Isn’t a high-ranking official of the FBI leaking information to the press about an ongoing investigation some sort of crime? Or does merely confirming already established facts (as we were told Deep Throat did) mitigate the wrongdoing?
“Bottom line, it’s Jeb’s race to lose. We are, after all, a hereditary monarchy.”
Joel Achenbach at the end of a good blog item about Hilary Clinton and John McCain.
NewMexiKen managed to take 56 out-of-focus photographs this morning of the new Sweetie, his parents and sister. Funny how not checking to make certain the lever was on Automatic Focus can turn a simple task into a frustrating nightmare.
Fortunately others, wiser than I, were present.
Grandpa has a brand new Sweetie this morning — Alexander James, the son of Emily, official younger daughter of NewMexiKen, and her husband Rob.
Baby and mother are fine.
Photo taken by Auntie Jill when A.J. was about 50 minutes old.
From Ed Bott:
Last month, I wrote about Sen. Rick Santorum’s bill to prevent the National Weather Service from freely sharing information it collects with the public. The beneficiary in this scheme would be private companies like AccuWeather, which just happens to be based in Santorum’s home state.
Today comes news that the timing of the bill was, shall we say, interesting:
Two days before Sen. Rick Santorum introduced a bill that critics say would restrict the National Weather Service, his political action committee received a $2,000 donation from the chief executive of AccuWeather Inc., a leading provider of weather data.Asked about the connection, the Senator replied: “I don’t think there’s any coincidence between the two.”
A refreshing, although almost certainly accidental, bit of truth-telling.
“Actually there’s a lot of talk that if Michael [Jackson] is acquitted, he will be leaving the country. Or as he calls it, he’s being transferred to another parish.”
Jay Leno
was established on this date in 1923. From the National Park Service:
Pipe Spring National Monument, a little known gem of the National Park System, is rich with American Indian, early explorer and Mormon pioneer history. The water of Pipe Spring has made it possible for plants, animals, and people to live in this dry, desert region. Ancestral Puebloans and Kaibab Paiute Indians gathered grass seeds, hunted animals, and raised crops near the springs for at least 1,000 years. In the 1860s Mormon pioneers brought cattle to the area and by 1872 a fort (Winsor Castle) was built over the main spring and a large cattle ranching operation was established. This isolated outpost served as a way station for people traveling across the Arizona Strip, that part of Arizona separated from the rest of the state by the Grand Canyon. It also served as a refuge for polygamist wives during the 1880s and 1890s. Although their way of life was greatly impacted, the Paiute Indians continued to live in the area and by 1907 the Kaibab Paiute Indian Reservation was established, surrounding the privately owned Pipe Spring ranch. In 1923 the Pipe Spring ranch was purchased and set aside as a national monument.
Clint Eastwood is 75 today.
Peter Yarrow, the Peter of Peter, Paul and Mary, and the author of “Puff the Magic Dragon,” is 67.
Joe Namath is 62.
Walt Whitman, American poet, journalist, and essayist, was born on May 31, 1819, in West Hills, New York. His verse collection Leaves of Grass is a landmark in the history of American literature.
Whitman grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and at age 12 began to learn the printing trade. Over time he moved from printing to teaching to journalism, becoming the editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1846. He began experimenting with a new form of poetry, revolutionary at the time, free of a regular rhythm or rhyme scheme that has come to be known as ‘free verse.’ In 1855, Whitman published, anonymously and at his own expense, the first edition of Leaves of Grass. Revolutionary too was the content of his poems celebrating the human body and the common man. Whitman would spend the rest of his life revising and enlarging Leaves of Grass; the ninth edition appeared in 1892, the year of his death.
The chief economist for the Mortgage Bankers Assn. is worried enough about the torrid housing market to get out of it.
