A Gathering of Nations

The Gathering of Nations is North America’s largest Indian powwow. Held annually at the University Arena (The Pit) in Albuquerque, it attracts Indian dancers from all over the U.S. and Canada.

They call them “fancy dancers” for a reason.

Two generations of fancy dancers.

Ready for the Grand Entry.

Just before the Grand Entry a bald eagle is carried around the arena floor, faced in each of the four directions, its hood removed and its wings spread. Magnificent (but hard to photograph well from my vantage point).

When the Eagle Staff enters the arena to begin the Grand Entry, everyone stands.

The Grand Entry is without a doubt the single most colorful event NewMexiKen has ever seen.

A little something new among the traditional, a baseball cap tops one young man’s colorful array.

Everybody needs to look their best at the Gathering.

Vendors of Indian arts occupy a large tent outside the arena. And no Gathering of Nations would be complete without a gathering of Pendletons (in this case a rack of vests for sale).

George Washington

… took office as the first President of the United States on this date in 1789.

Washington’s term began officially March 4, but because neither the House nor Senate achieved a quorum until April, Washington’s unanimous election on February 4, wasn’t made official until April 14. Washington immediately departed Mount Vernon for New York to take the oath and was met along the way with parades and dinners in every little town.

As James Madison noted, Washington was about the only aspect of the new government that really appealed to people.

Someone is a real ass

NewMexiKen discovered a three-foot long scratch along the left side of my Lexus yesterday. It’s light, but it won’t rub out and it had to have been done on purpose. “Keyed” is, I believe, the expression.

To which I can only quote the wisdom of Vincent Vega: “What’s more chickenshit than fucking with a man’s automobile? I mean, don’t fuck with another man’s vehicle.” (Pulp Fiction)

All three branches are equal, but some branches are more equal than others

The Boston Globe has a lengthy report on the President’s claiming “the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.”

Bush is the first president in modern history who has never vetoed a bill, giving Congress no chance to override his judgments. Instead, he has signed every bill that reached his desk, often inviting the legislation’s sponsors to signing ceremonies at which he lavishes praise upon their work.

Then, after the media and the lawmakers have left the White House, Bush quietly files ‘’signing statements” — official documents in which a president lays out his legal interpretation of a bill for the federal bureaucracy to follow when implementing the new law. The statements are recorded in the federal register.

In his signing statements, Bush has repeatedly asserted that the Constitution gives him the right to ignore numerous sections of the bills — sometimes including provisions that were the subject of negotiations with Congress in order to get lawmakers to pass the bill. He has appended such statements to more than one of every 10 bills he has signed.

Best line of the day, so far

“Ladies and gentlemen, I feel chipper tonight. I survived the White House shake-up,” the president said.

Damn.

Willie Nelson

… is 73 today.

He is an American icon; his voice as comforting as the American landscape, his songs as familiar as the color of the sky, his face as worn as the Rocky Mountains. Perhaps that’s why Dan Rather suggested, “We should add his face to the cliffs of Mt. Rushmore and be done with it.”

He’s recorded 250 albums, written 2,500 songs, and for half a century played countless concerts across America and around the world. He’s been instrumental in shaping both country and pop music, yet his appeal crosses all social and economic lines. Sometimes he’s called an outlaw, though from Farm Aid to the aftermath of September 11, from the resurrection of a burned-out courthouse in his own hometown to fanning the flame of the Olympics, it is Willie Nelson who brings us together.

Perhaps Emmylou Harris said it best: “If America could sing with one voice, it would be Willie’s.”

73-year-old Willie is appearing in Hamilton, Ontario, tonight, Toronto Tuesday, Montreal Wednesday, Fredricton Friday, Moncton Saturday, and Charlottetown Sunday.

The Time 100 (2006)

The People Who Shape Our World according to Time. How many can you identify?

