“Did you know former President James Garfield could write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other at the same time? That was Garfield. When President Bush heard about it, he said, ‘We had a talking cat for president?'”
Jay Leno quoted by AP — and first posted here two years ago today.
Thanks Pete. Thanks Roger, David and Chris.
Is Hillary buying votes for 18.4 cents apiece?
Just asking.
“Life has a way of taking your most earnest pledges and folding them into funny hats for you to wear.”
Dan Neil, concluding a very personal essay about relationships.
“It’s a Shell game.”
Barack Obama
Dan Neil takes a hike — with gadgets. He begins:
“Whoso walketh in solitude, and inhabiteth the wood . . . into that forester shall pass . . . power and grace.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
But what if I snap my ankle? Or blow a cardiac gasket? Or fall or get stuck on a mountain where I can’t go up or down, what climbers call getting “cliffed out”? What then, Ralph Waldo? I won’t give a tinker’s damn about power and grace then. I’m going to be looking for that orange-and-white rescue whirligig in the sky. Swing low, sweet Stokes litter.
Going solo into the backcountry — or on a sailboat around Catalina, or on a mountain bike in Moab, Utah, for that matter — always implies a trade-off, the exchange of safety for reverie. Nearly always, the risk is worth it, and for all the reasons Emerson made a career of. To be alone in big-N nature is to challenge yourself, to calibrate yourself, to fully inhabit the body you were born with, to feel the chill of the absolute run up your spine.
But things can go very wrong.
“Did you all see ‘American Idol’ Tuesday night? The story is everywhere on the Internet and the radio that Paula Abdul was drinking before she had that meltdown on ‘American Idol.’ I hope so. Because if she wasn’t drinking, that means she’s just crazy. Usually when you see somebody named Abdul babbling like that, it’s in an al Qaeda video.”
“And some sad news. ‘CSI’ actor Gary Dourdan was arrested in Palm Springs for possession of heroin, cocaine and ecstasy. Heroin, cocaine, and ecstasy. Or as Amy Winehouse calls that, a ‘happy meal.'”
Jay Leno
A lot of zeros: Chares Ray Fuller, the police say, had it in mind last week to start a record business, and figured he might as well finance it by cashing a forged check drawn on his girlfriend’s mother’s account, The Associated Press reported this morning. Not that The Lede has any firsthand experience with this, but one imagines that a check-forger-to-be inevitably faces a moment when, with pen poised, he or she must decide exactly what amount to try for.
How about, oh, $360,000,000,000? Yeah, that ought to do it.
At the Chase Bank branch in Fort Worth, Texas, where the police said he tried to cash the check, the teller apparently thought something was amiss, seeing as how the amount far exceeded the bank’s total market capitalization and all, so officials contacted the account owner. When she told them that, no, she hadn’t written any multibillion-dollar checks, Mr. Fuller was arrested and charged with forgery (not to mention possession of a small amount of marijuana and a .25-caliber pistol), and later was released on $3,750 bail — cash or bond, please, no personal checks.
Today and tomorrow from 10-4, New Mexico has its very own Civil War reenactments.
“Military drills, skirmishes and cannon fire will highlight two action-filled days, including reenactments of the battles of Glorieta Pass and Apache Canyon fought near Santa Fe during the War Between the States. Visit Confederate and Union camps, and more!”
And tonight only:
“To enhance your daytime experience at the ranch, you will have a unique opportunity to come back on Saturday evening to participate in a candlelight tour that will take you back to the days of the Civil War in the New Mexico! You will view several ‘vignettes,’ depicting everyday life of soldiers and civilians in 1862. Tours will be given by New Mexico Civil War Congress and the Friends of Fort Selden. After the tour, you will have an opportunity to chat with re-enactors by the campfire, while enjoying hot chocolate and cookies!”
Every 20 minutes, starting at 8 p.m., no charge, reservations required.
Mark Morford has some spending suggestions for those of you receiving the hush money tax rebate. Several are funny. My favorite:
One share of Google. Hey, it’s the most powerful company on Earth. It belches up bits of Microsoft after an organic tofu and wakame salad lunch in its massive world-class floating cafeteria in the sky. Why not buy a tiny crumb of the company that already owns a large piece of you and everything you do and play with and think about and log into every single day? Sort of like buying back a tiny, digitized, bitmapped, rebranded, YouTubed, Street Viewed piece of your own exhausted soul. Neat!
