Thursday Reads

 It looks like those fake "crisis pregnancy centers" are perfect opportunities for ICE.

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Obit of the day: Terry Gene Bollea, known by his professional name "Hulk Hogan," has died of a cardiac arrest today.  He was a major wrestling star, a huge guy at 6 feet, 7 inches, and made a ton of money with his various ventures.

He was 71 years old.  

It is getting pretty scary out there for me, as more and more prominent people are dying and more than a few of them are close to my current age.  This guy was just a year-and-a-half younger than I am.

He was widely hated in his later years, thanks to not just his political beliefs, but also to his association with the despicable Peter Thiel.

I could go on. Hogan was the vessel for one of Peter Thiel’s first forays into political donorship, when the tech baron dumped oodles of cash into a lawsuit that brought about the destruction of Gawker Media. Hogan was suing the publication ostensibly because it had published his sex tape, on which he uttered racial slurs, specifically about the Black man his daughter Brooke was dating. In reality, it seemed clear he was Thiel’s willing partner to take down a longtime foe. Still, the slurs got him briefly booted out of the WWE, and when the company reinstated him in 2018, he offered a half-hearted mea culpa to a the wrestlers back stage. According to those present, Hogan began his apology by warning the roster to be mindful about being recorded without their knowledge, rather than addressing the charges head-on. A group of prominent Black wrestlers eventually released a statement about the meeting, asserting that they’d need to see Hogan make a “genuine effort to change” if he were to gain their trust again. (It is safe to say that that never happened.)

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He died in Clearwater, Florida.

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Another obit:  Famous trumpeter and composter Chuck Mangione, 84, has died:

His early work with the Jazz Brothers laid the foundation for his solo career, during which released more than 30 albums that sold millions of copies and received numerous awards. He was nominated for 14 Grammys and won two — in 1977 for best instrumental composition for “Bellavia” and in 1979 for best pop instrumental performance for “Children of Sanchez.”

The latter, a movie soundtrack, also won a Golden Globe.

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