Artists & Entertainers
This diverse galaxy of influential stars has won fans and spawned imitators around the globe

J.J. Abrams
George Clooney
Dixie Chicks
Ellen DeGeneres
Nicolas Ghesquiere
Wayne Gould
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Arianna Huffington
Ang Lee
Renzo Piano
Rain
Rachael Ray
Jeff Skoll
Kiki Smith
Will Smith
Zadie Smith
Howard Stern
Meryl Streep
Reese Witherspoon
Rob Pardo
Daddy Yankee
Tyra Banks
Dane Cook
Matt Drudge
Stephen Colbert

Scientists & Thinkers
Whether by harnessing the power of the Internet or probing the mysteries of the mind, they have come up with the big ideas of our time

Mike Brown
Kelly Brownell
Nancy Cox
Richard Davidson
Kerry Emanuel
Jim Hansen
Zahi Hawass
Bill James
John Jones
Ma Jun
Jim Yong Kim
Steven Levitt
Jacques Rossouw
Andrew von Eschenbach
Jimmy Wales
Geoffrey West

Leaders & Revolutionaries
Dictators, democrats, holy men (and a TV host)—these are the people with the clout and power to change our world

Muqtada al-Sadr
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf
Hugo Chavez
George W. Bush
John McCain
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Ayman al-Zawahiri
Hillary Rodham Clinton
Pope Benedict
Condoleezza Rice
Wen Jiabao
Ehud Olmert
Pervez Musharraf
John Roberts
Ismail Haniya
Angela Merkel
Jigme Singye Wangchuk
Archbishop Peter Akinola
Junichiro Koizumi
Oprah Winfrey
Bill & Melinda Gates

Heroes & Icons
Meet some global icons—actors, politicians, athletes, entertainers and others—who are using their influence to do the right thing

Bono
Michelle Wie
Wynton Marsalis
Angelina Jolie
Bill Clinton & George H.W. Bush
Steve Nash
Orhan Pamuk
Elie Wiesel
Jan Egeland
Joey Cheek
Chen Guangcheng
Ian Fishback
Wafa Sultan
Pernessa Seele
Ralph Lauren
Mukhtaran Bibi
Paul Simon
Al Gore
Katie Couric

Builders & Titans
Innovation, grand plans, style and substance—that’s what it takes to be influential in the world of business

Vikram Akula
Tom Anderson & Chris DeWolfe
Franz Beckenbauer
The Flickr Founders
Sean Combs
Jamie Dimon
Brian France
Tom Freston
Huang Guangyu
Omid Kordestani
Eddie Lampert
Patricia Russo
Sheikh Mohammed
Anne Mulcahy
Nandan Nilekani
Jim Sinegal
Steve Wynn
The Skype Guys
Dieter Zetsche

It’s a great day to be an Indian

NewMexiKen attended North America’s largest powwow this evening — the Gathering of Nations here in Albuquerque.

I’ll attempt to show some of the color later, but for now share the sentiment I’m sure many in attendance feel.

Best line ever, so far

“Fox believes in presenting both sides—the president’s side and the vice president’s side.”

Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondent Dinner

As Gas Prices Go Up, Mass Hysteria Rises to Meet Them

This is the kind of journalistic nonsense that just drives NewMexiKen crazy. From the opening paragraphs of a lengthy story in Saturday’s New York Times, As Gas Prices Go Up, Impact Trickles Down:

Ms. Tapia’s red 2004 Dodge Neon was supposed to be a ticket to freedom when her brother passed it down to her in January. She had planned to drive to Manhattan each weekend to visit her boyfriend at New York University, and also dreamed of going out to restaurants and making day trips with friends.

But the car has been nothing but a money-guzzler, she said, leaving her so short of cash that the car often sits in the parking lot outside her apartment.

“When I first got the car it was all fun and games, but I found out it’s pretty expensive to fill the tank,” Ms. Tapia said. “I don’t even want to put gas in my car right now.”

Unexpectedly high gas prices are also putting a crimp in the summer plans.

J. R. Cowan, a history major at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn., said he decided against a cross-country summer trip because “gas would cost double what I budgeted for when I started dreaming about California last year.”