Harry Lillis Crosby was born on this date in 1903. Known as “Bing” from a childhood nickname, he was:
[W]ithout doubt, the most popular and influential media star of the first half of the 20th century. The undisputed best-selling artist until well into the rock era (with over half a billion records in circulation), the most popular radio star of all time, and the biggest box-office draw of the 1940s, Crosby dominated the entertainment world from the Depression until the mid-’50s, and proved just as influential as he was popular. Unlike the many vocal artists before him, Crosby grew up with radio, and his intimate bedside manner was a style perfectly suited to emphasize the strengths of a medium transmitted directly into the home. He was also helped by the emerging microphone technology: scientists had perfected the electrically amplified recording process scant months before Crosby debuted on record, and in contrast to earlier vocalists, who were forced to strain their voices into the upper register to make an impression on mechanically recorded tracks, Crosby’s warm, manly baritone crooned contentedly without a thought of excess. …
John Bush for the All Music Guide
And today is Pete Seeger’s birthday. He’s 89.
Pete Seeger’s contribution to folk music, both in terms of its revival and survival, cannot be overstated. With the possible exception of Woody Guthrie, Seeger is the greatest influence on folk music of the last century.
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the flowers gone?
Girls have picked them every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
(The audio and the video are slightly out of sync, but it’s interesting nonetheless.)
It’s also the birthday
… of Ann B. Davis. Alice is 82.
… of Frankie Valli, well-seasoned at 74.
… of Greg Gumbel. He’s 62. (Brother Bryant is 59.)
… and of Dulé Hill. That’s Charlie on West Wing. He’s 33.
In honor of James Brown, born on this date in 1933, the only thing to say is this.
NewMexiKen found this in a 1992 New Yorker article about chiles and New Mexican cuisine.
According to scientists who have studied the effects of fiery food, a very hot chili sends the nervous system into a state of panic, and the brain reacts by flooding the distressed nerve endings with endorphins, which are the body’s natural painkillers—a sort of friendly morphine. The sudden shot of endorphins is what transforms the pang of hot food into pleasure, and also what makes it considerably more tolerable after the first few bites.
The article, by Jane and Michael Stern, is not available online.
During one of the most difficult periods in the presidency of Bill Clinton, he addressed a group of clerics at an annual prayer breakfast in September 1998 just as the Starr report outlining his dalliance with Monica Lewinsky was about to be published.
Among those in attendance, was the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. …
There’s even of photo of Wright and President Clinton.
NewMexiKen read and enjoyed Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men 
It was, however, just as enigmatic as the movie (which follows the book rather faithfully).
From a review of Tony Horwitz’s newest book, A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World
In our version of America, we don’t go back nearly far enough. It’s the winners who make history, and that’s why we start with the Pilgrims: with the Anglo-American and New England version of the story. Culturally, we need to expand the story to include the Spanish in particular, but also the French and the Portuguese. Not only are we not an Anglo nation now, but we never really were. Early America, if you think about it, was a lot like America today — very diverse — and even the parts of the story we think we know, we don’t know at all.
Horwitz is a NewMexiKen favorite, having enjoyed his Confederates in the Attic and Blue Latitudes and this terrific essay, which no doubt came from the research for A Voyage Long and Strange.
NewMexiKen spent part of this afternoon in San Felipe Pueblo (May 1st is the feast of St. Philip), so named by the Spanish in 1591, and the other part of the afternoon in Santa Fe, founded in 1610. The story of large parts of early America have never been taught.
I ordered the book.
“Two of every five people—42 percent—in the U.S. live in counties that have unhealthful levels of either ozone or particle pollution. Almost 125 million Americans live in 216 counties where they are exposed to unhealthful levels of air pollution in the form of either ozone or short-term or year-round levels of particles.”
The American Lung Association grades your air quality.
