One Wild Night at the Zoo

NewMexiKen and Donna spent a too warm but otherwise delightful evening at the Rio Grande Zoo Saturday. It was the first “One Wild Night at the Zoo” with nine different bands at times at seven different venues — plus we got to say hi to the momma giraffes.

The featured artist was country singer and Grammy-winner Kathy Mattea, who put on a wonderful show. I always judge how I feel about an entertainer if I think to myself, I want to see him/her again. Ms. Mattea certainly made the grade. Her voice is wonderful, the band terrific, her repartee with the audience seemingly genuine.

At one point Mattea quoted a friend who told her, “Music isn’t meant to be exchanged on pieces of plastic. It’s meant to be a shared experience.” (Paraphrased.) Ms. Mattea did everything she could last evening to live up to that idea.

Unfortunately, at these zoo concerts, there are any number of people who come to visit and not to listen. One guy near me never even turned his folding chair toward the stage. Others picked up their volume whenever the performer picked up hers. I try and be live-and-let-live, but there were moments when I wished I hadn’t sold Dad’s revolver.

Further, the major walkway near the zoo band shell is directly in front of the stage. Throughout the concert, whether a rocking number or a ballad, there is a constant stream of people walking across the sight lines between the performer and the audience. The zoo should find a better way before next summer.

Wow, who could have predicted this?

Race in a presidential campaign. Just imagine.

Negative ads by people who can’t win on the issues. Just imagine.

The media reporting its own allegations as if once alleged they’re real. Just imagine.

Seriously, is anyone actually surprised about this?

Does anyone really think Obama actually has a chance?

Just another rant

As I’ve mentioned, NewMexiKen replaced Comcast internet with Qwest, which works about the same and is $12 a month cheaper.

Because Comcast charges in advance, they owed me a partial month’s refund. Today, twelve days after I ended the service they sent me an email notice that my new “bill” is ready. It reads:

“Your Aug 1, 2008 Comcast billing statement is ready for viewing. To view your bill, go to http://www.comcast.com/payonline . Enter your User Name and Password, and from the next screen select GO from the VIEW YOUR BILL option.”

So, eager to see how much they are refunding, I go to the Comcast site — I never use the link in the email, but always enter with the URL. I attempt to login in and, of course, I learn that my account is closed and no longer available.

I’m back to what I said nine days ago, “that utilities have the most confusing and often faulty websites.” Is there no one at Comcast who bothered to think that all those people who do as they ask and get their bills electronically, might need access to their final bill and just maybe Comcast should maintain an account online for at least 30 days after it closes?

For that matter, is there no one at Comcast that bothers to think about its customers at all?

Casa Grande Ruins National Monument (Arizona)

… was designated such by President Wilson on this date in 1918.

For over a thousand years, prehistoric farmers inhabited much of the present-day state of Arizona. When the first Europeans arrived, all that remained of this ancient culture were the ruins of villages, irrigation canals and various artifacts. Among these ruins is the Casa Grande, or “Big House,” one of the largest and most mysterious prehistoric structures ever built in North America. Casa Grande Ruins, the nation’s first archeological preserve, protects the Casa Grande and other archeological sites within its boundaries.

Casa Grande Ruins National Monument

Those Europeans, by the way, began heading this way 516 years ago today, when Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain.

Workers of the world unite — oh, except for you government workers

The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) walked off their jobs with the Federal Aviation Administration 27 years ago today. President Reagan threatened to fire the controllers if they didn’t return within 48 hours. Other unions failed to support PATCO. And so began the end of the labor movement in the United States.

Reagan fired 11,345 striking air traffic controllers.

August thirdth is the birthday

… of author P.D. James. Phyllis Dorothy James is 88.

… of Tony Bennett. He’s 82.

… of Martin Sheen, 68. Sheen won one Golden Globe for West Wing, but no Emmys. He did win an Emmy once for a guest role on Murphy Brown.

… of Martha Stewart, 67.

… of hockey hall-of-famer Marcel Dionne and of Jay North (TV’s Dennis the Menace). They’re 57.

… of Randy Scruggs, 55.

… of quarterback Tom Brady, 31.

… of Evangeline Lilly, 29 today. Maybe now she can be found.

Ernie Pyle was born on this date in 1900. Until he was killed by enemy fire in April 1945, Pyle “blogged” World War II for millions of Americans.

From The New York Times obituary.

Ernie Pyle was haunted all his life by an obsession. He said over and over again, “I suffer agony in anticipation of meeting people for fear they won’t like me.”

No man could have been less justified in such a fear. Word of Pyle’s death started tears in the eyes of millions, from the White House to the poorest dwellings in the country.

President Truman and Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt followed his writings as avidly as any farmer’s wife or city tenement mother with sons in service.

Mrs. Roosevelt once wrote in her column “I have read everything he has sent from overseas,” and recommended his writings to all Americans.

For three years these writings had entered some 14,000,000 homes almost as personal letters from the front. Soldiers’ kin prayed for Ernie Pyle as they prayed for their own sons.

NewMexiKen has before posted this quote from Pyle, but why not do so again on his birthday, and because there’s no place like home.

Yes, there are lots of nice places in the world. I could live with considerable pleasure in the Pacific Northwest, or in New England, on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, or in Key West or California or Honolulu. But there is only one of me, and I can’t live in all those places. So if we can have only one house — and that’s all we want — then it has to be in New Mexico, and preferably right at the edge of Albuquerque where it is now. Ernie Pyle, January 1942

Pyle’s home on Girard SE is now a branch of the Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Library System.

Is it time to yell “fire” in our crowded theater?

If your oldest child is seven, the window slams shut before he or she will be old enough for a driver’s license. If your first grandchild was born this year, cherish your posterity: that grandchild’s likely to be the last of your line. Unless….unless we force action now and over the next 100 months.

The Window Before Climate Change Closes Down Our Kids’ Future: 100 Months, Or Less?

Here’s why:

The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere today, the most prevalent greenhouse gas, is the highest it has been for the past 650,000 years. In the space of just 250 years, as a result of the coal-fired Industrial Revolution, and changes to land use such as the growth of cities and the felling of forests, we have released, cumulatively, more than 1,800bn tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. Currently, approximately 1,000 tonnes of CO2 are released into the Earth’s atmosphere every second, due to human activity. Greenhouse gases trap incoming solar radiation, warming the atmosphere. When these gases accumulate beyond a certain level - often termed a “tipping point” - global warming will accelerate, potentially beyond control.

Andrew Simms | The Guardian

It’s a simple equation. There’s this much CO2 in the atmosphere. We add this much more each day. At some point it reaches the tipping point.

There is no credible debate about this among those who study the problem. The debate is when and how bad it becomes. The serious scientists keeping sending stronger and more frightening alarms while we dither.

The carbon industries, and their political cronies, are keeping the sense of doubt alive by getting the media to act as if the question about CO2 was still being debated.

There is, of course, only one time when it is OK to yell fire in a crowded theater — when the theater is on fire.