Over at Dinner without Crayons, Erinn confesses to being a crime show junkie and lets us “in on a few things [she’s] learned about crime.” For example:
7. No matter how much you love scrapbooking (and Lord knows I do), do not scrapbook pictures of you with the people you kill. Especially if in the pictures they are wearing jewelry you stole from them and are currently wearing. And you’ve already told the police you’ve never seen those people in your life.
“The White House has launched an iPhone App. It looks promising but will probably disappoint.”
“But I have to say, I’m pretty close to giving up on Mr. Obama, who seems determined to confirm every doubt I and others ever had about whether he was ready to fight for what his supporters believed in.”
“Democrats swept the land in 2008 by running on a couple of things: not being George Bush, change in the economy, health care and getting rid of a lobbyist-rich culture in Washington that seemed to work only for those on the inside. The voters, as in Massachusetts on Tuesday, knew what they doing.”
From a very good assessment by Timothy Egan, “Time to Cowboy Up”
Basketball was the brainchild of James Naismith, a Canadian who was teaching at a YMCA training school in Springfield [Massachusetts], which prepared young men to go out and be instructors in YMCAs. Naismith was teaching physical education, but the winters were cold in Massachusetts, and his students were frustrated that they couldn’t go outside. He wanted something physically challenging but that could be played indoors, in a relatively small space. He tried all kinds of new and old games, but nothing worked. Finally he remembered a game he had played as a kid in Canada, a game called Duck on a Rock. He took a few rules from that and adapted it into a game he called Basket Ball. He nailed peach baskets to the balcony on each side of the gym, but the baskets had solid bottoms, so if anyone managed to get the ball in the basket someone else had to climb up and get the ball down.
I realize I am just a cranky old guy fast approaching geezer-hood, but am I the only one who finds it odd (rude?) when I am conducting business with someone — like just now on the telephone — and they start addressing me by my first name?
Perhaps I just notice it because they call me Kenneth (the name on my credit cards, etc.) and not Ken (the name I use with people I am on a first name basis with).
Shuffleboard, anyone?
“The FDA is debating whether to put tougher warnings on tanning beds. They’re thinking of going with “You’re an idiot.’ ”
From a tribute by Hendrik Hertzberg for The New Yorker:
The voices and songs of Kate and her older sister, Anna, have been a consistently gratifying part of my life for thirty-five years, beginning with the appearance of their first album. Every one of the dozen songs on that 1975 recording is a thing of beauty and intelligence, and several of them—“Kiss and Say Goodbye,” “Heart Like a Wheel,” “Go, Leave,” “My Town,” and (especially perhaps) “Talk to Me of Mendocino”—were as emotionally acute as anything I have ever heard. They still are, and since then hardly a week has gone by without my listening to their music.
I include this only because I love the kid’s binky.
“There are some secrets which do not permit themselves to be told.”
Edgar Allan Poe
Today is 201st anniversary of Poe’s birth. Since 1949 a mysterious individual has been visiting Poe’s grave in Baltimore every year early on the morning of January 19th, toasting Poe and leaving behind the Cognac and three roses. That person did not show up this year.
A nice tribute Kate McGarrigle who died yesterday from cancer (sarcoma). She’s the mother of Rufus and Martha Wainwright. Kate McGarrigle was 63.
The descriptors “Canadian icon” and “national treasure” are often used as lazy shorthand to refer to those artists who’ve made some sort of impact on our country’s music scene. But Kate McGarrigle was one of the awe-inspiring few who truly deserved those epithets — and then some.
Moi, j’me promene sur Ste Catherine
J’profite d’la chaleur du métro
J’ne regarde pas dans les vitrines
Quand il fait trente en d’ssous d’zero.
Me, I walk along St. Catherine [street]
Getting the warmth from the Metro
I don’t look in shop windows
When it’s 30 below zero.
“Complainte pour Ste. Catherine” (1977)
Video of Kate McGarrigle, with Rufus and Elvis Costello a year ago.
There are currently 58 units of the U.S. National Park Service designated “national park.” I think it’s interesting to look at the older parks; the truest gems of the system in many ways.
This list comprises the first 29 of the 58 national parks. The year given is when the site was established as a national park (some were national monuments or another designation before becoming a “national park”). National monuments could be (and were) proclaimed such by the president; it took an act of congress to authorize a national park.
How many have you visited? (In my case, 23.)
Yellowstone — 1872
Sequoia — 1890
Yosemite — 1890
Kings Canyon — 1890 (originally General Grant NP; renamed 1940)
Mount Rainier — 1899
Crater Lake — 1902
Wind Cave — 1903
Mesa Verde — 1906
Glacier — 1910
Rocky Mountain — 1915
Haleakalā — 1916
Hawai’i Volcanoes — 1916 (Hawai’i Volcanoes and Haleakalā originally Hawai’i NP; separated in 1961)
Lassen Volcanic — 1916
Denali — 1917 (originally Mt. McKinley NP; renamed 1980)
Acadia — 1919 (originally Lafayette NP; renamed 1929)
Grand Canyon — 1919
Zion — 1919
Hot Springs — 1921
Bryce Canyon — 1924 (originally Utah NP; renamed 1928)
Grand Teton — 1929
Carlsbad Caverns — 1930
Great Smoky Mountains — 1934
Shenandoah — 1935
Olympic — 1938
Isle Royale — 1940
Mammoth Cave — 1941
Big Bend — 1944
Everglades — 1947
Virgin Islands — 1956
The National Park Service itself wasn’t created until 1916.
