Month: August 2008

One Wild Night at the Zoo

NewMexiKen and Donna spent a too warm but otherwise delightful evening at the Rio Grande Zoo Saturday. It was the first “One Wild Night at the Zoo” with nine different bands at times at seven different venues — plus we got to say hi to the momma giraffes.

The featured artist was country singer and Grammy-winner Kathy Mattea, who put on a wonderful show. I always judge how I feel about an entertainer if I think to myself, I want to see him/her again. Ms. Mattea certainly made the grade. Her voice is wonderful, the band terrific, her repartee with the audience seemingly genuine.

At one point Mattea quoted a friend who told her, “Music isn’t meant to be exchanged on pieces of plastic. It’s meant to be a shared experience.” (Paraphrased.) Ms. Mattea did everything she could last evening to live up to that idea.

Unfortunately, at these zoo concerts, there are any number of people who come to visit and not to listen. One guy near me never even turned his folding chair toward the stage. Others picked up their volume whenever the performer picked up hers. I try and be live-and-let-live, but there were moments when I wished I hadn’t sold Dad’s revolver.

Further, the major walkway near the zoo band shell is directly in front of the stage. Throughout the concert, whether a rocking number or a ballad, there is a constant stream of people walking across the sight lines between the performer and the audience. The zoo should find a better way before next summer.

Just another rant

As I’ve mentioned, NewMexiKen replaced Comcast internet with Qwest, which works about the same and is $12 a month cheaper.

Because Comcast charges in advance, they owed me a partial month’s refund. Today, twelve days after I ended the service they sent me an email notice that my new “bill” is ready. It reads:

“Your Aug 1, 2008 Comcast billing statement is ready for viewing. To view your bill, go to http://www.comcast.com/payonline . Enter your User Name and Password, and from the next screen select GO from the VIEW YOUR BILL option.”

So, eager to see how much they are refunding, I go to the Comcast site — I never use the link in the email, but always enter with the URL. I attempt to login in and, of course, I learn that my account is closed and no longer available.

I’m back to what I said nine days ago, “that utilities have the most confusing and often faulty websites.” Is there no one at Comcast who bothered to think that all those people who do as they ask and get their bills electronically, might need access to their final bill and just maybe Comcast should maintain an account online for at least 30 days after it closes?

For that matter, is there no one at Comcast that bothers to think about its customers at all?

Casa Grande Ruins National Monument (Arizona)

… was designated such by President Wilson on this date in 1918.

CasaGrande.jpg

For over a thousand years, prehistoric farmers inhabited much of the present-day state of Arizona. When the first Europeans arrived, all that remained of this ancient culture were the ruins of villages, irrigation canals and various artifacts. Among these ruins is the Casa Grande, or “Big House,” one of the largest and most mysterious prehistoric structures ever built in North America. Casa Grande Ruins, the nation’s first archeological preserve, protects the Casa Grande and other archeological sites within its boundaries.

Casa Grande Ruins National Monument

Those Europeans, by the way, began heading this way 516 years ago today, when Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain.

Workers of the world unite — oh, except for you government workers

The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) walked off their jobs with the Federal Aviation Administration 27 years ago today. President Reagan threatened to fire the controllers if they didn’t return within 48 hours. Other unions failed to support PATCO. And so began the end of the labor movement in the United States.

Reagan fired 11,345 striking air traffic controllers.

August thirdth is the birthday

… of author P.D. James. Phyllis Dorothy James is 88.

… of Tony Bennett. He’s 82.

… of Martin Sheen, 68. Sheen won one Golden Globe for West Wing, but no Emmys. He did win an Emmy once for a guest role on Murphy Brown.

… of Martha Stewart, 67.

… of hockey hall-of-famer Marcel Dionne and of Jay North (TV’s Dennis the Menace). They’re 57.

… of Randy Scruggs, 55.

… of quarterback Tom Brady, 31.

… of Evangeline Lilly, 29 today. Maybe now she can be found.

Ernie Pyle was born on this date in 1900. Until he was killed by enemy fire in April 1945, Pyle “blogged” World War II for millions of Americans.

From The New York Times obituary.

