Happy New Year

The fundamental things apply
As time goes by.

Herman Hupfield

Suspicious behavior
Jeopardy contestants on watch list

From FOXNews.com: FBI Links Almanacs With Terror Planning

The FBI is warning police nationwide to be alert for people carrying almanacs, cautioning that the popular reference books covering everything from abbreviations to weather trends could be used for terrorist planning.

Spurrier Now Confirms He’s Leaving Redskins

From washingtonpost.com

Coach Steve Spurrier and the Washington Redskins worked out the final details of his resignation this afternoon — after a few hours of confusion in which Spurrier was unaware that he had quit his own job.

Sadly enough there were a lot of things Steve Spurrier appeared to be unaware of these past two years.

Rediscovering Lewis and Clark

Historian Thomas P. Slaughter on the real significance of Lewis and Clark.

The Lewis and Clark expedition did not matter two centuries ago. The explorers were not the first to make the transcontinental journey, as they well knew, having been preceded in both travels and publication by the Canadian Alexander Mackenzie. They followed Cook, Vancouver, and dozens of trading ships that made landfall on the West Coast and had ongoing contacts with Indians in the Northwest, just as French and Anglo-Canadian fur traders had already engaged Indians east of the Rockies.

And if Lewis and Clark didn’t get there first, neither did they achieve any of the major goals of their expedition: they did not find a water route to the Pacific, a Lost Tribe of Israel, or Welsh Indians. During the return leg of their journey, they met up with traders who had believed them dead and were proceeding west nonetheless. The explorers’ survival and the information they brought back with them were irrelevant to the westward course of American empire. They did not publish their journals in a timely fashion and eventually did so, after Lewis’s death, in an abridgement that achieved limited circulation. Quickly, the explorers and their achievements faded from public memory.

Lewis and Clark were rediscovered after the passing of the American frontier. Celebration of them is a twentieth-, now twenty-first-century phenomenon that reflects more on the creation of a national origins myth than it does the historical significance of the expedition in its own time….Lewis and Clark matter, then, because our nation needs their contribution to the multicultural and ecologically sensitive stories that we now tell about ourselves. They are central characters in the superficial “feel-good” brand of American history that catapults books to the top of nonfiction bestseller lists.

An interesting brief essay. Slaughter is the author of Exploring Lewis and Clark: Reflections on Men and Wilderness (2003).

Who are these people?

The New Yorker lists a dozen favorite CDs from 2003. How out-of-it NewMexiKen feels.

Basement Jaxx, “Kish Kash”
Vic Chesnutt, “Silver Lake”
Dizzee Rascal, “Boy in da Corner”
Kelis, “Tasty”
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, “Hearts of Oak”
The Libertines, “Up the Bracket”
Shelby Lynne, “Identity Crisis”
Van Morrison, “What’s Wrong with This Picture”
OutKast, “Speakerboxxx/The Love Below”
The Shins, “Chutes Too Narrow”
Sidestepper, “3 a.m. (In Beats We Trust)”
The White Stripes, “Elephant”

Another town for sale

Also from Wired News: Furthermore

A year after the rural town of Bridgeville was ostensibly snapped up in a frenzied online auction for nearly $2 million, the town is up for bid again — this time at half the price and not on eBay. The supposed buyer, who was only ever identified as a nameless West Coast developer, disappeared soon after making the winning $1.78 million bid last December on auction site eBay. No check ever arrived. That prompted real estate broker Denise Stuart to offer the property to another bidder. And another. And another. After a dozen potential deals fell through, Stuart posted the property last week on the more standard listings that brokers routinely share. The town’s owner, Elizabeth Lapple, is now asking $850,000 for the 82-acre property, set among redwoods about 270 miles northwest of San Francisco and about 30 miles from the Pacific Ocean. The town, which dates to the early 1900s, includes a post office, a mile and a half of riverbank, a cemetery and more than a dozen cabins and houses. It needs a new well and several buildings need to be renovated. Last year’s online auction generated national attention and nearly 250 would-be buyers, even though bidding opened at $775,000. “It was such a fiasco last time,” said Stuart, who owns California Real Estate in Eureka. “You have no idea who (buyers) are, if they’re for real or they’re bogus.” That hasn’t stopped other property owners and real estate agents from listing their properties on eBay. At least eight towns have been offered on the Web site since Bridgeville’s listing.

