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.”