Author: NewMexiKen

Redux redux post of the day

First posted here three years ago today.

You can fool some of the people all of the time

In 1938, wallet manufacturer the E. H. Ferree company in Lockport, New York decided to promote its product by showing how a Social Security card would fit into its wallets. A sample card, used for display purposes, was inserted in each wallet. Company Vice President and Treasurer Douglas Patterson thought it would be a clever idea to use the actual SSN of his secretary, Mrs. Hilda Schrader Whitcher.The wallet was sold by Woolworth stores and other department stores all over the country. Even though the card was only half the size of a real card, was printed all in red, and had the word “specimen” written across the face, many purchasers of the wallet adopted the SSN as their own. In the peak year of 1943, 5,755 people were using Hilda’s number. SSA acted to eliminate the problem by voiding the number and publicizing that it was incorrect to use it. (Mrs. Whitcher was given a new number.) However, the number continued to be used for many years. In all, over 40,000 people reported this as their SSN. As late as 1977, 12 people were found to still be using the SSN “issued by Woolworth.”

Interesting Facts About Social Security Numbers at Money, Matter, and More Musings

The 40,000 are the same sort of people that some politicians would have manage their own social security investments.

Redux post of the day

First posted here two years ago.

‘We never exceeded 175 mph’

Last week Sports Illustrated opened its 53 years of archives (or “Vault” as they call it) with free access. A particular favorite article of mine was Brock Yates’s 1972 “From Sea to Speeding Sea,” — “The Cannonball was an out law auto race—unsanctioned and definitely unwise—but off they went, roaring their way toward L.A.” Yates drove the winning Ferrari with racer Dan Gurney from NYC to LA in 35 hours and 54 minutes.

A couple of excerpts:

Determined to find a car to race in the Cannonball, the three men had looked in the Times classifieds in search of a “driveaway” deal—an arrangement where one drives another’s car to a destination for nominal expenses. This is a common tactic used to transport personal cars by people who don’t like to drive long distances. The Long Island gentleman wanted his new Cadillac Coupe deVille driven to California. Opert & Co. obliged, nodding hazily at his firm orders that his prized machine not be driven after nine o’clock at night, not before eight o’clock in the morning and not run faster than 75 miles an hour. Naturally, all the regulations would be violated before the car left Manhattan.

A yellow 4-4-2 Oldsmobile Cutlass appeared in the rearview mirror. It was running fast, coming up on me at an impressive rate. Two guys were on board and I sensed that they were looking for a race. They drew even and we ran along for a way nose to nose. I looked over to catch eager grins on their faces. I smiled back and slipped the Ferrari from fifth to fourth gear. We were running a steady 100 mph when the Olds leaped ahead. I let him have a car-length lead before opening the Ferrari’s tap. The big car burst forward, its pipes whooping that lovely siren song, and rocketed past the startled pair in the Oldsmobile. I glanced over at them to see their faces covered with amazement. Like most of the populace, they had no comprehension of an automobile that would accelerate from 100 mph that quickly. The Ferrari yowled up to 150 mph without effort, leaving the Olds as a minuscule speck of yellow in the mirror.

I slowed again and turned up the volume on the stereo. Buck Owens and his Buckaroos were sonorously singing I’ve Got a Tiger by the Tail. I laughed all the way to Las Cruces.

Go read it all.

Best lines of the day

Normally broadcasters reserve their drooling over white-athlete stereotypes for descriptions of individual players like Wes Welker, Steve Nash, and… well, of Wes Welker. You do get some during NFL draft season, when you hear all the various Mel Kipers talking about fourth- and fifth-round talents who are worth a shot because they are “consistent,” “able to take coaching,” have “high football intelligence,” are “good in the locker room,” and “try hard and play through the whistle.” (My favorite of these cliches is actually, “Mature; is a coach’s son.”). The commensurate glowing descriptions of black athletes, of course, are more like, “Flattens the fuck out of guys” or “Will dunk on your face and laugh about it.”

Matt Taibbi with a different look at Cornell-Kentucky

Health news lines of the day

A Princeton University research team has demonstrated that all sweeteners are not equal when it comes to weight gain: Rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to table sugar, even when their overall caloric intake was the same. 

In addition to causing significant weight gain in lab animals, long-term consumption of high-fructose corn syrup also led to abnormal increases in body fat, especially in the abdomen, and a rise in circulating blood fats called triglycerides. The researchers say the work sheds light on the factors contributing to obesity trends in the United States.

Princeton University

Why are professors teaching courses on The Wire?