NewMexiKen is thinking $850,000 for an “82-acre property, set among redwoods about 270 miles northwest of San Francisco and about 30 miles from the Pacific Ocean” with “a post office, a mile and a half of riverbank, a cemetery and more than a dozen cabins and houses” sounds like a heckuva deal.

Ferret-Loving Guv?

From Wired News: Furthermore

Ferrets, banned as pets in California for 70 years, may soon be back in favor. Some hope Arnold Schwarzenegger, who worked with a ferret in Kindergarten Cop, may legalize the animals. “We have an inequity here and this man is sensitive to that kind of thing,” said Jeanne Carley, founder of Californians for Ferret Legalization. “The state wildlife agency doesn’t regulate cats and dogs, so why should it regulate ferrets?” The ban was put in place because of fears ferrets might weasel their way into the wild and ravage populations of ground-dwelling birds.

Don’t belong

Jay Leno on Monday night: “Due to increased terror level, security has been stepped up at the Sugar Bowl. Officials will be looking to stop anyone who doesn’t belong. USC turned in Oklahoma.”

Fair and balanced

Los Angeles Times columnist T.J. Simers on journalistic fair play:

Although I’ve been a diehard Trojan fan as long as I can remember, I’d like to reassure the losers who still support the Bruins that I intend to be as objective as always in writing about their crummy team, and their dull coach.

Simers goes after Michigan too.

It’s generally accepted that most of us who love the Trojans are rich and a cut above ordinary citizens. So when I return from San Jose, it’s going to make for an interesting couple of Rose Bowl days mingling with all the factory workers from Michigan who have come to the big state hoping to catch a glimpse of Arnold.

I’ve had the grueling experience of being bored by the Midwestern likes of Bubba I, Bubba II and Bubba III, the brothers-in-law, so the shock of listening to yokels cluck about the new Piggly Wiggly in town isn’t going to hit me quite as hard.

I’ve also been to Detroit before, and if you moved all the people from Philadelphia to Detroit, you’d have a pretty good idea of what hell must be like, so I look at this week as a good reminder to once again be on my best behavior.

Our So-Called Boom

Paul Krugman

It was a merry Christmas for Sharper Image and Neiman Marcus, which reported big sales increases over last year’s holiday season. It was considerably less cheery at Wal-Mart and other low-priced chains. We don’t know the final sales figures yet, but it’s clear that high-end stores did very well, while stores catering to middle- and low-income families achieved only modest gains.

Based on these reports, you may be tempted to speculate that the economic recovery is an exclusive party, and most people weren’t invited. You’d be right.

Fighting the death sentence for language

Don Watson defends a language he says is being mangled by the globalising forces of obfuscation.

“Language is what gives me greatest pleasure,” he says. “I can’t laugh without it.” Yet in the depleted new language “you can’t tell a joke”.

“It’s incapable of carrying an emotion. It is the language equivalent of the assembly line. It turns human processes into mechanical ones.”

Is this new? Dictators and lawyers and priests have long used arcane speech to maintain authority. But something else is happening, Watson says – and that is the way everyone is busting to speak like a middle manager.

Albert Einstein…

was born on this date in 1879.

See the companion web site for the NOVA program “Einstein Revealed” (originally broadcast in October 1996) for extensive background on Einstein. The page Genius Among Geniuses is particularly informative about what Einstein did.

The Gadsden Purchase Treaty…

was signed by James Gadsden, U.S. Minister to Mexico, and General Antonio López de Santa Anna, President of Mexico, in Mexico City on this date in 1853. The treaty settled the dispute over the exact location of the Mexican border west of Texas and gave the U.S. approximately 29,000 square miles of land in what is now southern New Mexico and Arizona for the price of $10 million.

The Mexican Republic agrees to designate the following as her true limits with the United States for the future: retaining the same dividing line between the two Californias as already defined and established, according to the 5th article of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the limits between the two republics shall be as follows: Beginning in the Gulf of Mexico, three leagues from land, opposite the mouth of the Rio Grande, as provided in the 5th article of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; thence, as defined in the said article, up the middle of that river to the point where the parallel of 31° 47′ north latitude crosses the same; thence due west one hundred miles; thence south to the parallel of 31° 20′ north latitude; thence along the said parallel of 31° 20′ to the 111th meridian of longitude west of Greenwich; thence in a straight line to a point on the Colorado River twenty English miles below the junction of the Gila and Colorado rivers; thence up the middle of the said river Colorado until it intersects the present line between the United States and Mexico.

