“[B]ut would somebody like to explain what in the name of pole-vaulting Jesus Tom DeLay was doing on Hardball the other night? Was it Take A Crook To Work Day? Folks, this greasy little homunculus is under indictment.”
Whoever would like to make a commitment to pray for Sarah Palin can go to www.prayforsarahpalin.com and enter their zip code. A marker will automatically be placed on the prayer coverage map, which can be viewed live in Google maps. There are approximately 43,000 zip codes in the United States. Our goal is to have people praying for Sarah Palin in every zip code. I believe prayer changes things.
Black guy who just walked in: Excuse me, sir, have you been waiting for the train long?
White guy reading newspaper (with an Obama sticker on his bag): Sorry, I don’t have any spare change.
Black guy: What?
–1 Train
Does the palpable ignorance around the election make you want to learn more about this country’s history?
In its December 2004 issue, American Heritage published an extensive and valuable bibliography of American history.
So here it is, certainly the most challenging editorial task we’ve ever attempted—and one of the most rewarding. We have drawn on the knowledge and enthusiasm of leading historians, writers, and critics to offer a compendium of the very best books about the American experience. Divided into both chronological and subject categories ranging from the rise of the Republic to sports, from the years of World War II to the African-American journey, each section presents the writer’s choice of the 10 best books in a particular field, along with lucid, lively explanations of what makes them great. The result, we believe, is both a valuable reference work and an anthology of highly personal views of the making of our country and our culture that is immensely readable in its own right.
The list is worth consulting.
By the way, Gore Vidal’s novel Lincoln makes the list. As noted below, Vidal is 83 today.
Gore Vidal is 83 today.
Steve Reich is 72. Let this paragraph from Alex Ross in The New Yorker explain Reich’s compostitions:
In this sense, “Different Trains,” for recorded voices and string quartet, may be Reich’s most staggering achievement, even if “Music for 18” gives the purest pleasure. He wrote the piece in 1988, after recalling cross-country train trips that he had taken as a child. “As a Jew, if I had been in Europe during this period, I would have had to ride very different trains,” he has said. Recordings of his nanny reminiscing about their journeys and of an elderly man named Lawrence Davis recalling his career as a Pullman porter are juxtaposed with the testimonies of three Holocaust survivors. These voices give a picture of the dividedness of twentieth-century experience, of the irreconcilability of American idyll and European horror—and something in Mr. Davis’s weary voice also reminds us that America was never an idyll for all. The hidden melodies of the spoken material generate string writing that is rich in fragmentary modal tunes and gently pulsing rhythms.
The NPR 100 included Reich’s “Drumming” among its “100 most important American musical works of the 20th century.” Here’s that report. (RealPlayer)
Chubby Checker is 67. His version of “The Twist” was number one in both 1960 and 1962.
My daddy is sleepin’ and mama ain’t around
Yeah daddy is sleepin’ and
mama ain’t around
We’re gonna twisty twisty twisty
‘Til we turn the house down
My good senator, Jeff Bingaman, is 65 today.
Roy is 64.
In their three-plus decades in Las Vegas, Siegfried & Roy have performed for more than 25 million people. Through the years, they have seen many changes in the city’s entertainment scene, some of which they were personally responsible for. The illusionists opened the door to family entertainment, setting a standard in stage extravaganzas that cannot be duplicated anywhere in the world.
Lindsey Buckingham is 59. For years I thought Lindsey was Stevie and Stevie was Lindsey.
Keb’ Mo’ is 57.
Dave Winfield is 57.
A true five-tool athlete who never spent a day in the minor leagues, Dave Winfield played 22 seasons, earning 12 All-Star Game selections. At six-feet, six-inches, he was an imposing figure and a durable strongman with the rare ability to combine power and consistency. In tours of duty with six major league teams, Winfield batted .283, hit 465 home runs, and amassed 3,110 hits. He was a seven-time Gold Glove winner and helped lead the Toronto Blue Jays to their first World Championship in 1992.
Dennis Eckersley is 54.
Dennis Eckersley blazed a unique path to Hall of Fame success. During the first half of his 24-year big league career, Eck won over 150 games primarily as a starter, including a no-hitter in 1977. Over his final 12 years, he saved nearly 400 games, leading his hometown Oakland A’s to four American League West titles and earning both Cy Young and MVP honors in 1992. The only pitcher with 100 saves and 100 complete games, Eckersley dominated opposing batters during a six-year stretch from 1988 to 1993, in which he struck out 458 while walking just 51.
