Day: September 9, 2008

I Do Kind of Like That Sarah Palin

Well, anyway, everybody’s out there campaigning. And today, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Sen. John McCain was there with Sarah Palin. And they were having lunch at a diner, and I thought this was so sweet. She was cutting his meat for him.

McCain was sitting there at the counter, wearing his Diamondbacks baseball cap, muttering about hippies.

John McCain is old. In fact, he is so old that his blood type has been discontinued.

I do kind of like that Sarah Palin. She looks like the flight attendant who won’t give you a second can of Pepsi. “No, you’ve had enough. We’re landing.”

Sarah Palin looks like the waitress at the coffee shop who draws a little smiley face on your check.

— David Letterman

Today, Barack Obama took his daughters to their first day of school, which was sweet. And in a related story, John McCain took his daughters to pick up their Social Security checks.”

Experts say that since Sarah Palin became the vice presidential nominee, there’s been an actual spike in the sales of her style of eyeglasses. … Yeah, with Palin’s glasses, you’ll be able to see everything, except what the hell your teenage daughter’s up to.

— Conan O’Brien

Nine Nine

Cliff Robertson is 85. Robertson won the best acting Oscar in 1969 for Charly. Most recently he has played Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben.

Joe Theismann is 59. Allegedly his name was pronounced Thees-man until he went to Notre Dame and they realized that Thighs-man rhymed with Heisman (as in the Trophy). No, really. (Theismann was runner-up to Jim Plunkett of Stanford for the Heisman in 1970.) NewMexiKen was at RFK that Monday night in 1985 when Lawrence Taylor broke Theismann’s leg.

Once-upon-a-time child star Angela Cartwright is 56.

Hugh Grant is 48. Is it just me, or do he and Phil Mickelson have the same goofy look?

Adam Sandler turns 42 today.

Best supporting actress nominee for Brokeback Mountain, Michelle Williams is 28.

Otis Redding was born on this date in 1941.

Though his career was relatively brief, cut short by a tragic plane crash, Otis Redding was a singer of such commanding stature that to this day he embodies the essence of soul music in its purist form. His name is synonymous with the term soul, music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of funky, secular testifying. Redding left behind a legacy of recordings made during the four-year period from his first sessions for Stax/Volt Records in 1963 until his death in 1967. Ironically, although he consistently impacted the R&B charts beginning with the Top Ten appearance of “Mr. Pitiful” in 1965, none of his singles fared better than #21 on the pop Top Forty until the posthumous release of “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay.” That landmark song, recorded just four days before Redding’s death, went to #1 and stayed there for four weeks in early 1968.

— Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Redding wrote the song known as Aretha Franklin’s signature hit, “Respect.”

Try a Little Tenderness

California and the Compromise of 1850

California was admitted to the Union as the 31st state on this date in 1850.

Admission of California as a free state (that is, no slavery) was the first in the series of five measures known as the Compromise of 1850.

The second measure organized the New Mexico Territory (which included present-day Arizona), settled the Texas-New Mexico boundary, and paid Texas $10 million to abandon its claims in New Mexico (everything east of the Rio Grande). The act also stated: “That, when admitted as a State, the said territory, or any portion of the same, shall be received into the Union, with or without slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission.” In other words, slavery in New Mexico would be decided by the people of New Mexico. This became known as “popular sovereignty.”

The third measure was the organization of the Utah Territory (which included Nevada and western Colorado) with an identical provision about slavery.

The fourth was a revised Fugitive Slave Act, amending the law passed in 1793. This act set up commissioners authorized to issue warrants for fugitives and order their return. The commissioners were to receive $10 when the person apprehended was a fugitive slave. They were to receive $5 when they decided he/she was a free person. Fugitives claiming to be freedmen were denied a trial by jury and their testimony was not to be evidence in any of the proceedings under the law. Citizens aiding fugitives could be fined or imprisoned.

The fifth measure was the abolition of the slave trade (but not slavery) in the District of Columbia.

Like most political compromises, there was more for each side to dislike than to like. Slave states disliked California’s admission as a free state. And they disliked the end of the slave trade in D.C., not because it was important but because it demonstrated federal power over any aspect of slavery. Many northerners objected to the Fugitive Slave Act; and many violated it.

And, of course, slavery in the territories became the prime issue of the 1850s, the election of 1860, and coming of the Civil War.