From Drake Bennett at Slate Magazine, Why so many colleges are teaching The Wire. An excerpt:

Academics, on the other hand, can’t seem to get enough of The Wire. Barely two years after the show’s final episode aired—and with Simon’s new show, Treme, premiering next month on HBO—there have already been academic conferences, essay anthologies, and special issues of journals dedicated to the series. Not content to write about it and discuss it among themselves, academics are starting to teach it, as well. Professors at Harvard, U.C.—Berkeley, Duke, and Middlebury are now offering courses on the show.

Interestingly, the classes aren’t just in film studies or media studies departments; they’re turning up in social science disciplines as well, places where the preferred method of inquiry is the field study or the survey, not the HBO series, even one that is routinely called the best television show ever. Some sociologists and social anthropologists, it turns out, believe The Wire has something to teach their students about poverty, class, bureaucracy, and the social ramifications of economic change.

War Dances

“War Dances” by novelist Sherman Alexie has won the 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the organizers announced Tuesday.

The prestigious annual award, presented by the Washington-based PEN/Faulkner Foundation, was given to Alexie because of his book’s breadth of topics and innovative style, judges said. “War Dances” consists of short stories interspersed with poems.

“That book was the one we all liked immediately,” said Kyoko Mori, one of the three judges. “There was something special about the range of characters. It was like watching a dance. I liked how some of the characters were unlikable but compelling.”

washingtonpost.com

The other finalists were Barbara Kingsolver, Lorraine M. Lopez, Lorrie Moore and Colson Whitehead.

Worst line of the day

“A beloved Rio Grande Zoo giraffe was dismembered and placed in a trash bin following its death…”

AP via Huffington Post

The giraffe, Kashka, had suffered a debilitating leg injury after a recent fall. Zoo officials said attempts to treat her condition would not likely be successful, so veterinarians decided last week to euthanize the 16-year-old giraffe that stood 15 feet tall and weighed about 2,000 pounds.

A necropsy of the animal showed that in addition to ligament damage in her left rear knee, Kashka was in the initial stages of peracute mortality syndrome, a wasting disease that is common and usually fatal in giraffes but not well understood.

Kashka was born at the Miami Metro Zoo on Jan. 3, 1994. She arrived at the Rio Grande Zoo later that year and went on to have six calves over the years.

. . .

Instead of following protocol and taking the giraffe to the landfill, a zoo worker put the dismembered giraffe carcass in a bin near the zoo last Thursday. A garbage truck driver spotted the remains the next day and reported it to his supervisor.

I have reason to take this loss personally, even beyond the horrid and thoughtless disposal. I can’t be certain, but I’m thinking that Kashka is our own Momma giraffe.

98 years

Teddy Roosevelt campaigned for national health insurance in 1912.

“The protection of home life against the hazards of sickness, irregular employment and old age through the adoption of a system of social insurance adapted to American use”

Progressive Party Platform, August 1912

Has even the Last Supper been supersized?

The food in famous paintings of the meal has grown by biblical proportions over the last millennium, researchers report in a medical journal Tuesday.

Using a computer, they compared the size of the food to the size of the heads in 52 paintings of Jesus Christ and his disciples at their final meal before his death.

If art imitates life, we’re in trouble, the researchers conclude. The size of the main dish grew 69 percent; the size of the plate, 66 percent, and the bread, 23 percent, between the years 1000 and 2000.

Salon.com

Best line of the day

“[I]t contributes to my belief that whoever works on [The Albuquerque Journal web] site has never seen another website anywhere. I’m reluctant to beat up a 14-year-old who gets minimum wage, but the Journal could and should do much better than this, especially after so many years of the same awful stuff. Send that kid to classes. Buy him a Dummies book.”

mjh’s blog

Reid

Sweetie Reid is 4 today.

Reid is his great grandfather’s middle name — and his great great grandfather’s given name.

Reid’s middle name is Fisher, which is my middle name — and my dad’s middle name and my granddad’s middle name.

So then, both Reid and Fisher are fifth generation names.

Reidie got all the family heirlooms.

March 23rd

Keri Russell is 34 today. Amanda Plummer, unforgettable as Honey Bunny in Pulp Fiction, is 53.

Joan Crawford was born on March 23rd in 1905. Miss Crawford was nominated for the actress in a leading role Oscar three times, winning for Mildred Pierce in 1945.

Handel’s oratorio Messiah premiered in London on this date in 1743.

