Best line of the day, so far

“I’m covering my seventh World Cup, and love the event, but I can understand if Americans who catch a glimpse of soccer are turned off by the weasel code in which players fake grievous, perhaps even mortal, injury.”

George Vescey, The New York Times, who adds:

I’m not a big fan of American football — I get bored between downs — but I admit that the American game does not reward a player for rolling on the turf like a man possessed by evil spirits in a science-fiction flick. That’s downright unmanly, by our standards. Jim Brown used to lope stoically back to the huddle after every play because he never wanted to show pain. “You can’t hurt me,” was his attitude.

A $31 Billion Gift Between Friends

In an earlier interview with Charlie Rose, Mr. Buffett explained the role he played in Mr. Gates’s engagement in 1994 to his wife, with whom he has had three children. The couple flew into Omaha, where they met Mr. Buffett at Borsheim’s, the jeweler that Berkshire Hathaway has owned for years.

“Look, Bill, this is none of your business, but when I got married, I spent 6 percent of my net worth on the ring,” he recalled saying to Mr. Gates, who at the time had a net worth already well into the billions. “I don’t know how much you love Melinda.”

Mr. Gates can get his jabs in, too. He has said publicly that his daughter calls Mr. Buffett “the man who works at Dairy Queen,” a needle at Mr. Buffett’s oft-expressed love for the company, which he owns, and its signature product.

The New York Times

A Perfect Storm Descends on the Nation’s Capital

In the White House, only hours after that old elm had fallen, Bush was addressed by a reporter, thus: “I know that you are not planning to see Al Gore’s new movie, but do you agree with the premise that global warming is a real and significant threat to the planet?”

“I have said consistently,” answered Bush, “that global warming is a serious problem. There’s a debate over whether it’s manmade or naturally caused. We ought to get beyond that debate and start implementing the technologies necessary … to be good stewards of the environment, become less dependent on foreign sources of oil…”

The President — as far as the extensive and repeated researches of this and many other professional journalists, as well as all scientists credible on this subject, can find — is wrong on one crucial and no doubt explosive issue. When he said — as he also did a few weeks ago — that “There’s a debate over whether it’s manmade or naturally caused” … well, there really is no such debate.

At least none above what is proverbially called “the flat earth society level.”

Not one scientist of any credibility on this subject has presented any evidence for some years now that counters the massive and repeated evidence — gathered over decades and come at in dozens of ways by all kinds of professional scientists around the world — that the burning of fossil fuels is raising the world’s average temperature.

Or that counters the findings that the burning of these fuels is doing so in a way that is very dangerous for mankind, that will almost certainly bring increasingly devastating effects in the coming decades.

One small group of special interest businesses leaders — those of some fossil fuel companies — have been well documented by journalist Ross Gelbspan and others to have been fighting a PR campaign for 15 years to keep the American public confused about the wide and deep scientific consensus on this.

They’ve aimed, as Gelbspan explains, to keep us thinking that (to borrow the president’s words this morning) “There’s a debate over whether it’s manmade or naturally caused” — though no open and thorough journalism this reporter knows of can find any such thing.

Bill Blakemore, ABC News

Petroglyph National Monument (New Mexico)

… was authorized on this date in 1990.

As you walk among the petroglyphs, you are not alone. This world is alive with the sights and sounds of the high desert – a hawk spirals down from the mesa top, a roadrunner scurries into fragrant sage, a desert millipede traces waves in the sand. There is another presence beyond what we can see or hear. People who have lived along the Rio Grande for many centuries come alive again through images they carved on the shiny black rocks. These images, and associated archeological sites in the Albuquerque area, provide glimpses into a 12,000 year long story of human life in this area.

Petroglyph National Monument stretches 17 miles along Albuquerque’s West Mesa, a volcanic basalt escarpment that dominates the city’s western horizon. Authorized June 27, 1990, the 7,236 acre monument is cooperatively managed by the National Park Service and the City of Albuquerque.

Petroglyph National Monument protects a variety of cultural and natural resources including five volcanic cones, hundreds of archeological sites and an estimated 25,000 images carved by native peoples and early Spanish settlers. Many of the images are recognizable as animals, people, brands and crosses; others are more complex. Their meaning, possibly, understood only by the carver. These images are inseparable from the greater cultural landscape, from the spirits of the people who created them, and all who appreciate them.

Petroglyph National Monument is a place of respect, awe and wonderment.

Petroglyph National Monument

Pecos National Monument (New Mexico)

… was redesignated Pecos National Historical Park on this date in 1990.