When Amanda Early, a junior at Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J., accepted a four-day-a-week summer job in public relations near the campus, she did not realize it would amount to a sentence of spending an entire summer in New Jersey. Ms. Early had planned to drive home to Connecticut every weekend, but she said gas prices would force her to remain in New Jersey in the house she shares with four other girls.

Gasoline prices have gone up one-third since a year ago — 31 percent to be exact.

A trip from Waltham to New York City and back, (about 420 miles) in a Dodge Neon (25 city, 30 highway) would take, let’s say, 16 gallons. Sixteen gallons a year ago cost about $36 ($2.24 X 16). Today it might cost $52 ($3.25 X 16). That’s a difference of $16, so the car sits, but Ms. Tapia has money to eat in restaurants.

Gas for a cross country trip costs one-third more than last year, Mr. Cowan, not double. Even a history major should be able to do that much math.

South Orange, New Jersey, to Hartford in the middle of Connecticut is 266 miles round-trip. Going home for the weekend will now cost Ms. Early $13 more than it did a year ago (at 20 miles per gallon).

Yes, gasoline has gone up. Yes, one-third is a substantial increase. Yes, $13 or $16 is a hardship for some. Yes, and most importantly, we all should consider whether there aren’t more enivronmentally efficient modes of travel we can take.

But it’s not as big a deal as the current journalistic and political hysteria would make it out to be. The tone of the paragraphs excerpted above just does not seem justified. It approaches the level of silliness seen in the live, local, late-breaking coverage of local TV news — from outside office buildings closed hours before. I still expect better from The New York Times.

Rain, Glorious Rain

A whole 13/100ths of an inch of rain fell early this morning in Albuquerque. I’m so glad it woke me so I could cheer. Everything smells so sweet.

Don’t laugh, 13/100ths is about a third of all the precipitation we’ve had in six months (41/100ths of an inch total) — the driest winter here since 1903-1904. Hold your fingers 4/10ths of an inch apart and see how little that is.

Fort Laramie National Historic Site (Wyoming)

… was designated on this date in 1960. It had been a national monument since 1938.

Fort Laramie- the Crossroads of a Nation Moving West. This unique historic place preserves and interprets one of America’s most important locations in the history of westward expansion and Indian resistance.

In 1834, where the Cheyenne and Arapaho travelled, traded and hunted, a fur trading post was created. Soon to be known as Fort Laramie, it rested at a location that would quickly prove to be the path of least resistance across a continent. By the 1840s, wagon trains rested and resupplied here, bound for Oregon, California and Utah.

In 1849 as the Gold Rush of California drew more westward, Fort Laramie became a military post, and for the next 41 years, would shape major events as the struggle between two cultures for domination of the northern plains increased into conflict. In 1876, Fort Laramie served as an anchor for military operations, communication, supply and logistics during the “Great Sioux War.”

Fort Laramie closed, along with the frontier it helped shape and influence in 1890. Its legacy is one of peace and war, of cooperation and conflict; a place where the west we know today was forged.

Fort Laramie National Historic Site

It’s the birthday

… of Jerry Seinfeld. He’s 52.

… of three-time Oscar nominee, one-time winner Daniel Day-Lewis. He’s 49.

… of three-time Oscar nominee Michelle Pfeiffer. She’s 48.

… of Jan Brady. Eve Plumb is 48.

… of one-time Oscar nominee (Pulp Fiction) Uma Thurman. She’s 36.

Edward Kennedy Ellington, that is, Duke Ellington, was born in Washington, D.C., on this date in 1899. The PBS web site for JAZZ A Film By Ken Burns sums up Ellington succinctly.

Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington was the most prolific composer of the twentieth century in terms of both number of compositions and variety of forms. His development was one of the most spectacular in the history of music, underscored by more than fifty years of sustained achievement as an artist and an entertainer. He is considered by many to be America’s greatest composer, bandleader, and recording artist.