“I’m going to rent for a while,” said Douglas Duncan, who expects “significant reversals” in regions that have enjoyed strong home price appreciation, including Washington, D.C., Florida and California. He plans to sell his suburban Washington home, which has tripled in value since he bought it a dozen years ago, and move into an apartment.
Duncan is among a multitude of experts and consumers across the country debating the possibility of a housing bubble — a condition where prices have risen so far out of hand that they eventually crash.
From a report in the Los Angeles Times:
Tucked away in the 96-page emergency military spending bill signed by President Bush this month are four paragraphs that give energy companies the right to explore for oil and gas inside a sprawling national park.
The amendment written by Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) codifies Mississippi’s claim to mineral rights under federal lands and allows drilling for natural gas under the Gulf Islands National Seashore — a thin necklace of barrier islands that drapes the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico.
As a preliminary step to drilling, the rider permits seismic testing, which involves detonating sound-wave explosions to locate oil and gas deposits in the park. Two of the five Mississippi islands are wilderness areas, and the environs are home to federally protected fish and birds, a large array of sea turtles and the gulf’s largest concentration of bottlenose dolphins.
The legislation marks the first time the federal government has sanctioned seismic exploration on national park property designated as wilderness — which carries with it the highest level of protection.
Jeanne d’Arc was burned at the stake on this date in 1431. She was 19 years-old.
was born on this date in 1909. Goodman was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants who thought that music might be a way out of poverty. His older brothers were given a tuba and a trombone but — just 10 — Benjamin was given a clarinet. He learned to play at a synagogue and then with a Jane Hull House band. By 16, he was in the Ben Pollack Orchestra; by 19, Goodman was making solo recordings.
In 1934, Goodman put together his own band and they played on a live NBC radio program “Let’s Dance” during the late hours in New York. It was not until the band played before a live audience at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles that it found its fans — because of the time difference, the Goodman band that was on so late in the east was heard during prime dancing time on the west coast. (It’s a good scene in the 1955 film The Benny Goodman Story.) Some date the beginning of the Swing Era to that August 21, 1935, appearance in Los Angeles.
On January 16, 1938, Goodman brought jazz to Carnegie Hall. This great concert was recorded (with one microphone), but the original disk was lost. In 1950, Goodman discovered a copy in a closet. It quickly became a best-selling record and the CD is an absolute essential.
But NewMexiKen’s favorite Benny Goodman appearance was on December 30, 1966, at the Tropicana in Las Vegas. That’s because I was there.
(Originally posted by NewMexiKen on May 30, 2004)
The front, facing the Capitol.
The atrium.
Among the many sculptures of Indian artist Allan Houser.
Perhaps some knowledgeable reader can tell NewMexiKen what these flowers with the striking blue color are. They were found along the walkway to the Panda Pavilion at the National Zoo.
NewMexiKen has often wondered whether we’d have the national museums if James Smithson hadn’t bequeathed his estate “to the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase & diffusion of knowledge among men.”
That’s the Smithsonian Institution Building, popularly called The Castle, designed by James Renwick Jr. and completed in 1855. The statue in front is of Joseph Henry, the first director.
Photo taken Sunday evening.
Ever since Janet Guthrie became the first woman to qualify for the Indianapolis 500 in 1977, the story line for women at Indianapolis Motor Speedway has been how she, Lyn St. James and Sarah Fisher made the starting field — not about their chances to win.
Danica Patrick has changed that.
America’s newest racing find, a 23-year-old rookie driver from Roscoe, Ill., earned her place among the favorites for the May 29 race last Sunday when she qualified fourth — and came within a bobble of winning the pole for the 89th running of the 500.
She might seem too tiny — barely 5 feet 2 and 100 pounds — but she knows how to control a 650-horsepower machine at speeds up to 230 mph around a 2 1/2 -mile race track as well as any man here.
