Month: August 2009

Marilyn Monroe

… was found dead on this date in 1962. She was 36.

According to Joe DiMaggio biographer Richard Ben Cramer, after Monroe’s marriage to Arthur Miller had ended, she and DiMaggio had reconciled — the Kennedys notwithstanding. By 1962 they planned to re-marry. The wedding was set for Wednesday, August 8, 1962. Very private, very hush-hush.

Five days before the wedding date, on Saturday night, August 3, Marilyn died, a presumed suicide. According to Cramer, no coroner’s inquest was held.

Monroe’s funeral was August 8, 1962.

Of course, Bobby Kennedy was in Los Angeles at the time of Marilyn’s death, so maybe …

Top ten reasons to continue NewMexiKen

Top ten reasons to continue NewMexiKen

10. Too late to enter Tour de France

9. Conan has Tonight Show gig locked up

8. Not much use for a grandpa in porn films

7. Need to offset “fair and balanced” news media

6. Domain name (newmexiken.com) cost $10

5. Blogging less boring than playing Freecell

4. Local Wal-Marts not hiring greeters

3. Idea for film “Night at the Museum: Escape from Tinkertown” turned down

2. I’m a natural born citizen

and the number one reason to continue NewMexiKen

1. All the encouragement and help from readers yesterday — Thanks!

Best line of the day, so far

NewMexiKen is taking the day off to celebrate the blog’s sixth anniversary.
The posts today are being written by readers just like you. This is from Avelino.

“Anybody who can’t make enough money off that shouldn’t be allowed to operate a hot dog stand, much less a media corporation.”

Athanae at First Draft, on the estimation that people spend 26.4 million hours per day reading the print edition of The New York Times.

Top Ten Reasons I Read NewMexiKen

NewMexiKen is taking the day off to celebrate the blog’s sixth anniversary.
The posts today are being written by readers just like you. This was from long-time reader Annette two years ago.

Top Ten Reasons I Read NewMexiKen

10. The now-defunct Week Quiz and its successors.

9. There’s a page dedicated to Ron Howard’s brother.

8. Every day is somebody’s birthday.

7. I’ve been reading for so long I feel like the Sweeties and I are growing up together.

6. NMK is the hippest (and smartest) grandfather I know of.

5. I’m reminded of all the American history I’ve forgotten since high school.

4. NMK reads the rest of the Internet so I don’t have to.

3. There’s always something new.

2. He links to me.

1. Wisdom, whimsy, and wit: three things the Internet needs more of.

She ‘wasn’t feeling well’

NewMexiKen is taking the day off to celebrate the blog’s sixth anniversary.
The posts today are being written by readers just like you. This is from Jill, but my thoughts exactly.

Remember the mother who drove the wrong way on the Taconic Parkway near New York City, eventually causing a crash that killed eight people, including her daughter and three nieces, and critically injured her son?

Police announced today that the woman, Diane Schuler, had a blood alcohol level of .19 and had also smoked marijuana in the hour before her death.

Apparently, she was driving erratically for some time before the crash: straddling lanes, tailgating, flashing her lights, driving across a median, and trying to pass on the shoulder. Six people called 911 to report her.

My initial reaction when I heard about this crash was to feel a measure of relief that this woman did not survive. I thought no person could or should have to live with that much pain. But, thinking now of what those last minutes must have been like for those terrified children, I find myself wishing she had survived.

Chinese to launch first ever green lawsuit against government

NewMexiKen is taking the day off to celebrate the blog’s sixth anniversary.
The posts today are being written by readers just like you. This is from Bob Ormond.

China should see its first lawsuit by an environmental group against authorities within weeks, state media reported today (July 31).

A member of the All-China Environmental Federation – which is backed by the central government – said a judge in Guizhou province had accepted its claim on behalf of residents who complain they have suffered from pollution.

The Guardian

And the beat goes on

NewMexiKen is taking the day off to celebrate the blog’s sixth anniversary.
The posts today are being written by readers just like you. This joke is from Jeanne.

I was in the pub yesterday when I suddenly realized I desperately needed to fart. The music was really, really loud, so I timed my farts with the beat.

After a couple of songs, I started to feel better. I finished my pint and noticed that everybody was staring at me.

Then I suddenly remembered that I was listening to my iPod.

Deluge

NewMexiKen is taking the day off to celebrate the blog’s sixth anniversary.
The posts today are being written by readers just like you. This is from Mrs. A.

I seriously wanted to participate today but I’ve been too busy trying to keep from drowning. Six inches of rain in 90 minutes this morning. A three hour respite. Now it’s at it again. Stay tuned for rainfall totals. Time for me to make my way home now. Glad I was on the swim team in a former life.

This day in Music when NewMexiKen was young

NewMexiKen is taking the day off to celebrate the blog’s sixth anniversary.
The posts today are being written by readers just like you. This is from Abq Paperboy.

