Author: NewMexiKen

The Father of Our Country

To describe George Washington as enigmatic may strike some as strange, for every young student knows about him (or did when students could be counted on to know anything). He was born into a minor family in Virginia’s plantation gentry, worked as a surveyor in the West as a young man, was a hero of sorts during the French and Indian War, became an extremely wealthy planter (after marrying a rich widow), served as commander in chief of the Continental Army throughout the Revolutionary War (including the terrible winter at Valley Forge), defeated the British at the Battle of Yorktown, suppressed a threatened mutiny by his officers at Newburgh, N.Y., then astonished the world and won its applause by laying down his sword in 1783. Called out of retirement, he presided over the Constitutional Convention of 1787, reluctantly accepted the presidency in 1789 and served for two terms, thus assuring the success of the American experiment in self-government.
…

Washington was, after all, a magnificent physical specimen. He towered several inches over six feet, had broad shoulders and slender hips (in a nation consisting mainly of short, fat people), was powerful and a superb athlete. He carried himself with a dignity that astonished; when she first laid eyes on him Abigail Adams, a veteran of receptions at royal courts and a difficult woman to impress, gushed like a schoolgirl. On horseback he rode with a presence that declared him the commander in chief even if he had not been in uniform.

Other characteristics smack of the supernatural. He was impervious to gunfire. Repeatedly, he was caught in cross-fires and yet no bullet ever touched him. In a 1754 letter to his brother he wrote that “I heard Bullets whistle and believe me there was something charming in the Sound.” During the Revolutionary War he had horses shot from under him but it seemed that no bullet dared strike him personally. Moreover, when the Continental Army was ravaged by a smallpox epidemic, Washington, having had the disease as a youngster, proved to be as immune to it as he was to bullets.

— Forrest McDonald in his review of Joseph J. Ellis’ His Excellency: George Washington.

Treaty of Amity, Settlement, and Limits Between the United States of America and His Catholic Majesty

The Adams Onis Treaty was concluded 190 years ago today (1819). It ceded Florida to the United States and settled, after nearly 16 years, the boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase.

His Catholic Majesty [Spain] cedes to the United States, in full property and sovereignty, all the territories which belong to him, situated to the eastward of the Mississippi, known by the name of East and West Florida.

The boundary-line between the two countries, west of the Mississippi, shall begin on the Gulph of Mexico, at the mouth of the river Sabine, in the sea, continuing north, along the western bank of that river, to the 32d degree of latitude; thence, by a line due north, to the degree of latitude where it strikes the Rio Roxo of Nachitoches, or Red River; then following the course of the Rio Roxo westward, to the degree of longitude 100 west from London and 23 from Washington; then, crossing the said Red River, and running thence, by a line due north, to the river Arkansas; thence, following the course of the southern bank of the Arkansas, to its source, in latitude 42 north; and thence, by that parallel of latitude, to the South Sea [Pacific].

The Avalon Project has the complete text of the Treaty. The Adams in the Treaty short name is Secretary of State John Quincy Adams.

George Washington shares a birthday

Today is the birthday

Sparky Anderson Plaque… of Don Pardo. The original “Jeopardy!” and “Saturday Night Live” announcer is 91.

… of Senator Edward Kennedy. He’s 77. I like Senator Kennedy, think he has been a great senator if an imperfect human. But, for the life of me, I do not understand these guys hanging on well into their 70s. They truly know no other life.

… of Sparky Anderson. The baseball hall-of-fame manager is 75.

… of Julius Erving. Dr. J is 59.

… of Kyle MacLachlan. The actor is 50.

… of Vijay Singh. He’s 46.

Peter Hurd

… of Drew Barrymore. The actress is 34.

… of James Blunt, 32.

Artist Peter Hurd was born in Roswell, New Mexico, on this date in 1904. That’s his watercolor, “The Winos.”

American poets James Russell Lowell and Edna St. Vincent Millay were born on this date; Lowell in 1819 and Millay in 1892.

Edna St. Vincent Millay was a terse and moving spokesman during the Twenties, the Thirties and the Forties. She was an idol of the younger generation during the glorious early days of Greenwich Village when she wrote, what critics termed a frivolous but widely know poem which ended:

My candle burns at both ends, It will not last the night; But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends, It gives a lovely light!