Ernie Pyle was haunted all his life by an obsession. He said over and over again, “I suffer agony in anticipation of meeting people for fear they won’t like me.”

No man could have been less justified in such a fear. Word of Pyle’s death started tears in the eyes of millions, from the White House to the poorest dwellings in the country.

President Truman and Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt followed his writings as avidly as any farmer’s wife or city tenement mother with sons in service.

Mrs. Roosevelt once wrote in her column “I have read everything he has sent from overseas,” and recommended his writings to all Americans.

For three years these writings had entered some 14,000,000 homes almost as personal letters from the front. Soldiers’ kin prayed for Ernie Pyle as they prayed for their own sons.

NewMexiKen has before posted this quote from Pyle, but why not do so again on his birthday, and because there’s no place like home.

Yes, there are lots of nice places in the world. I could live with considerable pleasure in the Pacific Northwest, or in New England, on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, or in Key West or California or Honolulu. But there is only one of me, and I can’t live in all those places. So if we can have only one house — and that’s all we want — then it has to be in New Mexico, and preferably right at the edge of Albuquerque where it is now. Ernie Pyle, January 1942

Pyle’s home on Girard SE is now a branch of the Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Library System.

Is it time to yell “fire” in our crowded theater?

If your oldest child is seven, the window slams shut before he or she will be old enough for a driver’s license. If your first grandchild was born this year, cherish your posterity: that grandchild’s likely to be the last of your line. Unless….unless we force action now and over the next 100 months.

The Window Before Climate Change Closes Down Our Kids’ Future: 100 Months, Or Less?

Here’s why:

The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere today, the most prevalent greenhouse gas, is the highest it has been for the past 650,000 years. In the space of just 250 years, as a result of the coal-fired Industrial Revolution, and changes to land use such as the growth of cities and the felling of forests, we have released, cumulatively, more than 1,800bn tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. Currently, approximately 1,000 tonnes of CO2 are released into the Earth’s atmosphere every second, due to human activity. Greenhouse gases trap incoming solar radiation, warming the atmosphere. When these gases accumulate beyond a certain level – often termed a “tipping point” – global warming will accelerate, potentially beyond control.

Andrew Simms | The Guardian

It’s a simple equation. There’s this much CO2 in the atmosphere. We add this much more each day. At some point it reaches the tipping point.

There is no credible debate about this among those who study the problem. The debate is when and how bad it becomes. The serious scientists keeping sending stronger and more frightening alarms while we dither.

The carbon industries, and their political cronies, are keeping the sense of doubt alive by getting the media to act as if the question about CO2 was still being debated.

There is, of course, only one time when it is OK to yell fire in a crowded theater — when the theater is on fire.

Capitol Reef National Park (Utah)

… was first designated a national monument on this date in 1937. It became a national park in 1971.

Capitol Reef

The Waterpocket Fold, a 100-mile long wrinkle in the earth’s crust known as a monocline, extends from nearby Thousand Lakes Mountain to the Colorado River (now Lake Powell). Capitol Reef National Park was established to protect this grand and colorful geologic feature, as well as the unique historical and cultural history found in the area.

Capitol Reef National Park

NewMexiKen photo, 2002 (just after I dropped the camera)

August Twoth

Eight-time Oscar nominee for best actor, Peter O’Toole is 76 today.

Director-writer-producer Wes Craven is 69.

Kathy Lennon of the Lennon Sisters is 65.

Eddie Munster, aka actor Butch Patrick, is 55.

Emmy-winner, for Angels in America, and Weeds star Mary Louise Parker is 44 today. Parker played Amy Gardner on West Wing.

Actress Myrna Loy was born on this date in 1905. IMDB has her listed for an incredible 138 roles, beginning with silent films when she was the femme fatale, but more famously as the witty, urbane Nora Charles in The Thin Man movies. NewMexiKen liked her in The Best Years of Our Lives, a film everyone should see. It won seven Academy Awards in 1946.

Author James Baldwin was born on this date in 1924.

