Author: NewMexiKen

Tough Night for Jerry J. Sanchez

How does a thing like this happen? I know that it’s probably something as bland as a ballot misprint, but last night as I watched the election results flash across the bottom of my tv screen, I couldn’t help think about all the bad things that a person would have to do in order to lose an election 1854 to ZERO. As his opponent’s numbers increased, while his remained at ZERO, I started to feel really bad for him.

The Alibi Weblog has more.

In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

“The idea that a university education is for everyone is a destructive myth. An instructor at a ‘college of last resort’ explains why.”

In each of my courses, we discuss thesis statements and topic sentences, the need for precision in vocabulary, why economy of language is desirable, what constitutes a compelling subject. I explain, I give examples, I cheerlead, I cajole, but each evening, when the class is over and I come down from my teaching high, I inevitably lose faith in the task, as I’m sure my students do. I envision the lot of us driving home, solitary scholars in our cars, growing sadder by the mile.

In the Basement of the Ivory Tower

Interesting and somewhat provocative.

35 bottles of wine on the wall, 35 bottles of wine

First, the Good News:

“Red wine may be much more potent than was thought in extending human lifespan, researchers say in a new report that is likely to give impetus to the rapidly growing search for longevity drugs.”

Now, the Great News:

“The Wisconsin scientists used a dose on mice equivalent to just 35 bottles a day. But red wine contains many other resveratrol-like compounds that may also be beneficial. Taking these into account, as well as mice’s higher metabolic rate, a mere four, five-ounce glasses of wine ‘starts getting close’ to the amount of resveratrol they found effective, Dr. Weindruch said.”

The New York Times

Heather

NewMexiKen’s very own congress critter, Heather Wilson, lost the primary yesterday for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate. The far more conservative candidate won, Rep. Steve Pearce. He gets the opportunity to lose in November to the third of our state’s three representatives, Democrat Tom Udall.

My question: What do you think are the chances Heather will stay in New Mexico now that her political career is over?

Team of Rivals

One of my heroes is Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln basically pulled in all the people who had been running against him into his cabinet because whatever personal feelings there were, the issue was “how can we get this country through this time of crisis?” And I think that has to be the approach that one takes.

Senator Barack Obama

So, which job does Kucinich get?

The 19th Amendment

SECTION 1. The right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

SECTION 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The Congress sent the 19th Amendment to the states for ratification on this date in 1919. By August of 1920, the necessary 36 states (of 48) had ratified the amendment and it went into effect.

It’s interesting to note the 12 states that had not yet ratified, including several that had rejected the amendment.

  • Connecticut ratified in September 1920.
  • Delaware rejected the amendment in 1920, but did ratify in 1923.
  • Maryland rejected the amendment in 1920, but ratified it in 1941.
  • Virginia rejected the amendment in 1920, but ratified it in 1952.
  • Alabama rejected the amendment in 1919, but ratified in in 1953.
  • Florida ratified in 1969.
  • South Carolina rejected the amendment in 1920, but ratified in 1969.
  • Georgia rejected the amendment in 1919, but ratified it in 1970.
  • Louisiana rejected the amendment in 1920, but ratified it in 1970.
  • North Carolina ratified in 1971.
  • Mississippi rejected the amendment in 1920, but ratified it in 1984.

For comparison, the 15th amendment, ratified 50 years earlier.

SECTION 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

SECTION 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

And the 26th, ratified in 1971.

SECTION 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.

SECTION 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

June 4th

Angelina Jolie is 33 today.

Michelle Phillips, one of the mamas of The Mamas and the Papas, is 64.

Noah Wyle, Dr. Carter, is 37.

Robert Fulghum is 71.

When he was a Unitarian minister in Washington state in the 1960s, Fulghum began jotting down personal insights to use in sermons and his weekly church newsletter. He worked them up into a statement of personal belief: “Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess…” — which eventually found its way to a Connecticut literary agent when her daughter came home with it tucked in her school bookbag, photocopied by her teacher. The agent asked Fulghum to write more, and the book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, and its follow-up, It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It (1989), ran for a time in first and second positions on bestseller lists.

The Writer’s Almanac

I don’t know what I’m talking about much of the time either, why can’t I get a well-paid gig on cable?

On MSNBC, David Brooks asserted that “less educated” and “downscale” people “look at [Sen. Barack] Obama, and they don’t see anything,” adding: “And so, Obama’s problem is he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who could go into an Applebee’s salad bar, and people think he fits in naturally there.” Applebee’s officials have confirmed to Media Matters that its restaurants do not have salad bars.

Media Matters

How many things can you find wrong with these two dozen words?

It’s like the little kids’ activity, how many things can you find wrong with this picture.

This sentence is in an article by Liz Sidoti of The Associated Press:

“Obama, the lanky son of a Kenyan father and a Kansan mother, was reared in Indonesia and Hawaii. He’s a Harvard University graduate and former Chicago activist …”

Is Obama ungracefully thin and tall? That’s the definition of “lanky.” I’ve seen a video of Obama with a pretty graceful move to the basket.

Obama was born in Hawaii (it was a state by then), and spent 13+ years in Hawaii and four in Indonesia. Is that “reared in Indonesia and Hawaii”? (He was in Hawaii for the fifth grade through high school. He was in Indonesia for ages 6 to 10.)

Obama is a graduate of Columbia University (B.A. 1983). He also attended Occidental College. He did graduate from Harvard Law School, but he is not a graduate of Harvard University.

Isn’t “activist” a charged word? Obama uses the terminology “a community organizer with a church-based group”.

Wally World

At 85 years of age, Wally married Anne, a lovely 25 year old.

