It's Winter

Celebrity Death Watch: Lisa Brown acted in soap operas. Marilyn McLeod was a singer-songwriter. Jim Warren was a computer scientist and co-founder of Dr. Dobb’s Journal. Yvonne Wilder was an actress who appeared in several plays and films, including West Side Story. Charles Moose was the chief of the Montgomery County (Maryland) police from 1999-2003. Adolfo was a fashion designer, whose clients included Nancy Reagan. Curley Culp was a Hall of Fame football player. Shirley McBay was a mathematician and advocate for improving education for members of minority groups. Eddie Mekka was an actor, best known for playing Carmine in the series Laverne and Shirley. Arlene Dahl was a prolific film and television actress. H. Jackson Brown, Jr. wrote Life’s Little Instruction Book and other “inspirational” books. Buddy Merrill played steel guitar. Bill Staines was a folk musician. Fred Hiatt was the editorial page editor of the Washington Post. Steve Bronski was the keyboardist for The Bronski Beat. Sir Christopher Hogg was the chairman of GlaxoSmithKline in the early 2000’s. Robbie Shakespeare was a reggae bassist. Lina Wertmuller was a film director. Cara Williams was one of the last surviving actors from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Les Emmerson sang with Five Man Electrical Band. Vicente Fernandez was a Mexican singer and actor. Lillian Luckey was a pitcher in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Charles Morris wrote several books, primarily about business and finance. Ken Kragen founded Hands Across America. Henry Orenstein was a poker player and toymaker, who is credited with the success of Transformers. Bridget Hanley was an actress, best known for playing Candy in Here Come the Brides, a TV show which girls of my generation all watched because Bobby Sherman was the celebrity crush du jour. Wanda Young sang with The Marvelettes. Alan B. Scott was the developer of Botox, in the context of its use in treating strabismus. Eve Babits was an artist and memoirist. Judith Davidoff was a violist, cellist, and promoter of early music on the viola da gamba. Robert H. Grubbs won a Nobel prize in chemistry in 2005. Sally Ann Howes was an actress, best known for playing Truly Scrumptious in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Grace Mirabella was the editor of Vogue through the 1970’s and most of the 1980’s, after which she founded an eponymous magazine. Sarah Weddington was the lawyer who won the Roe v. Wade case. Andrew Vachss wrote crime fiction. Michael R. Clifford was a shuttle astronaut. Ted Gardner cofounded Lollapalooza. John Madden was a football coach and sportscaster. Sam Jones was a Hall of Fame basketball player. Stephen J. Lawrence was a composer, best known for writing songs for Sesame Street. Dan Reeves was a football player and coach. Richard Leakey was a paleoanthropologist and conservationist. Jim Corsi was a pitcher whose career included a couple of years with the Red Sox, who he later covered as a reporter. Joan Copeland was an actress whose career included theatre, films, and television. Peter Bogdanovich was a film director. Lani Guinier was a civil rights attorney whose controversial opinions on a few subjects blocked her from an appointment in the Clinton administration.


Bob Dole was a long-time Senator from Kansas. He was the Senate majority leader for 3 (non-consecutive) years, as well as the Republican candidate for Vice President in 1976 and for President in 1996. He was generally viewed as a moderate and was active in hunger relief and in disability rights. However, he lost a lot of political credibility for joining the Trump bandwagon later on. After his political career, he was probably most famous for shilling for Viagra (and other products).

Al Unser was a four-time winner of the Indianapolis 500.

Michael Nesmith was a singer, guitarist, and song-writer, best known as one of The Monkees.

Anne Rice wrote best-selling books about vampires.

bell hooks was a feminist author and scholar, who wrote primarily about the intersections of race, capitalism, and gender. Her book, Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism was particularly influential.

Hans Mark was the director of NASA Ames Research Center in the 1970’s. He was Secretary of the Air Force from 1979 to 1981 and then became Deputy Administrator of NASA. He was the Director of Defense Research and Engineering from 1999-2000. He played a huge role in promoting space technology, both for civilian and military use, as well as having an important academic career at various institutions, including MIT and the University of Texas.

Joan Didion was a novelist, essayist and memoirist. Her best known works include Slouching Towards Bethlehem, The White Album, and The Year of Magical Thinking. Her work was deeply personal and often California-focused.

Desmond Tutu was a South African Anglican bishop and anti-apartheid activist, though I sincerely hope you didn’t need me to tell you that. He chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which investigated human rights abuses (on both the pro and anti-apartheid sides). In that work, he exemplified forgiveness. He won the Nobel Peace Prize. He also became involved in other issues, notably support for gay rights.

E. O. Wilson was an observational biologist (specializing in ants) in an era where molecular biology was more in favor. He wrote numerous books about ecology and sociobiology among other topics and is regarded as the successor to Darwin’s legacy. (Except without the plagiarism. Sorry, but I will never believe that it is sheer coincidence that Darwin managed to publish something he had allegedly been working on for years only after getting a letter from Alfred Russell Wallace.)

Harry Reid was a senator from Nevada for 30 years, including 8 years as the Senate Majority Leader. He led the Democratic majority in passing a lot of major legislation, e.g. The Affordable Care Act. The Las Vegas airport was renamed for him only two weeks before his death. (It is my firm opinion that airports should not be named for living people, so I consider this action as a contributing factor to his death.)

Betty White was an actress whose career extended over pretty much the entire history of television. She was well-known for her roles in such TV shows as The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Golden Girls, as well as being a panelist on several game shows. She was also the first woman to produce a sitcom in the U.S. I had been sure she would live to see 100, so it is particularly sad that she died just a few weeks before that milestone.

Sidney Poitier was an actor, whose career included numerous major movies, such as In the Heat of the Night and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. He was the first Black winner of the Oscar for Best Actor (for his role in Lilies in the Field). He was also an activist, who, for example, insisted on half of the people on his film crews be African-American.

Snow: We got 9 inches of snow on Monday. Here is the view from my balcony when it was only about halfway through snowing.



We got another 3.5 inches or so last night. I am hoping that having had all day to clean things up means that the roads will be fine by noon tomorrow when I need to drive somewhere. I hate winter.


Idiot Neighbors: We have trash rooms on every floor in my condo building. There is a trash cute down which you are supposed to toss your trash bags. There are also bins for recycling, labeled for glass, paper, and plastic / cans. Most people understand this, but there are a few idiots who put recycling in the wrong bin. Or, even worse, leave their trash bags on the floor next to the chute.


Hot Toddy: I am still working on the wrap-up from 2021, mostly because goal planning is hard. But one goal I have come up with is to try a new cocktail each week, specifically on Friday night.. Given the current weather, I am starting with hot cocktails. Tonight’s cocktail was a hot rum toddy.



This had honey, lemon juice, dark rum, boiling water, and a cinnamon stick. I thought it was a bit bland, so I will keep trying. There is certainly no shortage of recipes out there.