She will start fourth in the 500, right behind pole-sitter Tony Kanaan, last year’s Indy Racing League champion, but in her mind she should be on the pole. A sideways twitch in one of former winner Bobby Rahal’s cars as she entered the first turn of a four-lap qualifying attempt made the difference between her time of 2 minutes 38.5875 seconds and Kanaan’s 2:38.1961 for 10 miles.
Rhode Island ratified the Constitution on this date in 1790, thereby becoming the 13th state.
Wisconsin entered the Union as the 30th state on this date in 1848.
John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States, was born on this date 88 years ago (1917).
Annette Benning is 47. Melissa Etheridge is 44.
From BBC News:
Scientists say they have located the parts of the brain that comprehend sarcasm - honestly.
By comparing healthy people and those with damage to different parts of the brain, they found the front of the brain was key to understanding sarcasm.
A part of NewMexiKen’s brain that remains dangerously unshrunk.
From New Scientist:
It doesn’t matter how brainy you are or how much education you’ve had - you can still improve and expand your mind. Boosting your mental faculties doesn’t have to mean studying hard or becoming a reclusive book worm. There are lots of tricks, techniques and habits, as well as changes to your lifestyle, diet and behaviour that can help you flex your grey matter and get the best out of your brain cells. And here are 11 of them.
NewMexiKen’s brain has shrunk so much from stress and depression that there’s no hope for me, but maybe it isn’t too late for you laid back, happy people.
were born in Corbeil, Ontario, Canada, 71 years ago today. Together, the five girls, at least two months premature, weighed about 14 pounds. They were put by an open stove to keep warm, and mothers from surrounding villages brought breast milk for them. Against all expectations, they survived their first weeks. Watch video.
According to the CBC:
When the quints are still babies, the Ontario government takes the sisters from their parents, apparently to protect their fragile health, and makes the girls wards of the state. For the first nine years of their lives, they live at a hospital in their hometown that becomes a tourist mecca called “Quintland.” The Ministry of Public Welfare sets up a trust fund in their behalf with assurances that the financial well-being of the entire Dionne family would be taken care of “for all their normal needs for the rest of their lives.”
Between 1934 and 1943, about 3 million people visit Quintland. The government and nearby businesses make an estimated half-billion dollars off the tourists, much of which the Dionne family never sees. The sisters are the nation’s biggest tourist attraction — bigger than Niagara Falls.
After nine years and a bitter custody fight, the girls rejoined their family.
There is still a mystery surrounding what happened to the money the Ontario government placed in a trust fund for the quints, though it’s believed that most of the funds went to pay for the many employees of “Quintland.”
In 1998 the surviving quints were awarded $4 million by Ontario.
Emilie died in 1954, Marie in 1970 and Yvonne in 2001. Annette and Cecile live near Montreal.
NewMexiKen has a vague memory of seeing the Dionne quints on display (so to speak) at the Michigan State Fair when I was a little kid. Perhaps only four were there, depending on when it was.
HILLSBOROUGH, N.C. - After 35 years in prison for stealing a black-and-white television set, Junior Allen is a free man.
Allen, 65, walked out of prison Friday, ending a case that attracted widespread attention because he remained in jail while other inmates convicted of murder, rape or child molestation were released.
“I’m glad to be out,” Allen told supporters outside Orange Correctional Center. “I’ve done too much time for what I did. I won’t be truly happy until I see a sign that says I’m outside of North Carolina.”
Allen was a 30-year-old migrant farm worker from Georgia with a criminal history that included burglaries and a violent assault when he sneaked into an unlocked house and stole a 19-inch black-and-white television worth $140.
Some state records say Allen roughed up the 87-year-old woman who lived there, but he was not convicted of assault.
Instead, he was sentenced in 1970 to life in prison for second-degree burglary. The penalty for the offense has since been changed to a maximum of three years in prison.
