Author: NewMexiKen

Lucky 13th?

Henry Aaron began his Major League career on April 13th in 1954.

Sidney Poitier won his Academy Award on April 13th in 1964.

Tiger Woods won his first Masters on Sunday, April 13th, in 1997.

What will this April 13th bring?

April 13th

Today is the birthday

. . . of Ben Nighthorse Campbell, 75.

. . . of Paul Sorvino. The 69-year-old actor has more than 100 credits at IMDB, including a season as Detective Sergeant Philip “Phil” Cerreta on Law & Order and Henry Kissinger in Nixon.

. . . of Wally Cleaver. Tony Dow is 63.

. . . of Al Green, staying together at 62.

With his incomparable voice, full of falsetto swoops and nuanced turns of phrase, Al Green rose to prominence in the Seventies. One of the most gifted purveyors of soul music, Green has sold more than 20 million records. During 1972 and 1973, he placed six consecutive singles in the Top Ten: “Let’s Stay Together,” “Look What You Done for Me,” “I’m Still in Love With You,” “You Ought to Be With Me,” “Call Me” and “Here I Am (Come and Take Me).” “Let’s Stay Together” topped the pop chart for one week and the R&B charts for nine; it was also revived with great success by Tina Turner in 1984. In terms of popularity and artistry, Green was the top male soul singer in the world, voluntarily ending his reign with a move from secular to gospel music in 1979.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

. . . of chess champion Gary Kasparov, 45.

. . . of Davis Love III. He’s 44.

. . . of Rick Schroeder. Just nine when he won a Golden Globe, he’s 38 now.

It’s also the birthday of playwright and novelist Samuel Beckett, born on this date in 1906. Waiting for Godot was published in 1952.

April 13th ought to be a national holiday — no, really!

Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13th in 1743. [It was April 2nd on the calendar when he was born, but it’s that old Julian-Gregorian thing again.]

Eight-three years later, at the end of his remarkable life, he wished to be remembered foremost for those actions that appear as his epitaph:

Author of the
Declaration
of
American Independence
of the
Statute of Virginia
for
Religious Freedom
and Father of the
University of Virginia.

Jefferson Epitaph

Draft Declaration of Independence

At a White House dinner honoring 49 Nobel laureates in 1962, President Kennedy remarked, “I think this is the most extraordinary talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”

Despite serious flaws, Jefferson remains one of the most remarkable Americans.

In addition to being a writer, Jefferson was also a hard-nosed politician, lawyer, naturalist, musician, architect, geographer, inventor, scientist, paleontologist, and philosopher. Jefferson filled his house with scientific gadgets and inventions, collected mastodon bones, and kept detailed notes on the most obscure details of his life, including the daily fluctuation of the barometric pressure. After he missed the start of the solar eclipse in 1811, he designed his own more accurate astronomical clock. He composed all his papers in later life with a device that allowed him to write with two pens at the same time, so that he could keep copies of all the papers he produced.

The Writer’s Almanac

It seems to NewMexiKen that the country could use a federal holiday during that long spell from Washington’s Birthday to Memorial Day — for shopping and sales and stuff. I propose that April 13th, Jefferson’s birthday, would be ideal.

Click on the image of the document to view Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence. The photo of Jefferson’s tomb above taken by NewMexiKen, 2001. Click to enlarge.

Flag day

From the Library of Congress:

On April 12, 1818, a new flag flew over the U.S. Capitol for the first time. The flag’s thirteen stripes represented the original colonies, and its twenty stars symbolized the number of states in the Union.

StarSpangled.jpgThe first national flag, emblazoned with thirteen stripes and thirteen stars, was modified in 1795 when Kentucky and Vermont entered the Union. A flag with fifteen stars and fifteen stripes was used during the war of 1812. It was the fifteen star and fifteen stripe flag which flew over Fort McHenry during the War of 1812 inspired Francis Scott Key to write “The Star Spangled Banner.”

Continued expansion of the Union meant Congress soon again faced the prospect of adding to the number of the flag’s stars and stripes. Thus, in 1818, Congress settled on the expediency of altering the flag according to its present formula whereby stripes represent the original thirteen colonies, and stars are coincident with the number of states in the Union. The Independence Day following the admission of a State was set as the occasion for adding new stars to the flag. With the admission of Hawaii, the fiftieth star was added to the flag on July 4, 1960.

Photo is of the Star Spangled Banner with its 15 stars and 15 stripes. There were 18 states at the time.

I do solemnly swear

Truman Oath

Harry Truman takes the oath of office at 7:09 PM (Eastern War Time) on this date sixty-three years ago. Franklin Roosevelt had died just over two hours earlier at his retreat in Warm Springs, Georgia, the “Little White House.” When called at the Capitol and told he should rush to the White House, Truman is reported to have exclaimed, “Jesus Christ and General Jackson.” Once at the White House, Truman was told of FDR’s death by Mrs. Roosevelt.

The following day, Friday the 13th, is when Truman told several reporters: “Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now. I don’t know whether you fellows ever had a load of hay fall on you, but when you told me yesterday what had happened, I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me.”

