Month: December 2004

Exactly

Charles Krauthammer:

The attempts to de-Christianize Christmas are as absurd as they are relentless. The United States today is the most tolerant and diverse society in history. It celebrates all faiths with an open heart and open-mindedness that, compared to even the most advanced countries in Europe, are unique.

Yet more than 80 percent of Americans are Christian, and probably 95 percent of Americans celebrate Christmas. Christmas Day is an official federal holiday, the only day of the entire year when, for example, the Smithsonian museums are closed. Are we to pretend that Christmas is nothing but an orgy of commerce in celebration of . . . what? The winter solstice?

I personally like Christmas because, since it is a day that for me is otherwise ordinary, I get to do nice things, such as covering for as many gentile colleagues as I could when I was a doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital. I will admit that my generosity had its rewards: I collected enough chits on Christmas Day to get reciprocal coverage not just for Yom Kippur but for both days of Rosh Hashana and my other major holiday, Opening Day at Fenway.

Lets see all the award winners

NewMexiKen thinks college football (at all levels) should come together for an annual awards ceremony to present the Heisman, Bednarik, Biletnikoff, Butkus, Walter Camp, Groza, Ray Guy, Hendricks, Lombardi, Mackey, Maxwell, Nagurski, O’Brien, Outland, Thorpe, Unitas, Doak Walker, Walter Payton and other awards.

As it is, because it’s presented by the New York Athletic Club, the Heisman gets a disproportionate amount of publicity while some of these other actually more important awards are presented in relative anonymity. A televised awards show (throw in coach of the year, best cheerleaders, what-have-you) could be a popular post season event I’d think.

And another thing. How come these awards are given before the bowl games? When first established, many of the bowl games were just post season fun. Now, with the BCS especially, the outcome of these games is critical for a team. Why determine awards before the most important game of the season?

Sweetness

From The Sports Network:

William & Mary quarterback Lang Campbell was named the 18th winner of the Walter Payton Award [Friday night] at the Division I-AA College Football Awards held in Chattanooga, TN on the eve of the I-AA national championship game.

Campbell completed a remarkable 66 percent of his passes (215-of-326) for 3,037 yards. He tossed 21 touchdowns while throwing just one interception in the regular season.

Champions

Without the benefit of polls or computers, the James Madison University Dukes defeated the University of Montana Grizzlies 31-21 Friday night to become the football champions of NCAA Division I-AA.

James Madison is a state university in Harrisonburg, Virginia (in the Shenandoah Valley).

Richard Wetherill and his brother-in-law Charles Mason …

Wetherill tombstonerode out on what is now Sun Point in search of lost cattle on this date in 1888 and first saw Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde. That afternoon, Richard found Spruce Tree House, and the next day, the two men discovered Square Tower House. Al Wetherill, Richard’s brother, saw Cliff Palace sometime the year before, but he did not enter the dwelling, so the credit for “discovering” the dwelling has been given to Richard Wetherill and Charles Mason.

In 1901, Richard Wetherill homesteaded land that included Pueblo Bonito, Pueblo Del Arroyo, and Chetro Ketl in what is now Chaco Culture National Historical Park. Wetherill remained in Chaco Canyon, homesteading and operating a trading post at Pueblo Bonito until his controversial murder in 1910. Chiishch’ilin Biy, charged with his murder, served several years in prison, but was released in 1914 due to poor health. Wetherill is buried in the small cemetery west of Pueblo Bonito.

[NewMexiKen photo, 2003]

It’s the birthday

… of Roger Smith. One of the James Bonds is 72. Jeffrey Spencer of 77 Sunset Strip is 72.

… of Keith Richards. The Rolling Stone is 61.

… of Steven Spielberg. The director is 58.

… of Brad Pitt. He’s still pretty at 41.

… of Christina Aguilera. She’s 24.

Thou shalt not

A local Alabama judge presided over a drunken driving case wearing a robe with the Ten Commandments embroidered on the front in gold. The lawyer for the defendant objected, on the grounds the robe might prejudice jurors against his client. Judge Ashley McKathan overruled him, saying, “you can’t divorce the law from the truth.” He said the jury probably couldn’t read the embroidered “Thou shalt not’s” on his robe, anyway. “I had a choice of several sizes of letters,” he said. “I purposely chose a size that would not be in anybody’s face.”

From The Week Newsletter

Mountain Lions Move East

From The Washington Post:

The presence of the mountain lions, many of which have been found with freshly killed deer in their stomachs, is a startling signal that modern suburban and exurban America — without intending to do so — has transformed itself into superb wildlife habitat. With deer nearly everywhere, the big cats, it seems, are finding haute cuisine in the land of big-box stores.

Last year, one ran through downtown Omaha. Last month, one was shot in the suburbs of Sioux City. This month, a radio-collared mountain lion was spotted in the outskirts of Grand Forks, N.D. One was photographed in mid-October on a farm near Marshalltown in central Iowa, a confirmed sighting that deeply disturbed people at the recent meeting here.
…

First, there are probably more mountain lions in the continental United States now than before European settlement (more than 31,000, by one recent estimate). The resurgence began in the 1960s, when several western states, where mountain lion populations had been reduced but never wiped out, changed the legal status of the cats from varmint to big game, with limited or no hunting.

