Stupidest policy moment ever?

The pandering and ignorance-across-party-lines represented by the John McCain-Hillary Clinton united front for a temporary reduction in the gasoline tax should make Americans hold their heads in their hands and moan. …

I can imagine that John McCain, who boasts about his sketchy command of economics, might consider this a good idea. But the master of policy, Hillary Clinton??

Please. This is embarrassing. It makes me long for the good old days of debating about flag pins on the lapel.

James Fallows

Fallows wonders “has there been bipartisan agreement to stupider effect in, say, the last fifty years?”

How together were you at age three?

First posted four years ago today. (How time flies.)

Three-year-old Mack informs everyone (through his mommy) that he was one of only two kids to hit a home run* during his at bat at tee ball class today. Yay Mack!

*”Home runs” are conditional in many ways. Some, but not all, of the factors that contribute to a tee ball home run include:

1) How well the child hits the ball off the tee.

2) The speed with which the instructor reaches the child and redirects him towards first base after the child goes tearing indiscriminately towards left field.

3) How many of the children playing in the field are actually paying attention to the at bat, rather than standing at the bleachers asking their mommies for goldfish crackers.

4) The “coming within ten to twelve feet of second base is close enough” clause.

5) Which child fields the ball. It’s usually Zachary or Carson (”The Big Kids”), and no way are you getting a home run. But if your ball accidentally trickles right up to the feet of Noah (”The Kid Who Won’t Participate Without His Mommy”) you stand a chance.

Update: Lest it not be clear, Mack’s mommy provided this report.

And from that same day in 2004:

“Jill, Mack’s mommy, also reports that watching a bunch of three-, four- and five-year-olds doing jumping-jacks is funnier than any movie Hollywood has put out in 20 years. Some clap, some jump, but no one gets the whole thing together.”

April 30th ought to be a national holiday

Willie Nelson is 75 today.

Cloris Leachman is 82. Kirsten Dunst is 26.

Casey Jones wrecked his train on April 30th in 1900.

George Washington took office as the first president of the U.S. on this date in 1789. His term had begun on March 4th, but he’d booked flights on American Airlines and didn’t get from Virginia to New York City—then the capital—until the end of April.

Louisiana entered the union as the 18th state on this date in 1812.

NewMexiKen is home

I’m back, but I think whatever muse I have got left behind — maybe she missed the connecting flight in Minneapolis last night.

What should I be writing about? Surely enough has already been said about Miley Cyrus and Jeremiah Wright.

Best line of the late night

It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away. Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer’s travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country.

Tom Friedman

Racism

The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. has wriggled out…

Let’s stop right there, people. On its front page, The New York Times has just compared Jeremiah Wright to a snake (and it’s downhill from there). I sincerely doubt anyone can find over the past 7 years, say, a similar characterization of a white religious leader of Wright’s stature in the news sections of the Times, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, or any other mainstream daily newspaper, including the Wall Street Journal.

tristero, who also has:

“Assuming that Obama is the nominee, Republicans will make this a one issue campaign: the color of the next president’s skin. Oh, they’ll do it mostly with dog whistles, but they’ll do it. “

The penultimate April day

Today is the birthday

… of Jerry Seinfeld. He’s 54.

… of four-time Oscar nominee, two-time winner Daniel Day-Lewis. He’s 51. Lewis won for My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown and for There Will Be Blood.

… of three-time Oscar nominee Michelle Pfeiffer. She’s 50. Once upon a time, before she gave it all up to go to Hollywood, Michelle was a checker at our local Von’s supermarket.

… of Jan Brady. Eve Plumb is 50.

… of one-time Oscar nominee (Pulp Fiction) Uma Thurman. She’s 38.

… of Andre Agassi, 38.

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].

William Randolph Hearst

… was born on this date in 1863. Was Hearst the model for Charles Foster Kane? Here is what Orson Welles had to say in 1975 (written to promote a book about Hearst and actress Marion Davies).

