Math test

NewMexiKen is busy today, but May 9th is the birthday of some interesting people.

So here’s the math part — click the link and add one to each age.

Let us know how you do.

‘I wish I wasn’t afraid of the people who were supposed to be protecting me.’

Nora — the Albuquerque Nora, not the official NewMexiKen Nora — finds herself
getting harassed by cops on the scooter.

She’s the one on the scooter.

Remember. Nora took a scooter to the prom last year.

Best line of the day about the election

“I thought about voting for Hillary at the beginning. I don’t care that she is a woman. I need more than that. Neither [Obama's] race, his gender, her race or her gender was enough. I needed something else, and the something else was his wisdom.”

Toni Morrison

And, on her remark that Bill Clinton was the first black president:

“People misunderstood that phrase. I was deploring the way in which President Clinton was being treated, vis-à-vis the sex scandal that was surrounding him. I said he was being treated like a black on the street, already guilty, already a perp. I have no idea what his real instincts are, in terms of race.”

Still putting your pants on one leg at a time?

More lines than a sailboat

“Well, you know what’s interesting, the experts say if you do the math, there’s no way Hillary Clinton can win the nomination, and today, Hillary responded by saying, ‘People who do math are elitist.’”

“And you can tell Barack Obama is feeling confident. Did you see what he did today? He went bowling with his former pastor, Reverend Wright.”

Jay Leno

And the most important reason May 8th should be a national holiday

It seemed like a good use of time. Labor had begun, but was progressing slowly. No sense not getting some chores taken care of while we waited at home. Most worthwhile seemed the leaky toilet.

I can’t remember what I was thinking, but at some point I moved the toilet too far and ruptured the fresh water feed at the valve. Water was spewing everywhere and there was no way to turn it off. Well into labor or not, the expectant mother went rushing around outside looking for the main shutoff, and then the tool needed to turn its valve. I stayed with the toilet trying to stem the geyser with my hand or a towel or whatever. I think actually at one point we switched roles, but ultimately I was the better stopper and the one who was heavy with child had to get the water off, which she eventually did.

A lot of water can come out of a small pipe in ten minutes (it must have been longer). A lot of water. No matter, we needed more. So it was then — not too surprisingly given all that exercise — that the mother’s water broke.

This was around noon. The afternoon was spent cleaning up the mess and waiting for the landlord to come home that evening so he could repair the plumbing. (I’d done all the harm they’d let me do for one day.) The labor stalled and soon mother, grandmother and obstetrician were playing cards, while I waited for game seven of the NBA Championship to begin. You know the one, the classic where Willis Reed hobbled onto the court, hit his first two shots, psyched out the Lakers, and the Knicks won 113-99.

Or so I’ve read, because I never saw the game. After lulling us into lethargy all afternoon, at about 6 PM the baby abruptly said “I’m ready” and within a few minutes Jill was born — at home* in a house that had no running water.

That baby is now a wonderful mother of three herself, a wife, author, one of my favorite writers, pop culture maven, and friend. Happy birthday Jilly.

—–
* Home delivery hadn’t been planned. The grandmother however, was an obstetrics nurse and the doctor was there as a courtesy to her. Given the baby’s sudden impatience, staying at home was just about imperative. Honoring family tradition, Jill’s second was born in a hospital with no potable water thanks to 2003’s Hurricane Isabel. That plumbing problem wasn’t my fault.

Even more reasons May 8th ought to be a national holiday

Eric Hilliard Nelson would have been 68 today. (He died in a plane crash on New Year’s Eve 1985.)

Ricky Nelson was a teen idol who had something more than good looks going for him - namely, talent. On television, he acted out his real-life role as the son of Ozzie and Harriet Nelson in the Fifties. As a rock-and-rolling teenager on The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, he practically grew up in the nation’s living rooms. In the recording studio, having landed a contract based on his TV stardom, he more than made the grade. No mere rock and roll pretender, Nelson was the real thing: a gentle-voiced singer/guitarist with an instinctive feel for the country-rooted side of rockabilly. And he had exquisite taste in musicians, utilizing guitarist James Burton (formerly a Dale Hawkins sideman, later an Elvis Presley accompanist) as his secret weapon in the studio.

