by John Walters
Starting Five
Space Cowboy
The first (UPDATE: American) man to orbit the earth (the Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin was first, though if you’re a primate fan, I think a chimp preceded them both), astronaut John Glenn from Cambridge, Ohio, and Muskingum College, died yesterday. He was 95. Glenn never graduated, dropping out his senior year when World War II broke out. He was a distinguished fighter pilot in both that war and the Korean War.
If you haven’t read Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, Glenn’s passing should give you that impetus. When the Mercury Seven group were chosen, they were looked down upon by fellow test pilots because they were seen as simply passengers in glamorized tin cans. And what Glenn did had simply never been done by any human. A few years later Star Trek would debut on TV, but Glenn perhaps better than anyone fits the line, “To boldly go where no man has gone before.”
2. Should PETA Protect Patta?
Gary Johnson has no idea who this woman is
This is Debora Patta, an attractive South African journalist who works for CBS News. All this week Patta, 52, has been filing pieces like this one and THIS ONE (you gotta watch) from the most dangerous place on earth: Aleppo, Syria. My guess is that she and her producer volunteered for this duty, but man does she stick out there. And it’s not as you can check into the Aleppo Marriott when the day is done.
3. Cowards
Do Notre Dame fans, alums and students have reason to be disappointed by the recent 4-8 season? Uh huh. But the people who anonymously paid for this ad in the Notre Dame Observer are spoiled brats and cowards. This ad ran, I believe, the same day that the No. 2 women’s basketball team (184-13 since 2011) was hosting No. 1 UConn. Four days before the 9-0 men’s basketball team, the only program to have advanced to consecutive Elite Eights the past two years, was to face No. 1 Villanova. Three months after alum Molly Huddle set a new American record in the 10,000 meters (an extremely popular distance) at the Rio Olympics. One year after Molly Seidel won the NCAA Cross-Country championship. And about a year after Notre Dame came a play away from making it into the College Football playoff.
@jdubs88 John:
I demand accountability!
Sincerely,
Anonymous— Irish Illustrated (@PeteSampson_) December 8, 2016
Jack Swarbrick is a Notre Dame alum, a born-and-bred Hoosier (he started on a high school football team that never lost a game in four years), and a Stanford law graduate (and I just named the top two all-around sports programs in the nation, one of which has the advantage of being located in a far better climate and has alums who can afford to make Phil Knight look like a pauper). I don’t agree with every change he has made related to the football program but damn, I didn’t go to school with cowards who’d do what these people did and then not even sign their names to it.
Don’t shut up, but maybe don’t buy negative newspaper ads to run right before a big recruiting weekend. Doesn’t help. https://t.co/GfNHAJx6eG
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) December 8, 2016
Maybe everyone should watch tomorrow night’s ESPN doc, “Catholics vs. Convicts”(directed by Pat Creadon, Dillon Hall, ’89). It’s a great look at when Notre Dame football was tougher and less a Disney outfit and when students and alums alike were not so damn entitled.
4. Hardee’s Boy
Puzder, 66, contributed 100s of thousands of dollars to Trump’s campaign. No one knows better than a fast food exec that there’s no such thing as a free lunch
Okay, I like Carl’s, Jr., but have you eaten at a Hardee’s? I mean, give me Arby’s over that 11 times out of 10 (note: Arby’s is unfairly maligned via The Simpson’s and Jon Stewart; I love that Scott Van Pelt endorses them).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvEnVY99DUE
So, Donald’s proposed labor secretary, Andrew Puzder, is CEO of both. He’s completely in favor of automating every part of the process that he possibly can at his fast-food outlets (so you can all have jobs in robot maintenance!) and is also the dude who wanted these soft-core porn ads to run promoting his burgers. So that’s your guy.
5. Leading Man
On to the next century…
Kirk Douglas, actor and father of Michael Douglas, turns 100 years old today. I can’t off the top of my head think of another celebrity who made it to 100 years old, but that could be just my Alzheimer’s or early-stage dementia acting up.
