You really ought to take a few minutes and read this article about the financial crisis and Birmingham, Alabama.
Money quote:
“Once you follow that trail and understand what took place in Jefferson County, there’s really no room left for illusions. We live in a gangster state, and our days of laughing at other countries are over.”
Go read and see why.
Spirit Airlines is now charging $20 to $45 for a CARRY-ON bag.
Someone should file a class action suit against airlines claiming they are discriminating against people who are not hobos or nudists.
Today is the birthday
… of Andre Previn. The composer-conducter and 13-time Oscar nominee — he won for Gigi, Porgy and Bess, Irma la Douce and My Fair Lady — is 81. Previn was married to Mia Farrow for most of the 1970s. They had three children and adopted three more.
… of Merle Haggard. The Country Music Hall of Fame inductee is 73.
Haggard has recorded more than 600 songs, about 250 of them his own compositions. (He often shares writing credits as gestures of financial and personal largess.) He has had thirty-eight #1 songs, and his “Today I Started Loving You Again” (Capitol, 1968) has been recorded by nearly 400 other artists.
In addition, Haggard is an accomplished instrumentalist, playing a commendable fiddle and a to-be-reckoned-with lead guitar. He and the Strangers played for Richard Nixon at the White House in 1973, at a barbecue on the Reagan ranch in 1982, at Washington’s Kennedy Center, and 60,000 miles from earth—courtesy of astronaut Charles Duke, who brought a tape aboard Apollo 16 in 1972. Haggard has won numerous CMA and ACM Awards including both organizations’ 1970 Entertainer of the Year awards, been nominated for scores of others, was elected to the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame in 1977, and won Country Music Hall of Fame membership in 1994. In 1984 he won a Grammy in the Best Country Vocal Performance, Male category for “That’s the Way Love Goes.”
… of Billy Dee Williams. Lando Calrissian is 73. Williams played Gale Sayers in the classic 1971 TV movie Brian’s Song.
“There’s always been a lot of misunderstanding about Lando’s character. I used to pick up my daughter from elementary school and get into arguments with little children who would accuse me of betraying Han Solo.”
… of Barry Levinson. The six-time Oscar nominee (writing, directing) won for best director for Rain Man. He’s 68.
… of John Ratzenberger. Best known as Cliff Clavin the mailman on Cheers, Ratzenberger is also the voice of Hamm the Piggy Bank in the Toy Story movies and Yeti in Monsters, Inc. Ratzenberger is 63.
… of Jason Hervey. Wayne Arnold of “The Wonder Years” is 38.
… of Zach Braff of Scrubs. He’s 35 today.
Oscar-winner and four-time nominee Walter Huston was born on this date in 1884. Huston won Best Supporting Actor Oscar for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, one of the great performances. Walter was the father of John and grandfather of Anjelica.
Tony Barnhart of the Atlanta Journal has a number of interesting insights into the game, Butler and Coach K.
“Gregg Doyel of CBS Sports sums it up nicely: In its last five possessions, Duke mustered just one point, one air ball, and two turnovers.
” ‘That’s not winning a national championship,’ Doyel writes. ‘That’s finding a national championship.’ ”
“However, this is the second major championship in a row in American sports where there was a clear-cut underdog fan favorite (New Orleans Saints/Butler Bulldogs) and a squeaky-clean, stiff do-gooder looking to return to prominence (Indianapolis Colts/Duke Blue Devils). Maybe we just got spoiled with the Saints’ upset in the Super Bowl and started to think Butler could pull it out.”
“On the day that an American consulate in Pakistan is attacked and that Wikileaks posted video of soldiers laughing while they kill civilians in Iraq, the major U.S. news networks have more important things to cover. Tiger Woods has returned to golf.”
The exorcist also said that the abuse scandal showed that Satan uses priests to try to destroy the church, “and so we should not be surprised if priests too … fall into temptation. They also live in the world and can fall like men of the world.”
Actually, falling into temptation is eating cupcakes after you’ve given them up for Lent. Rape and molestation of children is far beyond what most of us think of as succumbing to worldly temptation.
“If I were to run into a kind-hearted mugger tomorrow who forced me to give up only one of my gadgets, I’d throw him the iPad without hesitation. I need my phone and my computer to get things done, but I don’t really need a tablet computer. The iPad is a luxury—like Steve Jobs’ Mercedes roadster, it’s the sort of thing you buy if you’ve got extra money and you want a fun, stylish gewgaw.”