Pecos preserves 12,000 years of history including the ancient pueblo of Pecos, two Spanish Colonial Missions, Santa Fe Trail sites, 20th century ranch history of Forked Lightning Ranch, and the site of the Civil War Battle of Glorieta Pass.

Pecos National Historical Park

James Smithson

… died on this date in 1829.

Smithson’s will left the bulk of his estate to his nephew, Henry James Hungerford. But should his nephew die without children—legitimate or illegitimate—a contingency clause stated that the estate would go to “the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge…”

Source: The Smithsonian Institution

The nephew did indeed die without children and in 1838 approximately $500,000 in gold was brought to the United States. After a decade of indecision and debate about how best to carry out the bequest, the Smithsonian Institution was created by Act of Congress (1846).

Here’s what that gift has led to:

• African Art Museum
• Air and Space Museum and Udvar-Hazy Center
• American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery
• American History Museum
• American Indian Museum
• Anacostia Museum (African American history and culture)
• Arts and Industries Building (Discovery Theater)
• Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum
• Freer and Sackler Galleries (Asian art)
• Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (modern and contemporary art)
• National Zoo
• Natural History Museum
• Portrait Gallery
• Postal Museum
• Smithsonian Institution Building (the Castle)

Stormy weather

That’s sunset tonight from Casa NewMexiKen after an awesome thunderstorm.

Transamerica

It seems somehow incomplete for a blogger to view a film, enjoy it, marvel at the star’s performance, and then not mention it. Yet, I feel at a loss for what to say.

Transamerica, starring Felicity Huffman (Oscar nomination) as Stanley/Sabrina/Bree, is a movie that grows on you while you watch, perhaps because Bree grows on you — as a person, not a type. Days before a final sex change operation, Bree discovers she fathered a now 17-year-old son in New York. The road trip back to Los Angeles follows (of course, on two-lane back country roads — no one in road movies ever takes the interstates) with the boy (Kevin Zegers) assuming, implausibly, that Bree is a do-gooder church lady, and not, of course, his parent, least of all his father. Ultimately, according to the formula, the secret comes out, but by then the movie has us. We realize the film is about people and families and life and not about sexuality at all.

One-time supporting-actor Oscar nominees Graham Greene and Burt Young both succeed in small roles and Fionnula Flanagan is terrific.

With Bill Gates’ plans to retire from Microsoft

… and the announcement of Warren Buffet’s $30 billion contribution to the Gates Foundation, it occurs to NewMexiKen that Bill Gates now sees Microsoft as a means rather than an ends, and that his life’s great work is yet to come.

Shortcut

… to some of the videos Bill Simmons mentions (see my previous post).

Michael Jackson’s moonwalk during Motown 25. Hard to remember what an incredibly big star Michael was 20 years ago.

The We Are the World video.

A scene from the Miami Vice pilot. So cool it was hot.

Joe Namath makes a pass — to Suzy Kolber.

And the Best of Bo Jackson. The opening Nike ad alone is awesome.

The YouTube Hall of Fame

After a decade of watching the Internet change everyone’s lives (including mine), it never ceases to amaze me. The Internet gave me a job and a career. I pay my bills online, follow stocks, buy DVDs and books, argue about the Celtics with complete strangers on a message board, send streaming video of my kid back home to my parents, get almost all my sports information, keep in touch with dozens and dozens of family members, friends, acquaintances and co-workers every week. There’s always some new way to kill time. But YouTube ranks among the greatest Internet developments ever, right up there with iTunes, Napster, free porn and e-mails with “Vegas?” in the subject heading.

With that as part of the introduction, Bill Simmons describes and links to dozens of his favorite videos on YouTube.

Go waste enjoy a couple of hours.

Dropping the F-Bomb

Joel Achenbach discusses that most special word. The essay includes this:

Liberating the word became a dubious triumph of the 1960s counterculture. At Woodstock, Country Joe and the Fish led a rousing cheer that began with “Give me an F!” and continued on through “K,” finally asking, “What’s that spell?” Now it sounds silly. Wow. They said a bad word out loud! What revolutionaries!

At death’s window

The essay by Anne Lamott begins “The man I killed did not want to die….”

Interested? Click here.

Greenland’s Ice Sheet Is Slip-Sliding Away

Excerpt from a report in the Los Angeles Times:

The Greenland ice sheet — two miles thick and broad enough to blanket an area the size of Mexico — shapes the world’s weather, matched in influence by only Antarctica in the Southern Hemisphere.