Nelson’s first single - “A Teenager’s Romance” b/w “I’m Walkin’,” the latter a Fats Domino song - made the Top Ten shortly after its release in April 1957. He was sixteen years old at the time. The next year, he reached #1 with “Poor Little Fool” (which was written by Sharon Sheeley, who was Eddie Cochran’s girlfriend). His discerning taste in material - a rare talent in one so young - also led him to “Hello Mary Lou” (his signature song) and “Travelin’ Man,” both of which topped the charts. All totaled, Nelson scored an incredible 33 Top Forty hits in a seven-year period.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Robert Johnson was born on May 8th in 1911.

Though he recorded only 29 songs in his brief career - 22 of which appeared on 78 rpm singles released on the Vocalion label, including his first and most popular, “Terraplane Blues” - Johnson nonetheless altered the course of American music. In the words of biographer Stephen C. LaVere, “Robert Johnson is the most influential bluesman of all time and the person most responsible for the shape popular music has taken in the last five decades.” Such classics as “Cross Road Blues,” “Love In Vain” and “Sweet Home Chicago” are the bedrock upon which modern blues and rock and roll were built.

Or, as Eric Clapton put it in the liner notes to the Johnson boxed-set, “Robert Johnson to me is the most important blues musician who ever lived….I have never found anything more deeply soulful than Robert Johnson. His music remains the most powerful cry that I think you can find in the human voice, really.”

Don Rickles is 82 today.

Thomas Pynchon is 71.

He is well known for his reclusiveness and elusiveness. After his first novel, V., was published in 1963 and Time magazine sent a photographer to his home in Mexico City, Pynchon reportedly evaded the reporter by jumping out his window, riding a bus to the mountains, and staying there while he grew a beard — and when he returned natives called him Pancho Villa. In 1997, a CNN crew stalked Pynchon in his Manhattan neighborhood and was able to capture him on film. He became upset, called the station, and asked that he not be pointed out to viewers in any of the footage. He said, “Let me be unambiguous. I prefer not to be photographed.” When they asked him about his reclusiveness, he said, “My belief is that ‘recluse’ is a code word generated by journalists … meaning, ‘doesn’t like to talk to reporters.’”

When he received the National Book Award in 1974 for Gravity’s Rainbow, he sent comedian Irwin Corey to the ceremony to accept the prize.

He has, however, made two cameo appearances on the animated television series The Simpsons. In one of them, Marge has become an author and Pynchon provides a blurb for her book. Pynchon appears on the show and says, “Here’s your quote: Thomas Pynchon loved this book, almost as much as he loves cameras!” Then he yells at cars passing by, “Hey, over here, have your picture taken with a reclusive author! Today only, we’ll throw in a free autograph!”

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media

Toni Tennille is 68. (The Captain, Daryl Dragon, was 65 last August.)

Bill Cowher, the former Steelers coach, is 51, and Ronnie Lott, the football hall of famer, is 49.

Melissa Gilbert is 44. Yup, “Half Pint” from The Little House on the Prairie. She was 10 when the show began. Ms. Gilbert was President of the Screen Actors Guild 2001-2005. (Past presidents include Ronald Reagan, Charlton Heston, Ed Asner and Patty Duke). Ms. Gilbert was the youngest person ever to receive a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

May 8th ought to be a national holiday

Harry Truman was born on May 8th in 1884.

The Truman Library has the Truman diary online. The diary, which was just discovered in 2003, was kept intermittently by the President during 1947. It is fascinating reading.

The entry for January 3:

Byrnes & I discussed General Marshall’s last letter and decided to ask him to come home. Byrnes is going to quit on the tenth and I shall make Marshall Sec[retary] of State. Some of the crackpots will in all probability yell their heads off-but let ‘em yell! Marshall is the ablest man in the whole gallery.

Mrs. Roosevelt came in at 3 P.M. to assure me that Jimmy & Elliott had nothing against me and intended no disparagement of me in their recent non-edited remarks. Said she was for me. Said she didn’t like Byrnes and was sure he was not reporting Elliott correctly. Said Byrnes was always for Byrnes and no one else. I wonder! He’s been loyal to me[.] In the Senate he gave me my first small appropriation, which started the Special Committee to investigate the National Defense Program on its way. He’d probably have done me a favor if he’d refused to give it.

Maybe there was something on both sides in this situation. It is a pity a great man has to have progeny! Look at Churchill’s. Remember Lincoln’s and Grant’s. Even in collateral branches Washington’s wasn’t so good-and Teddy Roosevelt’s are terrible.

