One more newspaper prom article. Except this one begins:
Pulsing purple and green strobe lights swirl across satin gowns and bare arms. Pink’s defiant “So What?” rages on a dance floor packed with smiling, spinning teenagers.
Just outside the prom, Miles Person considers — just for a second — the time he has left to live. His doctors say four months, that there is nothing left to fight the brain tumors that began at age 17.
Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival. … To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual, and cannot be infringed by the State.
Supreme Court of the United States, Loving v. Virginia, June 12, 1967. (Unanimous opinion written by Chief Justice Warren.)
At the time the case was decided 42 years ago, Virginia was one of 16 states that still had laws prohibiting interracial marriage.
President George H.W. Bush is 85 today.
Well, gawwwleee and shazzayam, Jim Nabors is 79.
Marv Philip Aufrichtig was born 68 years ago today. We know him as Marv Albert.
Armando Anthony Corea is also 68. We know him as Chick.
Anne Frank should have been 80 years old today. The Writer’s Almanac wrote a brief essay about Frank last year that began with: “It was on this day in 1942 that she received a red and white plaid journal, from her father, for her 13th birthday, and she started to write her diary, a diary that she called by the name of ‘Kitty.'”
Fifteen years ago today someone killed Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman.
“Yes, the worst terrorist attack in our history was perpetrated by a foreign conspiracy. But the second worst, the Oklahoma City bombing, was perpetrated by an all-American lunatic. Politicians and media organizations wind up such people at their, and our, peril.”
Even more insight into the NBA Finals from Bill Simmons, this from The New Yorker website.
This is good reading, too — Who has the better life philosophy, Phil Jackson or Stan Van Gundy?
As a 30-year pro journalist myself, I abhor sloppy and imprecise journalism like the next person. But bloggers aren’t the first to practice bad journalism any more than they are the first to do good journalism, as some have. Training does not make you responsible. Peer approval does not make you responsible. Method of dissemination does not make you responsible. Those are all arbitrary definitions that are transcended by the First Amendment.
Click photos for larger versions.
The season ended for cousin teammates Kiley and Aidan last night, but this evening Mack tossed a TD and two PATs, picked off an interception, and his team advanced 14-6.
“GENEVA, SWITZERLAND—World Health Organization officials expressed disappointment Monday at the group’s finding that, despite the enormous efforts of doctors, rescue workers and other medical professionals worldwide, the global death rate remains constant at 100 percent.”
Timothy Egan tells of a young American woman accused of murder in Italy.
Be sure to read the first comment.
Two-time Oscar nominee Gene Wilder is 76 today. Wilder was nominated for supporting actor for The Producers and as a co-writer with Mel Brooks for Young Frankenstein.
Adrienne Barbeau is 64.
Frank Beard is 60 today. That’s him with Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Frank Beard is the one without a beard.
Joe Montana is 53.
Hugh Laurie is 50.
Shia LaBeouf is 23.
William Styron was born on June 11th in 1925. This from American Masters:
After leaving the service, [Styron] moved to New York, where he supported his fledgling writing career working at McGraw-Hill Publishing. He also began taking classes with Hiram Haydn at the New School for Social Research. With guidance and encouragement from Haydn, Styron made his stunning debut at the age of twenty-six with LIE DOWN IN DARKNESS (1951). This novel launched his career and earned him the American Academy’s Prix de Rome. Told under the shadow of the Hiroshima bombing, LIE DOWN IN DARKNESS charts the tragic descent into suicide of a young woman raised in a troubled Virginia family.
He followed LIE DOWN IN DARKNESS with THE LONG MARCH (1957), SET THIS HOUSE ON FIRE (1960), and one of his most famous novels, THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER (1967). Published at the height of the civil rights movement, THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER is told from the point of view of the historical figure who led a disastrous and bloody slave insurrection which set the stage for the Civil War. Winning a Pulitzer Prize, THE CONFESSIONS OF NAT TURNER was both praised as a brave look into a rarely represented life, and maligned for what many saw as a clichéd conception of a black man.
Styron’s next novel did not appear for more than ten years. The tragedy of SOPHIE’S CHOICE (1979) is played out between a young Virginia writer and a Polish Holocaust survivor in an urban Jewish enclave of Brooklyn. It takes place during the aftermath of World War II, an era Styron describes as “a nightmarish Sargasso Sea of guilt and apprehensions.” In SOPHIE’S CHOICE, Styron weaves a fictional tale, profound in its engagement, with major recent historical events. Made into a popular movie starring Meryl Streep, SOPHIE’S CHOICE returned Styron to the popular eye as both a controversial personality and a major writer.
Styron’s compelling Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness (1990) describes his crippling, nearly suicidal depression at age 60. Styron died in November 2006.
Vince Lombardi was born on June 11 in 1913. Lombardi is the legendary football coach. You know — the one the Super Bowl trophy is named for.
Some Lombardisms:
Vince Lombardi died in 1970 at age 57.