It glows like milky mother-of-pearl. The sheen of ice blends with drifts of cloud as if snowbanks are taking flight.

In its heartland, snow that fell a quarter of a million years ago is still preserved. Temperatures dip as low as 86 degrees below zero. Ground winds can top 200 mph. Along the ice edge, meltwater rivers thread into fraying brown ropes of glacial outwash, where migrating herds of caribou and musk ox graze.

The ice is so massive that its weight presses the bedrock of Greenland below sea level, so all-concealing that not until recently did scientists discover that Greenland actually might be three islands.

Should all of the ice sheet ever thaw, the meltwater could raise sea level 21 feet and swamp the world’s coastal cities, home to a billion people. It would cause higher tides, generate more powerful storm surges and, by altering ocean currents, drastically disrupt the global climate.

Climate experts have started to worry that the ice cap is disappearing in ways that computer models had not predicted.

By all accounts, the glaciers of Greenland are melting twice as fast as they were five years ago, even as the ice sheets of Antarctica — the world’s largest reservoir of fresh water — also are shrinking, researchers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of Kansas reported in February.

Key quote: “The amount of freshwater ice dumped into the Atlantic Ocean has almost tripled in a decade.”

A rather unusual Astronomy Picture of the Day

Click image to enlarge and learn more.

Thomas Jefferson Memorial (Washington, DC)

A national memorial to Thomas Jefferson was authorized on this date in 1934. It was dedicated in 1943.

Thomas Jefferson-political philosopher, architect, musician, book collector, scientist, horticulturist, diplomat, inventor, and third President of the United States-looms large in any discussion of what Americans are as a people. Jefferson left to the future not only ideas but also a great body of practical achievements. President John F. Kennedy recognized Jefferson’s accomplishments when he told a gathering of American Nobel Prize winners that they were the greatest assemblage of talent in the White House since Jefferson had dinner there alone. With his strong beliefs in the rights of man and a government derived from the people, in freedom of religion and the separation between church and state, and in education available to all. Thomas Jefferson struck a chord for human liberty 200 years ago that resounds through the decades. But in the end, Jefferson’s own appraisal of his life, and the one that he wrote for use on his own tombstone, suffices: “Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia.”

Thomas Jefferson Memorial (National Park Service)

 
 
Some fortunate wedding parties are able to have photos taken at the Jefferson Memorial among architect John Russell Pope’s beautiful columns and curves.
 
 

President Kennedy

… uttered his famous words “Ich bin ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner) on this date in 1963. As The New York Times put it at the time:

President Kennedy, inspired by a tumultuous welcome from more than a million of the inhabitants of this isolated and divided city, declared today he was proud to be “a Berliner.”

He said his claim to being a Berliner was based on the fact that “all free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin.”

Good news from Nora: Avon Walk 2006

Long-term readers may remember an item about Nora back in February telling of her participation as a crew member in the Denver Avon Walk 2006. The walk was this weekend and Nora has reported:

“I wanted to share the photos from my Avon Walk with you. Because of your generous donation to my walk, I was the #2 donor on the Denver Crew team. Your support means a lot to me (and to thousands of people affected by breast cancer).”

Pictures and more from Nora.

Why is it?

Why is it that the Baby Einstein series of videos, CDs and toys is so popular? Einstein himself didn’t talk until he was three and was never considered gifted (as a child).

At the World Cup

… everyone has a bad hair day.

You can’t take it with you

From Fortune Magazine:

[Warren] Buffett has pledged to gradually give 85% of his Berkshire stock to five foundations. A dominant five-sixths of the shares will go to the world’s largest philanthropic organization, the $30 billion Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, whose principals are close friends of Buffett’s (a connection that began in 1991, when a mutual friend introduced Buffett and Bill Gates).

At the current Berkshire stock value, Buffet, 75, plans to give away $37 billion, the largest philanthropic gift ever. In reality it may prove to be even more, as he is planning to give 5% of his current holdings each year — the total cash value of his holdings could well appreciate more than that annually.

Best line of the day, so far

“Like many people, I’d been on the fence about seeing it, mostly because I almost prefer to remain unaware of horrible things beyond my control.”

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, who goes on to say, “I was wrong on two counts. ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ while terrifying, is not depressing. It is a celebration of our planet … I was also wrong to think global warming is beyond my control.”

Using the ole noggin’

England’s David Beckham who bent it like only he can vs. Ecuador Sunday.

