With all the plastic signs found in hotel bathrooms about saving the planet by reusing towels, I wonder if making the signs doesn’t use more energy than washing and drying the towels.
Month: August 2009
I might be lost
What I did on my summer vacation (so far)
Update: I think they’re much cuter without Grandpa.
Idle thoughts from the American road
From the number of their trucks I saw, if I-40 didn’t exist FedEx would have to build it.
Z will do 100. That didn’t surprise me. What surprised me was how quickly it’ll go from 75 to 100.
How old do you have to be to hang your clothes on a bar across the backseat? I mean, is there some sort of legal age requirement like for buying beer or getting Medicare? I’m not THAT old yet from the looks of things, even if I had a backseat. But will we all hang our clothes like that when we get to the right age? Or will this practice die out when that generation passes?
You still see passengers with their feet on the dash even in new airbag equipped cars. What kind of injuries do you suppose those fools would sustain if the airbag inflates? Talk about hip replacement.
Idle thoughts while busy packing
I like dogs. I particularly love Jason and Nora’s dog Barkley, my furry seventh Sweetie. I think dog fighting is vile and reprehensible. But for the life of me I don’t understand why Michael Vick continues to be treated like he’s Jack the Ripper. It’s dogfighting.
Why are crazy people controlling our nation’s discussion? Why are we letting them?
There isn’t much room in a Z4 trunk. Do I really need to take shoes? Do I need both a tooth brush and a hair brush? Shall I leave the laptop at home?
Kind of Blue
Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, which was released 50 years ago today, is a nearly unique thing in music or any other creative realm: a huge hit—the best-selling jazz album of all time—and the spearhead of an artistic revolution. Everyone, even people who say they don’t like jazz, likes Kind of Blue. It’s cool, romantic, melancholic, and gorgeously melodic. But why do critics regard it as one of the best jazz albums ever made? What is it about Kind of Blue that makes it not just pleasant but important?
Fred Kaplan tells us Why Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue is so great.
The sextet consisted of Miles Davis (trumpet), John Coltrane (tenor sax), Cannonball Adderley (alto sax), Paul Chambers (bass), Jimmy Cobb (drums) and Bill Evans (piano). Wynton Kelly replaced Evans on “Freddie Freeloader.”
Everyone — every one — should own this album (if you own it, you will listen to it). It rarely costs more than $10, and you can get it from iTunes right now.
“Kind of Blue isn’t merely an artistic highlight for Miles Davis, it’s an album that towers above its peers, a record generally considered as the definitive jazz album, a universally acknowledged standard of excellence.” — allmusic
To this day Kind of Blue sells 5,000 copies a week.
The last gold rush
Before August 17, 1896, Americans had little interest in Alaska, a far off “district”—not even a territory—full of wolves and ice and forests. That attitude started to change [113] years ago today, when a Tagish Indian known as Skookum Jim spotted something shimmering among the stones in a creek near the Yukon River. The Klondike Gold Rush began as soon as news of the discovery reached the states, and between 1897 and 1899 1 in every 700 Americans abandoned home and set out for the “Golden River.”
There’s more at American Heritage, including this nugget: “At a time when workers were lucky to make 10 cents an hour, gold was worth $17 an ounce.”
Best line of the day, so far
“Facing opposition to his health care reform proposals, President Barack Obama has decided to reach out to a key demographic: morons.”
Cape Hatteras National Seashore (North Carolina)
… was authorized on this date in 1937.
Stretched over 70 miles of barrier islands, Cape Hatteras National Seashore is a fascinating combination of natural and cultural resources, and provides a wide variety of recreational opportunities. Once dubbed the “Graveyard of the Atlantic” for its treacherous currents, shoals, and storms, Cape Hatteras has a wealth of history relating to shipwrecks, lighthouses, and the U.S. Lifesaving Service. These dynamic islands provide a variety of habitats and are a valuable wintering area for migrating waterfowl. The park’s fishing and surfing are considered the best on the east coast.
It’s Electric!
Tad Friend test drives the Tesla:
But you don’t buy a hundred-and-nine-thousand-dollar electric car for its glove compartment. The first difference I noticed was the engine’s catlike purr: when I tooled through the Stanford University campus, cyclists and runners did double takes as I coasted past more softly than the wind. Then I realized that I was unusually elated, filled with an odd combination of moral increase (I’m saving the planet!) and of consumerist glee (I’m faster than a hungry cheetah!).
Zero to 60 in 3.9.
Political thought of the day
I’ll say this for George Bush: you’d never have caught him frantically negotiating against himself to take the meat out of a signature legislative initiative just because his approval ratings had a bad summer. Can you imagine Bush and Karl Rove allowing themselves to be paraded through Washington on a leash by some dimwit Republican Senator of a state with six people in it the way the Obama White House this summer is allowing Max Baucus (favorite son of the mighty state of Montana) to frog-march them to a one-term presidency?