And, on this date in 1775, Patrick Henry spoke to the Second Virginia Convention at St. John’s Church, Richmond. The last paragraph:

It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace–but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Lewis and Clark began their return from the Pacific on this date in 1806.

the rained Seased and it became fair about Meridean, at which time we loaded our Canoes & at 1 P. M. left Fort Clatsop on our homeward bound journey. at this place we had wintered and remained from the 7th of Decr. 1805 to this day and have lived as well as we had any right to expect, and we can Say that we were never one day without 3 meals of Some kind a day either pore Elk meat or roots, not withstanding the repeeted fall of rain which has fallen almost Constantly Since we passed the long narrows on the [blank] of Novr. last

Excerpt by Clark from the Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition

Afghan Star

At The New Yorker, Steve Coll recommends we see the documentary on HBO “Afghan Star.”

It follows contestants in the runaway-hit Afghan version of an American Idol-inspired televised talent contest. Two female finalists are shadowed by Taliban threats, although one of the pair, a Pashtun from Kandahar, claims on film at one point that ethnic loyalty has trumped ideology and that many Taliban are texting votes to support her, an entirely plausible boast.

Ten immediate benefits of HCR

Here are ten benefits which come online within six months of the President’s signature on the health care bill:

  1. Adult children may remain as dependents on their parents’ policy until their 27th birthday
  2. Children under age 19 may not be excluded for pre-existing conditions
  3. No more lifetime or annual caps on coverage
  4. Free preventative care for all
  5. Adults with pre-existing conditions may buy into a national high-risk pool until the exchanges come online. While these will not be cheap, they’re still better than total exclusion and get some benefit from a wider pool of insureds.
  6. Small businesses will be entitled to a tax credit for 2009 and 2010, which could be as much as 50% of what they pay for employees’ health insurance.
  7. The “donut hole” closes for Medicare patients, making prescription medications more affordable for seniors.
  8. Requirement that all insurers must post their balance sheets on the Internet and fully disclose administrative costs, executive compensation packages, and benefit payments.
  9. Authorizes early funding of community health centers in all 50 states (Bernie Sanders’ amendment). Community health centers provide primary, dental and vision services to people in the community, based on a sliding scale for payment according to ability to pay.
  10. AND no more rescissions. Effective immediately, you can’t lose your insurance because you get sick.

Crooks and Liars

Oh, quit complaining about the school bus

For Daisy Mora, 9, and the rest of the people in her village, a steel cable flying fox is the only way of getting to the outside world, the Daily Mail reported.

Despite her youth, Daisy is expected to travel down the flying fox at speeds of up to 62km/h with her younger brother attached beside her in a sack.

It’s a high pressure journey, with a 400m drop into the Rio Negro river facing her if the pulley system gives way.

Children take flying fox to school

Every big sister’s dream. Her little brother in a sack.

Photo is cropped from larger photo. Follow the link — there are four photos.

Best line of the day

“I believe in an America, in which we don’t just look out for ourselves. That we don’t just tell people you’re on your own. That we are proud of our individualism. We are proud of our liberty. But we also have a sense of neighborliness, and a sense of community. And we are willing to look out for one another and help people who are vulnerable. And help people who are down on their luck.”

President Barack Obama Saturday

Best line of the day

“Should I decide to change my politics and become a conservative now that I’m exactly the middle-aged bourgeois/suburban tool I used to rail against, I can always vote Republican by voting Democratic. The new Democratic Party is an excellent substitute for the old Nixon/Ford Republican Party. They even passed Nixon’s vision of a health care plan.”

Matt Taibbi

Best line of the day

“I watched the House debate and vote on C-Span last night and found it clarifying (in the moments of prolonged silence when nothing was happening I switched to the yammer-fests on cable news and couldn’t stand it for more than a minute).”

George Packer : The New Yorker

Packer adds this among his many other acute observations.

“The implied or explicit premise of every Republican I heard is that any involvement of government in our lives is an arrogant abrogation of freedom. The kinds of arguments only a few hard-liners made against Medicare forty-five years ago are today the overwhelming—the smothering—ideology of just about every Republican official.”

Those of you whose political awareness originated in the past 30 years (since Reagan, in other words) perhaps cannot fully comprehend how the context has changed. Politics has always been charged, but railing against government — as so many politicians do — has fundamentally changed the nature of the debate. It used to be the argument was what and how government should act. The discussion now sees to be about whether government should exist.

Idle thought

I watched the very good Frost/Nixon the other day. Nixon was rightfully forced to resign the presidency for being involved in an obstruction of justice. The specific crime he helped cover up was a break-in.

As Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict it appears was involved in an obstruction of justice. The specific crimes are the rape and abuse of children. In 2001, the then Archbishop, as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, sent a letter to every bishop directing them to refuse cooperation with legal authorities.

Just sayin’.