Bottom line is, there were many who thought as Alito allegedly did, [at Princeton] nearly forty years ago now. Many. Whether they admit it or not. Given my political slant, I’m not wild about Alito. But fair’s fair. Judge him on his jurisprudence and judicial philosophy. On statements like this: “I think we should look to the text of the Constitution, and we should look to the meaning that someone would have taken from the text of the Constitution at the time of its adoption.”
Which means, I assume, the Second Amendment applies to flintlocks only.
Day: January 13, 2006
Who? Oh, her.
The following day after his wife’s anguish, how do you think Alito expressed his sympathy for her at the end of the hearing—which obviously was a grueling ordeal for her?
I’d figure he would wrap his arms around his wife and give her a reassuring hug to tell her that this was all behind them now. Maybe a kiss on the cheek and then they would file out together amidst the crowd and the cameras. How about even a knowing glance? Nope, Strip-search Sammy turned hurriedly away from his wife without acknowledging her presence and bolted for the door as fast as he could leaving her behind in his wake. Was it a possible indication that she was in her proper place after all?
NewMexiKen assumed all along that Alito’s wife was crying for the same reason any sane woman would cry: Fear that Alito will end up on the Supreme Court and help undermine a generation of gains for women’s rights.
Debtor class
On the news last night, the 2006 federal deficit was revised upward to $400 billion. But as usual, this is without the very real $200 billion or so we’re borrowing from the Social Security surplus. So the real deficit this year is now projected at $600 billion or so, nearly a quarter of the federal budget.
Got that? For every four dollars Uncle Sam is spending, three come from taxes and one is borrowed from your children. (Well, from the Chinese and Saudis, too, but it is your children whose future will be weighed down with the debt.)
What we voters need is a new slogan for this fall’s election: “No incumbent left behind”
Throw all the rascals out.
No Proof Donner Clan Were Cannibals
From a report in the Los Angeles Times:
Nudging the history books, archeologists studying one of two campsites used by the ill-fated Donner Party during a snowbound Sierra winter 160 years ago announced Thursday that a study had unearthed no physical evidence of cannibalism.
The stranded emigrants settled into two camps during the harsh winter of 1846 and ’47, and previous scientific studies confirmed cannibalism at the principal encampment, on the east shore of what is now Donner Lake.
The new findings do not conclusively prove that human flesh was ever consumed at the smaller camp — where the families of George and Jacob Donner sought refuge — but they do provide insights into their efforts to survive during four months beside Alder Creek.
“It’s possible no cannibalism took place at Alder Creek, and it’s also possible that proof simply can’t be found,” said Julie Schablitsky, a University of Oregon anthropologist. “No body doesn’t necessarily mean no crime.”
Cannibalism has long been the central focus of the Donner Party tragedy, which achieved mythic proportions as a tale of suffering and stoicism set in America’s westward expansion.
The wagon train of more than 80 emigrants was trapped in the teeth of the Sierra by winter, and half died amid starvation. Gory witness accounts by rescuers told of survivors resorting to eating human flesh.
There’s more. Bottom line, it seems the new lack of evidence is inconclusive.
Pablita Velarde
The woman who honored her own Tewa birth name Tse Tsa — Golden Dawn — by creating bright and captivating paintings died in Albuquerque at 87 on Tuesday.
Known to the world as Pablita Velarde, the Santa Clara Pueblo artist achieved international acclaim as an acutely observant traditionalist painter who managed to tell her cultural history in a variety of media even as she bent tradition to achieve her personal artistic goals.
“She really blazed a trail both for Native American and women artists by following her dream from the time she was a young girl,” said Shelby Tisdale, director of Santa Fe’s Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. “The museum has been planning an exhibition of her work for the spring featuring all her paintings from Bandelier National Monument. Now it seems more important than ever to honor her lifetime of work.”
Click image to enlarge.
A wonderful sampling of Pablita Velarde’s artwork is online.
Thanks to dangerousmeta for the pointer.
36 Hours in Silver City
People who live in Silver City like to say that their town of 10,000 offers “the real New Mexico experience.” Perched on the edge of the Gila National Forest in a high-desert wonderland of ponderosas, deep gorges and red-rock mesas, Silver City is a bit rough around the edges, especially compared with places like Santa Fe and Taos – but that’s the way the locals like it. The town was founded after silver ore was discovered in 1870, and soon transplanted Yankees built the large Victorian houses that still loom over newer structures in the historic downtown. The silver industry crashed in 1893, but the town was becoming a haven for tuberculosis patients – including Billy the Kid’s mother – because of the desert air and healing hot springs. (Billy himself passed some of his youth in Silver City.) By the 1900’s, TB patients started going there en masse. After 1910, large-scale copper mining began, and that continues to be the basis of the economy, making Silver City a place where miners, artists, ranchers and extreme sports types mix easily.