August 17th
Maureen O’Hara is 89 today. Once voted one of the five most beautiful women in the world, Miss O’Hara is proabably best known now as Natalie Wood’s unbelieving mother in the classic Miracle on 34th Street; or perhaps as Esmeralda to Charles Laughton’s Quasimodo in the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Nobel Prize-winning author V.S. Naipaul is 77.
Robert De Niro is 66 today. De Niro has been nominated for the Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscar five times, winning for Raging Bull in 1981. He also won the Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role as the young Vito Corleone in Godfather II. De Niro’s other nominations were for Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter, Awakenings and Cape Fear.
Novelist Jonathan Franzen is 50 today. His The Corrections won the 2001 National Book Award.
Oprah chose it for her Book Club, but Franzen made several ambivalent comments about the honor in his interviews. He said, “I see this as my book, my creation, and I didn’t want that logo of corporate ownership on it,” and, “She’s picked some good books, but she’s picked enough schmaltzy, one-dimensional ones that I cringe, myself, even though I think she’s really smart and she’s really fighting the good fight.” Oprah announced that Franzen was “seemingly uncomfortable and conflicted about being chosen as a book club selection,” and for the first time ever, withdrew her invitation to an author to be part of the book club. But The Corrections was still a huge best seller and won the National Book Award.
Sean Penn is 49 today. Penn has been nominated for the Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscar five times, winning for Mystic River and Milk. Penn’s other nominations were for Dead Man Walking, Sweet and Lowdown and I Am Sam.
Football coach Jon Gruden is 46.
Davy Crockett — frontiersman, soldier, three-term congressman, restless soul — was born on this day in 1786. He died at the Alamo in on March 6, 1836. Crockett opposed the Indian Removal Act.
After seeing Mae’s jewelry the coat check girl exclaims, “Goodness, what lovely diamonds!” Mae replies, “Goodness had nothing to do with it.” That’s screen legend Mae West in Night After Night. Ms. West was born on this date in 1893.
9.58
Usain Bolt 100m 9.58 world record Berlin 2009 HD video
The Italian audio makes it even more exciting!
‘Did you know’ line of the day
“Did you know that aside from Norway and Luxembourg, the country that spends the most tax money on healthcare per capita is the United States?”
August 16th
… is the birthday of the man with the best answer to the age-old question, “What are you going to do with a degree in history?” If you’re Fess Parker, after you get that degree at the University of Texas, you play Davy Crockett in the Disney TV classic, then Daniel Boone in the television series, move to Santa Barbara and run a vineyard and resort.
And turn 85 today.
Actor Robert Culp is 79 today. He was Bill Cosby’s sidekick (or Cosby was his) in the first TV series to feature an African-American, I Spy.
Julie Newmar, Catwoman on the Batman TV series, is 76.
Frank Gifford is 79 today. Kathie Lee Gifford is 56 today.
One-time Oscar nominee for best supporting actress, Lesley Ann Warren is 63 today.
Oscar-winner James Cameron is 55. Cameron won, of course, for Titanic — writer, director, best picture.
Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone is 51.
Best actress Oscar nominee Angela Bassett is 51 today too.
Supporting actor Oscar-winner Timothy Hutton is 49.
Steve Carrell is 46.
Emily Robison of the Dixie Chicks is 37. Originally Emily Erwin (Robison is her married name), she and her sister Martie (now Maguire) founded the group with two other classmates. The other two left and the group added Natalie Maines as the lead singer in 1995.
Football coach Amos Alonzo Stagg was born on this date in 1862. Stagg, Skull and Bones at Yale, was on the first All-America team ever (1889). He coached most famously at the University of Chicago, 1892-1932. Stagg developed the man-in-motion and the lateral pass — and developed basketball as a five man game. He is in both the college football and basketball halls of fame.
Elvis Presley died 32 years ago today, he was 42. Margaret Mitchell died 60 years ago today, at age 48. Babe Ruth died 61 years ago today, he was 53. Robert Johnson died 71 years ago today, he was 27.
The first issue of Sports Illustrated was published 55 years ago.
Best redux line of the day
“I asked Ann, my wife, ‘Did you ever in your wildest dreams believe I would be running for President?’ She told me, ‘You weren’t in my wildest dreams.’”
Mitt Romney two years ago
Idle thought
Who are the rubes who yell “put it in the hole!” every time a golfer hits the ball? And why on earth do they think it’s clever?
Chillin’
For 36 out of the previous 44 days the temperature officially in Albuquerque had gotten to 90º F (once to 100º).