Information and quotations from David McCullough’s outstanding biography of Truman. Photo from the National Archives via the White House web site.

Fort Sumter

Fort Sumter — a man-made island some four miles from Charleston, South Carolina — was a symbol well beyond its strategic value in the tensions leading up to the Civil War. Since December 1860, South Carolina officials had been demanding the surrender of the fort as state property. To Northerners, surrendering the fort meant surrendering the very idea of the Union.

When Lincoln took office on March 4, 1861, he was informed that the small garrison at Fort Sumter was running out of supplies. By April, he ordered a relief expedition and informed the Governor of South Carolina that it would be “with provisions only,” not men, arms or ammunition. This put the next move into the hands of Confederate President Jefferson Davis. Davis ordered that the fort be reduced before the supplies arrived.

The Confederacy opened fire at 4:30 AM on April 12, 1861. The Union garrison surrendered after 33 hours, and the American flag was lowered at Fort Sumter on April 14, 1861.

FDR

… died on this date in 1945.

The New York Times had re-published its obituary, written by Arthur Krock with an April 12 dateline, President Roosevelt is Dead; Truman to Continue Policies.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, War President of the United States and the only Chief Executive in history who was chosen for more than two terms, died suddenly and unexpectedly at 4:35 P. M. today at Warm Springs, Ga., and the White House announced his death at 5:48 o’clock. He was 63.

The President, stricken by a cerebral hemorrhage, passed from unconsciousness to death on the eighty-third day of his fourth term and in an hour of high-triumph. The armies and fleets under his direction as Commander in Chief were at the gates of Berlin and the shores of Japan’s home islands as Mr. Roosevelt died, and the cause he represented and led was nearing the conclusive phase of success.

There is an interesting and prescient remark in the article concerning Truman: “He is conscious of limitations greater than he has.”

April 12th has a good chance of becoming a national holiday

Today we celebrate the birthday

. . . of Jane Withers, 82. Withers earned her first fame as an 8-year-old playing the spoiled, doll-ripping, tricycle-riding brat who terrorized sweet, wonderful little Shirley Temple in Bright Eyes.

. . . of Herbie Hancock. He’s 68 today.

. . . of Clarence ‘Lumpy’ Rutherford. Actor Frank Bank of Leave It to Beaver is 66.

. . . of Ed O’Neill. He’s 62. O’Neill was nominated for two Golden Globes for playing shoe salesman Al Bundy on Married … with Children.

. . . of David Letterman. He’s 61, but a part of him seemingly never left the 8th grade.

. . . of Tom Clancy. He’s 61.

He was an insurance salesman, and he was doing well for himself, but he’d always wanted to be a writer. He had spent all his spare time reading magazines about military technology, such as Combat Fleets of the World and A Guide to the Soviet Navy, and one day he began to wonder what would happen if a Soviet submarine tried to defect to the United States. That became the basis for his first novel, The Hunt for Red October (1984).

Instead of focusing on the interactions between his characters, Clancy focused more on the technology. He described the soviet submarine in intricate detail, the way it moved and maneuvered, and all its weaponry and hardware. Since he didn’t think the novel would appeal to a mass audience, he published it with a small military publishing house called the Naval Institute Press. But the book got passed around among officers and generals, and eventually made its way to Ronald Reagan, who said he loved it. That endorsement from the president helped turn The Hunt for Red October into a huge best-seller.

The Writer’s Almanac

. . . of Scott Turow. He’s 59. He wanted to be a writer but went to law school so he’d have a day job. His first novel was Presumed Innocent, published in 1987.

. . . of David Cassidy. Once a teen heart throb, he’s now 58.

. . . of Andy Garcia. He’s 52. Garcia was nominated for an Oscar for his supporting role in The Godfather: Part III.

. . . of Vince Gill. He’s 51.

. . . of Claire Danes, 29.

The photographer Imogen Cunningham was born on this date in 1883.

Best line of the day

. . . But then Vonnegut starts coughing, clearing his throat of phlegm, grasping for a half-smoked pack of Pall Malls lying on a coffee table. He quickly lights up. His wheezing ceases. I ask him whether he worries that cigarettes are killing him. “Oh, yes,” he answers, in what is clearly a set-piece gag. “I’ve been smoking Pall Mall unfiltered cigarettes since I was twelve or fourteen. So I’m going to sue the Brown & Williamson Tobacco Company, who manufactured them. And do you know why?”

“Lung cancer?” I offer.

“No. No. Because I’m eighty-three years old. The lying bastards! On the package Brown & Williamson promised to kill me. Instead, their cigarettes didn’t work. Now I’m forced to suffer leaders with names like Bush and Dick and, up until recently, ‘Colon.'”. . . .

From an article in the August 2006 Rolling Stone.

Best line of the morning, so far

“ABC: Bush admits he authorized torture. Believe it or not, it gets worse from there”

FARK.com

Here’s the worse from ABC News:

The high-level discussions about these “enhanced interrogation techniques” were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed — down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

These top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects — whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding, sources told ABC news.