Aviators

Orville and Wilbur Wright successfully made the first four sustained flights of a heavier-than-air machine under the complete control of the pilot at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, on this date 101 years ago.

36 hours in Albuquerque

Albuquerque is New Mexico’s biggest city, but tends to get short shrift from tourists. Outsiders on the hunt for the usual Southwestern signatures — turquoise, adobe, intermingled cultures, blue skies, chiles — often fly into the Albuquerque International Sunport, then drive right away to Santa Fe or Taos and miss an opportunity. Albuquerque has the requisite turquoise and chiles, too, and charges less for them. But more, it has a lived-in, bustling, modernized kind of charm, with no forced quaintness. Unfreighted by tourists’ ideas of how it should look and what it should offer, it often surprises. There’s a buoyancy to the Southwest style here, and, in a not-unrelated development, probably more resident balloonists per capita than in any other city on earth.

36 Hours: Albuquerque from The New York Times

Cowboys and Indians

Tonight NewMexiKen happened upon the made for television, Canadian film Cowboys and Indians:The Killing of J.J. Harper. It’s an intriguing, informative, moving, entertaining work.

The film stars Adam Beach (Windtalkers, Smoke Signals) as J.J. Harper, and Eric Scheig (Skins, Last of the Mohicans) as his half-brother Harry Wood. The film begins with the fatal shooting by a Winnipeg constable (police officer) of tribal chairman Harper, then traces the police reaction and its ultimate unraveling under pressure from Wood and the tribe. The movie was produced in 2003; the actual events it depicts took place in 1988.

Despite having that made-for-TV look, this film is well worth seeking out. I promise you that — half way in — you will be pushing the reverse button to go back and see the action leading up to the shooting. More importantly, the movie succeeds at portraying both the Indian and police point of view with unusual understanding, and with genuine compassion for the people involved.

Feds, tribes may co-manage bison refuge

From AP via The Seattle Times:

The only federal wildlife refuge set aside to protect bison will be managed by the Interior Department and Indian tribes in an unusual partnership that conservationists fear could lead to more development of public lands.

Under an agreement signed yesterday, the department and the Confederate Salish and Kootenai Tribal Council will split budget and management duties for Montana’s 19,000-acre National Bison Range, which is within the tribal homeland on the Flathead Indian Reservation.

Training is to be provided to the tribes, which must consult a federal manager with Interior’s Fish and Wildlife Service before waiving regulations on the range. The deal takes effect in three months if Congress does not object.

The deal, negotiated over the past two years, is only the second of its kind under a 1994 law that lets tribes with a cultural, geographic or historic link to a federal refuge apply to run it.

Another history exam question

Red Ted Keeps a Diary, and authors interesting history exam questions:

The first 17 presidents of the United states were: George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, James Polk, Zachary Taylor, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson. First, rank these in order from best to worst. Second, explain why the person you rank best comes before the second person on the list. Third, explain why the person you rank worst comes after the penultimate person on the list. Note, “chocolate cake” arguments will get an instant 5 point penalty; make sure you discuss at least 4 presidents.

NewMexiKen did not know what a “chocolate cake” argument was and so asked Red Ted who tells me:

What is a chocolate cake argument?

Chocolate cake contains eggs, milk, and flour, all of which are good things; it is a perfectly reasonable breakfast food.

As you can see, I get the term from a Bill Cosby comedy routine. But, it is a serious rhetorical fallacy. If you only present a portion of the evidence, you can make an argument for almost anything …

Still the best Christmas story

The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry (William Sydney Porter), 1906.

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.
Continue reading Still the best Christmas story

A good joke, but not very practical

NewMexiKen had forgotten how much fun The Style Invitational can be. Some practical jokes that are likely to backfire:

When a colleague shows up with a new hairstyle, stare concernedly at the person’s head and ask, “Have you retained counsel?”

Load the kids in the car and tell them you’re taking them to Disneyland. Sing Disney tunes along the way. Then drive them to an abandoned parking lot and tell them it has been shut down and demolished. Blame their Sunday school teacher.

After removing your patient’s mole, tell her, “You’ll never believe what that mole really was” and hold up a dead cockroach with tweezers. After she comes to, she’ll thank you. After all, laughter is the best medicine!

When your toddler wants to push the button in the elevator, let him. As soon as he does so, scream, “Not that one! That’s the one that makes the elevator blow up!” Little kids get so excited about getting to hear a big noise.

It’s the birthday

… of Jane Austen (1775-1817). Best known for her novels about young women yearning to get married, she was never married.

… George Santayana (1863-1952). “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

… of Margaret Mead (1901-1978). “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

… and of Arthur C. Clarke (1917). Clarke’s laws:

  1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
  2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
  3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

It could be worse; they could try to explain

Poor Bob Somerby. He’s been howling that the press hasn’t been willing to explain the Social Security proposals. But now that some in the media are attempting to do so, it’s worse.

Andrews’ explanation is so incoherent that we’ve been forced to rethink our own past stand! If this is the best the press corps can do, perhaps it’s really just as well that they took that pass back in Campaign 2000.…But Andrews’ account is almost wholly incoherent.

As Somerby goes on to point out, “Bush will soon propose a major change to our most important social program. Is American democracy, in 2005, capable of holding a real discussion?”