All critics agreed, however, that Greenwich Village and Vassar, plus a gypsy childhood on the rocky coast of Maine, produced one of the greatest American poets of her time. (The New York Times)

Rembrandt Peale George Washington

Rembrandt Peale was born on this date in 1778. His brothers were named Raphael, Rubens and Titian. Son of portrait-painter Charles Wilson Peale, Rembrandt Peale is known primarily for his many renditions of George Washington. Most are based on his most famous work, this portrait of Washington from 1795 (click to view larger version). Rembrandt Peale also painted a classic portrait of Thomas Jefferson.

Steve Irwin, The Crocodile Hunter, should have been 47 today.

Racial bias

Project Implicit, a virtual laboratory maintained by Harvard, the University of Washington and the University of Virginia, has administered hundreds of thousands of online tests designed to detect hidden racial biases. In tests taken from 2000 to 2006, they found that three-quarters of whites have an implicit pro-white/anti-black bias. (Blacks showed racial biases, too, but unlike whites, they split about evenly between pro-black and pro-white. And, blacks were the most likely of all races to exhibit no bias at all.) In addition, a 2006 study by Harvard researchers published in the journal Psychological Science used these tests to show how this implicit bias is present in white children as young as 6 years old, and how it stays constant into adulthood.

(You can take the test yourself.)

Charles M. Blow, The New York Times

Best allegory of the day

Which sounds … not irrational. But when you think of a bad bank, what do you imagine?

You walk into the lobby decorated with portraits of Bernie Madoff, past a row of tellers who are not giving out any money because they are all too busy planning to have octuplets or adopting a chimpanzee as a family member. The executive suite is empty because everybody has gone off on his or her own personal corporate jet. To lunch. Which would consist only of products made with peanut butter. And the bad bank would, of course, have a corporate softball team that was open only to employees who took steroids on a regular basis.

Gail Collins

2-21

Today is the birthday

… of Blanche Elizabeth Hollingsworth Devereaux. Rue McClanahan is 75.

… of Richard Beymer. Tony from West Side Story is 70.

… of Mary Beth Lacey. Tyne Daly is 63.

… of 3CPO. Anthony Daniels is 63.

… of Alan Rickman. Professor Snape is 63.

… of Patricia Nixon Cox. The former first daughter is 63.

… of Frasier Crane. Kelsey Grammer is 54 today.

… of Mary Chapin Carpenter. Celebrating, and one hopes, feeling lucky, she’s 51 today.

… of Charlotte Church. The singer, who raised lots of money for PBS, and did even better for herself, is 23.

… of Ellen Page. Last year’s Oscar nominee is 22.

… of Corbin Bleu. He’s 20. Out of high school one hopes.

Erma Bombeck was born on this date in 1927. According to The Writer’s Almanac:

[Bombeck] became famous for her humor column called “At Wits End”, about the daily madness of being a housewife. She knew she wanted to be a journalist from the eighth grade, and she had a humor column in her high school newspaper. She got a job at the Dayton Journal-Herald writing obituaries and features for the women’s page, but when she married a sportswriter there, she chose to quit her job and stay home with the kids. She spent a decade as a fulltime mother, and then in 1964 she decided she had to start writing again or she would go crazy. She said, “I was thirty-seven, too old for a paper route, too young for social security, and too tired for an affair.”

She got a column at a small Ohio paper and wrote about the daily trials and tribulations of the average housewife. Within a few years, she was one of the most popular humor columnists in America.

NewMexiKen thought Bombeck funniest when she really was a a full-time mom. When she became rich and famous the humor often seemed more contrived and strained. But then I’d rather be rich and famous than funny, too.

Anaïs Nin was born on this date in 1903. I almost passed over Nin but figured if she was good enough for a Jewel song she was good enough for NewMexiKen.

The great classical guitarist Andrés Segovia was born on this date in 1893. This from his obituary in The New York Times in 1987.

The guitarist himself summed up his life’s goals in an interview with The New York Times when he was 75 years old: ”First, to redeem my guitar from the flamenco and all those other things. Second, to create a repertory – you know that almost all the good composers of our time have written works for the guitar through me and even for my pupils. Third, I wanted to create a public for the guitar. Now, I fill the biggest halls in all the countries, and at least a third of the audience is young – I am very glad to steal them from the Beatles. Fourth, I was determined to win the guitar a respected place in the great music schools along with the piano, the violin and other concert instruments.”

The Washington Monument was dedicated on this date in 1885. Malcolm X was shot and killed on this date in 1965.