Why Do They Hate Us? by Mark Fiore. [Video animated cartoon]
Dana Stevens at Slate takes a look at Empire Falls so maybe we won’t have to. The review is titled “A River Runs (Very Slowly) Through It - Empire Falls is a genteel, beautifully acted bore,” and begins:
Now that sweeps month is over and the big network shows have had their season finales, the quality-TV baton passes back to the cable networks. Empire Falls, a nearly four-hour-long adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Richard Russo, premieres this weekend in two parts on HBO (Saturday and Sunday at 9 p.m. ET). Directed by Fred “A dingo ate my baby” Schepisi, Empire Falls is one of those HBO prestige projects, like last year’s Angels in America or The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, that movie actors have been jostling each other to be cast in (perhaps in part because the shooting and promotion schedules for television are less punishing).
The cast list is as crammed full of goodies as a gift bag at an A-list Hollywood party: Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Ed Harris, Helen Hunt, Aidan Quinn, Philip Seymour Hoffmann … and that’s just in the major roles. Every crossing guard in this movie seems to be played by a well-known and gifted actor, including Estelle Parsons as a crusty bartender and the wondrous Teresa Russell, too long absent from the screen, as a sexy waitress. Yet despite a half dozen near-perfect performances, Empire Falls never quite catches fire, perhaps because it’s scripted by Richard Russo himself, who makes the fatal mistake of turning great swaths of his 500-page novel into a third-person voice-over narration.
isn’t until Monday (coinciding this year with May 30, the date on which the holiday was long celebrated), but NewMexiKen thought some history of the day might be in order. This from the Library of Congress:
In 1868, Commander in Chief John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic issued General Order Number 11 designating May 30 as a memorial day “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.”
The first national celebration of the holiday took place May 30, 1868 at Arlington National Cemetery, where both Confederate and Union soldiers were buried. Originally known as Decoration Day, at the turn of the century it was designated as Memorial Day. In many American towns, the day is celebrated with a parade. …
In 1971, federal law changed the observance of the holiday to the last Monday in May and extended it to honor all soldiers who died in American wars. A few states continue to celebrate Memorial Day on May 30.
Today, national observance of the holiday still takes place at Arlington National Cemetery with the placing of a wreath on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the decoration of each grave with a small American flag.
is 60 today. Fogerty was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993 with Creedence Clearwater Revival.
“In 1968, I always used to say that I wanted to make records they would still play on the radio in ten years,” John Fogerty, former leader of Creedence Clearwater Revival, said on the eve of their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In retrospect, Fogerty got all he wished for and more. Three decades later, Creedence’s songs - including “Proud Mary,” “Born on the Bayou,” “Bad Moon Rising,” and “Green River” - endure as timeless rock and roll classics. Under Fogerty’s tutelage, Creedence Clearwater Revival defined the spirit and sound of rock and roll as authentically as any American group ever has.
CCR’s cover of “I Heard It Through the Grape Vine” isn’t too bad either.
In his great book The Heart of Rock & Soul, Dave Marsh tells us:
Creedence Clearwater started out in the late fifties as just another Northern California high school band, formed by Fogerty, his brother Tom, and a couple of friends, Stu Cook and Doug Clifford. (They were called, among other things, the Blue Velvets and the Golliwogs.) They got a chance at recording for Fantasy, basically a jazz label, only because it happened to be in the neighborhood and the boys had found jobs in the warehouse. They got the kind of record deal you’d expect from that situation, one in which the label not only didn’t have to pay much in royalties but also controlled their song publishing rights.
Somewhere along the way, out of their own avarice and some bad judgment, Creedence was convinced to invest its royalties in an offshore banking tax dodge. Several Fantasy executives also poured money into the scam. Unfortunately, the bank they chose was a Bahamian shell called the Castle Bank, which went down in one of the great financial swindles of the century, leaving Creedence short more than $3 million and with huge overdue payments to the IRS (which stepped in for its bite once the scheme crashed).
Bitter, John Fogerty sued everybody including Fantasy. For the best part of a decade, he litigated but made no music. Meantime, his songs and records continued to generate huge income for Fantasy (which took its profits and produced, among other things, the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest).