Since her new husband is so old, Anne decides that after their wedding she and Wally should have separate bedrooms, because she is concerned that her new, but aged, husband may overexert himself if they spend the entire night together.

After the wedding festivities, Anne prepares herself for bed and the expected “knock” on the door.

Sure enough, the knock comes, the door opens and there is Wally, her 85-year-old groom, ready for action.

They unite as one. All goes well, Wally takes leave of his bride and she prepares to go to sleep. After a few minutes, Anne hears another knock on her bedroom door, and it is Wally. Again, he is ready for more “action.”

Somewhat surprised, Anne consents for more coupling. When the newlyweds are done, Wally kisses his bride, bids her a fond goodnight and leaves. She is set to go to sleep again, but, aha you guessed it….. Wally is back again, rapping on the door, and is as fresh as a 25-year-old, ready for more “action.” And, once again they enjoy each other.

However, as Wally gets set to leave again, his young bride says to him, “I am thoroughly impressed that at your age you can perform so well and so often. I have been with guys less than a third of your age who were only good once. You are truly a great lover, Wally.”

Wally, somewhat embarrassed, turns to Anne and says: …….”You mean I was here already?”

[Thanks to NewMexiKen’s friend Jeanne.]

Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site (Colorado)

… was established on this date in 1960. The National Park Service informs us:

William and Charles Bent, along with Ceran St. Vrain, built the original fort on this site in 1833 to trade with plains Indians and trappers. The adobe fort quickly became the center of the Bent, St. Vrain Company’s expanding trade empire that included Fort St. Vrain to the north and Fort Adobe to the south, along with company stores in Mexico at Taos and Santa Fe. The primary trade was with the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians for buffalo robes.

For much of its 16-year history, the fort was the only major permanent white settlement on the Santa Fe Trail between Missouri and the Mexican settlements. The fort provided explorers, adventurers, and the U.S. Army a place to get needed supplies, wagon repairs, livestock, good food, water and company, rest and protection in this vast “Great American Desert.” During the war with Mexico in 1846, the fort became a staging area for Colonel Stephen Watts Kearny’s “Army of the West”. Disasters and disease caused the fort’s abandonment in 1849. Archeological excavations and original sketches, paintings and diaries were used in the fort’s reconstruction in 1976.

Bent’s Fort is east of La Junta, Colorado, on the Arkansas River, which was the border between Mexico and the United States from 1819-1848. The present fort is a reconstruction built in 1976.

Volare

[B]ut whether it’s a two-seater or a 747, any airplane is able to glide successfully sans power. Even the heaviest jetliners glide routinely during so-called idle thrust descents, and believe it or not, the glide ratio of a large jet — altitude lost to horizontal distance traveled — is usually better than that of your average private model (the one caveat being that it must accomplish this descent at a considerably higher speed).

Ask the pilot from Salon.

Above first posted here three years ago, and a fact I still find fascinating.

Easy call

My friend Donna’s 8-year-old granddaughter, Morgan, joined us Friday when we toured the Oklahoma City Memorial and Museum.

Beforehand, while driving around downtown Oklahoma City we somehow got into a discussion about execution — lethal injections in particular. She was against them, Morgan said. She doesn’t even want to be a veterinarian despite loving animals, because her friend’s dog had been given a shot by a vet (euthanized). Killing people, even bad people, was killing too, she said.

Part way through the museum Morgan told her grandmother that it was “fine with me” that they executed the bomber.

They’re really better if you don’t know

NewMexiKen is reading Michael Pollan’s 2006 book The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. It reminded my of a conversation I heard about over the weekend concerning 5-year-old McKenna, one of my friend Donna’s granddaughters.

McKenna was in a discussion with her grandfather about getting chickens for the farm he’d recently purchased. He told her that chickens and cows can be pets, but they could also be food.

“Where do you think chicken nuggets come from?,” he asked.

“McDonalds,” McKenna answered.

June 3rd

Larry McMurtry is 72 today. Three years ago, The Writer’s Almanac had a good essay about McMurtry, in NewMexiKen’s opinion the best to write both fiction and nonfiction about the American west since his mentor Wallace Stegner. Two years ago NewMexiKen and Dad visited McMurtry’s hometown of Archer City, Texas. Here’s my report.

Tony Curtis is 83. Curtis received a leading actor Oscar nomination for The Defiant Ones.

Anderson Cooper is 41.

Allen Ginsberg was born on this date in 1926.

His father was a schoolteacher and occasional poet. His mother was a Russian immigrant and devoted Marxist. She was in and out of psychiatric institutions all through out his childhood and had to undergo electric shock treatments and a lobotomy. Ginsberg went to Columbia University on a small scholarship and there he began consorting with Jack Kerouac, Neal Cassady, William Burroughs. After college, he got a job in marketing research, wore a business suit everyday, and had on office on the 52nd floor of the Empire State Building. He says he started writing there, and that there he learned about careful manipulation of words.

He moved to San Francisco and became friends with Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who published Ginsburg’s [sic] first major work, Howl.

By his 30s, he was prematurely bald with a ring of hair on the fringe of his head and thick long black beard streaked with gray. He wore black rimmed classes and his Buddha belly was one of his most distinguishing features.

Ginsburg’s [sic] reading of Howl was reputed to have “turned the 1950s into the 1960s overnight.” It began:

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix, angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry dynamo in the machinery of the night.

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

Ginsberg died in 1997.

Dr. Zaius was born on June 3rd in 1901. That’s Maurice Evans, famed stage actor, two-time Tony winner, who is perhaps most remembered for playing the Minister of Science and Chief Defender of the Faith in Planet of the Apes.

Jefferson Davis was born on June 3rd in 1808.