What exactly does “native people” mean?
In the post before this about Acadia National Park the Park Service says, “Evidence suggests native people first lived here at least 5,000 years ago.” Well, who lived there 6,000 years ago or 10,000 years ago? And where did the “native people” of 5,000 years ago live before they lived at what is now Acadia National Park?
And if all humans originated in Africa, as is pretty certain, then who really qualifies as native people anyway?
… was renamed on this date in 1929. It has been Lafayette National Park since 1919 and Sieur de Monts National Monument from 1916 to 1919. Lafayette/Acadia was the first national park east of the Mississippi River.
From the National Park Service:
Located on the rugged coast of Maine, Acadia National Park encompasses over 47,000 acres of granite-domed mountains, woodlands, lakes and ponds, and ocean shoreline. Such diverse habitats create striking scenery and make the park a haven for wildlife and plants.
Entwined with the natural diversity of Acadia is the story of people. Evidence suggests native people first lived here at least 5,000 years ago. Subsequent centuries brought explorers from far lands, settlers of European descent, and, arising directly from the beauty of the landscape, tourism and preservation.
Today is the birthday
… of Jean Stapleton. Edith Bunker is 87. She won three Emmys and two Golden Globes in that role.
… of Tippi Hedren. The actress in Hitchcock’s The Birds is 80.
… of Phil Everly. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee (with older brother Don) is 71.
Phil and Don transformed the Appalachian folk, bluegrass and country sounds of their Kentucky boyhood into a richly harmonized form of rock and roll. The sons of entertainers Margaret and Ike Everly, a traveling country and western team, the Everly Brothers performed as part of the family act on radio and in concert. On their own, they sang beguilingly of adolescent romance in crisp, shimmering voices. With Don taking the melody and Phil harmonizing above him, the Everlys released a steady string of hit records between 1957-1962 that crossed over from country to pop and even R&B charts.
… of Shelley Fabares. Donna Reed’s television daughter is 66.
… of Dolly Parton. She’s 64.
With their strong feminine stances in the 1960s and 1970s, Dolly Rebecca Parton, along with fellow female pioneers Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette, revolutionized the world of country music for women performers. Then Parton took her crusade a step farther by crossing over to the pop world—landing on the cover of Rolling Stone, achieving pop hits, and starring in a series of Hollywood movies. Along the way, however, she ultimately lost much of her core country audience, to the point that in 1997 she dissolved her fan club, which had been one of the staunchest in country music. But Parton’s career—and her appeal to fans of hard country—was far from over. Beginning in 1999 she returned to the music of her youth and began rebuilding a tradition-minded fan base with a series of critically acclaimed bluegrass albums.
… of Desi Arnaz Jr. Little Ricky, Lucille Ball’s TV son, also first appeared 57 years ago today, on I Love Lucy about 12 hours after Desi Jr. was born.
… of comedian Paul Rodriguez, 55.
… of Katey Sagal. The Married…With Children mom is 56.
… of Paul Rodriguez, 55.
… of Drea de Matteo. The actress who was whacked on The Sopranos is 38.
Paul Cezanne was born on this date in 1839. Click Cezanne painting of Chrysanthemums for larger version.
… was born in Stratford, Virginia, on this date in 1807, the son of Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee and Ann Hill Carter Lee.
In 1810 the Lee family moved to Alexandria, then in the District of Columbia. The Lee’s lived first at 611 Cameron, but from 1811 or 1812 at 607 Oronoco.
Lee graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1829, second in his class and reputedly the only cadet to this day to have no demerits on his record. Lee married Mary Anna Randolph Custis, great granddaughter of Martha Washington, at Arlington House in 1831. Arlington House was in the District of Columbia from the time it was constructed until 1847 when the Virginia portion of the District of Columbia was receded to Virginia.
So, although Lee supposedly supported preservation of the Union that his father and uncles had helped create and opposed slavery, and although his residence had been in Virginia no more than 17 of his 54 years, in 1861 he turned down command of the Union forces to remain loyal to Virginia.
I suggest that this nullified his record of no demerits.
Learn the right way (and the wrong way) to lace your shoes. It’s never too late.
A week ago on Facebook, my brother Lee predicted that the Cardinals, Ravens, Cowboys and Chargers would win this past weekend’s NFL playoff games. I commented that he would go 0 for 4.
He went 0 for 4.
And that’s why I’m the oldest brother.
BTW, I have it in writing dated September 11, 2009, that Mack predicted the Vikings to win it all this year.
Never bet against Mack.
A first hand report from Haiti via Tracy Kidder.
Very worthy of the two-three minutes it will take you to read it.
“An Australian Open match was delayed by 40 minutes today when a (nervous? sick?) ballboy peed himself on the court. At least he has a long fruitful life of intense psychological therapy ahead of him.”
Oh, it’s raindrops hitting the sunlights. I’d forgotten the sound.
When you’ve had only four one-hundredths of an inch of precipitation in five weeks you forget.
An interesting graphic of the explosion of colors from the original eight.