Read more on spending 36 hours in Silver City from The New York Times.
School daze
With son number three due this spring, Jill, official oldest daughter of NewMexiKen, and Byron, official husband of Jill, are calculating costs. According to their financial advisor, here are some estimates for the cost of four years of college when the boys reach that age:
University of Virginia………………$486,715
College of William and Mary……$512,956
University of Notre Dame……$1,454,963
Stanford University………………$1,599,440
NewMexiKen, official grandpa of Jill’s three sons, can only offer these four words of wisdom:
Linebacker
Quarterback
Point Guard
Happy Friday to all you triskaidekaphobiacs
Not only is today Friday the 13th, but there will be a full moon rising tonight.
(Actually the moon isn’t full until 2:48 AM Saturday MST. But it’ll look full at moonrise.)
Background on paraskevidekatriaphobia (the fear of Friday the 13th) from previous NewMexiKen entry.
It’s the birthday
… of the popular 19th-century American writer Horatio Alger Jr., born in Chelsea, Massachusetts (1832). He graduated near the top of his class at Harvard University, then spent two years in the ministry before moving to New York City and starting a career as a writer. He wrote a novel called Ragged Dick; or Street Life in New York with the Boot Blacks (1867), about a shoeshine boy who goes from rags to riches through a combination of hard work and good luck (or “luck and pluck”). The novel was a huge success. Over the next 30 years, Alger published more than a hundred successful novels using the same formula.
Two years ago The Writer’s Almanac had this:
His first novel, Ragged Dick; or Street Life in New York with the Boot Blacks, was serialized in a magazine, where it picked up more readers with every issue. When it was published in book form in 1867, it became an instant bestseller. Groucho Marx once said, “Horatio Alger’s books conveyed a powerful message to me and many of my young friends—that if you worked hard at your trade, the big chance would eventually come. As a child I didn’t regard it as a myth, and as an old man I think of it as the story of my life.”
A.B. Guthrie
… was born on this date in 1901. His The Big Sky (1946) is one of the classic works of western American literature. Its sequel, The Way West (1949), won the Pulitizer Prize for fiction in 1950.
What “The Big Sky” is: An unflinching account not only of the hardships and dangers of the 1830-1845 mountain man era, but also a glimpse into the meaning of our own existence here — the reasons why we come, the reasons why we stay. True to Guthrie’s bid for honesty, the answers aren’t always pretty.
Guthrie’s Boone Caudill is the quintessential anti-hero, a mean, moody misanthrope who heads West to escape his troubled past as well as to seek adventure and freedom. Ultimately, though, trouble follows Boone — because, after all, the one thing he can’t run away from is himself.
The theme, Guthrie wrote, is “that each man kills the thing he loves.
“If it had any originality at all, it was only that a band of men, the fur-hunters, killed the life they loved and killed it with a thoughtless prodigality perhaps unmatched.”
‘I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor; Believe me, honey, rich is better.’
Sophia Kalish was born at a farm house along the road in Russia as her mother was emigrating to America on this date in 1884. As Sophie Tucker she was one of the great stars of vaudeville, the Ziegfeld Follies and early movies. In the 1930s she brought elements of nostalgia for the early years of 20th century into her show. She was billed as “The Last of the Red Hot Mamas.” Her hearty sexual appetite was a frequent subject of her songs, unusual for female performers of the era.
In addition to her performing, Sophie Tucker was active in efforts to unionize professional actors, and was elected president of the American Federation of Actors in 1938.
From birth to age eighteen, a girl needs good parents. From eighteen to thirty-five, she needs good looks. From thirty-five to fifty-five, she needs a good personality. From fifty-five on, she needs good cash.
Sophie Tucker
[Reposted from two years ago.]
Best line of the day, last night
“Have you watched any of these confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sam Alito? Senators are given thirty minutes to question the guy; thirty minutes exactly. Senator Joe Biden’s question took 23½ minutes. His question took 24 minutes. And Alito is smart. He’s brilliant. Do you know what he said? ‘I’m sorry, could you repeat the question?'”
Jay Leno