Cleaning out the inbox: Non-Sports Version

The inbox continues to be refined and trimmed as we move to the non-sports version.

I mentioned in a recent inbox cleaning that I was watching the Mary Tyler Moore show again after Cherie and Rachel bought it for me as part of my birthday presents on DVD.
Entertainment Weekly writes of the story behind the famous hat toss which ended the montage at the start of the show.
The montages would change from season to season, but the hat toss would always end each one throughout the end of the show.

Undark writes of the danger of feral hogs threatening biodiversity across the country.
Feral hogs will eat almost anything which takes away food from other animals, but they also will eat other animals and their foraging style of being a living roto-tiller destroys plants that the hogs aren't interested in, but other animals need to live.
The article also mentions the ecological disaster in the Channel Islands in California where 150 years ago, pigs were used as farm animals with some escaping.
Pigs don't take very long to become feral and there would eventually number over 5,000 hogs with the hogs indirectly endangering the island fox, a small cat-sized creature only found on these islands.
While the hogs didn't eat the foxes, the hogs would become easy prey for the golden eagle, which eats land animals, unlike the golden eagle's natural predator the bald eagle, which was almost wiped out by the chemical DDT.
As a result, bald eagles weren't eating the golden eagle, which became established on the island by being able to feed on hogs and the island fox.
When the hogs were all eliminated from the island, wildlife managers were able to return bald eagles to the island (since DDT is now banned) and they began to naturally control the golden eagle, which led to some captive-bred foxes to be returned to the island and begin the process of re-populating there.
I find it so interesting how one minor addition or subtraction to an environment can change it so completely.

Ryan sent me this link to a YouTube-hosted short documentary on the video game Burger Time.
Burger Time dates all the way back to the early 80s  and I'm willing to wager if you are in the 45-60-year-old range that you have at least heard of it, if not played it.
I owned the game on the first video game system that I owned in the 80s, Intellivision and I had bought it for one of the systems when Ryan was little (I think Nintendo, but could have been Sega Genesis).
Lots of good times playing that game with Ryan and even dating back to living at home.

CNN writes of a recent discovery of a baby sea turtle that died after being washed onto shore in Florida.
Beings die all the time, what's so special about this one?
Well, this one died with 104 pieces of plastic in its stomach that caused its death.
Imagine a turtle that small and that young to have that amount of plastic in its stomach that quickly?
This world has so many environmental problems and so few answers or so few interested in what it takes to solve those problems that I'm truly saddened in the inability to deal with doing Something.
Take a look at that crap and tell me that feels right to you.
We may disagree on what to do and how much it costs etc, but I can't imagine anyone saying that they are ok with that in general.

Hannah Buehler of Buffalo's WBKW brings us the word of a new product called the Barnacle is replacing the old-school "Boot" as a device to place on cars that are illegally parked in western New York.
The Barnacle looks like a large foldout case that is attached to a vehicle by two large suction cups that are held to the window by two industrial strength suction cups that applies with a thousand pounds of pressure and takes away the driver's vision away that the vehicle cannot be legally driven.
You then call or reach the company online to receive directions on how to remove it and where to return the Barnacle to a dropbox.
It seems like a good way to eliminate tow trucks and help the drivers that parked illegally get on the way faster.

We wrap with a sports story that isn't all sports as the Athletic writes about the 1939 Heisman Trophy winner of Nile Kinnick of Iowa, who was killed in World War II and was regarded almost universally from people that knew Kinnick to be headed for a future in politics as a governor, senator, and even president.
The Nile Kinnick story is more than just a sports story, it's one that shows that a great life doesn't have to be a long one.

Back tomorrow with more football, if I have time and what could be a forgotten superstars segment.

Cleaning out the inbox-Non-Sports Version

The inbox still needed a little more sifting through in order to consider it cleaned for a while and after the last cleaning, I was able to set things up to make this one a non-sports version.

We start with two passings from outside the sports world with the word of the death of Charles Van Doren at the age of 93.
Van Doren, the Columbia professor, who famously received the answers to the questions that would be asked on the 1950's quiz show "Twenty One" beforehand and was subsequently disgraced passed from natural causes in Connecticut.
The scandal would be developed into the film "Quiz Show" that focused mainly on Van Doren, the opponent that he defeated, Herb Stempel and congressional investigator Richard Goodwin and the status of television during the fifties.
Before the Robert Redford produced film, PBS did an "American Experience" documentary, which I thought was even better than the film, which as most films are, was embellished for the purposes of the film.
Van Doren lost his job as a TODAY show correspondent and would spend the remainder of his career working at the Encyclopedia Brittanica writing and editing books often using a pseudonym as well as a return to teaching later in life.
Van Doren rarely discussed the scandal but finally commented in a large reminiscence in the New Yorker in 2008.


