Interesting, very interesting

In a sign of the continuing partisan division of the nation, more than two-in-five (42%) voters say that, if it is found that President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should hold him accountable through impeachment. While half (50%) of respondents do not hold this view, supporters of impeachment outweigh opponents in some parts of the country.

Among those living in the Western states, a 52% majority favors Congress using the impeachment mechanism while just 41% are opposed; in Eastern states, 49% are in favor and 45% opposed. In the South, meanwhile, impeachment is opposed by three-in-five voters (60%) and supported by just one-in-three (34%); in the Central/Great Lakes region, 52% are opposed and 38% in favor.

Impeachment is overwhelmingly rejected in the Red States—just 36% say they agree Congress should use it if the President is found to have lied on Iraq, while 55% reject this view; in the “Blue States” that voted for Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry in 2004, meanwhile, a plurality of 48% favors such proceedings while 45% are opposed.

Zogby International

Poll taken June 27-29.

30

Number of places nationwide with “liberty” in their name. The most populous one is Liberty, Mo. (27,982). Iowa, with four, has more of these places than any other state: Libertyville, New Liberty, North Liberty and West Liberty.

Eleven places have “independence” in their name. The most populous of these is Independence, Mo., with 112,079 residents.

Five places adopted the name “freedom.” Freedom, Calif., with 6,000 residents, has the largest population among these.

There is one place named “patriot” — Patriot, Ind., with a population of 196.

And what could be more fitting than spending the Fourth of July in a place called “America”? There are five such places in the country, with the most populous being American Fork, Utah, population 22,876.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

The war of reunification

We also ought to recognize that we made mistakes. The way you fix mistakes is you recognize them and you fix them. We’ve made them. Every war, including the battle for reunification—the war of reunification of our nation, mistakes were made.

Senator John McCain on the June 28 edition of Hardball

Which war was the “war of reunification”? The Civil War one supposes. McCain must see southern votes between here and 2008.

Pointer via The Daily Howler.

Pets

NewMexiKen doesn’t have any pets and, though I like some dogs, I find this pretty much sums up my feelings about cats.

Thanks to Functional Ambivalent for the link.

America’s largest cities

According to the Census, these nine American cities had more than one million residents on July 1, 2004:

New York — 8.1 million
Los Angeles — 3.8 million
Chicago — 2.9 million
Houston — 2.0 million
Philadelphia — 1.5 million
Phoenix — 1.4 million
San Diego — 1.3 million
San Antonio — 1.2 million
Dallas — 1.2 million

Duke City newcomers

Albuquerque added 10,916 people between July 1, 2003, and July 1, 2004, according to the Bureau of the Census. That made it the 11th largest growing city in the U.S. during that time.

Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Antonio, Las Vegas and Fort Worth were the top five.

Albuquerque had 484,246 residents a year ago according to the Census estimate. It ranks as the 33rd largest American city.

Albuquerque suburb Rio Rancho grew to almost 62,000 residents by this time last year. It was New Mexico’s fastest growing community; up nearly 5% over 2003.

Top Ten Surprises In President Bush’s Prime-Time Address

From Letterman:

10. Claimed he had plan to win war, then switched on the bat signal

9. Kept talking about how Scientology changed his life

8. Ten minutes of policy, 20 minutes of Karaoke

7. Imploring all Americans to support Joey McIntyre in the next episode of “Dancing with the Stars”

6. It was basically a 50-minute infomercial for new George Bush grill

5. Spent 15 minutes looking at himself in the monitor

4. Most of speech was devoted to his fourth of July deviled egg recipe

3. Revealed he’ll soon be giving uncensored weekly addresses on sirius satellite radio

2. Midway through, he got engaged to Tom Cruise

1. Finished up by asking if Kerry still wanted the gig

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.”

There’s been a lot of chatter about Steve Jobs’ commencement address at Stanford since he delivered it a couple of weeks ago. NewMexiKen finally got around to reading it today. It really is rather remarkable and I suggest you find a few minutes to read what he had to say.