When Frederick Remington was dispatched to the Cuban front to provide the Hearst newspapers with sketches of our first small step into American imperialism, the noted artist complained by telegram that there wasn’t really enough shooting to keep him busy. “You make the pictures,” Hearst wired back, “I’ll make the war.” This can be recognized not only as the true voice of power but also as a line of dialogue from a movie. In fact, it is the only purely Hearstian element in Citizen Kane.

There are parallels, but these can be just as misleading as comparisons. If San Simeon hadn’t existed, it would have been necessary for the authors of the movie to invent it. Except for the telegram already noted and the crazy art collection (much too good to resist), In Kane everything was invented.

Let the incredulous take note of the facts.

William Randolph Hearst was born rich. He was the pampered son of an adoring mother. That is the decisive fact about him. Charles Foster Kane was born poor and was raised by a bank. There is no room here for details, but the differences between the real man and the character in the film are far greater than those between the shipowner and the newspaper tycoon.

And what of Susan Alexander? What indeed.

It was a real man who built an opera house for the soprano of his choice, and much in the movie was borrowed from that story, but the man was not Hearst. Susan, Kane’s second wife, is not even based on the real-life soprano. Like most fictional characters, Susan’s resemblance to other fictional characters is quite startling. To Marion Davies she bears no resemblance at all.

Kane picked up Susan on a street corner—from nowhere—where the poor girl herself thought she belonged. Marion Davies was no dim shop-girl; she was a famous beauty who had her choice of rich, powerful and attractive beaux before Hearst sent his first bouquet to her stage door. That Susan was Kane’s wife and Marion was Hearst’s mistress is a difference more important than might be guessed in today’s changed climate of opinion. The wife was a puppet and a prisoner; the mistress was never less than a princess. Hearst built more than one castle, and Marion was the hostess in all of them: they were pleasure domes indeed, and the Beautiful People of the day fought for invitations. Xanadu was a lonely fortress, and Susan was quite right to escape from it. The mistress was never one of Hearst’s possessions: he was always her suitor, and she was the precious treasure of his heart for more than thirty years, until his last breath of life. Theirs is truly a love story. Love is not the subject of Citizen Kane.

Susan was forced into a singing career because Kane had been forced out of politics. She was pushed from one public disaster to another by the bitter frustration of the man who believed that because he had married her and raised her up out of obscurity she was his to use as he might will. There is hatred in that.

Hearst put up the money for many of the movies in which Marion Davies was starred and, more importantly, backed her with publicity. But this was less of a favor than might appear. That vast publicity machine was all too visible; and finally, instead of helping, it cast a shadow—a shadow of doubt. Could the star have existed without the machine? The question darkened an otherwise brilliant career.

As one who shares much of the blame for casting another shadow—the shadow of Susan Alexander Kane—I rejoice in this opportunity to record something which today is all but forgotten except for those lucky enough to have seen a few of her pictures: Marion Davies was one of the most delightfully accomplished comediennes in the whole history of the screen. She would have been a star if Hearst had never happened. She was also a delightful and very considerable person.

Gasoline prices

Gasoline is running about $3.50 for regular to $3.75 for premium in northern Virginia where NewMexiKen is visiting The Sweeties®.

It looks to be about a nickel a gallon less across the board around home in Albuquerque.

How about near you?

The worst kind of pandering

Senator Clinton has now joined Senator McCain in calling for a suspension of the federal gasoline tax from Memorial Day to Labor Day. It’s 18.4 cents a gallon, or less than five percent of the average cost. Worse, it is simply bad public policy.

Anyone advocating such a mindless scheme is simply unfit to lead this nation during a time of economic, energy and environmental crisis.

The price of gasoline has actually increased more than the federal tax since McCain suggested its suspension.

Bolivian president debuts with second-division soccer club

President Evo Morales has made his soccer debut with a second-division club organized by Bolivia’s national police.