Goodbye to Scott Walker at the age of 76.
Walker, who first gained prominence with the Walker Brothers (none of the brothers were actually related) in the late '60s with various hits such as "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore' being the highest on the U.S. charts, would move away from not only pop music, but even contemporary music. preferring to make more experimental and progressive cuts instead.
Walker's takes on some classic tunes range from interesting in a good way to wondering why someone would even think of releasing this, but Ryan has always been a huge fan and I've recently been listening to some of his non-pop work, some of which I've enjoyed a great deal and others... well not so much!
Walker would have his own television series in Great Britain and is unusual for the small amount of footage that is available.
Even then, music programs would often be archived for future use, which is why we have so many terrific performances from the various ages of television and I'm surprised that the Walker series is bereft of material.
The title of the link above from Billboard may have said it best- Scott Walker changed the face of pop music by turning his back on it.


The Guardian brings word of Ken Lawson of Australia, who as an amateur photographer and astronomer nails the perfect shot of the International Space Station crossing the face of the Moon.
It appears that Lawson just got lucky with the photo on March 14 with his telescope and camera, but alas it took plenty of planning, patience and practice as Lawson says that he had attempted to get it right for over eight years before he finally snapped the picture on a rare pass near his home that he says occurs about as often as a solar eclipse.

Joe Plum sent me this link to the website Yupitexists.com offered up this fastball on Pestalotiopsis Microspora.
Just what is that?
Well, it's a mushroom that can eat plastic!
I would imagine this won't be on a large scale in my time, but imagine the possibilities of removing plastic from the environment and generating an edible product?
In controlled conditions of testing, the mycelium breaks down the plastic and in a few weeks, the plastic is gone and in its place?
A mushroom brought to you by your friends in nature.

And we wrap up with 13th Dimension and their ratings of the top 13 Batman action figures ever made.
One would think we could not pass that up and we didn't!
How many do we own? Two.
How many would we like to? Far More
How many are on the list to buy? Three.

With that, the inbox is now scrubbed clean for a while.
Coming soon, last weekend's road trip to Lexington, tonight's Crawford-Khan bout and early next week, some thoughts on the draft for the Browns and a rare draft day without a first rounder.

Cleaning out the inbox-Non-Sports Edition

We start another inbox cleaning with Pablo Escobar's Hippos.

But first, I've been so happy with the reaction to the Santos Laciar and Donald Curry posts.
I've seen several people in the boxing community whos names I know and respect have liked the posts and that means the world to me.
Hopefully, with luck, a voter or two will read and maybe consider one or both boxers HOF argument.

Pablo Escobar, the deceased Colombian drug lord, who was killed in 1993, owned a large compound filled with wild animals, including four hippos.
When Escobar was killed by the Colombian Army, the animals were shipped to various zoos across the country/world, but the four hippos were not captured and were left on the ranch.
Hippos are very difficult to transport and handle with National Geographic stating that one juvenile hippo was caught and moved to a zoo at a cost of five thousand dollars.
The herd escaped off the Escobar ranch and has moved across Colombia along with growth from the original four to an estimated forty to sixty currently.
The escaped pack is an interesting bunch to follow because scientists can see how they affect the surrounding environment.
Some think that they will have a negative effect based on eating the native plants (Hippos are herbivores), perhaps changing the water flow with their bulk changing the bottom of rivers and lakes
and should be removed from the area before damage is done.
Others think they could add to the environment by replacing long-extinct animals and replacing their positives in the area, so their belief is to leave the herd alone, follow them and see how things work out.
It'll be interesting to check back every few years and check the conditions in the area.

The Kennywood Amusement Park outside of Pittsburgh is retiring its oldest ride as the "Log Jammer" will be dropping its last visitors into the water in the fall.
The Log Jammer debuted in 1975 as a flume ride and was the first ever million-dollar ride at the park.

One of my favorite fast food place that apparently is struggling, although I find that hard to believe by the customers there, in Sonic Drive-In's now has a new owner.
The good folks at Inspired Brands, who own Arby's and Buffalo Wild Wings added Sonic to their portfolio for a mere 2.3 billion. which I'm sure was nothing at all for them to pay for the new player in their starting lineup.
I've always liked Sonic and couldn't wait for them to come to Hagerstown, but they built it at a location that I am rarely near and I think I've been there twice in the few years that they have been in business.

The Miami Herald writes of "toxic red tide, dead crabs and brown oceans" and that's before any hurricanes hit in Naples, home of Florida's current governor and candidate for a Senate seat, Rick Scott, who led a surgical snipping of so many environmental regulations in Florida.
When you allow businesses and companies free reign to do what they wish without consequences-This is the result.
I know we all groan about the various impositions that government places on us, but I'm more often than not on the side of government on this topic.
With the constant loosening of these protections by the current Presidents, I believe these types of problems will become even more prevalent as states are allowed to do what they wish.

And finally, Voyager 2 is beginning to receive some of the signs of passing into interstellar space soon.
Its sister craft Voyager 1 did so in 2012 as the only craft to do that previously and it is the numbers from that event that makes NASA believe that Voyager 2 is preparing to make the same trip.
NASA does say that it could take a little longer due to the differing conditions in that particular area of the heliosphere.

That cleans the inbox for non-sports items for now.
Still some sports items coming up soon!