The advisers were members of the National Security Council’s Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Dick Cheney, former National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Worst. President. Ever.

Oh give me a break

News Item: “Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain separately criticized [Senator Obama] as being out of touch with the middle class … ”

God love ’em. Senator Clinton and her husband have earned more than $100 million in the past seven years and before that she lived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Senator McCain and his wife are also worth around $100 million and he has been an insulated elected official for 25 years.

But Obama is out of touch.

Update Saturday morning: Here’s Obama on being “out of touch.”

Plans for the George W. Bush Presidential Library have been released

The library will include:

  • The Hurricane Katrina Room, which is still under construction and looks like a disaster.
  • The Alberto Gonzales Room, where you can’t remember anything you see or hear.
  • The Texas Air National Guard Room, where you don’t have to even show up.
  • The Walter Reed Hospital Room, where they don’t let you in.
  • The Guantanamo Bay Room, where they don’t let you out.
  • The Weapons of Mass Destruction Room (which no one has been able to find).
  • The Iraq War Room. After you complete your first tour, they make you go back for a second, third, fourth, & sometimes fifth tour.
  • The Dick Cheney Room, in an undisclosed location, complete with shooting gallery.
  • The K-Street Project Gift Shop, where you can buy (or just steal) an election.
  • The Airport Men’s Room, where you can meet some of your favorite Republican Senators.
  • An entire floor devoted to a 1/64 scale model of the President’s ego.

Thanks to Debby for the scoop.

Most important line of the day, so far

“And by the way, liberals and independents wouldn’t impute to McCain a liberalness that isn’t there if the press stopped partying with the man long enough to report on him honestly.”

digby

All kinds of people NewMexiKen knows and likes and respects tell me that McCain at least is better than Bush because he’s OK on the environment or stem cells or the homeless.

But McCain would continue the war, keep the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and appoint 17th century thinkers to the courts. Keep your eye on the important things. He’s a crotchety old warrior.

Gallery

NewMexiKen took the photo display out of the header, but I have added a gallery at the bottom of the far right sidebar. Each time you load a page you will get one of the pictures formerly in the header (and new ones if I add some). Click on the photo and you will see the larger version (500 X 200) with a simple caption.

As if anyone notices.

Update: Read the comments.

All of the photos are my own.

Best line of the day, so far

“An investigation conducted by senators has been compared to a court run by kangaroos, and the analogy is not unfair, except possibly to the kangaroos.”

Louis Menand, who continues:

“The normal rules of evidence do not apply in congressional hearings: badgering is appreciated; the verdict has frequently been arrived at in advance. Perry Mason, swatting away objections like flies as he sweated the truth out of guilty witnesses, faced more stringent procedural constraints.”

April 11th

Ethel Kennedy is 80 today.

Joel Grey is 76.

Louise Lasser — remember Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (No? Neither do I.) Anyway, Louise is 69 today.

Columnist and author Ellen Goodman is 67.

And Joss Stone is 21, old enough to buy shoes.

It was on this date in 1945 that American troops entered Buchenwald, second only to Auschwitz in its horrors.

Many of the soldiers who entered Buchenwald on this day had been fighting in World War II since D-Day. They had participated some of the bloodiest battles in history. But nothing they’d seen prepared them for what they saw at Buchenwald. Several of the soldiers carried Kodak cameras, and so they took photographs of the surviving prisoners and the dead, so that people would believe what they had seen. Their photographs showed human beings so emaciated that they could barely walk, and victims’ bodies were stacked around the camp like piles of wood.

Sergeant Fred Friendly, who would go on to work as a CBS producer, wrote to his mother, “I want you to never forget or let our disbelieving friends forget, that your flesh and blood saw this.”

One of the reporters who covered the liberation of Buchenwald was Edward R. Murrow. He was so disturbed by what he saw that he couldn’t write about it for days, and let a subordinate break the story.

One of the children liberated at the camp that day was a teenager named Elie Wiesel, who would go on to win the Nobel Peace Prize. He had been forced to march from Auschwitz to Buchenwald a few weeks earlier, and his father had recently died in the camp. He saw American jeeps rolling into the camps, and he later wrote, “I will never forget the American soldiers and the horror that could be read in their faces. I will especially remember one black sergeant, a muscled giant, who wept tears of impotent rage and shame. … We tried to lift him onto our shoulders to show our gratitude, but we didn’t have the strength. We were too weak to even applaud him.”

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media

‘Less a harbinger of disaster than a wake-up call’

Ask the pilot’s Patrick Smith takes a look at the aircraft maintenance problem — and reminds us:

The system, as it stands, is remarkably safe. Although airlines have been through fiscal hell and back over the past several years, and despite their status as the most consistently dogged pariahs of the postindustrial American economy, they and their regulators have managed to maintain an astonishingly reliable transportation system. Here we are amid the safest-ever stretch since the dawn of the jet age. The last large-scale accident involving a major U.S. carrier was that of an American Airlines A300 in November 2001. That was approximately 43 million flights ago.