Jeanette Rankin was born on this date in 1880 on a ranch near Missoula, Montana. In 1916, Rankin was elected the first woman member of the U.S. House of Representatives. She was not re-elected in 1918, after voting against entry in the First World War, but was returned to Congress for one term in 1940. In 1941, she cast the sole vote in Congress against the U.S. declaration of war on Japan. Jeanette Rankin was a social worker and a lobbyist for peace and women’s rights. She died just before her 93rd birthday in 1973. She is one of the two Montanans honored in The National Statuary Hall Collection of the U.S. Capitol. Read Rankin’s obituary from The New York Times.
And NewMexiKen’s very own sister Martha is celebrating her birthday today, too. Happy Birthday!
Oh, and today is a state holiday in Hawai’i. It’s Kamehameha Day in honor of King Kamehameha I, the chief who united the Hawaiian Islands in 1795.
… was authorized on this date in 1940.
Throughout the ages, poets, songwriters, novelists, journal writers, historians and artists have captured the grandeur of the Cumberland Gap. James Smith, in his journal of 1792, penned what is perhaps one of the most poignant descriptions of this national and historically significant landmark: “We started just as the sun began to gild the tops of the high mountains. We ascended Cumberland Mountain, from the top of which the bright luminary of day appeared to our view in all his rising glory; the mists dispersed and the floating clouds hasted away at his appearing. This is the famous Cumberland Gap…” Thanks to the vision of Congress, who in 1940 authorized Cumberland Gap National Historical Park, visitors today can still bask in its beauty and immerse themselves in its rich history.
The story of the first doorway to the west is commemorated at the national park, located where the borders of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia meet. Carved by wind and water, Cumberland Gap forms a major break in the formidable Appalachian Mountain chain. First used by large game animals in their migratory journeys, followed by Native Americans, the Cumberland Gap was the first and best avenue for the settlement of the interior of this nation. From 1775 to 1810, the Gap’s heyday, between 200,000 and 300,000 men, women, and children from all walks of life, crossed the Gap into “Kentuckee.”
NewMexiKen and Dad visited Cumberland Gap on our 2006 trip — it’s an inspiring and beautiful site. The highway through the Gap was removed in 1996 (replaced by a tunnel). One can now walk the Wilderness Road through a forest much as the migrants moving west did from Daniel Boone on, including some of my very own ancestors.
“According [to] the Fed, household net worth is now off $14 Trillion from the peak in 2007.”
That’s a loss of about $116,000 per household (more or less).
… was executed on this date eight years ago for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people.
Dig him up and do it again.
Attention moviegoers: The people at Columbia Pictures would like to clear something up. Apparently there’s a rumor going around that Tony Scott’s new film, The Taking of Pelham 123, is a remake of Joseph Sargent’s 1974 movie The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. This is false. Scott’s film is an adaptation of John Godey’s 1973 pulp novel, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (on which Sargent’s movie was also based). This is plainly stated in the film’s opening credits. Are we clear?
It’s easy to imagine why Pelham’s producers wouldn’t want Scott’s professional but dull picture to be compared with the 1974 classic.
John Swansburg has a review at Slate Magazine
You go see the new movie if you want. I intend to watch the classic with Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw.
Especially for dog lovers.
“Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich accused Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor today of faking a broken ankle in order to get sympathy votes during her Senate confirmation.”
You know, excepting for Emmett, Elise, Natalie, Jill and my brothers, I could get a better discussion in any bar than I do with this blog.
And at least in a bar someone would buy me a beer every once in awhile.
Here is Monday night’s David Letterman Top Ten Highlights of Sarah Palin’s Trip to New York that’s getting so much attention.
I hate adding fuel to this fire, even in my own little way, but I’d been wondering what the fuss was about. Now that I’ve read the Top Ten I’m wondering even more. I mean, this is just typical late night comedy. Why would Palin even respond?
Jill reports:
Reid tried to pick up a bee at the playground today.
The bee gave him immediate, negative feedback.
According to this story at the Santa Fe New Mexican, snowfall is hampering the search for a missing police helicopter in the mountains east of Santa Fe.
Here at Casa NewMexiKen the temperature this June morning is just 59º at 10:45 am. The normal high temperature for June 10th is 89º. We may make it to 70º today.
“That means that of the 1,015 national adults who were asked who speaks for the GOP…less than five people cited Palin.”
Greg Sargent extrapolating from what a Gallup official told him.
“Throwing orange peels, coffee grounds and grease-stained pizza boxes in the trash will be against the law in San Francisco, and could even lead to a fine.”
SF Gate has the blue cart, green cart, black cart garbage sorting rules.
Here at Casa NewMexiKen we don’t even have recycling (unless we take it ourselves). We’re told it would be too expensive. Hello! What’s too expensive?
According to this story in the Los Angeles Times housing values in some parts of Southern California have dropped below 1989 values.
To return to the past, take a stroll down Mulberry Avenue in Lancaster. John A. Beatrice, 55, bought his spacious two-story Spanish-style house there brand-new for $120,000 in 1989. It was a price he could comfortably afford, and he planned on staying through retirement, so he wasn’t worried about price swings.
. . .
But he never imagined his neighborhood would drop off the charts. In April, a slightly larger home two doors away sold for $66,500. That’s just over half the $130,000 it went for new in 1992. In 2005, that house sold for $330,000.
Beatrice’s 29-year-old daughter is now shopping for Lancaster houses priced lower than when she was a kid.