Fogerty was still pissed when he finally made another record, Centerfield, in 1985. The final track on each side was an unmistakable slug at Fantasy owner Saul Zaentz: “Mr. Greed” and “Zanz Kant Danz.” Zaentz, apparently feeling as vindictive as Fogerty, sued for libel, asking $142 million damages, then charged Fogerty with infringing on a Fantasy copyright-”Run Through the Jungle.”
Centerfield’s first track, and its first single, was “The Old Man Down the Road.” Everybody who heard it remarked on its amazing similarity to “Run Through the Jungle.” And so Fantasy sued Fogerty for royalties plus damages for plagiarizing his own song!
Amazingly enough, the case actually went to trial and in the fall of 1988, John Fogerty spent two days on the witness stand with a guitar on his lap, explaining “swamp rock” and its limitations to a jury. Pressed about the similarity between the two songs, he finally snapped, “Yeah, I did use that half-step. What do you want me to do, get an inoculation?”
Even if Fantasy did, the jury didn’t. They acquitted him in early November 1988, and, having proven his skills in running through the modern jungle, John Fogerty went back to making his new record. Which he vowed would sound not approximately but exactly like Creedence.
************
Well, I spent some time in the mudville nine, watchin’ it from the bench;
You know I took some lumps when the mighty casey struck out.
So say hey willie, tell ty cobb and joe dimaggio;
Don’t say “it ain’t so”, you know the time is now.
Oh, put me in, coach - I’m ready to play today;
Put me in, coach - I’m ready to play today;
Look at me, I can be centerfield.
[Originally posted by NewMexiKen on May 28, 2004 — age updated.]
was born on this date in 1907. As John Wayne he won a Best Actor Oscar for True Grit. He was nominated for the same award 20 years earlier, but did not win for Sands of Iwo Jima. Wayne had the lead in 142 films (all but 11 he was in). He died in 1979.
(Morrison was named Marion Robert Morrison when he was born. His middle name was changed by his parents to Michael — or possibly Mitchell — when his brother Robert was born.)
“Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Antonin Scalia, and Chief Justice William Rehnquist would never have served on the U. S. Supreme Court if this agreement had been in place during their confirmations.”
James C. Dobson, Ph.D., Focus on the Family Action, commenting on the compromise in the U.S. Senate earlier this week.
We can only dream.
A Canadian province will shut its 24-hour suicide hotline and replace it with one that operates only during business hours.
Prince Edward Island, a small province on Canada’s East Coast, says it is too expensive to operate the hotline around the clock. Starting June 1, it will be open only between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Georgia’s “runaway bride,” whose much-publicized disappearance days before her wedding turned out to be just a case of cold feet, was indicted on Wednesday on two charges of falsely claiming she was abducted, authorities said. …
Wilbanks would face up to six years in prison if convicted on both the charges, Gwinnett County district attorney Danny Porter, said, announcing the indictment by a grand jury earlier on Wednesday.
Nearly a dozen detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba told FBI interrogators that guards had mistreated copies of the Koran, including one who said in 2002 that guards “flushed a Koran in the toilet,” according to new FBI documents released today.
The summaries of FBI interviews, obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union as part of an ongoing lawsuit, also include allegations that the Koran was kicked, thrown to the floor and withheld as punishment and that guards mocked Muslim prisoners during prayers.
Guess we can resubscribe to Newsweek now.
was born on this date in 1926. If you do not own the Davis album Kind of Blue, you should purchase it immediately. As Stephen Thomas Erlewine tells us at the All Music Guide:
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. … It may be a stretch to say that if you don’t like Kind of Blue, you don’t like jazz — but it’s hard to imagine it as anything other than a cornerstone of any jazz collection.
Kind of Blue was one of NPR’s 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century. Listen to their report here.