The extent of Ellington’s innovations helped to redefine the various forms in which he worked. He synthesized many of the elements of American music — the minstrel song, ragtime, Tin Pan Alley tunes, the blues, and American appropriations of the European music tradition — into a consistent style with which, though technically complex, has a directness and a simplicity of expression largely absent from the purported art music of the twentieth century. Ellington’s first great achievements came in the three-minute song form, and he later wrote music for all kinds of settings: the ballroom, the comedy stage, the nightclub, the movie house, the theater, the concert hall, and the cathedral. His blues writing resulted in new conceptions of form, harmony, and melody, and he became the master of the romantic ballad and created numerous works that featured the great soloists in his jazz orchestra.

The Red Hot Jazz Archive has a number of Ellington recordings on line [RealAudio files].

And William Randolph Hearst was born on this date in 1863. Many think we know Hearst because we know Charles Foster Kane. Was Hearst the model for Charles Foster Kane? Read what Orson Welles had to say in 1975 (first posted by NewMexiKen two years ago).

This station feels our pain

When $20 would fill up my gas tank, it seemed worth it to save a few cents and pump my own.

Now that I’m paying nearly $50 to fill up, I’m more than willing to pay a little more for someone to pump it for me. Who’s going to bring back “service” stations?

(In Oregon, where this photo was taken by Debby, they do pump the gasoline for you.)

The Weekly Quiz

Try your skill at The Weekly Quiz.

NewMexiKen got just five correct out of ten this week (April 28, 2006). C’mon Annette, can you beat me again?

Do You Speak Cowboy?

New arrivals to the ranches of the West were often mystified by the language used by local cowboys, trail bosses, and ranch hands. An inexperienced “tenderfoot” or “greenhorn” from the East would most likely hear a lot of “coarse” language, and a variety of colorful expressions.

Test yourself on 10 sentences you might have heard around the bunkhouse circa 1867.

NewMexiKen got all ten, but not without a struggle.

Thanks to Day of the Dead-ly for the link.

Best line of the day, so far

Carpe Mañana

So sloooooooooooow

NewMexiKen’s host, Hosting Matters, was the target of a massive DOS (Denial of Service) attack Friday morning. NewMexiKen was down for some time and even now, hours later is running slow. Should be back to normal soon. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Maybe the immigration will go the other way now

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Owning marijuana, cocaine and even heroin will no longer be a crime in Mexico if the drugs are carried in small amounts for personal use, under legislation passed by the Congress.

Police will not penalise people for possessing up to 5 grams of marijuana, 5 grams of opium, 25 milligrams of heroin or 500 milligrams of cocaine, under a bill passed by senators late on Thursday and earlier approved by the lower house.

Yahoo! News

Natural born leader

NewMexiKen’s oldest Sweetie, five-year-old Mack, is tall for his age, a non-stop talker, and 100% alpha-male. When he first began pre-school his mother called him The Godfather, the other kids flocked around him so. Now he’s simply The Mayor. Jill sends along this story from Tee Ball:

Mack isn’t concerned…. He’s far too busy being the mayor of tee ball. Whenever he gets to first he has a whole routine with the first-base coach that involves high fives and knuckle bumps, etc. (no other kid seems to even notice the coach).

At the end of the top of the first, after the last of the other team batted, Mack gave a huge whoop and ran off the field, yelling, “Come on! Come on!” All but one kid followed him, and it was so cute to watch the team following Mack, and actually running and acting like a team for once.

Yes, Mack led them all to the visitor’s dugout, and they were the home team. Yes, this led to a minute or so of confused milling about before they all found their way over to the proper side of the field. So he’s the mayor, but he’s a Republican mayor.

Best line of the day, so far

“It’s appalling that a generation after the first oil shock, in 1973, politicians are still reacting with such hysteria.”

From an excellent editorial in today’s New York Times

It’s the birthday

… of Harper Lee. The author of one the great classics of American literature, To Kill A Mockingbird, is 80. Miss Lee has remained so private so long that the only mental image of her I have is actually an image of Catherine Keener from Capote.

