Month: May 2008

Best line of the day, so far — at least for guys

“I come from a long line of Europeans — illiterate, mud-eating Europeans from the Outer Hebrides, to be exact, whose idea of a good time was to go down to the firth and watch the plague victims wash out to sea. Even so, I’ve always had an affinity for the Continent. Between New Orleans and Amsterdam, I prefer Amsterdam. I’ll take Rousseau over Jefferson, Beck’s over Budweiser, Formula One over NASCAR, and Heidi Klum over my knee.”

Dan Neil

Update: Hmm, on second thought. The end of the line made me laugh out loud, but the more I think about it — the line, not the image — I find it a little too sexist.

So, first instinct, funny go with it, or second instinct, not up to the high standards of this blog — what do you think?

Just when you think people can’t get any more ignorant

Chalk this one up to hard-to-believe: a substitute teacher in Florida lost his job in part because of a magic trick.

As reported by Channel 10 in Tampa, Jim Piculas did a magic trick where he makes a toothpick disappear and reappear. What happened next? The principal called him up to the office and told him he was being accused of — wait for it, wait for it — wizardry.

Bad Astronomy Blog

Birthday present

As noted earlier, Ken, official oldest child of NewMexiKen, is celebrating his birthday today. Yesterday he celebrated one of his birthday gifts:

The Audi Sportscar Experience has been created to allow you to enjoy the highest performance vehicles that Audi produces while increasing your skills so you can extract the most performance from your car. The Audi Sportscar Experience is for the enthusiast, the person who loves to drive and has an appreciation for the fine art of constantly improving his or her driving skills. Using a variety of vehicles from Audi’s R, RS and S categories, this program was developed to be the ultimate experience in an automobile.

His spouse reports: “Apparently, Ken had accidentally called me on his mobile. It was in his pocket while he was driving. So, I get this voice mail that is basically static and silence and then: ‘zooooooooooooom….zoooooooooooooooom.’ It went on and on and on.”

He was driving an Audi R8 at Sonoma’s Infineon Raceway.

Update: Here are photos of Audi R8s on the track taken by Ken’s passenger. Click images for larger versions.

My question to Ken: Why are these cars in front of you?

Audi R8 Two Audi R8s

Killer Angels

Yesterday Professor ari at The Edge of the American West wrote about The Killer Angels in the classroom. He began:

On this day in 1975, Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature, which, I’m told, is a good get. Killer Angels, for those of you who haven’t read it, tells the story of the Battle of Gettysburg, mostly through the eyes of Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and James “Pete” Longstreet and Union officers Joshua Chamberlain and John Buford. The prose is vivid, the narrative taut, and Shaara’s command of tactics and history are both impressive.

If you’ve read the book or studied the civil war you may find ari’s post particularly interesting.

If you haven’t read the book, you really should. NewMexiKen was recently given a first edition. 🙂

Even one more reason to make today a national holiday

It’s National Teacher Day.

Around 1944 Arkansas teacher Mattye Whyte Woodridge began corresponding with political and education leaders about the need for a national day to honor teachers. Woodbridge wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt, who in 1953 persuaded the 81st Congress to proclaim a National Teacher Day.

NEA, along with its Kansas and Indiana state affiliates and the Dodge City (Kan.) Local, lobbied Congress to create a national day celebrating teachers. Congress declared March 7, 1980, as National Teacher Day for that year only.

NEA and its affiliates continued to observe National Teacher Day on the first Tuesday in March until 1985, when the National PTA established Teacher Appreciation Week as the first full week of May. The NEA Representative Assembly then voted to make the Tuesday of that week National Teacher Day.

Thanks to all the wonderful teachers in NewMexiKen’s life, K-12 and beyond.

More reasons May 6th should be a national holiday

Mays card

Willie Mays is 77 today.

When Joe DiMaggio died in 1999, baseball luminaries were asked who inherited the title of greatest living player. NewMexiKen had a different assumption. I thought Willie Mays became the greatest living ballplayer when Ty Cobb died in 1961.

Willie Mays, the “Say Hey Kid,” played with enthusiasm and exuberance while excelling in all phases of the game – hitting for average and power, fielding, throwing and baserunning. His staggering career statistics include 3,283 hits and 660 home runs. The Giants’ superstar earned National League Rookie of the Year honors in 1951 and two MVP awards. He accumulated 12 Gold Gloves, played in a record-tying 24 All-Star games and participated in four World Series. His catch of Vic Wertz’s deep fly in the ’54 Series remains one of baseball’s most memorable moments.

National Baseball Hall of Fame

Two quotes about Mays:

• Ted Williams: “They invented the All-Star game for Willie Mays.”