With Lana Turner in The Bad and the Beautiful
Born Izzy Demsky, Douglas has appeared in more than 90 movies, and is best known for Spartacus. He has received three Oscar nominations and has also won an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement (the Academy’s participation trophy). He starred in films opposite some of the loveliest ladies of Hollywood’s Golden Age, from Lana Turner to Lauren Bacall.
Spartacus, 1960. Nice legs for a 44 year-old.
Douglas also helped end the Blacklist era by hiring Dalton Trumbo to co-write Spartacus and giving him an on-screen credit for it. He starred in the Broadway version of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, then bought the screen rights to it and had his son, Michael, produce the film. Michael was smart enough to let Jack Nicholson play Randall McMurphy.
Music 101
Save It For Later
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-QkQoNCmg4
1982 was peak New Wave, which is how this tune by The English Beat (or, if you were British, “The Beat”) was classified at the time. It was probably more Ska than New Wave, or Haircut 100 Wanna Be, but either way it was one of the defining songs of the era. It never even charted in the Top 50 here, but you wouldn’t know that if you had friends who were “mod.”
Remote Patrol
Sunday
Cowboys at Giants
NBC 8 p.m.
Yes, it’s the “midseason finale” of The Walking Dead (hint: there’s no way they’re going to kill off Negan yet), but the Cowboys (11-1) seek to avenge their season-opening loss to the Giants (8-4). Rookie running back Ezekiel Elliott (1,285 yards) has rushed for more than 200 yards more than any back in the league while rookie QB Dak Prescott has the best TD/INT ratio (19/2) of anyone with at least 15 touchdown passes. Maybe it’s time one of them was mentioned for more than just Rookie of the Year.
Bob Hope, who filmed a Special at ND in the old ACC, made it to 100.
Bob Hope lived to 100, as did George Burns. Interestingly, I’m not aware of any famous athletes who made it to be 100. Is it possible that the genetic cocktail that makes an athlete superior at a young age doesn’t translate to longevity? Or does the stress that an athlete puts on his body cost him years at the end of life?
Simpler explanation — medical advances notwithstanding, it’s still darn near impossible to live to 100. Something like 0.017% of Americans live that long. The circles in the Venn diagram of famous athletes and centenarians are just too small to overlap.
(Also, who knows how many famous athletes just aren’t there yet. If athletes reach their peak by 30, they would have had to have done so by the mid-1940s to be 100 or more today.)
Your comment got me to thinking: Who is the first known human (outside of the Old Testament) to live to 100? Or at least the first known Westerner? American?
This would be the best topic ever discussed in the MH comment section…
Being a centenarian is just as much mental as physical. How many bitter 100-year olds have you seen?
Have you given any thought about who is responsible for Notre Dame being softer and more Disney than it was in 1988? Do the names Brian Kelly and Jack Swarbrick ring any bells? Hint: the people running the show now aren’t the ones who made it great in ’88. Nor can the current AD take any credit for either of the hoops coaches (other than being marginally smart enough not to mess with a good thing) since both were hired before he ascended his throne. Charlie Weis is an ND alum and his stewardship of the football program didn’t exactly help the cause of his alma mater. Being an ND grad clearly isn’t a path to guaranteed excellence — c.f. being the senior sports writer for a dying “magazine””…
I hurt someone’s feelings. Someone who was afraid to name himself. His email was
5gz0dp+9cgv6554e1kxc@sharklasers.com
Anyway, someone is very brave with his words but too much of a coward to identify himself. That’s not the kind of person Notre Dame produces.
JW
Nice way to violate your comments policy, dipstick.
I do, however, notice that you weren’t able/willing to refute any of the points I made. Feelings hurt? Hardly. Some hack Domer writer spewing thoughtless tripe doesn’t make any difference to me. No skin off my nose.