Spain Legalizes Same-Sex Marriages

Joining The Netherlands and Belgium. Canada is expected to approve same-sex marriages by the end of July.

See report from The New York Times.

Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em

From a report in the Los Angeles Times:

Doing time in a California state prison won’t be quite the same beginning Friday. All inmates, once given tobacco and matches along with their prison blues and toothbrush, will now be forbidden to smoke. …

Judging from the experience of other states — and reports from a few California prisons that are already smoke-free — health costs will go down. But their experience also shows that forcing inmates to kick the habit has downsides. …

When Maine banned smoking in prison in 2000, assaults quadrupled.

Second-hand smoke

Central New Mexico today has a significant haze of smoke from the Arizona wildfires. I don’t mean significant like a European airport, but enough to smell and more than enough to cause a blue haze for hundreds of miles.

One hundred years ago today

Those who have seen Field of Dreams or read the book on which it was based, Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella, will remember the character “Moonlight” Graham, played by Burt Lancaster in the film.

Archibald Wright Graham (1876-1965) was an actual player, and a doctor. Graham played in one game for the New York Giants on June 29, 1905 (in the movie it was the last game of the season in 1929). Graham played two innings in the field but never batted in the major leagues; he was on deck when his one game ended.

Bureaucrats and Indians

Columnist John Tierney writes about Bureaucrats and Indians in The New York Times. He begins:

The Crow Indians rode with Custer at Little Bighorn, but they have since reconsidered. On the anniversary of the battle Saturday, they cheered during a re-enactment when Indians drove a stake through his fringed jacket and carved out the heart of the soldier going by the name of Yellow-Hair in Blue Coat Who Kills Babies, Old Men and Old Women.

Their revised opinion is understandable considering what has happened to them since that battle to get their valley back from rival tribes. Today it’s a Crow reservation with enough land and mineral resources to make each tribe member a millionaire, yet nearly a third live below the poverty level, and the unemployment rate has reached 85 percent.

Nasty Nellie

Now in her early 40s, [Alison] Arngrim said she’s nothing like the character [Nellie Oleson] and that she and [Melissa] Gilbert are best of friends.

Off the screen, Arngrim spends much of her time making people laugh (not cry) and fighting for the things she believes in, especially children’s rights. …

Arngrim is also a stand-up comedian; her solo show is called “Confessions of a Prairie Bitch.”

The Arizona Daily Star

Wordy

If you graduated from high school–no matter the year!–you should know these 10 words, according to the editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries. Actually you should 90 more, too. And they’re all in “100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know.” But let’s start with these 10.

NewMexiKen probably 51st

Time selects the 50 Coolest Websites 2005 — including 15 blogs.

It’s agriculture

The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race, written by Jared Diamond in 1987.

Fascinating reading.

Gee, don’t they have an inventory of their holdings?

In January the Library of Congress made a momentous musical find: a tape of the Thelonious Monk quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall on Nov. 29, 1957, a rarity by a little-recorded and short-lived band that had major historical significance. That tape - containing nearly an hour of music - will be released by Blue Note on Sept. 27, under the title “Thelonious Monk With John Coltrane: Live at Carnegie Hall,” the record label announced.

Arts, Briefly - New York Times

Thanks to Jen for the pointer.

Helen Keller …

was born on this date in 1880. The following is from the obituary in The New York Times when she died in 1968.

For the first 18 months of her life Helen Keller was a normal infant who cooed and cried, learned to recognize the voices of her father and mother and took joy in looking at their faces and at objects about her home. “Then” as she recalled later, “came the illness which closed my eyes and ears and plunged me into the unconsciousness of a newborn baby.”

The illness, perhaps scarlet fever, vanished as quickly as it struck, but it erased not only the child’s vision and hearing but also, as a result, her powers of articulate speech.

Her life thereafter, as a girl and as a woman, became a triumph over crushing adversity and shattering affliction. In time, Miss Keller learned to circumvent her blindness, deafness and muteness; she could “see” and “hear” with exceptional acuity; she even learned to talk passably and to dance in time to a fox trot or a waltz. Her remarkable mind unfolded, and she was in and of the world, a full and happy participant in life.