• Manager Leo Durocher, who must have been from Deadwood, once recalled a remarkable home run by Mays: “I never saw a f—ing ball go out of a f—ing park so f—ing fast in my f—ing life!”

Orson Welles was born on this date in 1915. To many who grew up with television, Welles was simply the larger-than-life spokesman for Paul Masson Wines — “We will sell no wine before its time.” But at age 23 Welles had scared thousands of Americans with his realistic radio production of War of the Worlds. At 25 he wrote, produced, directed and starred in what many consider the best film ever made, Citizen Kane. For that film alone, he was nominated for the Oscar for best actor, best director, best original screenplay and best picture (he won, with Herman Mankiewicz, for screenplay). Welles was nominated for the best picture Oscar again the following year — The Magnificent Ambersons.

Amadeo Peter Giannini was born on this date in 1870. Giannini was one of Time’s 20 most influential builders and titans of the 20th century. Daniel Kadlec wrote the story:

Like a lot of folks in the San Francisco area, Amadeo Peter Giannini was thrown from his bed in the wee hours of April 18, 1906, when the Great Quake shook parts of the city to rubble. He hurriedly dressed and hitched a team of horses to a borrowed produce wagon and headed into town–to the Bank of Italy, which he had founded two years earlier. Sifting through the ruins, he discreetly loaded $2 million in gold, coins and securities onto the wagon bed, covered the bank’s resources with a layer of vegetables and headed home.

In the days after the disaster, the man known as A.P. broke ranks with his fellow bankers, many of whom wanted area banks to remain shut to sort out the damage. Giannini quickly set up shop on the docks near San Francisco’s North Beach. With a wooden plank straddling two barrels for a desk, he began to extend credit “on a face and a signature” to small businesses and individuals in need of money to rebuild their lives. His actions spurred the city’s redevelopment.

That would have been legacy enough for most people. But Giannini’s mark extends far beyond San Francisco, where his dogged determination and unusual focus on “the little people” helped build what was at his death the largest bank in the country, Bank of America, with assets of $5 billion. (It’s now No. 2, with assets of $572 billion, behind Citigroup’s $751 billion.)

Most bank customers today take for granted the things Giannini pioneered, including home mortgages, auto loans and other installment credit. Heck, most of us take banks for granted. But they didn’t exist, at least not for working stiffs, until Giannini came along.
…

Giannini also made a career out of lending to out-of-favor industries. He helped the California wine industry get started, then bankrolled Hollywood at a time when the movie industry was anything but proven. In 1923 he created a motion-picture loan division and helped Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith start United Artists. When Walt Disney ran $2 million over budget on Snow White, Giannini stepped in with a loan.
…

When Giannini died at age 79, his estate was worth less than $500,000. It was purely by choice. He could have been a billionaire but disdained great wealth, believing it would make him lose touch with the people he wanted to serve. For years he accepted virtually no pay, and upon being granted a surprise $1.5 million bonus one year promptly gave it all to the University of California. “Money itch is a bad thing,” he once said. “I never had that trouble.”

Bob Seger is 63 today. George Clooney is 47.

May 6th ought to be a national holiday

This still seems like it was just yesterday.

Too many years ago, I was leaving the area of the University of Arizona and coasted through a stop sign. A Tucson PD motorcycle officer saw the infraction and pulled me over within seconds. As he told me what he’d seen and asked for my driver’s license I said, “My wife is in labor. I’m just anxious to get to her.” He gave me that “yeah, sure” look and walked back to his motorcycle to write me up. When he returned in a minute or two he said he was just giving me a written warning (no fine, no points). And then he added, “Be careful. We haven’t lost a father yet.”

A small moment made important to me because my oldest child was born later that evening. Today he’s a son, a husband, a father, an attorney and a friend. Happy birthday Ken.

What did you dream last night?

Today is Sigmund Freud’s birthday. He was born on May 6, 1856.

In the following pages, I shall demonstrate that there is a psychological technique which makes it possible to interpret dreams, and that on the application of this technique, every dream will reveal itself as a psychological structure, full of significance, and one which may be assigned to a specific place in the psychic activities of the waking state. Further, I shall endeavour to elucidate the processes which underlie the strangeness and obscurity of dreams, and to deduce from these processes the nature of the psychic forces whose conflict or co-operation is responsible for our dreams.

Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams (1899)

In dreams I walk with you. In dreams I talk to you.
In dreams you’re mine. All of the time we’re together
In dreams, In dreams.

Roy Orbison, “In Dreams” (1963)

Oh, the humanity

Herb Morrison reporting, 71 years ago today.

Thirty-six were killed — 13 of the 36 passengers, 22 of the 61 crew, and one ground crew member.

