POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

Alex Chilton Retrospective

He was one of the great pop craftsmen, and there's an awful lot out there on his importance in the larger scheme of things. I was a Byrds fan as a kid, so I liked that jingle-jangle guitar, and a fan of Badfinger, and later the bands that were said to have been influenced by Big Star. Here's a great round-up of Chilton tunes by Claude Pate, whom you might know by another name.

Chilton was more awesome than bacon-flavored vodka, and almost as awesome as bacon-flavored vodka with breasts.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Joan Walsh Goes All “Respect for Nunsy”

But [Stupak] went beyond what was necessary, yesterday and today, in disrespecting the 60 Catholic nuns representing 59,000 sisters who bucked the Catholic bishops and came out for the bill Wednesday, declaring it "the real pro-life position."

Only this is an egregious lie, and by now, had she bothered to do her homework, she'd know that:

"A recent letter from Network, a social justice lobby of sisters, grossly overstated whom they represent in a letter to Congress that was also released to media," she writes. "Network’s letter, about health care reform, was signed by a few dozen people, and despite what Network said, they do not come anywhere near representing 59,000 American sisters."

"The letter had 55 signatories, some individuals, some groups of three to five persons. One endorser signed twice," she noted. "There are 793 religious communities in the United States. The math is clear. Network is far off the mark."

In fact, there are only 59,000 women in Catholic religious orders in the United States, meaning the Network letter could never have represented all, or even most, of them.

Walsh's assertion has even less to do with the real world than the CBO scores that the House Democrats have been having cooked up for them. Her respect for the religious women is so great that this is how she chooses to represent them:

Her own publication has carried articles stating that the Catholic Bishops don't care about health care. In other words, Joan probably owes her readers an apology, at least, if not Stupak.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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A Hard Case

In fact, prosecutors said Brooks asphyxiated Andrews. He and an accomplice encased the body in a concrete-and-chicken wire egg that Brooks built in a backyard rock garden at his landlord's home in San Diego.

After Brooks was arrested for investigation of financial fraud, a neighbor who thought there might be cash and jewels concealed in the egg broke the concrete and smelled a foul odor. A police officer was called and cut away some of the egg to reveal a shriveled human foot, according to testimony during a preliminary hearing.

The body had been wrapped in duct tape, a blanket and a plastic tarp.

******

Arlo Elizarraraz, 20, who met Brooks through an online personal ad and helped entomb Andrews, pleaded guilty to being an accessory to murder and to 54 other felonies. He was sentenced last month to nine years in prison..

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Sestak: It ain’t right, but I’m voting for it, anyway

Principle.

As Steve Gutowski says:

Pennsylvania senate candidate Joe Sestak told CNS News today that the Slaughter Rule is not open and transparent but, oh well, he is voting for it anyway. Looks like Pennsylvania's get to choose between one hack democrat or another to run against Pat Toomey...

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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You all can go to Texas . . .

I'm going to heaven.

Fess Parker's died at the age of 85. Thanks for all the entertainment when I was a kid. I'm sure you'll be forgiven for killin' ya a b'ar when you was only three.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Regarding Dating Game Killer Rodney Alcala

You may recall that a couple of months ago, I wrote about the spate of murders of young women by guys who'd become minor celebs by appearing on "reality shows." I tried to interest Dr. Helen in posting on the topic, since I'd be interested to know whether she's got any insight into what seems to me a high correlation.

One such is Rodney Alcala. He'd been in the Army in the early to mid-sixties, before getting a psychological discharge. Naturally, he went to UCLA, graduating in 1968 with a fine arts degree. He worked some in the movie industry, including, apparently, a short stint with Roman Polanski. In 1979, a 12-year-old girl, Robin Samsoe, disappeared in Huntington Beach while riding to a ballet class. Her body was discovered in a State Park some time later. It seems that people had previously noticed Alcala snapping photos the girl and a friend of hers on the beach, minutes before she disappeared. Police were able to get a drawing based on her description, and someone linked it to Alcala.