1974 No. 1 Billboard Pop Hit: “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” Roberta Flack.

1964 No. 1 Billboard Pop Hit: “A Hard Day’s Night,” The Beatles.

1958 The first ever Billboard Hot 100 chart appears. The number one song is Ricky Nelson’s “Poor Little Fool.”

http://www1.excite.com/home/music/music_thisDay/0,16111,thisDay,00.html

Kindness

NewMexiKen is taking the day off to celebrate the blog’s sixth anniversary.
The posts today are being written by readers just like you. This is from Rick Chlopan.

Tim O’Reilly (Founder and CEO, O’Reilly Media) twitter post this morning:

Lovely NYT review of book On Kindness: http://bit.ly/v5zF7 2nd para and last line are worth taking to heart. Hegelian antithesis of Ayn Rand.

The last line in the review he references:

Indeed, the ones who pay the largest price for our contemporary cloak-and-dagger relationship with kindness are children, whom adults fail by neglecting to help them “keep . . . faith with” kindness, and thereby sentence to a life “robbed of one of the greatest sources of human happiness.”

August 4th

NewMexiKen is taking the day off to celebrate the blog’s sixth anniversary.
The posts today are being written by readers just like you. This is from Debby.

1993 – Rwandian Hutu’s and Tutsi’s sign peace treaty in Arusha. [Apparently, it didn’t take.]

1987 – The Federal Communications Commission rescinds the Fairness Doctrine which had required radio and television stations to present controversial issues “fairly”.

1977 – President Carter establishes Department of Energy

1971 – U.S. launches 1st satellite into lunar orbit from manned spacecraft

1964 – North Vietnamese torpedo US ships Gulf of Tonkin

1956 – Elvis Presley releases “Hound Dog”

1949 – NBL and NBAA merge into National Basketball Association

1944 – Anne Frank and her family arrested in Amsterdam by Nazis

1914 – Germany invades Belgium. In response, the United Kingdom declares war on Germany. The United States declares its neutrality.

1892 – Sunday school teacher Lizzie Borden arrested in Fall River, Mass

1862 – U.S. government collects its 1st income tax

1855 – John Bartlett publishes “Familiar Quotations”

1821 – 1st edition of Saturday Evening Post (publishes until 1969)

1693 – Date traditionally ascribed to Dom Perignon’s invention of Champagne.

Births:

1792 – Percy Bysshe Shelly, English poet and author.

1901 – Louis Armstrong, American jazz musician (d. 1971)

1912 – Raoul Wallenberg, Swedish diplomat credited with saving nearly 100,000 Budapest Jews during World War II.

1920 – Helen Thomas, American journalist—Thomas has covered every president since John F. Kennedy. She was the first female officer of the National Press Club, the first female member and president of the White House Correspondents Association, and, in 1975, the first female member of the Gridiron Club.

1944 – Richard Belzer, American actor and comedian (Sgt. Munch)

1955 – Billy Bob Thornton, American actor and writer

1961 – Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States

1962 – Roger Clemens, American baseball player

1962 – Wesley Snipes, Orlando Fla, actor (New Jack City, Passenger 57

Seriously, people, get help

NewMexiKen is taking the day off to celebrate the blog’s sixth anniversary.
The posts today are being written by readers just like you. This is from Jill.

According to a poll released last week by Research 2000, only 42 percent of Republicans believe that President Obama was born in the United States.

Twenty-eight percent believe he was born elsewhere and another 30 percent are “not sure.”

Is it because he is black? Is it because he was born in Hawaii? Is it because his father was African? How can so many people actually subscribe to this idiocy?

I used to think only crazy people believed this. But even I can’t argue that 58 percent of Republicans are crazy. (Demented, maybe, but not crazy.)

Blue food dye

NewMexiKen is taking the day off to celebrate the blog’s sixth anniversary.
The posts today are being written by readers just like you. This is from Debby.

I first heard about this Saturday on PBS’s news quiz show, “Wait, wait. Don’t Tell Me.” When asked, “What substance has been found to help spinal injuries?” the correct multiple-choice answer was “Blue M & Ms.” Really. The host added that research has also found that: “Eating too many brown M & Ms causes weight gain.”

Blue Food Dye Treats Spine Injury in Rats | Wired Science | Wired.com

Common, safe blue food dye may treat broken spines | Science | Reuters

Blue food dye helps heal spinal cord injuries – More health news- msnbc.com

Way To Squick Me Out Line of the Day

NewMexiKen is taking the day off to celebrate the blog’s sixth anniversary.
The posts today are being written by readers just like you. This is from Karen Fayeth.

“The actor (Ryan O’Neal) admits he took comfort in the arms of a ‘beautiful blonde woman’ who came up and embraced him after the (funeral) service, and he didn’t realize it was his own daughter Tatum.”