Farhad Manjoo – Slate Magazine
But …
“[T]he iPad is the best media-consumption device ever made. Or, to put it another way, there is no better machine to use on the couch, the bed, or in the bathroom.”
“The most watched minute of video made in the last five years shows baby Charlie biting his brother’s finger. (Twice!) That minute has been watched by more people than the viewership of American Idol, Dancing With The Stars, and the Superbowl combined. (174 million views and counting.)”
Today is the birthday
. . . of Gale Storm. My Little Margie is 88. That TV series ran 1952-1955. Storm’s real name was neither Gale, nor Margie (nor Susanna Pomeroy). It was Josephine Cottle.
… of Roger Corman. The filmmaker is 84 today.
. . . of Colin Powell. He’s 73. As NewMexiKen exited my office in 2001, I nearly ran into Secretary Powell and Condoleezza Rice walking down the hall after leaving one of Vice President Cheney’s Energy Task Force meetings. Powell is one of eight Secretaries of State that I’ve met or seen, but the only one I almost knocked down.
. . . of Michael Moriarty. He’s 69. Moriarty has won three Emmy awards, but none for playing Ben Stone in Law and Order despite five nominations. NewMexiKen liked Moriarty best as Henry “Author” Wiggen in Bang the Drum Slowly (with Robert De Niro). The IMDB mini biography for Moriarty says he’s 6-feet-4. Interestingly, the mini biography was written by Michael Moriarty.
Booker T. Washington was born on this date in 1856.
An incident of Dr. Washington’s life that stirred up a controversy throughout the country was the occasion of his dining at the White House with President Roosevelt on Oct. 16, 1901. Dr. Washington went to the White House at the invitation of the President, and, when the news was spread abroad, thousands, both North and South, who were moved by race prejudice or by a belief that social equality between blacks and whites had been encouraged, became angry. Most of the criticism fell upon Colonel Roosevelt, but the incident served also to injure Dr. Washington’s work in some parts of the South.
Spencer Tracy was born on this date in 1900. Tracy was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar nine times and won twice, for Captains Courageous and Boys Town. Tracy died in 1967.
Ruth Elizabeth Davis was born on this date in 1908. As Bette Davis she was nominated for the Best Actress Oscar 11 times, winning for Dangerous and Jezebel. Davis died in 1989.
Conductor Herbert von Karajan was also born on this date in 1908 and he, too, died in 1989.
Gregory Peck was born on this date in 1916. Peck was nominated for the Best Actor Oscar five times, winning for To Kill a Mockingbird. Mr. Peck also won the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. Peck died in 2003.
Joseph Lister was born on this date in 1827. His principle that bacteria must never enter a surgical incision was a breakthrough for modern surgery. Lister died in 1912.
First posted two years ago today.
Mine Is Longer than Yours
In this week’s The New Yorker, Michael Kinsley has about as accurate an analysis of aging as any I’ve read. Worthwhile for oldsters of all ages. He also touches poignantly on his Parkinson’s.
Some excerpts:
What’s more, of all the gifts that life and luck can bestow—money, good looks, love, power—longevity is the one that people seem least reluctant to brag about. In fact, they routinely claim it as some sort of virtue—as if living to ninety were primarily the result of hard work or prayer, rather than good genes and never getting run over by a truck. Maybe the possibility that the truck is on your agenda for later this morning makes the bragging acceptable. The longevity game is one that really isn’t over till it’s over.
Anyway, the answer is sixty-three. If a hundred Americans start the voyage of life together, on average one of them will have died by the time the group turns sixteen. At forty, their lives are half over: further life expectancy at age forty is 39.9. And at age sixty-three the group starts losing an average of one person every year. Then it accelerates. By age seventy-five, sixty-seven of the original hundred are left. By age one hundred, three remain.
For a yuppie careerist, the first painful recognition that you have crossed the invisible line probably comes at work. You’ve done fine, but guess what? You will not be chairman of the company, or editor of the newspaper, or president of the university. It’s mathematically inevitable that for every C.E.O. there will be half a dozen vice-presidents whose careers will seem successful enough to everybody but themselves. Nevertheless, to them this realization is poignant.
Precisely.
Over at Dinner without Crayons, Tanya swims with the dolphins. Wonderful story, wonderfully told.