The 47-year-old Morales wore the No. 10 jersey traditionally reserved for a team’s playmaker and failed to score during 41 minutes of action. But his Litoral team defeated Deportivo Municipal 4-1. Police officers cheered Morales from the stands.

International Herald Tribune

Yeah, well next year our new president will be on a shuffleboard team.

Best line of the day, so far

“You know how Disney cares about that wholesome image. They don’t want their young starlets flashing their goods until they’re good and insane.”

The Superficial

America’s Favorite Pastime

Yesterday I went to a Giants baseball game. It was Little League Day, so there were about ten thousand young boys running wild in the stands. It was also free bat day, courtesy Bank of America.

I will pause while you digest this concept.

Do you know what happens when you hand an 8-year old boy a new bat, sit him behind the exposed heads of several adults, and ask him to sit patiently for four hours while nothing much happens on the big field in front of him? Do you think he fiddles with that bat?

Apparently Bank of America figured there was some theoretical amount of head injuries that would make the public forget that they lent a trillion of your dollars to hobos.

Scott Adams

There’s more.

April 28th ought to be a national holiday

Today we celebrate the birthday

… of Harper Lee. The author of one the great classics of American literature, To Kill A Mockingbird, is 82. 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. [Update: I've added a photo of the actual Harper Lee.]

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 had a nice essay about Lee two years ago (it includes the quotation above). There was another slightly longer variation of it three years ago that NewMexiKen replicated.

… of James A. Baker III. The former Secretary of State is 78. 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. 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 Ann-Margret, 67.

… of Jay Leno. He’s 58.

… of golfer John Daly. He’s 42.

… of Penélope Cruz Sánchez. Winner of several best actress awards in Europe for Non ti muovere, the Oscar-nominee for best actress last year is 34.

… of Jessica Alba. She’s 27.

Carolyn Jones was born on this date in 1929. The one-time Oscar nominee has nearly 100 credits to her name despite dying of colon cancer at age 54. She was, of course, Morticia Addams in the classic TV show.

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.

The crew of HMS Bounty

… mutinied on this date in 1789. The following is from the review of The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty by Caroline Alexander from The New York Times.

The events that took place aboard the Bounty at sunrise on April 28, 1789, boil down to the characters of two men, William Bligh, age 34, and the mutineer, Fletcher Christian, who was a decade younger. As he waited, hands bound behind him, to be lowered into the Bounty’s overloaded launch — and having shouted himself hoarse calling for aid — Bligh asked Christian, who had sailed with him twice before, how he could have found the ingratitude to mutiny. Bligh recorded Christian’s answer in his journal. ”That! — Captain Bligh,” said Christian, sounding much like Milton’s Satan, ”that is the thing — I am in hell — I am in hell.”

What do you think?

The beginning of the end for Hannah Montana?

The New York Times

Here is the Vanity Fair article — Miley Knows Best.

Grant

He had previously rejected requests to write about his experience as a Civil War general. Now he desperately needed the money. Mark Twain offered him 75 percent of the profits if Grant would publish with Twain’s newly started publishing house.

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.

Grant’s book did not appear in bookstores, but was sold by subscription, and it was Mark Twain’s idea to send out former Union soldiers, in uniform, to sell the subscriptions door to door across the country. The book eventually sold more than 300,000 copies. It provided Grant’s family with $450,000 in royalties, the largest amount of royalties that had ever been paid out for a book at that point in history.

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.

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media

U(nconditional) S(urrender) Grant

Ulysses Grant was born on this date in 1822.

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.
 

The other 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.

Vanity plates

Virginia has one in ten of the vanity plates in the U.S. Here’s a couple I saw today for people I’m not sure I want to meet.

TTUGIRL

DZ GIRL

That could be DZ for dizzy I guess, but I’m thinking DZ for disease.