Albuquerque does well — but not today, when there is enough dust in the air to endanger Lawrence of Arabia.
| “Western Oregon senior Sara Tucholsky had never hit a home run in her career. Central Washington senior Mallory Holtman was already her school’s career leader in them. But when a twist of fate and a torn knee ligament brought them face to face with each other and face to face with the end of their playing days, they combined on a home run trot that celebrated the collective human spirit far more than individual athletic achievement.” |  |
A good story from Graham Hays at ESPN. Read it; get your heart warmed.
“You really can’t run a middle-class democracy with a multimillionaire press corps.”
“And on ABC News tonight, they said gas prices are now flirting with $4 a gallon. Flirting? Huh? Aren’t we a little beyond flirting? Aren’t we getting screwed at this point?”
Judy Collins is 69. Rita Coolidge is 63. Dann Florek is 57. Tim McGraw is 41.
Kate Smith was born 101 years ago today.
Everything about Kate Smith was outsized, including Miss Smith herself. She recorded almost 3,000 songs -more than any other popular performer. She introduced more songs than any other performer – over a thousand, of which 600 or so made the hit parade.
She made more than 15,000 radio broadcasts and, over the years, received more than 25 million fan letters. At the height of her career, during World War II, she repeatedly was named one of the three or four most popular women in America. No single show-business figure even approached her as a seller of War Bonds during World War II. In one 18-hour stint on the CBS radio network, Miss Smith sold $107 million worth of War Bonds, which were issued by the United States Government to finance the war effort. Her total for a series of marathon broadcasts was over $600 million.
…But her identification with patriotism and patriotic themes dates from the night of Nov. 11, 1938, when, on her regular radio program, she introduced a new song written expressly for her by Irving Berlin – ”God Bless America.”
In a short time, the song supplanted ”The Star-Spangled Banner” as the nation’s most popular patriotic song. There were attempts – all unsuccessful – to adopt it formally as the national anthem.
For a time, Kate Smith had exclusive rights to perform ”God Bless America” in public. She relinquished that right when it became apparent the song had achieved a significance beyond that of just another new pop tune.
Mr. Berlin and Miss Smith waived all royalties from performances of ”God Bless America.” The royalties continue to be turned over to the Boy and Girl Scouts of America.
The New York Times (1986)
According to her very brief autobiography, Martha Jane Canary was born in Princeton, Missouri, on this date in 1852. That may or may not be any more truthful than the rest of that short work. A decent brief biography is found at the Adams Museum & House web site.
Calamity Jane went downtown and became a dance hall celebrity, frequenting E.A. Swearengen’s Gem Theater. She worked as a prostitute and dance hall girl in Deadwood and briefly managed a house of her own. Despite the fact that she was a coarse woman, adept at profanity, and drunk a great deal of the time, Calamity Jane was also known for her kindness.
What’s unbelievable is to have watched the wonderful portrayal of Jane by Robin Weigert on Deadwood, and then think that Calamity Jane was played by Doris Day in the movie Calamity Jane (1953) and Jane Alexander in the made-for-TV movie Calamity Jane (1984).
Mary Harris Jones was born on this date in 1830 (or, more likely, 1837). She is better known to us as Mother Jones. The magazine named after her has a nice biographical essay that begins:
The moniker “Mother” Jones was no mere rhetorical device. At the core of her beliefs was the idea that justice for working people depended on strong families, and strong families required decent working conditions. In 1903, after she was already nationally known from bitter mine wars in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, she organized her famous “march of the mill children” from Philadelphia to President Theodore Roosevelt’s summer home on Long Island. Every day, she and a few dozen children — boys and girls, some 12 and 14 years old, some crippled by the machinery of the textile mills — walked to a new town, and at night they staged rallies with music, skits, and speeches, drawing thousands of citizens. Federal laws against child labor would not come for decades, but for two months that summer, Mother Jones, with her street theater and speeches, made the issue front-page news.
The rock of Mother Jones’ faith was her conviction that working Americans acting together must free themselves from poverty and powerlessness. She believed in the need for citizens of a democracy to participate in public affairs.
NewMexiKen has known about Mother Jones since the eponymous magazine first came out in 1976. What amazes me is that I had no knowledge of her before that, despite majoring in American history, and even though “For a quarter of a century, she roamed America, the Johnny Appleseed of activists.”