Photo: Reuters

The battle at Little Bighorn

… took place 130 years ago today. Dee Brown wrote the following for The Reader’s Companion to American History:

In 1876, under command of Gen. Alfred Terry, Custer led the Seventh Cavalry as one force in a three-pronged campaign against Sitting Bull’s alliance of Sioux and Cheyenne camps in Montana. During the morning of June 25, Custer’s scouts reported spotting smoke from cooking fires and other signs of Indians in the valley of the Little Bighorn. Disregarding Terry’s orders, Custer decided to attack before infantry and other support arrived. Although scouts warned that he was facing superior numbers (perhaps 2,500 warriors), Custer divided his regiment of 647 men, ordering Capt. Frederick Benteen’s battalion to scout along a ridge to the left and sending Maj. Marcus Reno’s battalion up the valley of the Little Bighorn to attack the Indian encampment. With the remainder of the regiment, Custer continued along high ground on the right side of the valley. In the resulting battle, he and about 250 of his men, outnumbered by the warriors of Crazy Horse and Gall, were surrounded and annihilated. Reno and Benteen suffered heavy casualties but managed to escape to a defensive position.

Evan S. Connell’s Son of the Morning Star is generally regarded as the finest book on the battle; indeed, one of the finest on western American history. James Welch’s Killing Custer tells the story more from the Indian perspective.

Landscape photo credit: Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. Custer marker photo: NewMexiKen 1995.

Little Bighorn

The battle at Little Big Horn took place 130 years ago today.

Lt. Col. Custer made two errors of judgment that day. He acted without good intelligence and he divided his force.

By George, some commanders still do that.

I don’t get it

Fully one-quarter of the total time is remaining in the Argentina-Mexico soccer match and, with the score tied 1-1, the commenter on ESPN.com (the gamecast) says, “This is starting to look like it will go to extra time.”

Is there any other major sport where things seem so determined so early? Football teams rarely give up even if they are down by 17 at the start of the fourth quarter. Good basketball teams will fight back down six with 30 seconds to play. These too are uphill battles. Can someone explain the game psychology of soccer that seems to determine that similar comeback efforts are futile, even if only behind by one goal at half-time? This seems particularly strange in a sport where possession can change at any moment and a score takes just seconds.

Update: The game did, of course, go to extra time (overtime).

World Cup Tickets

Tickets still available. Check out the prices.

Land ho!

On this date in 1497, the Italian Giovanni Caboto, sailing for the English as John Cabot, made landfall. He and his English crew were the first reported Europeans to see North America. (Leiv Eiriksson had been in the area nearly 500 years previously, but left no record.)

Cabot’s own log and maps, if he had them, have never been located, and scholars have debated his route. He may have landed first in Labrador or Newfoundland or even Nova Scotia.

Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage has a good presentation.

American History Through the Eyes and the Letters of the People

The New York Times reviews a new exhibit at the National Archives in Washington. An excerpt:

Ms. Bredhoff has avoided letting this exhibition settle into chronological or thematic or political predictability. Thomas Jefferson’s letter to John Jay, United States Secretary of Foreign Affairs, reporting on the storming of the Bastille in Paris in 1789 — with its description of royalty consumed by rumor, and street mobs consumed by passions — is followed by the testimony of a Rochester election official who describes Susan B. Anthony demanding that she be registered to vote in 1872.

A letter from George Washington in 1775, worrying that the British might have deliberately sent smallpox-infected carriers into the ranks of American troops, is not far from where the 1937 voice of the radio broadcaster Herb Morrison can be heard, sounding as fiery, hysterical and consumed as the gas explosion he describes, which was engulfing the Hindenburg.

Events take on a different character, depending on how they are depicted. Lincoln’s assassination is seen through the eyes of his family physician, Dr. Robert King Stone, who finds a bullet hole on the back left side of the head, a hole “into which I carried immediately my finger.”

Jack Dempsey

… was born on this date in 1895 in Manassa, Colorado, which makes him about the most famous native-son of the San Luis Valley. As Red Smith wrote in Dempsey’s obituary for The New York Times in 1983:

Jack Dempsey was one of the last of a dwindling company whose exploits distinguished the 1920’s as ”the golden age of sports.” His contemporaries were Babe Ruth in baseball, Red Grange and the Four Horsemen of Notre Dame in football, Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen in golf, Bill Tilden, Helen Wills Moody and Suzanne Lenglen in tennis, Johnny Weissmuller and Gertrude Ederle in swimming, Paavo Nurmi in track, Man o’ War, the racehorse, and Earl Sande, the jockey. But none of the others enjoyed more lasting popularity than the man who ruled boxing between 1919 and 1926.

The obituary is worth reading.