Month: June 2008

A house divided

Abraham Lincoln delivered his House Divided Speech at Springfield, Illinois, 150 years ago today.

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.

I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided.

It will become all one thing or all the other.

Either the opponents of slavery, will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new — North as well as South.

The speech was made at the Illinois Republican State convention that had nominated Lincoln for U.S. Senator. It was a precursor to the Lincoln-Douglas debates in the campaign that followed, which Lincoln lost. It seems to be about as succinct a statement of the core issue of the American Civil War as one could find.

The phrase “a house divided” comes from Matthew 12:25 — “And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand.”

Geronimo

Several sources give June 16, 1829, as Geronimo’s date of birth. It’s not clear to NewMexiKen that the Apaches were using the Gregorian calendar at that time. And, indeed, one of those sources, The New York Times, stated in its obituary of Geronimo in February 1909 that he was nearly 90 — not 79 as this birth date would indicate. But, he had to be born some time. So why not June 16?

In her excellent 1976 biography of Geronimo, Angie Debo concludes:

Geronimo was born in the early 1820’s near the upper Gila in the mountains crossed by the present state boundary [Arizona-New Mexico], probably on the Arizona side near the present Clifton. …

He was given the name Goyahkla, with the generally accepted meaning “One Who Yawns,’ why or under what circumstances is not known.

As an adult in battle he was called Geronimo by Mexican soldiers, perhaps because they could not pronounce Goyahkla, or perhaps to invoke Saint Jerome (Geronimo is Spanish for Jerome). The name was adopted for him by his own people.

Continue reading Geronimo

June 16th

Novelist Joyce Carol Oates is 70 today.

She published her first story, “In the Old World,” in Mademoiselle magazine (1959) just before her senior year of college, and she published her first book of short stories, By the North Gate, a few years later, in 1963. She has gone on to become one of the most prolific writers of her generation, writing more than 70 books in 40 years, including novels, short stories, plays, poetry, and essays. She writes almost everything in long hand before typing, and she usually cuts out a few hundred pages from every novel before it is published.

The Writer’s Almanac

Lamont Dozier is 67. Who is Lamont Dozier you say? Along with Eddie and Brian Holland, Dozier wrote a few songs you may know, among them:

Baby I Need Your Loving
Baby Love
Bernadette
Come See About Me
Nowhere To Run
I Hear a Symphony
My World Is Empty Without You
Reach Out, I’ll Be There
How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You
(Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch) I Can’t Help Myself
Stop! In The Name Of Love
This Old Heart Of Mine
It’s The Same Old Song
Jimmy Mack

Roberto “No Mas” Duran is 57. In a 1980 fight with Sugar Ray Leonard, with 16 seconds remaining in the 8th round, Duran had enough. He told the referee, “No mas, no mas.”

Phil Mickelson —Lefty — is 38 today. He’s watching the playoff on TV with the rest of us.

Happy birthday to you too Uncle Rich.

Looking to Avoid Aggressive Drivers? Check Those Bumpers.

Three horrors await Americans who get behind the wheel of a car for a family road trip this summer: the spiraling price of gas, the usual choruses of “are-we-there-yet?” — and the road rage of fellow drivers.

Divine intervention might be needed for the first two problems, but science has discovered a solution for the third.

Watch out for cars with bumper stickers.
. . .

It does not seem to matter whether the messages on the stickers are about peace and love — “Visualize World Peace,” “My Kid Is an Honor Student” — or angry and in your face — “Don’t Mess With Texas,” “My Kid Beat Up Your Honor Student.”
. . .

“The more markers a car has, the more aggressively the person tends to drive when provoked,” Szlemko said. “Just the presence of territory markers predicts the tendency to be an aggressive driver.”

Washington Post

It seems bumper stickers are pretty much the equivalent of dogs urinating on trees and fire hydrants. It’s a way people stake out their territory. The more stickers, the more the person needs to claim the space. It’s actually quite interesting.

Thanks to Jill for the link — the article confirms her take on an incident reported here last year.

Yuck!

I was glancing down the page and read about Ah-Dee’s Belly again.

It occurs to me that I too got some medicine flavored with Hershey’s syrup as a little kid and — this is true —I haven’t liked chocolate milk or chocolate ice cream since. I’ll eat an occasional Hershey’s candy bar and Hershey’s kisses, but I don’t like chocolate sundaes or chocolate shakes or dark chocolate cake or dark chocolate frosting or chocolate pudding.

Maybe my memory is wrong or maybe it’s just a coincidence, but is Aidan still drinking chocolate milk?

(Chocolate milk is a superior energy drink by the way — as if I’d know.)

I was thinking about this a little more and realized while I do like M&Ms, I always avoided the brown M&Ms thinking they were more chocolaty (though they aren’t, of course). I’d blame the psychological impact of the chocolate flavored medicine for sure for that one, except I also now remember resisting the medicine because it had chocolate and I already didn’t like chocolate. I could probably justify a couple of years therapy over this. I wonder if Dr. Melfi is accepting new patients.

