Bruce Hawsking, Author at Equicoli

Bird, ‘The Wire,’ a life sentence paroled and a Colts game 40 years in the making

7Jan

By Bruce HawskingNo Comments

Sports

Bird, ‘The Wire,’ a life sentence paroled and a Colts game 40 years in the making

Bleary-eyed from 16 hours on a Greyhound bus, he strolled into the stadium running on fumes. He’d barely slept in two days. The ride he was supposed to hitch from Charlotte to Indianapolis canceled at the last minute, and for a few nervy hours, Antonio Barnes started to have his doubts. The trip he’d waited 40 years for looked like it wasn’t going to happen.But as he moved through the concourse at Lucas Oil Stadium an hour before the Colts faced the Raiders, it started to sink in. His pace quickened. His eyes widened. His voice picked up.“I got chills right now,” he said. “Chills.”Barnes, 57, is a lifer, a Colts fan since the Baltimore days. He wore No. 25 on his pee wee football team because that’s the number Nesby Glasgow wore on Sundays. He was a talent in his own right, too: one of his...

Switching to a Flip Phone Helped Me Cut Down on My Smartphone Addiction

7Jan

By Bruce HawskingNo Comments

Technology

Switching to a Flip Phone Helped Me Cut Down on My Smartphone Addiction

This time of year, everyone asks what you like least about your life, but they phrase it as, “What’s your New Year’s resolution?”My biggest regret of 2023 was my relationship to my smartphone, or my “tech appendage” as I’ve named it in my iPhone settings. My Apple Screen Time reports regularly clocked in at more than five hours a day.That’s only an hour more than the average American, but I still found it staggering to think that I spent the equivalent of January, February and half of March looking at that tiny screen (April too, if we only count waking hours).Sure, some (much?) of that time was gainfully spent on activities that enrich my life or are unavoidable: work, family text threads, reading the news and keeping up with far-flung friends. But I reached for the device more than 100 t...

Overlooked No More: Cordell Jackson, Elder Stateswoman of Rock ’n’ Roll

7Jan

By Bruce HawskingNo Comments

Business

Overlooked No More: Cordell Jackson, Elder Stateswoman of Rock ’n’ Roll

This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.When Cordell Jackson’s long and mostly obscure musical career intersected briefly with American pop culture in the early 1990s (coinciding with her appearance in a popular beer commercial, in which she showed the guitarist Brian Setzer a few tricks), it was almost as if she had stepped out of a dream: grandma, resplendent in a shiny ball gown and bouffant, peering through her old-lady glasses while ferociously rocking out on a cherry red electric guitar, amp cranked up to 10.Even if we had never seen or heard Jackson before, she seemed to reside in the dusty bric-a-brac of our country’s collective unconscious: one of rock ’n’ roll’s forgotten pion...

Boeing’s 737 Max 9 and the Alaska Airline Grounding: What to Know

6Jan

By Bruce HawskingNo Comments

World

Boeing’s 737 Max 9 and the Alaska Airline Grounding: What to Know

An emergency landing on Friday of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 jet in Portland, Ore., led the Federal Aviation Administration to order some U.S. airlines to stop using some Max 9 planes until they are inspected. The order will affect about 171 planes owned by Alaska, United and other airlines. The episode also raised troubling new questions about the safety of a workhorse aircraft design dogged by years of problems and multiple deadly crashes.No one was seriously injured in Friday’s incident. The jetliner returned to the airport in Portland shortly after the plane’s fuselage broke open in midair, leaving a door-size hole in the side of the aircraft.Within hours of the episode, Alaska Airlines said it would ground all 65 of the Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft in its fleet until mechanics c...

F.D.A. to Issue First Approval for Mass Drug Imports to States from Canada

6Jan

By Bruce HawskingNo Comments

Health

F.D.A. to Issue First Approval for Mass Drug Imports to States from Canada

The Food and Drug Administration has allowed Florida to import millions of dollars worth of medications from Canada at far lower prices than in the United States, overriding fierce decades-long objections from the pharmaceutical industry.The approval, issued in a letter to Florida Friday, is a major policy shift for the United States, and supporters hope it will be a significant step forward in the long and largely unsuccessful effort to rein in drug prices. Individuals in the United States are allowed to buy directly from Canadian pharmacies, but states have long wanted to be able to purchase medicines in bulk for their Medicaid programs, government clinics and prisons from Canadian wholesalers.Florida has estimated that it could save up to $150 million in its first year of the program, i...

Behind the scenes with Curt Menefee, ‘leader’ and ‘therapist’ for ‘Fox NFL Sunday’

6Jan

By Bruce HawskingNo Comments

Sports

Behind the scenes with Curt Menefee, ‘leader’ and ‘therapist’ for ‘Fox NFL Sunday’

LOS ANGELES — Terry Bradshaw spills a cup of coffee, but Curt Menefee doesn’t flinch. Menefee leans toward a tray not visible on television for some tissue to help clean up as Bradshaw continues to make a point about the Cincinnati Bengals.Howie Long helps with the cleanup, and Bradshaw keeps talking. Jimmy Johnson listens intently.Menefee then ribs Bradshaw about needing another cup of coffee, and Johnson uses coffee as a transition to talk about the Baltimore Ravens and Seattle Seahawks.“So Terry spills coffee on live TV … now, how do you react?” Menefee said shortly after while sitting in a dressing room at Fox Studios. “Instead of going into panic mode, we made it part of the show, and we laughed it off and had some fun with it.”It’s a funny moment in the studio. And Menefee, the longt...