Mockingbird, published in 1960, has sold more than 30 million copies.

“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

The Writer’s Almanac has a nice essay about Lee (it includes the quotation above). There was another slightly longer variation of it two years ago that NewMexiKen replicated.

… of James A. Baker III. The former Secretary of State is 76. NewMexiKen met Baker in 1993 during the last week of the first Bush Administration. He was the President’s chief of staff, so the meeting took place in the West Wing (one of two times I’ve been there on business). Never have I met an individual more impressive in a small meeting than Baker. When you spoke, Baker gave you his apparent undivided attention. I mean no disrespect when I say, “He made better eye-contact than a $500 hooker.” Baker’s place in history will be enhanced I believe by his diplomatic work in forming the international coalition before the 1991 invasion of Iraq. His place in history will be diminished I believe by his work for the second Bush in the 2000 Florida election litigation.

… of Saddam Hussein. He’s 69.

… of Jay Leno. He’s 56.

… of golfer John Daly. He’s 40.

… of former ADA Serena Southerlyn. Elisabeth Röhm is 33.

… of Penélope Cruz Sánchez. Winner of several best actress awards in Europe for Non ti muovere, Miss Cruz is 32.

… of Jessica Alba. She’s 25.

Lionel Herbert Blythe was born on this date in 1878. We know him as Lionel Barrymore — and we know him even better as Mr. Potter in It’s A Wonderful Life — “I’d say you were nothing but a scurvy little spider.” Barrymore won the Oscar for best actor in 1931 for A Free Soul. The previous year he was nominated for best director. Both of Barrymore’s parents were actors, as were his sister Ethel (an Oscar winner) and brother John.

And James Monroe, the fifth U.S. President, was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, on this date in 1758. He is one of three presidents (and two NewMexiKen daughters) to attend the College of William and Mary.

Airlines To Stow Passengers in Overhead Bins

Struggling with rising fuel costs and sagging profits, several leading airlines announced today that they would attempt to boost their revenues by stowing passengers in their aircrafts’ overhead bins.

After Airbus announced earlier this week that it was toying with the idea of introducing standing room areas for passengers in the rear of their planes, the airlines decided that the time was right to pitch the idea of stowing passengers in a part of the plane that has customarily been reserved for carry-on luggage.

The Borowitz Report

The 10 Most Harmful Government Programs

As ranked by a panel of 38 “distinguished public policy experts” for Human Events.

1. Social Security
2. Medicare
3. Income Tax Withholding
4. McCain-Feingold (campaign finance reform)
5. Contraceptive Funding (tie)
6. Farm Subsidies (tie)
7. Medicaid
8. Affirmative Action
9. Earmarking (program funds for specific Congressional districts)
10. Davis-Bacon (prevailing wage for federal contracts)

NewMexiKen is considering a survey to identify the “10 Most Harmful Public Policy Experts.”

The New Mexico Bowl

The NCAA has approved a bowl game for Albuquerque that will match a Western Athletic Conference team against a Mountain West Conference team.

They should call it the Posole Bowl.

The Crony Fairy

After discussing The Crony Fairy “who visits key agencies by dead of night, snatches away qualified people and replaces them with unqualified political appointees,” Paul Krugman concludes:

So what’s the point of creating a new agency to replace FEMA? The history of FEMA and other agencies during the Clinton years shows that a president who is serious about governing can rebuild effective government without renaming the boxes on the organizational chart.

On the other hand, the history of the Bush administration, from the botched reconstruction of Iraq to the botched start-up of the prescription drug program, shows that a president who isn’t serious about governing, who prizes loyalty and personal connections over competence, can quickly reduce the government of the world’s most powerful nation to third-world levels of ineffectiveness.

And bear in mind that Mr. Bush’s pattern of cronyism didn’t change after Katrina. For example, he appointed Julie Myers, the inexperienced niece of Gen. Richard Myers, to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement — an agency that, like FEMA, is supposed to protect us against terrorism as well as other threats. Even at the C.I.A., the administration seems more interested in purging Democrats than in improving the quality of intelligence.