. . . was assassinated while standing on the balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on this date in 1968.
The evening before King concluded his speech with:
And they were telling me, now it doesn’t matter now. It really doesn’t matter what happens now. I left Atlanta this morning, and as we got started on the plane, there were six of us, the pilot said over the public address system, “We are sorry for the delay, but we have Dr. Martin Luther King on the plane. And to be sure that all of the bags were checked, and to be sure that nothing would be wrong with the plane, we had to check out everything carefully. And we’ve had the plane protected and guarded all night.”
And then I got to Memphis. And some began to say the threats, or talk about the threats that were out. What would happen to me from some of our sick white brothers?
Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
A rave review for David Simon’s new series “Treme,” which begins next Sunday on HBO. Ten episodes are scheduled for the first season.
David Simon was the writer/producer of “The Wire,” the best thing ever on TV.
Three rednecks die and are at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter tells them that they lead sinful lives, never gave a minute’s thought to the Lord, but they can still enter Heaven if they can answer one simple question.
St. Peter asks the first man, “What is Easter?”
The man replies, “Oh, that’s easy, it’s the holiday in November when everybody gets together, eats turkey, and is thankful…”
“Wrong,” replies St. Peter, and proceeds to ask the second man the same question, “What is Easter?”
The second man replies, “No, Easter is the holiday in December when we put up a nice tree, exchange presents, and celebrate the birth of Jesus.”
St. Peter looks at the second man, shakes his head in disgust, looks at the third man and asks, “What is Easter?”
The third man smiles and looks St. Peter in the eye.
“I know what Easter is. Easter is the Christian holiday that coincides with the Jewish celebration of Passover. Jesus and his disciples were eating at the last supper and He was later deceived and turned over to the Romans by one of his disciples. The Romans took Him to be crucified and stabbed in the side, made Him wear a crown of thorns, and He was hung on a cross. He was buried in a nearby cave which was sealed off by a large boulder. Every year the boulder is moved aside so that Jesus can come out, and if He sees his shadow there will be six more weeks of winter.”
… was born on this date in 1915. His real name was McKinley Morganfield.
The following is excerpted from Waters’ obituary written by Robert Palmer in The New York Times, May 1, 1983:
Beginning in the early 1950′s, Mr. Waters made a series of hit records for Chicago’s Chess label that made him the undisputed king of Chicago blues singers. He was the first popular bandleader to assemble and lead a truly electric band, a band that used amplification to make the music more ferociously physical instead of simply making it a little louder.
In 1958, he became the first artist to play electric blues in England, and while many British folk-blues fans recoiled in horror, his visit inspired young musicians like Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones, who later named their band the Rolling Stones after Mr. Waters’s early hit “Rollin’ Stone.” Bob Dylan’s mid-1960′s rock hit “Like a Rolling Stone” and the leading rock newspaper Rolling Stone were also named after Mr. Waters’s original song. …
But Muddy Waters was more than a major influence in the pop music world. He was a great singer of American vernacular music, a vocal artist of astonishing power, range, depth, and subtlety. Among musicians and singers, his remarkable sense of timing, his command of inflection and pitch shading, and his vocabulary of vocal sounds and effects, from the purest falsetto to grainy moaning rasps, were all frequent topics of conversation. And he was able to duplicate many of his singing techniques on electric guitar, using a metal slider to make the instrument “speak” in a quivering, voice-like manner.
His blues sounded simple, but it was so deeply rooted in the traditions of the Mississippi Delta that other singers and guitarists found it almost impossible to imitate it convincingly. “My blues looks so simple, so easy to do, but it’s not,” Mr. Waters said in a 1978 interview. “They say my blues is the hardest blues in the world to play.”
… died on this date in 1841 after serving 31 days as president. He was the first president to die in office. He was 68.
Harrison’s grandson, Benjamin, was president 1889-1893.
In The Epic of Gilgamesh, written in Babylon 4,000 years ago, the eponymous hero travels into the gardens of the gods in an attempt to discover the secret of eternal life. His guide tells him the secret—there is no secret. This is it. This is all we’re going to get. This life. This time. Once. “Enjoy your life,” the goddess Siduri tells him. “Love the child who holds you by the hand, and give your wife pleasure in your embrace.” It’s Lennon’s dream, four millenniums ahead of schedule: Above us, only sky. Gilgamesh returns to the world and lives more intensely and truly and deeply than before, knowing there is no celestial after-party and no forever.