What set Miss Keller apart was that no similarly afflicted person before had done more than acquire the simplest skills.

But she was graduated from Radcliffe; she became an artful and subtle writer; she led a vigorous life; she developed into a crusading humanitarian who espoused Socialism; and she energized movements that revolutionized help for the blind and the deaf.

Spider-man …

is 30 today; that is, Tobey Maguire.

Brush those teeth and gums

The study, among the findings presented last week at the first Alzheimer’s Assn. International Conference on Prevention of Dementia, examined lifestyle factors of more than 100 pairs of identical twins. All of the pairs included one twin who had developed dementia and one who hadn’t. Because identical twins are genetically indistinguishable, the study involved only risk factors that could be modified to help protect against dementia.

Twins who had severe periodontal disease before they were 35 years old had a fivefold increase in risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, the researchers found.

Los Angeles Times

On point

A really provocative, worthwhile posting from Joel Achenbach on psychiatry, Tom Cruise, science and drugs.

Virulent virus

Richard Preston’s Demon in the Freezer (2002) is a terrifying study of both the anthrax scare of 2001 and the exponentially greater danger of smallpox, the worst disease man has known.

There is no natural immunity to smallpox. And the vaccines that those among us old enough once received provided immunity for just five years.

Or to put it another way, if there is an outbreak of smallpox we may be relying on a vaccine that was invented in 1796.

Best line of the day, so far

“In fact, [biomedical researcher Lisa] Hensley did have a date lined up that night, a first date with a man she didn’t know very well. Finally, she phoned him and asked if he wouldn’t mind putting off the date, since she had just had a potential exposure to Ebola virus.

“He was very understanding.”

Richard Preston in his frightening book, The Demon in the Freezer (2002).

Ms. Hensley was fine. The potential exposure had been through an accidental cut in two layers of gloves with children’s scissors (real scissors are not permitted in Level 4 biocontainment).

Maybe if he’d said “stainless steel”

Danica Patrick got another phone call from Bernie Ecclestone, and she remains puzzled by this series of exchanges after the Formula One boss likened women to “domestic appliances.”

“He said that … he didn’t mean to be harmful to me,” said Patrick, who received a phone message from Ecclestone when she got off a plane. “He said, ‘I wasn’t trying to insult you. Quite the opposite, really.’”

SI.com

What he reportedly first saPOSTID: “Women should be all dressed in white like all other domestic appliances.”

Gamey

Honda Grrr Game

Help the bunny collect carrots.

Did you know?

The Secretary of the Senate and the Chief Administrative Officer of the House of Representatives (upon certification by the Clerk of the House of Representatives), respectively, shall deduct from the monthly payments (or other periodic payments authorized by law) of each Member or Delegate the amount of his salary for each day that he has been absent from the Senate or House, respectively, unless such Member or Delegate assigns as the reason for such absence the sickness of himself or of some member of his family.

US CODE: Title 2, 39. Deductions for absence

Is this done?

On the other side of the river

From Killing Custer:

Nor does this picture change. Whether Custer is portrayed as a hero, as Errol Flynn did in the World War II-era They Died with Their Boots On, or as a genocidal nut, as in the Vietnam-era Little Big Man, he is still the center of attention. The recent miniseries Son of the Morning Star depicted Custer as a naughty, hot-blooded, fratboy type-but he is still the character that the cameras follow, the man whose death has always been the point of telling the story. No matter that in fact his famous hairline was beginning to recede, that his remaining hair was cut short, and that it was too hot to wear buckskin that summer day. Or that the Lakotas and the Cheyennes had no idea who had attacked them or which particular army commander they were fighting. More than a century after his death, Custer has the kind of name recognition that would make any aspirant for national political office jealous.

