My kinda candidate

I got nothing

Bernadette Peters is 60 today. John Turturro is 51.

Colorado Territory was organized on this date in 1861 and New Mexico lost from the present boundary to the Rio Grande on the west and the Arkansas River on the north, namely the San Luis Valley and some fourteeners. Bastards.

The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was chartered 181 years ago — but I’ve written about that every year.

James Watson and Francis Crick discovered the structure of DNA 55 years ago today.

The “virgen de guadalupe” is the top search item today.

Maybe I should take some time off. That always motivates me. Wink. Wink.

Go directly to jail

The Washington Post, among others, reports that:

“More than one in 100 adult Americans is in jail or prison, an all-time high that is costing state governments nearly $50 billion a year, in addition to more than $5 billion spent by the federal government ….”

What’s interesting about this is, according to historian Gordon S. Wood:

“Traditionally accused criminals were held in jail only until they went to trial; then if convicted they were fined, whipped, mutilated, or executed, but not incarcerated.” Wood points out that debtors were the sole exception. “But actions for debt could send the debtor to prison where he languished….”

I like the traditional approach better than the current approach.

The Wood quotation is from “Debt and Democracy” in the June 12, 2003, issue of The New York Review of Books.

Just askin’

Who is older — John McCain’s oldest child, Sidney, or Michelle Obama?

Who is taller — John McCain or Hillary Clinton?

Best reprised line of the day, so far

“The sentence for attempted murder should be the same as for successful murder. Otherwise we’re just rewarding incompetence.”

Scott Adams quoting a reader of his blog. First posted here two years ago today.

Blessing the Good

Barack is a Semitic word meaning “to bless” as a verb or “blessing” as a noun. In its Hebrew form, barak, it is found all through the Bible. It first occurs in Genesis 1:22 — “And God blessed (ḇāreḵə) them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.”
. . .

Now let us take the name “Hussein.” It is from the Semitic word hasan, meaning “good” or “handsome.” Husayn is the diminutive, affectionate form.

Barack Obama’s middle name is in honor of his grandfather, Hussein, a secular resident of Nairobi, Kenya. Americans may think of Saddam Hussein when they hear the name, but that is like thinking of Stalin when you hear the name Joseph. There have been lots of Husseins in history, from the grandson of the prophet Mohammed, a hero who touched the historian Gibbon, to King Hussein of Jordan, one of America’s most steadfast allies in the 20th century. The author of the beloved American novel “The Kite Runner” is Khaled Hosseini.

But in Obama’s case, it is just a reference to his grandfather.

Juan Cole | Salon

My middle name is from my grandfather. (1) I’m happy for the connection. (2) I had nothing to do with getting the name. (3) I suspect Barack Obama did not choose his name either.

For the record, McCain’s middle name is Sidney. That’s his father and grandfather’s middle name.

And “W” in Bush’s middle name stands for Walker, his grandmother’s maiden name.

Best line of the day, so far

What bothered the chief justice was that Exxon was being ordered to pay $2.5 billion — roughly three weeks’ worth of profits — for destroying a long swath of the Alaska coastline in the largest oil spill in American history.

“So what can a corporation do to protect itself against punitive-damages awards such as this?” Roberts asked in court.

The lawyer arguing for the Alaska fishermen affected by the spill, Jeffrey Fisher, had an idea. “Well,” he said, “it can hire fit and competent people.”

The Washington Post