Read the entire Gadsden Purchase Treaty.

College Essays

Blogger Chris C. Mooney has an interesting post about college admissions essays. Calpundit linked to it and has some good comments from his readers. Matthew Yglesias has some interesing and amusing comments from readers as well.

Gunslingers

From the Rocky Mountain News (December 26, 2003)

There are times when the most practical thing for a quarterback to do is play it safe, but, fortunately for the Packers, Favre wasn’t a practical thinker 10 years ago and he isn’t now.

He’s a gunslinger, a born gambler who gets a buzz from knowing how far to push things, then pushing a little harder, as the Denver Broncos are apt to see Sunday at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wis.

“A slinger is a guy who makes throws other guys won’t even attempt,” former Broncos quarterback John Elway said several years ago. “At times, you make bad decisions. People wonder why you even made the throw. On the other hand, you make the big play the other guy can’t even try.”

An enduring part of NFL lore, gunslingers shoot holes in defenses, critics and often themselves, but they never bore fans. The job requires cool leadership, a great arm, a larger-than-life personality and inspirational improvisational skills.

It all started with “Slingin’ Sammy” Baugh of the Washington Redskins, who helped usher in the passing game in the 1930s and ’40s.

His successor was Bobby Layne, who partied as hard as he played in the ’50s for the Detroit Lions.

In the ’60s, a slew of gunners made their mark, including Johnny Unitas and Joe Namath.

Roger “The Dodger” Staubach came to the fore in the ’70s for the Dallas Cowboys, as did Oakland’s Kenny Stabler, followed in the ’80s and ’90s by San Francisco’s Joe Montana, Miami’s Dan Marino and Denver’s Elway, whose John Wayne swagger and guns-a-blazin’ bravado enriched a bold legacy.

But these are rocky times for gunslingers, although Atlanta’s Michael Vick could usher in a new era.

And speaking of Bobby Layne

Layne was the last quarterback to play without a face mask; he probably would have played without a helmet.

“The secret to a happy life is to run out of cash and air at the same time.”
…Bobby Layne (who died in 1986 at age 59).

“Bobby Layne never lost a game. Time just ran out. Nobody hated to lose more than Bobby.”
…Doak Walker

“Layne, as bad as he looked throwing the ball, was a winner. You’d work him out and you wouldn’t want him, but you’d want him in your huddle. Players feel that way about a quarterback. When a leader’s in there, they’ll perform.”
…Red Hickey

More on Tobin Rote and the Lions

From Pro Football Weekly (June 29, 2000)

Tobin Rote, the quarterback who guided the Lions to their last NFL championship in 1957 while filling in for injured Hall of Famer Bobby Layne, has died. He was 72….

The Lions platooned Rote and Layne at quarterback before Rote finished off the ‘57 season after Layne broke his leg in the regular season’s second-to-last game.

In the divisional playoff, the Lions trailed the 49ers 24-7 at halftime. Through the dressing room walls at San Francisco’s old Kezar Stadium, they could hear the 49ers already beginning their celebration.

“We could hear them laughing,” Rote said in ‘91. “The walls were paper thin. They were going on about how they were going to spend their championship game money. It made us angry.”

In the second half, the Lions scored three touchdowns in four minutes, 29 seconds and went on to win 31-27.

The next Sunday at home in Briggs Stadium, the Lions won their third championship in six years with a 59-14 rout of the Browns. Rote threw four TD passes and ran for another.

How the Unions Killed a Dream

From Joe Klein at TIME.com (October 26, 2003)

In 1999, an unassuming Michigan road builder named Bob Thompson sold his construction company for $442 million, an amount he and his wife Ellen believed was far more than they needed for retirement. His first act, which received national attention, was to distribute $128 million to his employees; about 80 became instant millionaires. Then Thompson decided to donate most of the rest of his money to public education, preferably in Detroit. After doing some research, he offered $200 million to build 15 small, independent public high schools in the inner city. A few weeks ago, Thompson withdrew his offer after the Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT) led a furious, and scurrilous, campaign against his generosity. The philanthropist is in seclusion now—friends say he is stunned and distressed—but his is a story that deserves telling.