Al Sharpton is 54.
Donna Moss is 39. That’s Janel Moloney of The West Wing.
Not only is Gwen Stefani not a “Hollaback Girl,” at 39 one might say she’s not even a girl.
A few times I’ve been around that track
So it’s not just gonna happen like that
Cause I ain’t no hollaback girl
I ain’t no hollaback girl
(A hollaback girl is a girl who lets boys do whatever, then waits for them to call, to holler back. Originally it meant a cheerleader who echoed the lead cheerleader’s call. The song uses both meanings well.)
John Ross was born on October 3rd in 1790.
He spent his early life trying to design a new government for the Cherokees, based on the U.S. government, with a constitution and three separate but equal branches and democratically elected leaders. He respected the American justice system so much that when the state of Georgia tried to force Cherokees off their land, John Ross chose not to go to war, but instead took Georgia to court. It was the first time that an Indian tribe had ever sued the U.S. over treaty rights, and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court. The case was decided in 1832, and Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in his opinion that the state of Georgia did not have jurisdiction over Cherokees and therefore could not force the Cherokees to leave their land. But President Andrew Jackson refused to enforce the decision. He said, “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”
Six years later, 15,000 Cherokees were forced out of their homes at gunpoint by American soldiers, gathered together in camps and then forced to walk to the new “Indian Territory” west of the Mississippi, an event that became known as The Trail of Tears. The camps had horrible hygienic conditions, and an epidemic of dysentery killed an estimated 8,000 Cherokees, including John Ross’s wife.
Emily Post was born on October 3rd in 1873, thank you very much.
She taught as the basis of all correct deportment that “no one should do anything that can either annoy or offend the sensibilities of others.” Thousands found their social problems solved by her simple counsels. Her name became synonymous with good manners.
Mrs. Post’s advice was varied. She gave suggestions about how to inculcate good manners in an active 7-year-old boy and she could and did answer complicated questions about the proper way to address titled persons of Europe.
But for the most part she advised the debutante, the confused suitor and the newly married couple who wished to establish themselves in good relations with the world about them. She always avoided giving lonelyhearts advice and never suggested ways to capture a husband or wife, although many young persons found courtship easier because of what she said.
“Since they [pundits] spend all of their time trying to explain to us what this imaginary stupid voter might think about things, you’d think it might be simpler to just hire a few of these very stupid people to be pundits. Oh, wait.”
Another credit market indicator, the “TED spread,” rose to yet another record high of 3.68 percentage points. The higher the spread, the more likely banks are to avoid risk. The TED spread was only 1.04 points on Sept. 5.
The TED spread measures the difference between 3-month Libor and the yield on the 3-month Treasury, considered by many investors to be the safest investment. The spread is a key indicator of banks’ willingness to lend to one another.
Libor is the acronym for London interbank offered rate, another key indicator of interest rates.
“You mentioned education and I’m glad you did. I know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for 30 years, and god bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right?”
“Indicators of financial stress have soared to the equivalent of a 107-degree fever, and large parts of the financial system have simply shut down.”
Paul Krugman, in today’s column written yesterday. Krugman has been pretty much right about this crisis all along.
“It is now clear that the US financial system – and now even the system of financing of the corporate sector – is now in cardiac arrest and at a risk of a systemic financial meltdown.”
Nouriel Roubini, writing today. Roubini has been pretty much right about this crisis all along.
MODERATORS FOR FUTURE DEBATES: I AM OUTRAGED, AND DEMAND TWO QUESTIONS. ONE. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF GUANTANAMO BAY AND WHAT THE CONTINUED USE OF THIS PRISON CAMP SAYS TO THE WORLD ABOUT AMERICA’S SUPPOSED EXCEPTIONALISM? TWO. WHERE DO YOU STAND ON HABEAS CORPUS, AND THE CURRENT INTERPRETATIONS AND ALTERATIONS THEREOF? I WANT TO HEAR THE ANSWERS TO THESE QUESTIONS DIRECTLY FROM THE MOUTHS OF THESE CANDIDATES.
Bosniaks is the correct term.
[On PBS, Cokie Roberts said Biden was incorrect. Roberts is increasingly a blithering idiot.]