(Originally posted by NewMexiKen May 25, 2004)
the voice of Miss Piggy, Fozzie, Cookie Monster, Bert, Grover, Yoda and so many more, is 61 today.
Hamburger chain Carl’s Jr. is making no apologies for its new Spicy Burger television commercial, which features Hilton hotel heiress and reality TV star Paris Hilton in a skin-tight swimsuit soaping up a Bentley and crawling all over it before taking a big bite out of the burger.
NewMexiKen saw the ad over the weekend and, truth told, found it over some sort of good taste line. (I know it when I see it.) But you gotta love Carl’s response to the Parents Television Council:
“Get a life.” “This isn’t Janet Jackson — there is no nipple in this,” said Andy Puzder, the CEO of Carl’s Jr., a subsidiary of CKE Restaurants. “There is no nudity, there is no sex acts — It’s a beautiful model in a swimsuit washing a car.”
… the first passenger railroad in the U.S. began service between Baltimore and Ellicott’s Mills, Maryland, in 1830. That’s 13 miles.
… the first telegraph message was transmitted by Samuel F. B. Morse in 1844. Sent from Washington to Baltimore it said, “What hath God wrought!”
… the first Major League Baseball night game was played in Cincinnati in 1935. The Reds beat the Phillies 2-1. The Reds played seven night games that year (one against each National League opponent).
was established on this date in 1983. The National Park Service:
Harry S Truman National Historic Site includes the Truman Home in Independence, Missouri, and the Truman Farm Home in Grandview, Missouri.
Harry S Truman (1884-1972), 33rd President of the United States, lived here from 1919 until his death. The white Victorian style house at 219 North Delaware Street was built by the maternal grandfather of Bess Wallace Truman (1885-1982), and was known as the “Summer White House” during the Truman administration (1945-1953).
Victorious Union troops on parade at 15th and Pennsylvania Avenue
Mathew Brady photo from the Library of Congress
was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor on this date in 1900 — for duty performed nearly 37 years earlier at Fort Wagner, S.C. Sergeant Carney was the first African-American to receive the Medal of Honor.
Carney was a member of the 54th Massachusetts Colored Infantry, the regiment whose story was told in the film Glory (1989) with Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman and Matthew Broderick. Carney was not portrayed in the film by name.
The citation for Carney’s Medal of Honor reads: “When the color sergeant was shot down, this soldier grasped the flag, led the way to the parapet, and planted the colors thereon. When the troops fell back he brought off the flag, under a fierce fire in which he was twice severely wounded.”
(Originally posted May 23, 2004)
Clyde Champion Barrow and Bonnie Parker were shot to death in an ambush near Sailes, Bienville Parish, Louisiana, on this date 71 years ago. The FBI has a web page with details about Bonnie and Clyde, including a photo of each.
Not exactly Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway and Gene Hackman (who portrayed Clyde’s brother Buck). All three were nominated for an acting Oscar, as were Michael J. Pollard and Estelle Parsons. Parsons, who played Buck’s wife Blanche in the 1967 film, won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar.
First NewMexiKen learns that stress can cause your brain to shrink. I found that depressing. Now I learn that depression can cause your brain to shrink. I find that stressful.
Kramer presents a sustained case that depression, far from enhancing cognitive or emotional powers, essentially pokes holes in the brain, killing neurons and causing key regions of the prefrontal cortex — the advanced part of the brain, located just behind the forehead — to shrink measurably in size. He lucidly explains a wealth of recent research on the disease, citing work in genetics, biochemistry, brain imaging, the biology of stress, studies of identical twins. He compares the brain damage from depression with that caused by strokes. As a result of diminished blood flow to the brain, he says, many elderly stroke patients suffer crippling depressions. Is stroke-induced depression a form of ”heroic melancholy”? If not, then why pin merit badges on any expression of the disease?
Review of Peter D. Kramer’s Against Depression
Thanks to Veronica for the pointer about Kramer’s book.
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