Name Redacted is so much more anonymous than “Wally” and “Jacob”, so I will unveil myself here…see how brave I am!
People like you are an embarrassment to Notre Dame. One off season and you are calling for people to lose their jobs. I hope your employer is as ruthless if you ever have a bad year. Four years ago Brian Kelly led Notre Dame to the championship. Wasn’t that good enough?
Charles –
It was nice of you to prove a great point about this site. Hostile tone, fake email, fake name are OK as long as they are directed at anti-Kelly people. Hostile tone, fake email, and fake name if you are anti-Kelly gets your email published for all the world to see.
Jovan Gautier Maksts
Thanks for visiting….
Jovan – (May I call you that, or do you go by John here in the states?) I agree that there is a lack of civility on the internet these days. Public figures throw around terms demeaning those they don’t agree with even if they have never met them personally but get defensive when someone turns the tables and says something mean around them. Sometimes its very entertaining to pull on the tail of their high horse and yank them around a little.
Your name is interesting. As a French Canadian, I recognize that your middle name is the French version of “Walter”, but I don’t recognize your last name. I’d google it, but I’m afraid of a NSFW result.
And thus our little revel endeth.
So this is you?
http://offender.fdle.state.fl.us/offender/flyer.do?personNbr=63835
Even better!
By the way, Where is this “Comments Policy” of which you speak? And I tend to afford people the same respect they afford me. So you earned it, Tim Timson, Sexual Offender.
Nah – that’s not me. I’m black and I’m proud.
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whatevs… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Hey Tim Timson, did you know Mike Brey won 1 NCAA game during Jack’s tenure and in 2013-14 he had a losing record?
You know what people wanted to Jack to do back then? Fire him as they felt he reached the end of the line. Aren’t you glad Jack didn’t pull the trigger?
Basing your defense of Swarbrick on his NOT having made a really dumb decision is precious. Brey had a long, consistent track record of excellence before Jack arrived. Show me Brey getting his program on probation. Show me Brey assaulting an assistant coach. Show me Brey blaming his players for losing. Show me Brey losing to 3rd tier teams year after year. Even in that losing year, Brey beat as many top 10 teams as Kelly has beaten in the last 4. Hell, Charlie Strong at Texas beat more ranked teams this year than Kelly has in the last 4. If you figure that teams with losing records play in bowls and more than half of NCAA FBS teams make a bowl, an NCAA win in MBB is as high an achievement as making the Pinstripe Bowl, if not higher…
For the record, folks, this is the guy with the @sharklasers email again. He’s just afraid to stand behind his opinions.
What ethnic extraction is the name Come at Me Bro? Or is that your porn star name, John? What’s his email address, huh? Or is his anonymous post ok because he’s on your side? I want to get in touch with him and talk ND basketball, but since he’s afraid of giving his name, I have no way to get in touch with him. Coward.
Hopefully, he’ll drop me a line…
It’s simple, sir.
1) I don’t have to approve your comments, but I am. I’m not censoring you.
2) He’s been reading this site for four years. You? Maybe one day as far as I know.
3) I know his name. I don’t know yours. If you’d like to properly identify yourself, I’m happy to put you two in touch.
Never said anything about censorship. Y’all just seem obsessed with identity. I told you my name (well, I lied about my middle name. My middle name is Tomboucti, but we anglicized it to Timothy) and the whole internet has my email address. My name has no more bearing on the weakness of your and Come At Me’s arguments. The “Brey” argument, for instance, is weak whether it’s coming from the lips of Come At Me, John Jacob Jingleheimer-Schmidt or John Swarbrick. Does anyone beyond you know who Come is? Why is he using an alias? Is he afraid to defend Swarbrick?
He’s got my email address – nice of you to share that, by the way.
sharklasers.com is an email service where your email address lasts 60 minutes. It’s kind of what I’d expect from this guy. That’s the last comment of his that’ll be on this site.