Today, April 25th, is the birthday

… of Jerry Leiber. He’s 75. Leiber and partner Mike Stoller are in the Rock and Roll and Songwriters halls of fame.

By the time they were 20, in just three years of working together, their early songs had been recorded by a collection of true all-stars in the rhythm and blues genre including Jimmy Witherspoon, Little Esther, Amos Milburn, Charles Brown, Little Willie Littlefield, Bull Moose Jackson, Linda Hopkins, Ray Charles and Willie Mae (Big Mama) Thornton who actually first recorded “Hound Dog” in 1952. Atlantic Records executives, Ahmet Ertegun and Jerry Wexler among them, were impressed, and in 1955 signed Leiber and Stoller to the first independent production deal, forever changing the course of production in the record industry.

For the next decade, well into the late ’60s the hits of Leiber and Stoller were constantly at the top of the charts, including the memorable “Stand By Me,” “Spanish Harlem” and “I (Who Have Nothing),” by Ben E. King; “On Broadway,” “Dance With Me” and “Drip Drop” by The Drifters; LaVern Baker’s “Saved” and Ruth Brown’s “Lucky Lips.”

During this same productive period, there were other Leiber and Stoller smashes, including “Love Potion #9,” by The Clovers, “Only In America” by Jay and The Americans, “I Keep Forgettin,” by Chuck Jackson, Wilbert Harrison’s “Kansas City,” The Drifters’ “There Goes My Baby” and “Fools Fall In Love,” “Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots” by The Cheers and “Ruby Baby” by Dion DiMucci. [And virtually everything by The Coasters.]

Following the triumph of “Hound Dog,” Elvis Presley actually went on to record more than 20 Leiber and Stoller songs, including such highlights as “Loving You,” “Bossa Nova Baby,” “She’s Not You” and “Santa Claus Is Back In Town.” [And "Jailhouse Rock."]

Songwriters Hall of Fame

… of Al Pacino. The 8-time Oscar nominee is 68. He won for Scent of a Woman, but not for The Godfather or Godfather II. Pacino was nominated for a supporting actor Oscar for the first Godfather, which seems odd until one remembers that Caan and Duvall were also nominated for supporting and Brando won for lead.

… of another Godfather cast member Talia Shire. She’s 62 today. Connie Corleone-Rizzi in the Godfather movies, Miss Shire was Adrian in the Rocky films. She was nominated for the best supporting actress Oscar for Godfather II (1974) and for the best actress Oscar for Rocky (1976). Talia Shire’s actual name is Talia Rose Coppola. She is the sister of director Francis Ford Coppola, which makes her the aunt of Sofia Coppola (daughter of Francis Coppola) and the aunt of Nicolas Cage (son of another Coppola brother).

… of Agador Spartacus. He’s 44 today. So are Moe Szyslak, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, Chief Wiggum, Professor Frink, Comic Book Guy and Dr. Nick Riviera. All are played by the multi-talented Hank Azaria, who was born on this date in 1964. Agador Spartacus is the Guatemalan houseboy in The Birdcage. Azaria appeared on Friends six times and 13 times on Mad About You.

… of Renee Zellweger, 39. Twice nominated for best actress, Miss Zellweger won the Oscar for a supporting role in Cold Mountain (without her that film would have died of its own weight). She was born in Katy, Texas, but her parents were born in Switzerland and Norway.

… of Earl Hickey. Earl’s name isn’t Earl at all, it’s Jason Lee and he’s 38 today.

… of Tim Duncan. He’s 32.

Egbert Roscoe Murrow was born on this date in 1908. He died in 1965.