He admits to Vanity Fair that he hit on his own daughter. At the funeral for Farrah Fawcett.

Ew.

Source: SFGate: Daily Dish : O’Neal opens up about Fawcett split

Supplies

NewMexiKen is taking the day off to celebrate the blog’s sixth anniversary.
The posts today are being written by readers just like you. This is from Jill.

Byron handled the school-supply shopping this evening. He thought he was doing me a big favor. But I’m kind of grumbly because I like doing it. It’s like the perfect type A activity – having to get everything in the right size, and the right color, and the right number, and “chisel tip,” and “alcohol free,” and “dries clear.”

I do wonder why Aidan needed 20 (twenty) glue sticks. There will be 25 or 26 kids in his class. What class needs more than 500 glue sticks for the year? What exactly will they be gluing? Is there some sort of black market in glue sticks, and the teachers plan to sell them off to supplement their salaries?

I’m also wondering why Mack needs, specifically, a ruler with three holes, a fabric pencil case with three holes, and paper with three holes…but no binders or folders with three rings.

Six pack

Six years. I should have been elected to the U.S. Senate instead.

NewMexiKen (i.e., this blog) began six years ago tomorrow, August 4, 2003. Because of changes in software and hosting services I have lost count, but I’m certain there have been more than a 1½ million visits to these pages. (And more than 800 posts since I last quit.)

As you may remember from 2006 and 2007, on my anniversary, you blog, I comment.

Send me your story, best line, link or other NewMexiKen type content to be posted on Tuesday. The first year I tried this, we had seven or eight good posts. In 2007 just one (thank you, Annette).

If you’re a regular reader (and there are a few of you), it’s your turn. And no boring stuff — it’s got to be Wise, Whimsical or Witty (or at least half-witty). Email to newmexiken at gmail dot com. Tell me if you do not want your name posted. And I do reserve my editorial prerogative.

Except for a photo essay for the Maroon Bells that I am working on, what you get between now and Wednesday depends on you.

Oh, and tomorrow should be a half-day national holiday. It’s my half birthday. Oh, and President Obama is 48 Tuesday.

The Maroon Bells

In all my years living in the West (more than 35), I had never been to Aspen, Colorado. And I had never been to see the Maroon Bells, in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass wilderness just southwest of Aspen. I guess I saved the best for now.

Though these photos taken in midday largely wash out the color, the Maroon Bells are actually maroon, and as you can see they are shaped much like bells. They are, according to the Forest Service, the most photographed mountains in North America. North Maroon Peak (on the right) rises to 14,014 feet above sea level; South Maroon Peak to 14,156 feet.

Maroon Creek Road ends just above Maroon Lake. These photos were taken in that area. We took a short hike, but downstream away from the panorama.

Click the image to advance through all six.

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Gunnison Canyon

Colorado Highway 92, the West Elk Loop, parallels part of the north rim of Gunnison Canyon, though upstream from the dramatic Black Canyon of the Gunnison. The views from the highway turnouts are terrific if limited, though again I was unable to get the colors and shadows that the light earlier or later in the day might have enabled. Still, here’s a sample. Click image to advance through the slideshow.

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Rio Grande Headwaters

The third longest river in America begins on the north side of the pyramid shaped summit you see in the distance in the first photograph, the 13,821-foot Rio Grande Pyramid in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. From there the river flows nearly 1,900 miles to the Gulf of Mexico. In the foreground are some of the lakes and wetlands that form the Rio Grande headwaters. The second photo shows more of the wetlands downstream. The third and fourth the river as it bends and bows across another meadow, still above 9,000 feet. Click on any image for larger versions of all four.

Click image to advance slideshow.

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Photos taken Sunday afternoon. Not the best time of day for lighting, but I hope to head back to this area soon. It was stunningly beautiful, with the exception of Creede, Colorado, the rattiest town I’ve ever seen (at least the part I drove through).

As the eagle flies, the Rio Grande Pyramid is about 18 miles ESE of Silverton, Colorado.

Roger Ebert’s on greatest movie lists

All lists of the “greatest” movies are propaganda. They have no deeper significance. It is useless to debate them. Even more useless to quarrel with their ordering of titles: Why is this film #11 and that one only #31? The most interesting lists are those by one person: What are Scorsese’s favorites, or Herzog’s? The least interesting are those by large-scale voting, for example by IMDb or movie magazines.

Roger Ebert’s Journal

Ebert continues about lists and discusses the 50 essential films ranking just published by The Spectator. “[Y]ou won’t find Casablanca (1942), It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) or Lawrence of Arabia (1962) anywhere among these pages.” The Spectator’s 50 Essential Films: Part One and The Spectator’s 50 Essential Films: Part Two.

Their top film is The Night of the Hunter.

Rio Bravo, the 1959 film with John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson and Walter Brennan, is number 10.