After writing a number of pieces that were published in various magazines, Baldwin went to Switzerland to finish his first novel. GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN, published in 1953, was an autobiographical work about growing up in Harlem. The passion and depth with which he described the struggles of black Americans was unlike anything that had been written. Though not instantly recognized as such, GO TELL IT ON THE MOUNTAIN has long been considered an American classic. Throughout the rest of the decade, Baldwin moved from Paris to New York to Istanbul, writing NOTES OF A NATIVE SON (1955) and GIOVANNI’S ROOM (1956). Dealing with taboo themes in both books (homosexuality and interracial relationships, respectively), Baldwin was creating socially relevant and psychologically penetrating literature. (American Masters | PBS)

James Butler Hickok was killed while playing poker in Deadwood 131 years ago today. American Heritage has An Interview with Jeff Morey, an expert on Wild Bill and the frontier.

Feast at Jemez Pueblo

Today the Pueblo of Jemez (Walatowa) is celebrating “Nuestra Senora de Los Angelas Feast Day de Los Persingula” with a feast and corn dances. The Pueblo, which is normally closed, is open to the public.

Jemez is pronounced “Hay-mess” or traditionally as “He-mish”.

The events today originated with the pueblo at Pecos, which was abandoned in 1836 when its remaining residents moved to Jemez.

Jemez Pueblo publishes this guide about feast day etiquette:

* Enter a Pueblo home as you would any other – by invitation only. It is courteous to accept an invitation to eat, but do not linger at the table, as your host will probably want to serve many guests throughout the day, thank your host, but a payment or tip is not appropriate.

* Pueblo dances are religious ceremonies, not performances. Please observe them as you would a church service, with respect and quiet attention. Please do not interrupt non-dance participants by asking questions or visiting with friends.

* During a dance is not the time to conduct business or loudly socialize. Many Pueblo members only have a chance to see certain dances once a year and may have traveled many miles to participate.

* Please refrain from talking to the dancers. Do not approach dancers as they are entering, leaving or resting near the kiva.

* Applause after dances is not appropriate.

History of the Pueblo of Jemez

IE be damned

Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of web sites are crashing in Internet Explorer due to something the statistics counter SiteMeter did. I have removed SiteMeter from NewMexiKen, at least for now.

But my question to you is, why are you using Internet Explorer? It’s a non-compliant, crappy piece of software — and unsafe to boot. There are better choices for FREE.

Try Firefox or Safari (including Safari for Windows).

August the oneth

William Clark, of Lewis and Clark, was born on this date in 1770. He died in 1838.

Francis Scott Key was born on August 1st in 1779.

Richard Henry Dana was born on August 1st in 1815.

Herman Melville was born on August 1st in 1819. The Writer’s Almanac had a brief little bio last year that included this:

Melville started Moby-Dick in the winter of 1850 and finished in the summer of 1851, writing all day every day without eating until four or five o’clock in the evening. When it was finally printed, he handed one of the first copies of the book to his friend Nathaniel Hawthorne in a tavern, and later said that that was the best day of his life. But Moby-Dick was a total flop. Melville’s readers wanted adventure stories, and Moby-Dick was an adventure story, but the adventure was obscured by the language. It takes more than a hundred pages before the characters even get on the boat. The book got terrible reviews, and nobody read it.

But if Moby-Dick was a financial failure, Melville’s next book, Pierre (1852), fared even worse. Melville eventually gave up on writing fiction and turned to poetry, which he had to publish himself. He spent the last 20 years of his life working as a customs inspector. It wasn’t until the 1920s that his work was rediscovered.

Robert Todd Lincoln, the first child of Abraham Lincoln and the only one to survive to adulthood, was born on this date in 1843. He died in 1926. (Lincoln’s son Eddie was born in 1846 and died in 1850. Son Willie died at age 12 in 1862. Son Tad (Thomas) died at age 18 in 1871.)

Jerry Garcia was born on this date in 1942. He died in 1995.

Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes (American Beauty) is 43 today.

Bi

New Mexico FBIHOP had an interesting essay late last night about bilingualism — and the harm the small-minded people can do. Read it.

And I learned the state song, or at least some of it. It’s bilingual just like New Mexico.

Under a sky of azure,
Where balmy breezes blow,
Kissed by the golden sunshine,
Is Nuevo Mejico.