The entry for January 8:

The Senate took Marshall lock, stock and barrell [sic]. Confirmed him by unanimous consent and did not even refer his nomination to a committee. A grand start for him.

I am very happy over that proceedure [sic]. Marshall is, I think[,] the greatest man of the World War II. He managed to get along with Roosevelt, the Congress, Churchill, the Navy and the Joint Chief of Staff and he made a grand record in China.

When I asked him to take the extrovert Pat Hurley[']s place as my special envoy to China, he merely said “Yes, Mr. President I’ll go.” No argument only patriotic action. And if any man was entitled to balk and ask for a rest, he was. We’ll have a real State Dep[artmen]t now.

The entry for July 6:

Drove an open car from Charlottesville to Washington-starting at 9:15 Washington time.

Had a V[irgini]a Highway Policeman in a car ahead making the pace at exactly the speed allowed by V[irgini]a law. He forced all the trucks to one side as I always wanted to do. Made the drive in 3 hours. Had Sec[retary] of Treas[ury] Snyder, Adm[iral] Leahy, and Doctor Brig[adier] Gen[eral] Graham as passengers. All said they enjoyed the ride and felt they needed no extra accident coverage!

David McCullough’s Truman is superb.

The Santa Fe Trail

The Santa Fe National Historic Trail was established on May 8th in 1987.

Between 1821 and 1880, the Santa Fe Trail was primarily a commercial highway connecting Missouri and Santa Fe, New Mexico. From 1821 until 1846, it was an international commercial highway used by Mexican and American traders. In 1846, the Mexican-American War began. The Army of the West followed the Santa Fe Trail to invade New Mexico. When the Treaty of Guadalupe ended the war in 1848, the Santa Fe Trail became a national road connecting the United States to the new southwest territories. Commercial freighting along the trail continued, including considerable military freight hauling to supply the southwestern forts. The trail was also used by stagecoach lines, thousands of gold seekers heading to the California and Colorado gold fields, adventurers, fur trappers, and emigrants. In 1880 the railroad reached Santa Fe and the trail faded into history.

National Park Service

Always Coca-Cola

The very first Coca-Cola was sold at Jacob’s Pharmacy in Atlanta on this date in 1886. Dr. John S. Pemberton created the formula, which until 1905 had extracts of cocaine, as well as caffeine-rich kola nut. Bookkeeper Frank Robinson coined the name and it’s his handwriting we know from the trademark.

Let It Be

The Beatles released their last album, Let It Be, on this date in 1970. The tracks were originally recorded 14 months earlier, well before Abbey Road.

Let It Be was the only Beatles album to receive negative, even hostile reviews. The group was dissolving and the tension affected the music. Then in post-production, Phil Spector added his “wall-of-sound” treatment.

Of course, a poor Beatles album is better than most other bands best work.

In 2003, the album was re-released as Let It Be…Naked with Spector’s additions deleted and other changes. Here’s the whole story from Stephen Thomas Erlewine of the All Music Guide.

Political correctness

She is not a “BABE” or a “CHICK” — She is a “BREASTED AMERICAN.”

She has not “BEEN AROUND” — She is a “PREVIOUSLY-ENJOYED COMPANION.”

He does not have a “BEER GUT” — He has developed a “LIQUID GRAIN STORAGE FACILITY.”

He does not act like a “TOTAL ASS” — He develops a case of RECTAL-CRANIAL INVERSION.”

Thanks to Jeanne.

Pundits Declare the Race Over

Who died and left Tim Russert in charge?

Very early this morning, after many voters had already gone to sleep, the conventional wisdom of the elite political pundit class that resides on television shifted hard, and possibly irretrievably, against Senator Hillary Clinton’s continued viability as a presidential candidate.

The moment came shortly after midnight Eastern time, captured in a devastatingly declarative statement from Tim Russert of NBC News: “We now know who the Democratic nominee’s going to be, and no one’s going to dispute it,” he said on MSNBC.

The New York Times

As she so often does, digby sums it up best:

Who the fuck anointed Tim Russert as the final arbiter of anything? His job is to analyze the political landscape not declare the decision as if he were some kind of Roman Emperor giving a thumbs up or thumbs down. It’s bad enough that these gasbags put those thumbs on the scale as hard as they do, but actually taking the initiative to say when the race is over is even worse. To coin a favorite Village phrase, “it’s not their place.”