A Murrow radio report from a bombing raid over Berlin (he made 25 bombing runs):

The clouds were gone and the sticks of incendiaries from the preceding waves made the place look like a badly laid out city with the streetlights on. The small incendiaries were going down like a fistful of white rice thrown on a piece of black velvet. As Jock hauled the Dog up again, I was thrown to the other side of the cockpit, and there below were more incendiaries, glowing white and then turning red. The cookies—the four-thousand-pound high explosives—were bursting below like great sunflowers gone mad. And then, as we started down again, still held in the lights, I remembered the Dog still had one of those cookies and a whole basket of incendiaries in its belly, and the lights still held us. And I was very frightened.

The above from a fine article two years ago by Nicholas Lehmann in The New Yorker.

Ella Fitzgerald was born in Newport News, Virginia, on this date in 1918. Scott Yanow’s essay for the All Music Guide is first rate. It begins:

“The First Lady of Song,” Ella Fitzgerald was arguably the finest female jazz singer of all time (although some may vote for Sarah Vaughan or Billie Holiday). Blessed with a beautiful voice and a wide range, Fitzgerald could outswing anyone, was a brilliant scat singer, and had near-perfect elocution; one could always understand the words she sang. The one fault was that, since she always sounded so happy to be singing, Fitzgerald did not always dig below the surface of the lyrics she interpreted and she even made a downbeat song such as “Love for Sale” sound joyous. However, when one evaluates her career on a whole, there is simply no one else in her class.

There are many great Fitzgerald CDs but an excellent, inexpensive place to start is The Best of the Song Books.

Albert Nelson was born on this date in 1923 (he died in 1992). We know him as Albert King.

Albert King is truly a “King of the Blues,” although he doesn’t hold that title (B.B. does). Along with B.B. and Freddie King, Albert King is one of the major influences on blues and rock guitar players. Without him, modern guitar music would not sound as it does — his style has influenced both black and white blues players from Otis Rush and Robert Cray to Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan. It’s important to note that while almost all modern blues guitarists seldom play for long without falling into a B.B. King guitar cliché, Albert King never does — he’s had his own style and unique tone from the beginning.

Albert King plays guitar left-handed, without re-stringing the guitar from the right-handed setup; this “upside-down” playing accounts for his difference in tone, since he pulls down on the same strings that most players push up on when bending the blues notes. King’s massive tone and totally unique way of squeezing bends out of a guitar string has had a major impact. (All Music)

Penis theft panic hits city..

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Police in Congo have arrested 13 suspected sorcerers accused of using black magic to steal or shrink men’s penises after a wave of panic and attempted lynchings triggered by the alleged witchcraft.

Reports of so-called penis snatching are not uncommon in West Africa, where belief in traditional religions and witchcraft remains widespread, and where ritual killings to obtain blood or body parts still occur.

Reuters

Sort of the anti-spam.

April 24th is the birthday

… of five-time nominee for the Oscar for best actress — and one-time winner — Shirley MacLaine. She’s 74 today. Miss MacLaine won for Terms of Endearment in 1984.

… of Barbra Streisand, born in Brooklyn on this date 66 years ago. Miss Streisand has been nominated for the best actress Oscar twice, winning for Funny Girl in 1969. She also shared the Oscar with Paul Williams for best original song in 1977 for A Star is Born.

Doggone health nuts

NewMexiKen attended two school events Thursday evening. Both had refreshments. You’re thinking cupcakes and cookies, right? Oh no, with all the food fanatics around now, it’s veggies and fruit and cheese and crackers.

Man, what I would have given for a little frosting.

Most interesting factoid of the night, so far

“In most elevators, at least in any built or installed since the early nineties, the door-close button doesn’t work. It is there mainly to make you think it works.”

From Up and Then Down, a very interesting article in last week’s New Yorker about elevators, how they work, how they fail — and the man trapped in one for 40 hours.

NewMexiKen used to work on the ninth floor of a building with particularly poor elevators. We used to argue over whether the close door buttons did anything, or if they just seemed to because the neurotics pushed the buttons about the time the door closed anyway.