Land of the Montezuma,
With firey hearts aglow,
Land of the deeds historic,
Is Nuevo Mejico.

Go read the posting.

Actually every day in Albuquerque is above average

Yesterday, the 31st, was officially the hottest day all month in Albuquerque, 97º. The average high for the month was a moderate 87.7º and the average low an A/C off, windows open, 65.4º.

It hasn’t reached 100º in Albuquerque in August since 1994. So 97º may be the official high this year (twice in June and yesterday).

Maybe. I see right now at Casa NewMexiKen it’s 96º with 9% humidity. Them’s June-like conditions.

By comparison, the high for July in Phoenix was 112º (on the first and last days of the month). The average high there was 105.7º (18 degrees higher than Albuquerque) and the average low 84º (nearly 19 degrees warmer than Albuquerque). It has reached 100º or more in Phoenix 55 out of the last 61 days. Ugly.

Identify constellations, stars, planets and how to navigate at night

“The night sky has followed you your whole life. It may be the only thing your distant ancestors would recognize today. How much of it do you recognize? Fifteen minutes from now, you will recognize plenty.”

Identify constellations, stars, planets and how to navigate at night.

NewMexiKen has found that just the slightest knowledge about the night sky impresses people, even people who otherwise are more impressive than me. Try it.

Black Hawk’s War

On this date in 1832, the fortunes of American Indians in Illinois, Iowa and Michigan Territory took a significant turn for the worse.  On August 1-2 of that year, the final confrontation of the Black Hawk War took place just south of the Bad Axe River in the western region of modern day Wisconsin.  The result was as decisive as the Battle of Fallen Timbers (1894) had been for the Indians of the Ohio River Valley, or the Battle of Horseshoe Bend (1814) had been for the Creeks.  Though it is often overshadowed by the drama of the Cherokee removal, the Black Hawk War was no loss [sic] critical to the history of Indian peoples east of the Mississippi.

The Edge of the American West tells the rest of the story.

The Battle of Fallen Timbers was in 1794.

Most unfair to the Oakland Raiders line of the day

“But I guess it’s useful for Democrats to get a reminder that the Republican Party plays presidential politics by the same moral code that guided the bad-boy Oakland Raiders in their heyday: ‘Just win, baby.'”

Eugene Robinson

Robinson continues: “The latest bit of snarling, mean-spirited nonsense to come out of the McCain camp was the accusation, leveled by campaign manager Rick Davis, that Obama had ‘played the race card.’ He did so, apparently, by being black.”

Civil discourse, what is this country coming to?

Obama eventually stopped speaking, turned around, and said, “Excuse me, young men. This is going to be a question-and-answer session, so you can ask a question later. Let me make my statement. Why don’t you all sit down? Then you can ask your question. That’s why we’re having a town hall meeting. Sit down. You’ll have a chance to answer your question. But you don’t want to disrupt the whole meeting. Just be courteous. That’s all. All you got to do is be courteous. That’s all. Just be courteous and you’ll have a chance to make your statement.”

MSNBC

And they got the chance and he responded.

Your assignment, contrast and compare with this and this.

Best Pierce line of the day

“On stories like these, I am reminded of a friend from Belfast who once, while walking in Boston, was confronted by a man who said, ‘Give me your wallet. I have a gun.’ My friend replied, ‘Sir, where I come from, if you have a gun, you produce it,’ and then went on his way. It is insupportable as journalism to write as fact that which you merely suspect, regardless of how many other people suspect it, too.”

Altercation

Gunning for you

NewMexiKen sold the revolver without incident — for a good price too, I think.

The shop was interesting — and very busy before 11 in the morning. I am not anti-gun by the way. I’d kind of like to own some authentic 19th century firearms if I knew what I was doing — as an investment. When I was curator of Richard Nixon’s musuem items (after he left office), I was impressed by the nice collection of firearms the firearm manufacturers had given him. I suspect most politicians — and at least five supreme court justices — have similar collections.

Two guys working in the gun shop wanted to talk about the election; how it worried them. I assured them not to worry, that the black liberal guy was sure to win.