three years of a four year federal sentence. He was pardoned by Trump in 2020.

NYT obit for Harrison Ruffin Tyler (share link). Previously.

Dr. Robert Jarvik, the artificial heart guy.

By the mid-1980s, medical ethicists and theologians were debating whether artificial hearts improved life or extended a painful decline toward death. At a 1985 symposium of religious figures and doctors in Louisville, Ky., a Jesuit theologian noted that in the Christian view, “life is a basic good but not an absolute good,” adding, “There is a limit on what we may do to preserve our lives.”

…

In January 1990, the Food and Drug Administration withdrew its approval of the Jarvik-7, citing concerns about the manufacturer’s quality control.
In a 1989 interview with Syracuse University Magazine, Dr. Jarvik admitted that his belief that the Jarvik-7 was advanced enough to be used widely on a permanent basis was “probably the biggest mistake I have ever made.”
Still, he defended his work. Of the five recipients of the permanent Jarvik-7, he told the magazine, “These were people who I view as having had their lives prolonged,” adding that they survived nine months on average when some had been expected to live “no more than a week.”

…

In the late 1980s, his company, Jarvik Heart Inc., began developing smaller, less obtrusive implements, known as ventricular assist devices. Unlike the Jarvik-7, these devices do not replace a diseased heart but assist in pumping blood from the lower chambers of the heart to the rest of the body. One such device, the Jarvik 2000, is about the size of a C battery. A pediatric version, called the Jarvik 2015, is roughly the size of an AA battery.
According to a 2023 study of the artificial heart market, a descendant of the original Jarvik-7, now owned by another company, is called the SynCardia Total Artificial Heart. It is designed primarily for temporary use in patients who face imminent death while awaiting transplants. The study found that the device had been implanted in more than 1,700 patients worldwide.

Posted in Cops, History, NYPD, Obits | 1 Comment »

Springtime!

May 29th, 2025

And I’d like to talk about Spring…fields. Or at least books about Springfields. Plus some sniping content after the jump…

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Books, Guns, History, Hoplobibilophilia | No Comments »

Obit watch: May 29, 2025.

May 29th, 2025

FotB Joe D pointed out in comments the death of Harrison Ruffin Tyler at the age of 96.

He was the grandson of president John Tyler. It is actually a kind of interesting story: he was born to Lyon Gardiner Tyler, John’s son. Lyon was 75 when he was born. John Tyler was 63 when Lyon was born.

He fathered more children than any other American president, including eight with his first wife, Letitia Christian, and seven with his second, Julia Gardiner, whom he married in 1844 — two years after Letitia died of a stroke.

Bruce Logan, who did a lot of movie special effects. Among his credits: he blew up the Death Star.

Mr. Logan — who was also a cinematographer and director — recalled that he could not film the Death Star’s detonation as if it were happening on Earth.
“When you shoot an explosion conventionally, with the camera straight and level, with forces of gravity and atmospherics acting on it, what you get is a mushroom cloud which doesn’t look like it’s exploding in outer space,” he wrote on Zacuto.com, a film equipment website, in 2015.
To achieve the needed effect, Mr. Logan manned a high-speed camera, which was surrounded by a sheet of plywood, with a hole cut out for the lens and a sheet of glass covering it. With the camera pointed upward, Joe Viskocil, a pyrotechnics specialist, set off a series of miniature bombs overhead, which created the illusion of the explosions occurring in zero gravity in outer space.
The bombs’ ingredients included black powder, gasoline, titanium chips and napalm — and the only protection the crew had was a grip holding a fire extinguisher.
“I do remember wiping some burning napalm off my arm,” Mr. Logan told the Manhattan Edit Workshop, a postproduction school, in 2019.

Ed Gale, actor. Other credits include “Chopper Chicks in Zombietown”, “Land of the Lost”, and “Phantasm II”.

Peter Kwong, actor. Other credits include “Theodore Rex”, “Homeboys in Outer Space”, and “Renegade”.

(Hattip on the last two to Lawrence.)

Posted in Explosives, History, Movies, Obits, TV | No Comments »

Obit watch: May 27, 2025.

May 27th, 2025

Catching up from the three-day weekend:

Phil Robertson, noted beard guy and founder of Duck Commander. He was also on a TV show. NYT.

(I kid a little. I kind of liked what I saw of “Duck Dynasty”.)

Marcel Ophuls, French documentary film maker. He was pretty famous for “The Sorrow and the Pity”, but he first came to my attention when “Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie” was released. I haven’t seen either one, though I feel obligated to. THR.