Question for my eight regular readers

Should I repost the birthday and other date-specific posts from past years?

Today for example is Geronimo’s birthday and I have posted about him every year. Today is also the anniversary of Lincoln’s “House Divided” speech, another event I’ve posted about every June 16th.

Should I publish these posts again every year even if I don’t add anything different?

No one cares but me

But Saturday afternoon the humidity dropped to 4% at Casa NewMexiKen.

When I was a kid and we first moved to Tucson and didn’t have a clothes dryer, on a day like today you could hang the clothes on the line and by the time you finished with the basket you could take them down.

For the record, the temperature in Tucson today at noon is 104º and the humidity a downright sodden 7%.

Not wild salmon!

More Alaskan salmon caught here end up in the dog pot these days, their orange-pink flesh fouled by disease that scientists have correlated with warmer water in the Yukon River.

The sorting of winners and losers at Moore’s riverbank fish camp illustrates what scientists have been predicting will accompany global warming: Cold-temperature barriers are giving way, allowing parasites, bacteria and other disease-spreading organisms to move toward higher latitudes.

“Climate change isn’t going to increase infectious diseases but change the disease landscape,” said marine ecologist Kevin D. Lafferty, who studies parasites for the U.S. Geological Survey. “And some of these surprises are not going to be pretty.”

Los Angeles Times

The Quad Countdown

The Quad, The New York Times college sports blog, is counting down the 120 bowl division college football teams.

The season begins on Aug. 28 and to get you ready for that momentous date, The Quad is ranking all 120 Football Bowl Subdivision teams. We’ll begin today with No. 120 and reveal one each day until we get to No. 1. In addition to ranking the teams, we’ll provide plenty of relevant on-the-field facts as well as some fun off-the-field tidbits that you can use to impress your friends. Feel free to disagree with our rankings. As we all know, the great thing about college football is that it all gets settled on the field. Oh, wait …

Alas, they’re only to number 76, and there’s my alma mater, The University of Arizona.

Toughest quote: “Entering his third year as the starter, Tuitama is in position to set all of Arizona’s meaningful quarterback records. Except victories, of course.”

Flag Day

On this date in 1777 the Continental Congress approved a national flag:

Resolved, that the Flag of the thirteen United States shall be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the Union be thirteen stars, white on a blue field, representing a new constellation.

In 1916 President Wilson issued a proclamation declaring June 14 Flag Day.

The present design of the flag was established in 1818 — thirteen stripes to represent the original states and a star for each state. Until 1912 the arrangement of the stars was left to the discretion of the flag-maker. The current flag with 50 stars was established on July 4, 1960, when Hawaii was admitted to the Union.

The Star-Spangled Banner at Fort McHenry during the War of 1812 had 15 stars and 15 stripes.

 Avenue in the Rain, Childe Hassam

“Under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance by Act of Congress on this date in 1954.

Wake up and smell the coffee

What if merely waking up and smelling coffee powers up your brain, without ever taking a sip? Most people drink coffee for its taste and its caffeine jolt, but the smell may bring its own benefits.

New research is shedding light on how drinking and smelling coffee might affect genes and proteins in the brain.

WebMD

June 13th

Bob McGrath — that’s Bob from Sesame Street — is 76.

Siegfried Fischbacher is 69.. That’s Siegfried of Siegfried and Roy.

John-Boy Walton is 57. That’s actor Richard Thomas.

The voice of Buzz Lightyear is 55. That’s Tim Allen.

Alexandra Elizabeth Sheedy is 46.

And the Olsen twins are 44.

How Much Radiation Does Your Phone Emit?

[T]he data on cellphone safety is mixed, although a few recent international studies have suggested a link with three types of brain tumors. The Food and Drug Administration also says there’s not enough information to determine conclusively whether cellphones are safe or unsafe.

New York Times Blog

CNET has some facts:

Ten highest-radiation cell phones

Ten lowest-radiation cell phones

The sidebar at the CNET cites lists all manufacturers. 1.6 is the U.S. maximum allowed.

Thanks to Bob Ormond for the links.

Summing Up

In Boumediene today, the Supreme Court decided 5-4:

Whether Article I, Section 9, Clause 2, (the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus) applies to aliens designated as enemy combatants detained at the U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

It does.

Whether procedures established for those prisoners by Congress are a constitutionally adequate and sufficient guarantee of that privilege.

They aren’t.

Approximately 250 prisoners are held at Guantanamo without charges, some for six years. Only a few were petitioners in the subject case, but the decision should apply across the board.

250 alleged bad guys now get a day in court to find out why they are being held.

And this puts the nation more in peril?

And, if so, why did we move them 7,500 miles closer to the U.S. in the first place?

(Here’s the opinion [pdf].)