There’s a story about LBJ and former Washington Post and Newsweek editor Ben Bradlee. Bradlee was at Newsweek (this was in 1964) and he predicted LBJ was going to remove J. Edgar Hoover as director of the FBI. The White House called a press conference and Bradlee expected to see his prediction announced. Instead, LBJ gave a testimonial about Hoover and exempted him from mandatory retirement. Moments before the announcement Johnson told press secretary Bill Moyers to call Ben Bradlee and tell him, “Fuck you.”

I’m eager for Senator Clinton to drop out, but not right now.

Line most likely to draw lightning from the heavens

Commenting on a potato with a growth inside in the shape of a cross, a skeptic at Bad Astronomy Blog remarked:

“Now, a sweet potato might be more convincing. After all, like He Himself said, ‘I yam that I yam’.”

So who lost on the Yahoo-Microsoft undeal?

Typically the business media is reporting on how much Yahoo! stock was off early this week when the deal with Microsoft fell through. They need to look a little further back.

Microsoft’s intention to buy Yahoo! was announced February 1st.

On January 31st, Yahoo! stock closed at $19.18. Today it’s at $25.30; up 31.9%.

On January 31st, Microsoft stock closed at $32.60. Today it’s at $29.86; down 8.4%.

Five Lessons in Grammar

More lessons in grammar from mental_floss Blog /a> and Patricia T. O’Conner, a former editor at The New York Times Book Review and the author of Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English. Included:

3. That or Which?

Best line of the day, so far

“The Economics Party would be committed to changing its policy recommendation whenever the facts warranted. We’re pro flip-flop when it makes sense. In other words, our brains function properly.”

Dilbert Blog

Adams is proposing a new party: “All we’ll do is agree to vote for the candidate with the best long term economic policy, according to the consensus of leading economists.”

Living With Music

I sampled some of the songs on this playlist by Mark Bowden, the author of “Black Hawk Down,” and liked what I heard.

You may too.

That 99¢ music makes following leads like this so delightful.

Bowden also says this: “Movies have just about replaced the radio as my primary way of discovering new music.”

Movies and Living With Music each week.

No holiday in store for May 7th

U.S. Senator Pete Domenici (R-But Not for Much Longer) is 76 today.

Tim Russert is 58.

Steve Arroyo is 38.

Johannes Brahms and Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky were born on May 7th in 1833 and 1840 respectively.

Poet, playwright and Librarian of Congress Archibald MacLeish was born on May 7th in 1892.

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown –

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind –

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs

A poem should be equal to:
Not true

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea –

A poem should not mean
But be

Gary Cooper was born on May 7th in 1901. Copper twice won the best actor Oscar and had three more nominations in the category. His wins were for Sergeant York and High Noon.

Edwin Herbert Land was born on May 7th in 1909. Land invented the Polaroid Land Camera.

And Eva Peron was born on May 7th in 1919.

Time to talk about the facts of life

After Tuesday night’s election results, I’m thinking that Chelsea needs to have a little heart-to-heart with her folks.

Bipolar on Bipolar

Tuesday:

Many people who have been told by their doctors that they have bipolar disorder don’t really have it.

So say researchers who used a standardized, comprehensive, psychiatric diagnostic interview to evaluate 700 adult psychiatric outpatients.

WebMD

One year ago Wednesday:

There appear to be almost twice as many Americans with bipolar disorder as previously thought, and many are not getting the treatments they need, researchers from the National Institute of Mental Health report.

Once thought of as a single mental illness, bipolar disorder is increasingly recognized as a spectrum disorder, with symptoms ranging from less severe to devastating.

WebMD

Best line of the day, so far — at least for guys

“I come from a long line of Europeans — illiterate, mud-eating Europeans from the Outer Hebrides, to be exact, whose idea of a good time was to go down to the firth and watch the plague victims wash out to sea. Even so, I’ve always had an affinity for the Continent. Between New Orleans and Amsterdam, I prefer Amsterdam. I’ll take Rousseau over Jefferson, Beck’s over Budweiser, Formula One over NASCAR, and Heidi Klum over my knee.”

Dan Neil

Update: Hmm, on second thought. The end of the line made me laugh out loud, but the more I think about it — the line, not the image — I find it a little too sexist.