True size of the federal government

According to a study by the Brookings Institution

[T]he true size of government has grown by 1.1 million jobs since 1999. Although military personnel and postal employment inched up during the period, almost all of the growth has occurred in two categories: contract and grant-generated jobs….[C]ivil service employment actually fell by almost 50,000 jobs from 1999 to 2002. During the same period contract-generated jobs went up by more than 700,000 jobs and grant-generated jobs by 333,000.

Total Civil Servants………………1,756,000
Total Contractors…………………5,168,000
Total Grantees……………………2,860,000
Total Military Personnel…………1,456,000
Total Postal Service…………………875,000

TOTAL TRUE SIZE
OF FEDERAL GOVERNMENT…….12,115,000

Rounding up four-legged history in northern New Mexico

From the Santa Fe New Mexican:

Their heads high and necks suddenly taut, the mustangs watch the four-wheeled intruder come closer. Whirling, they trot away, fading into the ponderosa pine stands like ethereal ghosts from a bygone era.

Standards

Cullen Murphy writes about standards in Setting the Bar.

Some standards aren’t worthy of the name in the first place, and in any event standards will always be in flux. But surely there are a handful on which we might all agree to hold the line—this far and no further, unto the end of days. To start this long-overdue public conversation, I’ll propose ten.

I. “EMPLOYEES MUST WASH HANDS BEFORE RETURNING TO WORK” (“Los empleados deben lavarse las manos antes de regresar al trabajo”).

II. “Women and children first” (except maybe Ann Coulter).

III. Notoriety does not denote “famousness,” enormity does not denote “bigness,” and religiosity does not denote “religiousness.”

IV. “The bat shall be a smooth, round stick not more than 2 3/4 inches in diameter at the thickest part and not more than 42 inches in length. The bat shall be one piece of solid wood.” — Official rules, Major League Baseball

V. “Honey, you look great!” (still the only correct answer).

VI. “Parents should never issue birth announcements or write letters of thanks that pretend to be coming directly from the baby.” — Miss Manners

VII. “First, do no harm.” — Hippocrates

VIII. The federal adulteration limits for cocoa powder (“75 or more insect fragments per 50 grams”) and chocolate (“60 or more insect fragments per 100 grams”).

IX. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” — The Golden Rule (worth a try?)

And finally,

X. Anything that does “little more for humanity than keep the publishing world afloat” deserves an award.

Named as a counterpoint to the baseball Tigers

On this date in 1957, Tobin Rote threw for four touchdowns and ran for another as the Detroit Lions defeated the Cleveland Browns, 59-14, in the NFL championship game. It was the Lions’ third title of the Fifties, all over the Browns.

Since then the Lions have missed 37 out of 46 post seasons and are 1-9 in games when they did make it.

Mary Tyler Moore…

was born in Brooklyn on this date in 1936 (some sources say 1937).

From The Museum of Broadcast Communications, The Encyclopedia of Television:

On The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Moore played Mary Richards, a 30-something single woman “making it on her own” in 1970s Minneapolis. MTM first pitched her character to CBS as a young divorcee, but CBS executives believed her role as Laura Petrie was so firmly etched in the public mind that viewers would think she had divorced Dick Van Dyke (and that the American public would not find a divorced woman likable), so Richards was rewritten as a woman who had moved to the big city after ending a long affair. Richards landed a job working in the news department of fictional WJM-TV, where Moore’s all-American spunk played off against the gruff boss Lou Grant (Ed Asner), world-weary writer Murray Slaughter (Gavin MacLeod) and pompous anchorman Ted Baxter (Ted Knight). In early seasons, her all-male work environment was counterbalanced by a primarily female home life, where again her character contrasted with her ditzy landlady Phyllis Lindstrom (Cloris Leachman) and her New York-born neighbor and best friend, Rhoda Morgenstern (Valerie Harper). Both the show and Moore were lauded for their realistic portrayal of “new” women in the 1970s whose lives centered on work rather than family, and for whom men were colleagues rather than just potential mates. While Moore’s Mary Richards’ apologetic manner may have undermined some of the messages of the women’s movement, she also put a friendly face on the potentially threatening tenets of feminism, naturalizing some of the decade’s changes in the way women were perceived both at home and at work.

Texas…

was annexed into the United States as the 28th state on this date in 1845.

Andrew Johnson…

the 17th President of the U.S. was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, on this date in 1808.