Yesterday the high was 79º.
Fall is in the air.
August 15th
… is Napoleon’s birthday. He was born August 15, 1769 (and died in 1821, at age 51). As an adult, Napoleon was just over 5-feet, 6-inches tall (1.686 m), about average for his countrymen at the time.
Four time Oscar nominee for best supporting actress (one win), Ethel Barrymore was born on this date in 1879.
Pulitzer-winning author Edna Ferber was born 121 years ago today. She’s known best for So Big (Pulitzer prize in 1924), Show Boat, Cimarron, Giant and Ice Palace.
T.E. Lawrence was born on this date in 1888. the third illegitimate son of the seventh Baronet of Westmeath. The Writer’s Almanac has a good brief bio, which includes this:
Lawrence had learned to speak and read Arabic, and when World War I began, he went to work for Britain’s intelligence agency. Then, in 1916, he decided to join the armed forces on the ground, to encourage Arab revolt against the ruling Ottoman Turks, who had allied with Germany for the war. He wore long robes and headcloths and his comrades did, and he led Arab tribes in guerilla warfare in the desert, blowing up railroad tracks to impede enemy transport. He led his Arab forces in a decoy mission to distract the Turkish army so that British forces were able to invade Palestine and Syria. At one point, Lawrence was captured, beaten, and raped by a Turkish governor.
He accompanied the Arab delegation to the Peace Conference in Paris, and then Winston Churchill appointed him the political advisor on the Middle East. He was 31 years old and famous all over the world.
TV chef Julia Child was born Julia McWilliams in Pasadena, California, on this date in 1912.
Wisecracking DIck Van Dyke Show co-star Rose Marie is 86.
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is 71.
Princess Anne, daughter of Queen Elizabeth, is 59.
Grace, that is, actress Debra Messing, is 41.
Ben Affleck is 37.
Pro Football Hall of Fame member Gene Upshaw was born on August 15th in 1945. Upshaw played for the Raiders, 1967-1981. (Ahh, the glory years.) Upshaw had a second career as Executive Director of the National Football League Players Association. He died last August.
The Wizard of Oz premiered 70 years ago tonight.
Today is the Feast of the Assumption, the principal feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, the feast celebrates both the “happy departure of Mary from this life” and the “assumption of her body into heaven.” That she “was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, when her earthly life was over, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things” is a principle of Catholic dogma.
Best line of this or any day
Sage advice from not quite six-year-old Sofie on how not to be stressed:
“[T]ake deep breaths, ride your scooter, eat some cake, run fast, take a bath, spend time with your kid and play a game, and then, if you are hungry, eat some cake.”
The hits keep on coming
Banks 73, 74, 75, 76 and 77 of 2009 were closed by the FDIC today.
Community Bank of Nevada
Community Bank of Arizona
Union Bank, National Association (Arizona) — first banks closed in Arizona since 2002
Colonial Bank (Alabama) — first failure in Alabama since 1992
Dwelling House Savings and Loan Association (Pennsylvania)
25 banks were closed last year. 10 were closed 2003-2007.
Idle thought
Why exactly do you think politicians and the media are lying about health care reform?
1. Because they believe their arguments will fail on the merits?
2. Health industry lobbyists are paying them to lie?
3. Lying is all they know.
4. All of the above.
Best line of the day, so far
I remember the first time Leta ever saw an episode of Sesame Street, I think she was maybe thirteen or fourteen months old. She had woken up really early one morning, and in an effort to let Jon get some sleep before heading into his office job I took her out to the living room and turned the television to one of the kid channels. And all it took was one peep out of Elmo and Leta had found religion. Thankfully it wasn’t one that required she wear pantyhose for three hours every Sunday morning.
Consumers Finally Growing Some Damned Sense, Not Buying Bottled Water
From a Consumerist article:
We think it’s more likely that a lot of consumers who buy bottled water have started to figure out that:
- It’s hugely expensive—a back of the envelope estimate puts it at 5 cents an ouce versus less than 1 cent per gallon from a municipal water supply;
- It might be loaded with bad things you don’t want to ingest, like disinfection byproducts, fertilizer residue, and pain medication;
- It has less safety oversight than plain old tap water, which is why bottlers don’t have to tell you where the water came from or what’s actually in it.
Consumerist has the links and details.
Britain Is Laughing at Us
Kathy Flake on how the British are looking down at us. These comments via Twitter; note subject is #welovethenhs (we love the [British] National Health Service).
@PG_Rule #welovethenhs Pity that US healthcare (hardly an integrated system delivering value to all stakeholders) has not a cure for myopia
@willshome Let’s get this straight: in the Bible does the Good Samaritan care for the man set upon by thieves, then sent him a bill? No. #welovetheNHS