The Hindenburg did not explode because it was filled with hydrogen as long thought. The outer skin of the big German aircraft — longer than three 747s — was painted with an iron oxide, powdered aluminum compound to reflect sunlight (to minimize heat build up). The powdered aluminum was highly flammable and was ignited by an electrostatic charge in the imperfectly grounded zeppelin.

How flammable is iron oxide and aluminum? It’s the fuel used to launch the Shuttle.

Eight Belles

At Salon a very informative piece on horse racing, track surfaces, horse anatomy and Eight Belles. It includes this:

Eight Belles didn’t die because she was a filly, running over her head in a race against colts. Just last year, the filly Rags to Riches won the Belmont Stakes. Eight Belles died because horses are oddly designed creatures. They have no muscles below the knee, and their hooves are essentially nails. One thoroughbred owner I know says horses “run on their middle fingers.” Thoroughbreds are especially fragile, carrying enormous bodies on legs as spindly as a Kenyan marathoner’s. Compare the stocky legs and platter-size feet of a Percheron or a Clydesdale, and you’ll see why racehorses are so easily broken.

If you follow racing at all — even three times a year — you should read this essay.

Most hypocritical line of the day, so far

“I have apologized to my family for my mistakes. And having offered this apology to the public, I would ask that you let me and my family deal with these matters in private.”

Roger Clemens

All full of hubris when he went to Capitol Hill, all for the publicity. Now that the news is negative, it’s time to take it private.

Thanks to Jill for the quotation.

Best line of the day, so far

“American consumers and our economy need a real solution to the energy crisis, not an empty trick. You can run cars on a lot of different fuels, but snake oil isn’t one of them.”

Rep. George Miller criticizing Clinton and McCain for their gasoline tax holiday proposal.

Meanwhile, “More than 200 economists, including four Nobel prize winners, signed a letter rejecting proposals by presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John McCain to offer a summertime gas-tax holiday.” (Bloomberg.com)

Kids

Buy kids all the video games and Disney princess paraphernalia in the world — or let them drop stones down a storm drain grate at the soccer field. Which to you think they’ll choose?

Five of The Sweeties® demonstrate. Click image for larger version.

Five Sweeties

May 5th ought to be a holiday

Nellie Bly was born on this date in 1864.

Nellie Bly was born Elizabeth Jane Cochrane. In the 1880s and 1890s, as a reporter for Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World, she became a pioneer in journalism and investigative reporting. Before the muckrakers of the early 20th century publicized corruption and before the investigative reporters of today sought out the story behind the story, Bly paved the way to valuable journalism as one of the first to “go behind the scenes” to expose societyís ills. At some personal danger, she had herself committed to a mental institution for 10 days so she could study firsthand how the mentally ill were being treated. As a result of her expose, the care of the mentally ill was reformed. As the New York Journal recognized, Bly was considered the “best reporter in America.”

National Women’s Hall of Fame

She went down into the sea in a diving bell and up in the air in a balloon and lived in an insane asylum as a patient; but the feat that made her famous was her trip around the world in 1889. She was sent by The World to beat the mark of Phileas Fogg, Jules Verne’s hero of “Around the World in Eighty Days,” and she succeeded, making the tour in 72 days 6 hours 11 minutes. Every one who read newspapers followed her progress and she landed in New York a national character.

The New York Times

Karl Marx was born in Trier, Germany, on this date in 1818.

Soren Kierkegaard was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, on this date in 1813.

Debunking Grammar Myths

Patricia T. O’Conner, a former editor at The New York Times Book Review, and the author of the national best-seller Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English, debunks some grammar myths for mental_floss Blog.

Among the myths she debunks:

Myth #1: Don’t Split an Infinitive.

Myth #2: Don’t End a Sentence With a Preposition.

Myth #4: None Is Always Singular.

Cinco de Mayo

The holiday of Cinco De Mayo, The 5th Of May, commemorates the victory of the Mexicans over the French army at The Battle Of Puebla in 1862. It is primarily a regional holiday celebrated in the Mexican state capital city of Puebla and throughout the state of Puebla, with some recognition in other parts of the Mexico, and especially in U.S. cities with a significant Mexican population. It is not, as many people think, Mexico’s Independence Day, which is actually September 16.

MexOnline.com

Housing roller coaster

Calculated Risk reports on a house in Costa Mesa (Orange County), California, that sold for $177,500 in 1994, $600,000 in 2005, and is offered for $439,000 today.

“Yes, nominal prices in Orange County are off about 22% from the peak, and real prices (inflation adjusted) are off about 26% from the peak – but prices will probably fall significantly from here.”

The above was written the other day when the asking price was $559,000 (less than the existing mortgages). It was reduced $120,000 over the weekend. That would be a 27% drop in three years, fairly consistent with what Calculated Risk is saying — if it sells.