Chilly Willy

My question is why conservatives think it advances their purpose to continue this demonstrably wrong adherence to climate change denialism. This isn’t like, say, evolution. Scientific evidence of evolution is quite strong and will only continue to get stronger, but that growing evidence won’t be ever more obvious to the layperson. Birds, for instance, won’t start evolving faster and faster until it’s frighteningly clear that evolution is real and all those deniers were, in fact, cranks.

But the planet is getting warmer, and people are going to notice. Will can talk about global cooling all he wants, but arctic ice is actually disappearing. Snowpacks are shrinking. Droughts are intensifying. Sea-levels are rising. And this isn’t going to stop.

Climate change denialism is like arguing at three that in two hours it won’t be five. However convincing you think you are, you will ultimately be revealed as a fool and a charlatan.

The Bellows

Link via Grasping Reality with Both Hands.

Hey we didn’t have to wait until next week

Citigroup is at $2 at this moment.

It was $2.51 at closing yesterday.

Update 9:15 AM MST: $1.97. Bank of America at $3.26.

GM down to $1.71. Once America’s largest company, all of its stock is now worth just over ONE billion dollars.

Or about 40% less than Panera Bread.

11:25 AM MST: Citi $1.74 Bank of America $2.80 GM $1.53

GM market cap now less than a billion.

2:10 PM MST: Citi closed at $1.95, Bank of America at $3.79 and GM at $1.77

Line of the day

“The Dow industrials declined 1.2% to a new bear-market closing low as bank stocks continued to grind downward. Bank of America and Citigroup dropped 14% each.”

WSJ.com

The DJIA consists of just 30 stocks. For the price of a six-pack of decent beer (including tax), you could get a share each of GM ($2), Citigroup ($2.51) and Bank of America ($3.93). (The beer would have more value.)

3M Co
Alcoa Inc
American Express Company
AT&T Inc.
Bank of America Corporation
Boeing Co.
Caterpillar Inc.
Chevron Corp
Citigroup, Inc.
E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company
Exxon Mobil Corp
General Electric Company
General Motors Corporation
Hewlett-Packard Co.
Intel Corporation
International Business Machines
Johnson & Johnson
JP Morgan & Chase & Co
Kraft Foods Inc.
McDonald’s Corporation
Merck & Co., Inc.
Microsoft Corporation
Pfizer Inc
The Coca-Cola Company
The Home Depot, Inc.
The Procter & Gamble Company
United Technologies Corporation
Verizon Communications
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Walt Disney Company

Idle thought

They’re going to nationalize the big banks — the choice is being made by the reality of the situation. The Administration is in denial because letting on that it’s about to happen will drive the stock prices of the banks to zero. (So it will happen on a weekend.)

My question. All my investments are in cash. Where should I put the cash?

I realize FDIC protects my deposit accounts, but this is going to be messy and unprecedented and go on for who knows how long. And I need to worry about something else now that Sweetie Reid is over his virus.

131 years ago today

Thomas Edison received a patent for the phonograph and ultimately music changed forever.

The phonograph was developed as a result of Thomas Edison’s work on two other inventions, the telegraph and the telephone. In 1877, Edison was working on a machine that would transcribe telegraphic messages through indentations on paper tape…This development led Edison to speculate that a telephone message could also be recorded in a similar fashion. He experimented with a diaphragm which had an embossing point and was held against rapidly-moving paraffin paper. The speaking vibrations made indentations in the paper. Edison later changed the paper to a metal cylinder with tin foil wrapped around it. The machine had two diaphragm-and-needle units, one for recording, and one for playback. When one would speak into a mouthpiece, the sound vibrations would be indented onto the cylinder by the recording needle in a vertical (or hill and dale) groove pattern. Edison gave a sketch of the machine to his mechanic, John Kreusi, to build, which Kreusi supposedly did within 30 hours. Edison immediately tested the machine by speaking the nursery rhyme into the mouthpiece, “Mary had a little lamb.” To his amazement, the machine played his words back to him. …
It didn't look much like an iPod

The invention was highly original. The only other recorded evidence of such an invention was in a paper by French scientist Charles Cros, written on April 18, 1877. There were some differences, however, between the two men’s ideas, and Cros’s work remained only a theory, since he did not produce a working model of it.

Source: Library of Congress

It didn’t look much like an iPod. Click image for larger version.

Idle thought

So this Stanford ponzi financial institution allegedly had lots of Mexican drug cartel cash among its deposits. Now it’s all lost.

What was he thinking?

Compared to what Stanford faces if caught by the bad guys, Zed was given bon bons by Marcellus Wallace’s medievalists.