So, first instinct, funny go with it, or second instinct, not up to the high standards of this blog — what do you think?

Just when you think people can’t get any more ignorant

Chalk this one up to hard-to-believe: a substitute teacher in Florida lost his job in part because of a magic trick.

As reported by Channel 10 in Tampa, Jim Piculas did a magic trick where he makes a toothpick disappear and reappear. What happened next? The principal called him up to the office and told him he was being accused of — wait for it, wait for it — wizardry.

Bad Astronomy Blog

Birthday present

As noted earlier, Ken, official oldest child of NewMexiKen, is celebrating his birthday today. Yesterday he celebrated one of his birthday gifts:

The Audi Sportscar Experience has been created to allow you to enjoy the highest performance vehicles that Audi produces while increasing your skills so you can extract the most performance from your car. The Audi Sportscar Experience is for the enthusiast, the person who loves to drive and has an appreciation for the fine art of constantly improving his or her driving skills. Using a variety of vehicles from Audi’s R, RS and S categories, this program was developed to be the ultimate experience in an automobile.

His spouse reports: “Apparently, Ken had accidentally called me on his mobile. It was in his pocket while he was driving. So, I get this voice mail that is basically static and silence and then: ‘zooooooooooooom….zoooooooooooooooom.’ It went on and on and on.”

He was driving an Audi R8 at Sonoma’s Infineon Raceway.

Update: Here are photos of Audi R8s on the track taken by Ken’s passenger. Click images for larger versions.

My question to Ken: Why are these cars in front of you?

Killer Angels

Yesterday Professor ari at The Edge of the American West wrote about The Killer Angels in the classroom. He began:

On this day in 1975, Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, which, I’m told, is a good get. Killer Angels, for those of you who haven’t read it, tells the story of the Battle of Gettysburg, mostly through the eyes of Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and James “Pete” Longstreet and Union officers Joshua Chamberlain and John Buford. The prose is vivid, the narrative taut, and Shaara’s command of tactics and history are both impressive.

If you’ve read the book or studied the civil war you may find ari’s post particularly interesting.

If you haven’t read the book, you really should. NewMexiKen was recently given a first edition.

Best line of last night

“And sadly, the ‘father of LSD’ is dead.” He “has died at the age of 102. But the good news, the ‘mother of LSD,’ still alive and working as a judge on ‘American Idol.’”

Jay Leno

Even one more reason to make today a national holiday

It’s National Teacher Day.

Around 1944 Arkansas teacher Mattye Whyte Woodridge began corresponding with political and education leaders about the need for a national day to honor teachers. Woodbridge wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt, who in 1953 persuaded the 81st Congress to proclaim a National Teacher Day.

NEA, along with its Kansas and Indiana state affiliates and the Dodge City (Kan.) Local, lobbied Congress to create a national day celebrating teachers. Congress declared March 7, 1980, as National Teacher Day for that year only.

NEA and its affiliates continued to observe National Teacher Day on the first Tuesday in March until 1985, when the National PTA established Teacher Appreciation Week as the first full week of May. The NEA Representative Assembly then voted to make the Tuesday of that week National Teacher Day.

Thanks to all the wonderful teachers in NewMexiKen’s life, K-12 and beyond.

More reasons May 6th should be a national holiday

Willie Mays is 77 today.

When Joe DiMaggio died in 1999, baseball luminaries were asked who inherited the title of greatest living player. NewMexiKen had a different assumption. I thought Willie Mays became the greatest living ballplayer when Ty Cobb died in 1961.

Willie Mays, the “Say Hey Kid,” played with enthusiasm and exuberance while excelling in all phases of the game - hitting for average and power, fielding, throwing and baserunning. His staggering career statistics include 3,283 hits and 660 home runs. The Giants’ superstar earned National League Rookie of the Year honors in 1951 and two MVP awards. He accumulated 12 Gold Gloves, played in a record-tying 24 All-Star games and participated in four World Series. His catch of Vic Wertz’s deep fly in the ‘54 Series remains one of baseball’s most memorable moments.

National Baseball Hall of Fame

Two quotes about Mays:

• Ted Williams: “They invented the All-Star game for Willie Mays.”

• Manager Leo Durocher, who must have been from Deadwood, once recalled a remarkable home run by Mays: “I never saw a f—ing ball go out of a f—ing park so f—ing fast in my f—ing life!”