Here is the listing. Note the freeway sign hanging almost in the backyard. $439,000 is still $340 per square foot.

(You might notice also that the annual property tax is $6,965.)

Wireless security

If you have a wireless network at home, it is imperative that you encrypt it. (While recently in Virginia I was able to see the files on an iMac on the next street over.)

NewMexiKen isn’t knowledgeable enough to tell you how to go about this, but I can explain some of the basics.

  • Wireless encryption and a firewall are both essential — they do different things
  • The first standard was WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy)
  • WEP is better than no protection at all
  • WPA (Wi-Fi Protected Access) was introduced in 2003
  • WPA2 was an update to WPA in 2004
  • WPA (and WPA2) are far superior to WEP
  • If your wireless router, computer wireless card(s) or the associated software is older than 2003, you probably won’t be able to use WPA
  • Newer products — and the Wii, PlayStation 3, PSP, XBox 360, iPhone — can use WPA, but not all of them can use WPA2
  • WPA and WPA2 have two configurations: Personal and Enterprise
  • If you use a good network password, WPA or WPA2 Personal is sufficient for a home network

Bottom line: Use WPA (or WPA2 if you can) and use a good password for the network. Use WEP if that’s all you’ve got.

Death of a Racehorse

“Death of a Racehorse” is a classic piece by the sportswriter W.C. Heinz from 1949.

It seems appropriate today.

They were going to the post for the sixth race at Jamaica, two year olds, some making their first starts, to go five and a half furlongs for a purse of four thousand dollars. They were moving slowly down the backstretch toward the gate, some of them cantering, others walking, and in the press box they had stopped their working or their kidding to watch, most of them interested in one horse.

“Air Lift,” Jim Roach said. “Full brother of Assault.”

Assault, who won the triple crown … making this one too, by Bold Venture, himself a Derby winner, out of Igual, herself by the great Equipoise … Great names in the breeding line … and now the little guy making his first start, perhaps the start of another great career.

They were off well, although Air Lift was fifth. They were moving toward the first turn, and now Air Lift was fourth. They were going into the turn, and now Air Lift was starting to go, third perhaps, when suddenly he slowed, a horse stopping, and below in the stands you could hear a sudden cry, as the rest left him, still trying to run but limping, his jockey — Dave Gorman — half falling, half sliding off.

“He broke a leg!” somebody, holding binoculars to his eyes, shouted in the press box. “He broke a leg!”

Continue reading Death of a Racehorse

Haymarket

On the evening of May 4, 1886, a few thousand people assembled in the Haymarket area at the intersection of Randolph and Desplaines Streets, across the South Branch of the Chicago River about eight blocks west of City Hall. The purpose of the rally was to protest the killing of two workers the previous day by the police when they broke up an angry confrontation between locked-out union members and their replacements at the McCormick reaper factory on the city’s Southwest Side. This confrontation was one of many outbreaks of violence at the time due to labor and class tensions. Central among labor’s demands was the eight-hour workday.

As the protest meeting in the Haymarket was nearing a close, about 180 police marched from the nearby Desplaines Street station to the makeshift speakers’ stand. Immediately after a police commander ordered the rally to disperse, someone threw a dynamite bomb into the ranks of the officers. One officer was killed almost instantly, and six more would die in the next few days and weeks of wounds either caused by the bomb or sustained in the riot that followed. Acting with overwhelming public support, the police arrested dozens of political radicals. In the trial that followed, eight anarchists were found guilty of murder. After appeals to the Illinois and United States Supreme Courts failed, four of the defendants were executed on November 11, 1887. One day before the hangings, another defendant committed suicide. Illinois Governor Richard Oglesby commuted the capital sentence of two other defendants to life in prison. The jury had sentenced the eighth defendant to fifteen years at hard labor.

Scholars have long considered the Haymarket trial one of the most notorious miscarriages of law in American history. At this time of cultural crisis, the defendants were convicted by a prejudiced judge and jury because of their political views, rather than on the basis of solid evidence that linked them to the bombing. Although most middle-class Americans and even many working people at the time cheered this action and praised the police as defenders of public order, the executions transformed the anarchists into martyrs of labor in this country and throughout the world. The cultural memory of Haymarket has echoed ever since through many other events.

The above excerpted from the excellent The Dramas of Haymarket, an online project produced by the Chicago Historical Society and Northwestern University.

Kent

Today, May 4, is an excellent day to listen to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s “Ohio.”

It’s been 38 years.

On May 4, 1970 the Ohio National Guard opened fire into a busy college campus during a school day. A total of 67 shots were fired in 13 seconds. Four students: Allison Krause, William Schroeder, Jeffrey Miller, and Sandra Scheuer were killed. Nine students were wounded.

Kent May 4 Center

Here’s the news story from The New York Times.