But if you switch the focus, the story becomes infinitely richer. Late on a cold November night, with the wind howling outside his trailer on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Johnson Holy Rock began talking to us about Crazy Horse. Nearly eighty, Johnson is a former tribal chairman whose father was a young boy in Crazy Horse’s camp at the Little Bighorn. “Traditional history tells us that Crazy Horse could ride in front of a line of soldiers and they could all take a potshot at him and no bullet could touch him,” Johnson said, moving his arms back and forth for emphasis. “He’d make three passes, and after the third pass, then his followers were encouraged to make the charge. ‘See, I haven’t been wounded. I’m not shot.’ We would charge.”

I was intrigued, not by Crazy Horse’s ability to ward off bullets in the story, but by Holy Rock’s use of the term “traditional history.” Traditional history according to whom? Not the folks who wrote the history textbooks I read at Glen Rock Junior/Senior High School back in northern New Jersey. Amid George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, and even George Custer, figures like Crazy Horse-and, in fact, centuries of Native Americans-rated barely a mention. Traditional history.

The Battle of Little Bighorn …

was fought on this date in 1876. 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. Since that day, “Custer’s Last Stand” has become an American legend. The battle site attracts thousands of visitors yearly.

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.

The Commonwealth of Virginia …

ratified the Constitution on this date in 1788, thereby becoming the tenth state.

Virginia has 7.5 million people (including four Sweeties).

Virginia has 42,769 square miles, making it the 35th largest state.

The highest point in Virginia is Mount Rogers at 5,729 feet above sea level. The lowest point is sea level.

Eight presidents were born in Virginia.

You’re so vain
You probably think this blog is about you
Don’t you?

Carly Simon is 60 today.

Oldie but goodie

From article in the Los Angeles Times, Hitting the Big Eleven-O

Marion Higgins is very good at remembering. She remembers writing her first book 10 years ago. She remembers moving into Seal Beach’s Leisure World in 1989. She remembers the history of furniture acquired at long-ago garage sales and celebrating the end of the World War — both II and I. She remembers hearing the Titanic had just sunk, and the long railroad ride to her family’s homestead in a new state called Idaho. And she remembers hating sunbonnets.

That would have been in the ’90s — the 1890s.

Mrs. Higgins turns 112 on Sunday. She is the oldest living Californian and is believed to be the 21st oldest living human. She belongs to an exclusive but growing population of super-old folks whose longevity is so much more than a family bragging rite.

Her life has spanned the terms of 20 of the 43 presidents in U.S. history.

What he said

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. You need to take up the challenges that we face as a nation and make them your own. Not because you have a debt to those who helped you get here, although you do have that debt. Not because you have an obligation to those who are less fortunate than you, although I do think you do have that obligation. It’s primarily because you have an obligation to yourself. Because individual salvation has always depended on collective salvation. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

U.S. Senator Barack Obama at Knox College

The Week Quiz

Try The Week Quiz if you must. As for NewMexiKen’s score, lets just say it’s a good thing for golf and auto racing or I would haved aced it (”aced” means, in this case, one right).

Heavens to Betsy!

The other day NewMexiKen explained how historians believe that Betsy Ross, contrary to folklore, had no actual involvement in the making of the first American flag. Emily and Jill, official daughters of NewMexiKen, commented that there was some documentation that Ross made the case for the five-pointed star by showing how it could easily be cut from fabric.

Whatever, none of that matters. I have now learned what Betsy Ross’ real contribution to the American War of Independence might have been.

According to David Hackett Fischer in his outstanding book Washington’s Crossing, after some skirmishes with American militia near Mount Holly, New Jersey, the British commander Hessian Colonel Carl Emilius Ulrich von Donop “had found in his quarters the exceedingly beautiful young widow of a doctor.” (Quotation from a German officer who was present.) As Fischer reports, “The colonel spent the night of December 23 in the widow’s house. He decided to stay on Christmas Eve, and then on Christmas as well.” Bottom line, von Donop and his troops were 18 miles from Trenton, instead of the six they were supposed to be in case of a major American attack.

Which is precisely what the Americans did after crossing the Delaware River Christmas night. They attacked Trenton the morning of December 26, 1776, and had a decisive victory.