“The important thing is that she opposes taxes that will hurt the umbrella of job creation while standing tall and fighting for a diverse family that rejects the white flag of surrenderdom.”
“Well, our founding fathers were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president. And we will do what is best for the American people in tapping into that position and ushering in an agenda that is supportive and cooperative with the president’s agenda in that position. Yeah, so I do agree with him that we have a lot of flexibility in there, and we’ll do what we have to do to administer very appropriately the plans that are needed for this nation.”
I’m trying to think of a cliché or word of gobbledygook Governor Palin did not use. Help me out here.
Mahatma Gandhi was born on October 2nd in 1869. Groucho Marx was born on October 2nd in 1890. Coincidence? I think not.
Maury Wills is 76 today. Wills stole 104 bases in 1962 to break Ty Cobb’s 47-year-old record. So far, that hasn’t been enough to get him into the Hall of Fame.
Don McLean is 63.
Starry, starry night.
Paint your palette blue and grey,
Look out on a summer’s day,
With eyes that know the darkness in my soul.
Shadows on the hills,
Sketch the trees and the daffodils,
Catch the breeze and the winter chills,
In colors on the snowy linen land.
Now I understand what you tried to say to me,
How you suffered for your sanity,
How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen, they did not know how.
Perhaps they’ll listen now.
Photographer Annie Leibovitz is 59.
Gordon Sumner is 57. You know, Sting.
You’ll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You’ll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we walk in the fields of gold
So she took her love
For to gaze awhile
Upon the fields of barley
In his arms she fell as her hair came down
Among the fields of gold
Will you stay with me, will you be my love
Among the fields of barley
We’ll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we lie in the fields of gold
Lorraine Bracco is 54.
Graham Greene was born on October 2nd in 1904.
Graham Greene realized early in his writing career that if he wrote just 500 words a day, he would have written several million words in just a few decades. So he developed a routine of writing for exactly two hours every day, and he was so strict about stopping after exactly two hours that he often stopped writing in the middle of a sentence. And at that pace, he managed to publish 26 novels, as well as numerous short stories, plays, screenplays, memoirs, and travel books. He said, “We are all of us resigned to death: it’s life we aren’t resigned to.”
The Writer’s Almanac (2007)
Bud Abbott was born on this date in 1897. He was the thin one of Abbott and Costello.
Julius Henry “Groucho” Marx was born on this date in 1890.
“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”
“I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll be glad to make an exception.”
“I have had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.”
“I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.”
“Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.”
“Room service? Send up a larger room.”
“I intend to live forever, or die trying.”
“Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them — well, I have others.”
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”
…was sworn in as Supreme Court Justice on this date in 1967. Marshall made the successful argument before the Court in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka in 1954. He was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals by President Kennedy, and as Solicitor General and then to the Supreme Court by President Johnson. He was the first (of just two so far) African-American justice.
Click here to see how political cartoonist Paul Conrad depicted the loss when Marshall died in 1993 (two years after retiring from the Court).
“Joe Biden will be judged on whether he gets anything wrong; Palin, on whether she gets anything right.”
“We’re debating whether being part-time mayor of a small town in Alaska qualifies you to be president.”
“[B]ecause of low expectations, Sarah Palin need only get through tonight’s debate without accidentally endorsing Obama in order to be successful.”
You know, if put on the spot, any thinking American ought to be able to name Dred Scott at least as a Supreme Court decision they disagreed with.
“I learned plenty of strange facts this weekend at the Baseball Hall of Fame. But by far, the most amazing story I heard was this one: about a 17-year old girl who struck out two of the biggest names in baseball, only to be kicked out of the sport.”
Read all about it at the mental_floss Blog. I’d never heard about Virnett Mitchell before, had you?
“Today, Barack Obama has 269 electoral votes outside the battleground zone. That is, if you only give Obama the states he is projected to win by more than five points, that is enough to get him an Electoral College tie, which is essentially the same as a win.”
FiveThirtyEight.com (the best source for polling information and forecasts).
Obama gets 269 even if the margin is upped to six points. New Mexico (+9.3%) and Colorado (+6.1%) are included in the 269.
In addition, FiveThirtyEight.com says “[W]e project Obama victories in Virginia (4.4%), New Hampshire (3.4%), Ohio (2.4%), Florida (2.4%), and Nevada (2.1%), with Indiana a tie.”
That’s 338.
But anything can happen.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Powered by WordPress.