Orson Welles was born on this date in 1915. To many who grew up with television, Welles was simply the larger-than-life spokesman for Paul Masson Wines — “We will sell no wine before its time.” But at age 23 Welles had scared thousands of Americans with his realistic radio production of War of the Worlds. At 25 he wrote, produced, directed and starred in what many consider the best film ever made, Citizen Kane. For that film alone, he was nominated for the Oscar for best actor, best director, best original screenplay and best picture (he won, with Herman Mankiewicz, for screenplay). Welles was nominated for the best picture Oscar again the following year — The Magnificent Ambersons.

Amadeo Peter Giannini was born on this date in 1870. Giannini was one of Time’s 20 most influential builders and titans of the 20th century. Daniel Kadlec wrote the story:

Like a lot of folks in the San Francisco area, Amadeo Peter Giannini was thrown from his bed in the wee hours of April 18, 1906, when the Great Quake shook parts of the city to rubble. He hurriedly dressed and hitched a team of horses to a borrowed produce wagon and headed into town–to the Bank of Italy, which he had founded two years earlier. Sifting through the ruins, he discreetly loaded $2 million in gold, coins and securities onto the wagon bed, covered the bank’s resources with a layer of vegetables and headed home.

In the days after the disaster, the man known as A.P. broke ranks with his fellow bankers, many of whom wanted area banks to remain shut to sort out the damage. Giannini quickly set up shop on the docks near San Francisco’s North Beach. With a wooden plank straddling two barrels for a desk, he began to extend credit “on a face and a signature” to small businesses and individuals in need of money to rebuild their lives. His actions spurred the city’s redevelopment.

That would have been legacy enough for most people. But Giannini’s mark extends far beyond San Francisco, where his dogged determination and unusual focus on “the little people” helped build what was at his death the largest bank in the country, Bank of America, with assets of $5 billion. (It’s now No. 2, with assets of $572 billion, behind Citigroup’s $751 billion.)

Most bank customers today take for granted the things Giannini pioneered, including home mortgages, auto loans and other installment credit. Heck, most of us take banks for granted. But they didn’t exist, at least not for working stiffs, until Giannini came along.
…

Giannini also made a career out of lending to out-of-favor industries. He helped the California wine industry get started, then bankrolled Hollywood at a time when the movie industry was anything but proven. In 1923 he created a motion-picture loan division and helped Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith start United Artists. When Walt Disney ran $2 million over budget on Snow White, Giannini stepped in with a loan.
…

When Giannini died at age 79, his estate was worth less than $500,000. It was purely by choice. He could have been a billionaire but disdained great wealth, believing it would make him lose touch with the people he wanted to serve. For years he accepted virtually no pay, and upon being granted a surprise $1.5 million bonus one year promptly gave it all to the University of California. “Money itch is a bad thing,” he once said. “I never had that trouble.”

Bob Seger is 63 today. George Clooney is 47.

May 6th ought to be a national holiday

This still seems like it was just yesterday.

Too many years ago, I was leaving the area of the University of Arizona and coasted through a stop sign. A Tucson PD motorcycle officer saw the infraction and pulled me over within seconds. As he told me what he’d seen and asked for my driver’s license I said, “My wife is in labor. I’m just anxious to get to her.” He gave me that “yeah, sure” look and walked back to his motorcycle to write me up. When he returned in a minute or two he said he was just giving me a written warning (no fine, no points). And then he added, “Be careful. We haven’t lost a father yet.”

A small moment made important to me because my oldest child was born later that evening. Today he’s a son, a husband, a father, an attorney and a friend. Happy birthday Ken.

What did you dream last night?

Today is Sigmund Freud’s birthday. He was born on May 6, 1856.

In the following pages, I shall demonstrate that there is a psychological technique which makes it possible to interpret dreams, and that on the application of this technique, every dream will reveal itself as a psychological structure, full of significance, and one which may be assigned to a specific place in the psychic activities of the waking state. Further, I shall endeavour to elucidate the processes which underlie the strangeness and obscurity of dreams, and to deduce from these processes the nature of the psychic forces whose conflict or co-operation is responsible for our dreams.

Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (1899)

In dreams I walk with you. In dreams I talk to you.
In dreams you’re mine. All of the time we’re together
In dreams, In dreams.

Roy Orbison, “In Dreams” (1963)