Charles B. Rangel, former Congressman from New York City.

Ronnie Dugger:

Inspired by Thomas Paine’s treatises on independence and human rights, Mr. Dugger was the founding editor, the publisher and an owner of The Texas Observer, a widely respected publication, based in Austin, that with few resources and a tiny staff took on powerful interests, exposed injustices with investigative reports and offered an urbane mix of political dissent, narrative storytelling and cultural criticism.

James McEachin. Other credits include…well, just about every damn thing. “The F.B.I”, “Play Misty for Me”, “The Bold Ones: The Senator”, “The Bold Ones: The Protectors”…and “Mannix” (“Pressure Point”, season 2, episode 3. He was “Benjy”, but went uncredited.)

Rick Derringer, musician.

Derringer was prolific, working with a range of major acts including Cyndi Lauper, Kiss, Steely Dan, Barbra Streisand, Bonnie Tyler and Ringo Starr. He produced Weird Al Yankovic‘s first six albums, winning a Grammy for “Eat It” (a parody of Michael Jackson’s Beat It) in 1984 for best comedy recording.

Posted in 1970s, Mannix, Music, Obits, Politics, TV | 1 Comment »

Memorial Day 2025.

May 26th, 2025

My oldest nephew got married this past weekend.

While it was certainly a fun time, it was also a busy one, so I didn’t have as much time to prepare a Memorial Day post as I would have liked.

I’ve written before about the Catholic chaplains who have received the Medal of Honor. You can find those posts here, here, here, here, and here.

There are four other chaplains who received the Medal of Honor, all during the Civil War:

The links above go to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society pages for each man. The citations are a lot shorter than those for 20th and 21st century recipients. I don’t know enough about CMOH history to comment intelligently on this.

====

The actual wedding ceremony yesterday was outdoors. Some of us had to hang out outside after the ceremony for photo taking. It was hot – at least 94 degrees fondly Farenheit – and I was wearing a suit, so I was getting more than a little warm under the collar.

And then, out of nowhere, down the path, came two charming young women with miniature donkeys. Even better, the miniature donkeys had saddlebags loaded with ice cold beer and hard seltzer. Their timing was impeccable. And the donkeys were very charming.

I commented later to Mike the Musicologist that, between this and the Wienie 500, America really is the greatest country on Earth. Do you think they have donkeys bearing cold drinks in North Korea? Or Communist China? Of course not.

It made me wish I didn’t belong to the Republican Party and the NRA just so I could go out and join both to defend it all.

And it is because of the contributions of men like Hall, Haney, Hill, and Whitehead that we can have nice things like this today. Remember.

Posted in Heroism, History, Religion | 1 Comment »

Norts spews.

May 24th, 2025

McThag has posted video of the Wienie 500. Instead of copying him here, I’m going to suggest that you go over to his blog and give him some love. The video is about 27 minutes long: I didn’t watch the whole thing, but I did fast-forward to the end.

I will say that I think it’s nice they have someone with a British accent doing the race coverage, but I’m an old man and remember Jackie Stewart from when I was young and watching the Indy 500.

(Huh. Did not know this:

At the age of 13, Stewart won a clay pigeon shooting competition and then went on to become a prize-winning member of the Scottish shooting team, competing in the United Kingdom and abroad. He won the British, Irish, Welsh and Scottish skeet shooting championships and twice won the “Coupe de Nations” European championship. He competed for a place in the British trap shooting team for the 1960 Summer Olympics, but finished third behind Joe Wheater and Brett Huthart.

)

In other news, El Hijo del Santo is retiring.

He is the son of El Santo, perhaps Mexico’s most iconic “lucha libre” wrestler who also made a name for himself in movies and television.

Not to worry, though:

El Hijo del Santo said he now plans on focusing on projects outside the ring while enjoying things he couldn’t experience due to the rigors of his wrestling career.

I was going to say “please, let there be some El Hijo del Santo movies” but it looks like there already are. Many of them look like wrestling videos, but I am interested in the short “¡Esta máscara es mía! o Santo contra los burócratas” (“This Mask Is Mine! or Santo Versus the Bureaucrats”). Also:

The third generation wrestler, El Santo Jr. will carry on with the family’s tradition in the ring.
“As an athlete and wrestler, he is very well-prepared and is schooled in other disciplines such as olympic wrestling, taekwondo, jiu jitsu and muay thai,” he said. “So far, fans have received him well, he’ll have to find his own style and break down barriers, the name is not enough, it takes a lot to succeed in the ring.”

Posted in Cars, Guns, Sports | 1 Comment »

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