Two good lines

“I have yet to hear any character on the show say something interesting or funny (though there are a couple of moments that call up bits in Jessica Simpson’s reality show several years ago, such as her breaking her head over the conundrum of ‘chicken of the sea’) ….”

“But I’m still trying to figure out why teen-agers want their bra straps to show and how it came to pass that crooked hair parts are considered chic and not a pathetic sign that you didn’t have proper mothering.”

Nancy Franklin reviewing “The Hills.”

Try glass

BPA is a component used in making plastic sport water bottles, sippy cups and baby bottles. Concerns have been raised that the chemical could present long-term cancer risk. There is nothing definite.

A quote from “The Wall Street Journal” summarizes the current state of knowledge the best: “Though the evidence isn’t entirely clear, it’s possible that exposure to the chemical during infancy could cause changes in prostate and mammary tissue that raise the risk of change later in life. The latest analysis goes beyond two others from last year, both of which concluded the chemical was safe in low doses.”

There is more investigation under way, but for now BPA in plastic baby bottles is under advisement until more is known. As moms and soon-to-be moms, we want to do what is best for our babies. So what does this report mean in our world? It means you get to go shopping!

There are plastic baby bottles and sippy cups that do not contain BPA. On the Web, they seem a little pricey. Wal-Mart, meanwhile, has announced that it will convert its entire U.S. stock. They currently stock BPA free bottles. Others will do the same.

MayoClinic.com

April 23rd

Today is the birthday

… of Shirley Temple Black. The actress turned diplomat is 80. Shirley Temple was in approximately 50 films before she turned 18. She received a special juvenile Oscar in 1935.

… of Lee Majors. He’s 69. Soon the $6-million man will be found on eBay for $7.95.

… of Michael Moore, 54.

… of Judy Davis. The two-time Oscar nominee is 53.

… of Valerie Bertinelli. Once Barbara Cooper on One Day at a Time (1975-1984), she’s 48.

… of George Lopez. He’s 47.

… of Melina Kanakaredes, 41.

It was on the date in 1791 that James Buchanan, the former worst president ever of the U.S., was born.

Stephen A. Douglas, the short guy who debated Lincoln during the 1858 election—and won the election, was born on this date in 1813. Douglas died shortly after Lincoln’s inaugural as president in 1861.

And April 23, 1564, is generally accepted as the birth date of William Shakespeare.

Shakespeare used one of the largest vocabularies of any English writer, almost 30,000 words, and he was the first writer to invent or record many of our most common turns of phrase, including “foul play,” “as luck would have it,” “your own flesh and blood,” “too much of a good thing,” “good riddance,” “in one fell swoop,” “cruel to be kind,” “play fast and loose,” “vanish into thin air,” “the game is up,” “truth will out” and “in the twinkling of an eye.”

Shakespeare has always been popular in America, and many colonists kept copies of his complete works along with their Bibles. Pioneers performed his work out West. Many of the mines and canyons across the West are named after Shakespeare or one of his characters. Three mines in Colorado are called Ophelia, Cordelia, and Desdemona.

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media

Airports

Airports are not just for travel anymore. Now you get to listen to any number of inane telephone conversations — many at maximum volume.

Use your inside voice folks, please.

Update: You know, my opinion of the whole human race has diminished since I’ve been privileged to hear other people talking on the phone.

Earth Day Travels

NewMexiKen thought it would be good to share in the burning of some high-octane jet fuel in commemoration of Earth Day, so I am writing from the Albuquerque Sunport about to fly over, by my count, about a dozen states (and perhaps a bit of Canada). One can’t always get from Albuquerque to Virginia, without connecting in some seemingly out of the way place — like Minneapolis.

Should you care to drop by Casa NewMexiKen while I am away visiting the east coast Sweeties, be alert for the rattlesnakes. They like to curl up behind the electronic gear. The scorpions in my closet are nasty little fellows, too.

We’ll see if the Sweeties have plans for Grandpa, or if I can just spend all day blogging like at home.