. . . of Doris Day. She’s 87 today. Day had three number one hits on her own and was the vocalist with Les Brown for one of the great hits of all-time, “Sentimental Journey.” Her most famous other single, “What Ever Will Be, Will Be (Que Sera, Sera)” was a number two song in 1956. Day was nominated for the best actress Oscar for Pillow Talk.
. . . of primatologist Jane Goodall. She’s 76.
. . . of Marsha Mason; she’s 68. Mason is a four-time Oscar nominee for best actress — Cinderella Liberty, The Goodbye Girl, Chapter Two and Only When I Laugh.
. . . of Wayne Newton and Billy Joe Royal. They’re both 68. Each had exactly one top ten hit — Newton with “Daddy Don’t You Walk So Fast” (reached number 4 in 1972) and Royal with “Down in the Boondocks” (reached number 9 in 1965). Of the two, Newton has surely done the better job of hanging on.
. . . of Tony Orlando, 66. Orlando had three number one hits in the early 70s: “Knock Three Times” as Dawn, “Tie a Yellow Ribbon Rond the Ole Oak Tree” as Dawn Featuring Tony Orlando, and “He Don’t Love You (Like I Love You)” as Tony Orlando and Dawn.
. . . of Richard Thompson. He’s 61 and he’s never had a top ten hit, however:
One of Britain’s most gifted guitarists and songwriters; Richard has been the mainstay of the folk rock scene for over 30 years. Whatever the size of his record sales, he has a reputation among his peers that is second to none. (BBC – Music)
. . . of Alec Baldwin. He’s 52. Baldwin was nominated for the best supporting actor Oscar for Cooler.
. . . of David Hyde Pierce. Frasier Crane’s brother Niles is 51.
. . . of Eddie Murphy. He’s 49. Murphy was 19 when he started with “Saturday Night Live.” Murphy was nominated recently for the best supporting actor Oscar.
Virgil “Gus” Grissom was born on this date in 1926. Grissom was the second American in space, a July 1961 suborbital flight that followed Alan Shepard’s similar flight and preceded John Glenn’s orbiting the earth in 1962. Grissom’s spacecraft sank upon landing, but after years of analysis, experts conceded it had not been due to any action or failure on Grissom’s part. Grissom flew in the first manned Gemini flight in 1965 — he was the first American to fly into space twice. He named the craft Molly Brown (as in unsinkable). When NASA objected, he renamed it Titanic. NASA relented but never used the name and stopped naming spacecraft for a time. Grissom died in the Apollo I fire in 1967.
The actor Leslie Howard was born on this date in 1893. Most famous as Ashley Wilkes in Gone with the Wind, Howard was nominated for two best acting Oscars earlier in his career. Wilkes’ was killed when his plane was shot down by German fighters during World War II.
. . . entered Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, on this date in 1865. The Confederate government and army had fled the night before. According to historian James M. McPherson, “Southerners burned more of their own capital than the enemy had burned of Atlanta or Columbia.”
The following day, April 4, President Lincoln, who had been “vacationing” at City Point, Virginia, near the front since March 24, toured Richmond (much of it on foot) with his 12-year-old son Tad (it was Tad’s birthday). At the capitol, Lincoln sat in Jefferson Davis’ chair.
Lincoln returned to Washington on April 9th (the date of Lee’s surrender). He was assassinated just five days later.
Starting on April 3, 1860, the Pony Express ran through parts of Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, and California. On an average day, a rider covered 75 to 100 miles. He changed horses at relay stations, set about 10 or 15 miles apart, transferring himself and his mochila (a saddle cover with four pockets or cantinas for mail) to the new mount, all in one leap.
The first mail by Pony Express via the central route from St. Joseph to Sacramento took 10 1/2 days, cutting the Overland Stage time via the southern route by more than half. The fastest delivery was in March 1861, when President Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural address was carried in 7 days and 17 hours.
From April 1860 through June 1861, the Pony Express operated as a private enterprise. From July 1, 1861, it operated under contract as a mail route until October 24, 1861, when the transcontinental telegraph line was completed, and the Pony Express became a legend.
Title of this post taken from want ad placed in March 1860 for riders.
“Hold your iPad. Gaze at it. Pray to it. Let it transform you. And do it soon, because before you know it we are going to release version 2, which will make this one look like a total piece of crap.”
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