He's been convicted three times now for the murder of the girl, and had his conviction overturned twice. In this latest trial, he represented himself. Prior to his appearance on The Dating Game in 1978, he'd already been convicted of the brutal beating (and some sources say rape) of an 8-year-old girl. Those were in the days before background checks, I guess; he was the chosen bachelor on that occasion.

As he pressed his appeals, DNA technology caught up with him. He was linked to 4 other murders of young women. Police also located a storage locker full of photographs that Alcala had rented in Seattle, mostly of young women, that Alcala took. The story of their discovery is remarkable, and begs the question of just how much Alcala's sister knew. They've been posted online.

One of the people who identified herself in the photographs online has been able to pinpoint with high accuracy the time that the photo was taken, very shortly before Robin Samsoe's disappearance. She recalls being approached by Alcala and invited to his mother's house, where he lived, to view some of his work. This seems to have been his MO. She also recalls that he seemed obsessed with relating that he was in MENSA.

Leedom said many of the photos in that collection were of naked women and nude children that Alcala showed her in the presence of his mother.

It wasn't until years later that she understood the look of disgust on his mother's face.

Police suspect that he's involved in other disappearances during the 1970s. So, particularly if you lived in the Huntington Beach area, or in Seattle, or NYC during this period, please go look. Some of the photos also seem to have been taken abroad, though the styles seem later than one would expect from the period of his military service. One of the sources that I looked at states that some of the photos are sexually explicit, though the collection that I viewed are not. If you know of a young woman who disappeared during the seventies, I think it's worth your while to look. If you've got a photo of Alcala from those years, or if you knew or recall encountering him, that information might be useful to the police as well.

So far, friends and relatives of missing women from that decade have identified four more, according to police.

The women encompass a large swath racially and otherwise. Most of them appear to be in their late teens and twenties. He seems to have been quite attracted to the off-the-shoulder look which was in vogue back then. If you look at the photos, many appear to have been deliberately framed so as to create the impression that they might be naked. It's probably not accidental that according to investigators Alcala delighted in strangling his victims, allowing them to regain consciousness, then strangling them again repeatedly before they died.

Some people are unhappy that his death penalties have been overturned, but I think personally that if further investigation yields answers to questions that have haunted people for 30 or 40 years, it will be a good thing to know the dimensions of and as many of the particulars of his murders as possible.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Slaughter “Rule” Passes, Roll Call [UPDATE]

I don't think that there's any expression of disgust that's too extreme for this.

Here's the roll call. As usual, the worst of the lot are the Per Se Angels who abstained.

UPDATE: Got that wrong. Dicentra explains:

They voted DOWN a motion by the GOP to compel them to vote on whether the Slaughter (rule) is okey dokey.

So the Slaughter didn’t actually pass.

And evabody is already saying that it’s not predictive of anything.

However, we know that these sick twisted freaks (apologies to Glenn Beck) will keep going and going and going until they wear down or bribe or threaten enough people to pass the thing.

By hook or by crook.

Who is number 1?

I am not a number! I am a free man!

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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Thanks to Jerry

My friend Jerry Wilson has written the nicest thing, in all likelihood, that's ever been written about me. All I can do is try to live up to it.

Jerry's not-just-retrospective book is one I recommend highly. The personal stories shared there make it compelling reading, whether you're familiar with the music or not.

Sometimes, I wish Geraghty or Insty or Ace or the Hot Air guys would take an interest in what we do here, and sometimes I feel let down, given the ratio of outbound links to inbound. But then I think of friends like Jerry or Carol, or Sister Toldjah, or any of the many blogs who do sometimes link, who labor in obscurity entirely as crepuscular as mine, and I think . . . well, who gives a f*ck?

Anyway, thanks. And while I'm thanking people, thanks also to the contributors here, Rocketman, meep, Johanna, all of you. I don't say it often enough.

Dan Collins

Dan Collins is a dude who blogs. He used to blog elsewhere. Now he blogs here.

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