At least one German officer thought von Donop’s dalliance cost Britain the colonies: “partly to the fault of Colonel Donop, who was led to Mount Holly by the nose…and detained there by love….”

And who was the beautiful widow? “Could she have been an American agent?” Fischer asks. Attempts to identify her as someone from the community have been without success.

However, Fischer tells us:

In December 1776, there was a young and very beautiful young widow, a “Free Quaker” strongly sympathetic to the American cause, who lived in Philadelphia, had family connections in Gloucester County, New Jersey, was married there, and often went back and forth. She was acquainted with Margaret Morris, and also with George Washington. Her name was Betsy Ross. One historian, Joseph Tustin, has raised the possibility she may have been the mysterious widow of Mount Holly. Her husband, John Ross, who had died in 1776, came from Gloucester County and may have been related to Doctor Alexander Ross, who was a physician practicing at Mount Holly in 1776.

There is no evidence; just speculation. But hey, there was no evidence she sewed the first flag either and this is a more intriguing story.

[NewMexiKen is completing Fischer's Washington's Crossing after a couple of unexplainable false starts. It is a delightful, informative historical narrative. Truly deserved of all its awards and your attention.]

Best line of the day, so far

It’s my first day in the building, I have not taken a single vote, I have not introduced one bill, had not even sat down in my desk, and this very earnest reporter raises his hand and says:

“Senator Obama, what is your place in history?”

I did what you just did, which is laugh out loud. I said, place in history? I thought he was kidding! At that point, I wasn’t even sure the other Senators would save a place for me at the cool kids’ table.

U.S. Senator Barack Obama in commencement address at Knox College

Read the entire Commencement Address. It’s outstanding.

I walk the line

I’ll tell you an interesting story. I was at an automobile plant in Mississippi…. And I was with the line workers. And I said, how many of you all have 401(k)s? In other words, how many of you are managing your own money? And I bet 90 — I didn’t count, but a lot, 90 percent of the hands went up. These are people from all walks of life, all income groups.

President Bush at Social Security Conversation in Maryland.

Interesting automobile assembly line, what with all those walks of life working on it.

Best line of the day, so far

“Flag-burning? We thought we had outsourced that to Pakistan….”

Wonkette

Best line of the day, so far

“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. …”

Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, December 1776

(NewMexiKen ran across Paine’s opening line while reading today.)

Chalk talk

A history professor laments too much technology in the classroom: Professors, Stop Your Microchips.

Throughout the class the students took notes on the computers, creating a ceaseless keyboard clatter and making it difficult for anyone to hear the teacher’s voice. Worse, as they faced their screens they looked away from the professor and away from one another. The class had no sense of communal purpose, and some students scarcely gave the professor a glance.

The PowerPoint remote control didn’t work quite right at first — tinkering with it caused a delay — and students periodically whispered to one another about technical problems when they should have been learning the day’s topic.

…

I talked with the professor afterward, and he acknowledged that technology could be a distraction as well as an aid. He added that, although his was a writing-intensive class, the students didn’t like to write, and that they wrote badly. Every college teacher knows it. The current generation of students has devoted thousands of hours to mastering computers but hasn’t learned how to maintain verb-tense consistency in a sentence, hasn’t learned not to follow a singular subject with a plural verb, knows almost none of the more-advanced rules of grammar, and uses apostrophes with chaotic caprice.

Teachers’ overuse of technology sends a baleful signal to students that the machines are necessary. At a medical-history conference last year, I was the only history professor in a group of doctors. Many of them were good amateur historians, but all of them were cursed with a dependency on PowerPoint, which seems to exercise an even stronger appeal among physicians and scientists than among professors of the humanities and social sciences. Every word the doctors spoke was duplicated on a screen above their heads. It was numbingly repetitive. One speaker even spoiled what would have been a pretty good joke, giving away the punch line by bringing up the crucial PowerPoint slide too soon.

Once again NewMexiKen is reminded of the PowerPoint Gettysburg Cemetery Dedication.