So let’s skip the name change for FEMA, O.K.? The United States will regain effective government if and when it gets a president who cares more about serving the nation than about rewarding his friends and scoring political points. That’s at least a thousand days away. Meanwhile, don’t count on FEMA, or on any other government agency, to do its job

NewMexiKen — who proudly served the American people as a federal public servant for more than 30 years — can only say thank you Mr. Krugman. The professionals don’t make the laws, don’t make the appropriations and don’t appoint our bosses. But most of us do try and do care and do succeed.

Top tunes

NewMexiKen thought you’d want to know that Daniel Powter’s “Bad Day” is in its fifth week as the number one tune in the country according to the Billboard Hot 100.

Rascal Flatts’ “Me And My Gang” is the number one album.

Tabbed browsing for the masses

David Pogue reviews the new Internet Explorer — available to you now.

But hope is in the air. Earlier this week, Microsoft took the wraps off IE 7. The new version is a public beta — Beta 2 — and therefore technically unfinished. Still, Microsoft feels that this release is ready for average people to try out; you can download it from www.microsoft.com/ie. Phone help is available, and you can easily restore Version 6 if necessary.

How this new browser measures up depends on the ruler you’re using. If you’ve never used anything but Internet Explorer, you won’t be able to wipe the grin off your face.

But next to rivals like Firefox, Opera and Safari, IE 7 is a catch-up and patch-up job. Some of its “new” features have been available in rival browsers for years.

For example, IE may be the last Web browser on earth to offer tabbed browsing. This useful feature lets you keep several Web sites open on the screen simultaneously — not in a hopeless mess of overlapping windows, but all in one window. File-folder index tabs at the top of the window keep them straight.

NewMexiKen doesn’t know why you wouldn’t just choose Firefox or Opera or Safari, but at least IE is catching up. It’s more secure than IE 6, too.

(Of course, tabbed browsing is so 2004 for most websites. RSS is the newer new best thing.)

Best gasoline price line of the day, so far

“Give you an idea how expensive gas is, this morning I carpooled in with Letterman.”

Jay Leno

This video quacks me up

From ABC News. You’ll have to watch a commercial first, but the video will warm your heart’s cockles.

New hobby for NewMexiKen

I think I’ll give up blogging and play with model trains instead. Yesterday’s train ride got me reminiscing.

It goes back to sixth grade. Late in that school year my family moved from Fenton, Michigan, to Durand, Michigan, a distance of about 25 miles. We had already moved schools once that school year, so my folks resisted putting us through that again. But it was a long round-trip to make by car twice a day just to keep a sixth grader and third grader (my sister) in the same school.

So it ended up that an 11-year-old and not quite 9-year-old took the train. Each morning at 7:01 — at least once they held the train a minute or two for us to show up — we would board the Grand Trunk Western commuter train bound for Detroit. In Fenton, we would walk the several blocks from the depot to school. In the afternoon we reversed the trip. (I can remember my sister and I walking across the wooden railroad trestle between St. John’s School and the depot in Fenton. Yikes!)

While all trains are inherently cool, nothing quite has the romance of a steam locomotive and Grand Trunk still had steam engines pulling its passenger trains 50 years ago. It was the best school bus ever.

Best line of the day, so far

“The president’s approval ratings are down there in the territory of whatever’s on TV opposite American Idol.”

Joel Achenbach

That depends on what your definition of gouging is

Oil company first-quarter profits are up substantially over last year’s records. The oil companies say it’s because the price of oil is up.

But the oil companies control both the extraction and production. To a very large extent they set the price.

Yes, multiple complex issues are in play here. But let’s not let the oil companies get away with acting like they are innocent victims of windfall oil price increases beyond their control.

Someone I’ll miss

Keith Jackson, the storied voice of college football, is calling it quits, declining offers from ESPN officials to keep him at ABC Sports.

“I’m finished with play-by-play forever,” Jackson said yesterday by telephone from his home in Sherman Oaks, Calif. “I’m going out to learn to be a senior citizen and find a president I can vote for and believe in.” He added, “I’m not angry, I’m just going off like an old man and sitting by the creek.”

The New York Times

Jackson is 77. He said, “I don’t want to die in a stadium parking lot.”

U(nconditional) S(urrender) Grant

HEADQUARTERS ARMY IN THE FIELD
Camp near Fort Donelson
February 16, 1862.
 
General S. B. BUCKNER,
Confederate Army.

     SIR: Yours of this date, proposing armistice and appointment of commissioners to settle terms of capitulation, is just received. No terms except unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works.

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
U.S. GRANT,
Brigadier-General, Commanding.
 

Ulysses S. Grant

… was born on this date in 1822. The Writer’s Almanac has a fine essay on Grant, some of which is excerpted here:

But by that time, Grant had also been diagnosed with throat cancer and his health deteriorated rapidly. He realized that he didn’t have long to live, and wrote his memoirs as fast as he could. In extreme pain, and in a daze from pain medication, he still managed to write 275,000 words in less than a year. In the last few weeks of his illness, he couldn’t even speak, but he kept writing and revising, and checking everything he wrote against the official records to make sure it was all factual. He finished his memoirs in July 1885, and died four days later. …

Critics and writers of the time were shocked at how well Grant wrote. His book Personal Memoirs (1885) is one of the few books ever written by an American president that qualifies as great literature.

Among the most famous passages in the book is Grant’s description of Robert E. Lee’s surrender at the Appomattox Court House. Grant wrote, “What General Lee’s feelings were I do not know … [but] my own feelings, which had been quite jubilant on receipt of his letter, were sad and depressed. I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause (slavery) was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.”

The Library of Congress has information on Grant and his White House biography is here.

The other animator named Walter

Walter Lantz was born on this date in 1899. Lantz was the creator of such animated characters as Andy Panda, Chilly Willy, Wally Walrus and the greatest cartoon character of them all, Woody Woodpecker. Lantz was nominated for the Academy Award 10 times. He received the Academy’s Life-Time Achievement Award in 1979.

Click on the image above to visit lantz.toonzone.net for audio and video clips and lots of other goodies.

Hamilton Grange National Memorial (New York)

… was authorized on this date in 1962.

Hamilton Grange National Memorial, located at 287 Convent Avenue, preserves the home of founding father Alexander Hamilton. Born and raised in the West Indies, Hamilton came to New York in 1772 at age 17 to study finance at King’s College (now Columbia University).

Hamilton became a supporter of the cause of the American patriots during the political turmoil of the 1770s. Commissioned as a Captain of Artillery at the beginning of the American Revolution, he soon became an aide-de-camp to George Washington.

After the war, as a member of Congress, Hamilton was instrumental in creating the new Constitution. As co-author of the Federalist Papers he was indispensable in the effort to get the Constitution adopted. As the first Secretary of the Treasury (1789-1795) he devised plans for funding the national debt, securing federal credit, encouraging expansion of manufacturing and organizing the federal bank.

Hamilton commissioned architect John McComb Jr. to design a Federal style country home on a sprawling 32 acre estate in upper Manhattan. This house was completed in 1802 and named “The Grange” after the Hamilton family’s ancestral home in Scotland, but served as his home for only two years. On July 11, 1804, Hamilton was fatally wounded in a duel with his political rival Aaron Burr.

Hamilton Grange National Memorial

Bernalillo choo choo

A great report at Albloggerque on The Best 15 Minute Train Ride I Ever Had!. His is a much more descriptive report than the one NewMexiKen did earlier.

Best political line of the day, so far

“Senator John Kerry said this week that he is thinking about running for president again but he hasn’t made up his mind as of yet. Well, that should put to rest all those rumors about him being indecisive.”

Jay Leno