Author: NewMexiKen

Buy some stuff, will ‘ya?

This recession talk is killing my 401K.

Strong evidence is emerging that consumer spending, a bulwark against recession over the last year even as energy prices surged and the housing market sputtered, has begun to slow sharply at every level of the American economy, from the working class to the wealthy.

The abrupt pullback raises the possibility that the country may be experiencing a rare decline in personal consumption, not just a slower rate of growth. Such a decline would be the first since 1991, and it would almost certainly push the entire economy into a recession in the middle of an election year.

The New York Times

Meanwhile, in Monday’s column Paul Krugman takes a look at the presidential candidates reaction to the pending economic doom and gloom — and doesn’t say “a word about their hairstyles.”

Ten bucks!?

Cat’s Mom Tanya reports:

My elder child, Cat, age 5, is currently fascinated with the Tooth Fairy. Some of her friends and classmates have started to lose their teeth and some have fetched as high as $10 and a jibbet for their nocturnal submission to the Tooth Fairy.

Alas, unfortunately for Cat, she has all of her baby teeth and they all appear inclined to stick around for a while. Cat, having my patience, or lack thereof, is trying to expedite the Fairy’s visit.

Tonight, as I was tucking her in, I noticed her stuffing something under her pillow. I asked her what it was and she replied, “A tiny piece of old soap that I shaped to look like a tooth. I am sticking it under my pillow to see if I can fool the Tooth Fairy. Maybe she will leave me some cash or a Squeeze-A-Burp toy.”

I told Cat that I thought the Tooth Fairy was too smart for that and might leave her Monopoly money instead of the real thing.

“That’s okay, mom,” she said. “We all have to start somewhere.”

I am now going in search of my old Monopoly set…..

January 13th

Billy Gray, the kid that befriended Klaatu in the classic 1951 sci-fi film The Day the Earth Stood Still, is 70 today. Billy’s old enough to play Professor Barnhardt this time around. Gray was Bud on the 50s sitcom Father Knows Best.

Richard Moll of Night Court is 65.

Julia Louis-Dreyfus is 47.

Patrick Dempsey is 42.

Orlando Bloom is 31.

The Last of the Red Hot Mamas

“I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor; Believe me, honey, rich is better.”

Sophia Kalish was born at a farm house along the road in Russia as her mother was emigrating to America on this date in 1884. As Sophie Tucker she was one of the great stars of vaudeville, the Ziegfeld Follies and early movies. In the 1930s she brought elements of nostalgia for the early years of 20th century into her show. She was billed as “The Last of the Red Hot Mamas.” Her hearty sexual appetite was a frequent subject of her songs, unusual for female performers of the era.

In addition to her performing, Sophie Tucker was active in efforts to unionize professional actors, and was elected president of the American Federation of Actors in 1938.

From birth to age eighteen, a girl needs good parents. From eighteen to thirty-five, she needs good looks. From thirty-five to fifty-five, she needs a good personality. From fifty-five on, she needs good cash.

Sophie Tucker

The Library of Congress has more.

School day$

First posted here two years ago today:

With son number three due this spring, Jill, official oldest daughter of NewMexiKen, and Byron, official husband of Jill, are calculating costs. According to their financial advisor, here are some estimates for the cost of four years of college when the boys reach that age:

University of Virginia………………$486,715
College of William and Mary……$512,956
University of Notre Dame……$1,454,963
Stanford University………………$1,599,440

NewMexiKen, official grandpa of Jill’s three sons, can only offer these four words of wisdom:

Linebacker
Quarterback
Point Guard

You might well leave your heart in San Francisco — in some zoo animal’s jaws

Revelations that a polar bear and a snow leopard came close to escaping from their enclosures at the San Francisco Zoo over the past week renewed questions Friday about the safety of visitors and workers at the facility, several zookeepers said.

A female polar bear nearly scaled the wall of her enclosure on Jan. 3, several zookeepers have told The Chronicle, almost escaping and prompting the zoo to raise the height of the exhibit wall the next day. A week later, on Thursday, a snow leopard chewed through a temporary enclosure, according to a zoo spokesman.

The zookeepers said the latest incidents made them fearful for their safety and called into question whether visitors are safe. But zoo officials disputed the keepers’ characterization of the incidents, saying that the wild animals were acting normally and that neither posed a threat to employees or the public.

San Francisco Chronicle

The Nine

NewMexiKen received a copy of Jeffrey Toobin’s The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court for Christmas. I’m most of the way through and I recommend it highly.

Toobin tells the story (tells the stories might be a better way of putting it) of the recent Supreme Court. Though he writes about the legal issues before the Court, it’s as much the story of the nine individuals who served as justices from 1994-2005 and the succession that took place in 2005-2006. (Eleven years is the longest that nine justices have ever served together.) Justice O’Connor has the leading role. It’s a readable, well-written, well-paced book.

The Nine was on many lists as one of the best nonfiction books of last year.

January 12th

Today is the birthday

… of Ray Price. Still for the good times at 82.

When Ray Noble Price was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1996, many noted that the honor was long overdue. Such feelings weren’t based so much on the longevity of his career or on the number of major hits he has recorded, for in those regards Price was no different from many other deserving artists awaiting induction. More importantly, Price has been one of country’s great innovators. He changed the sound of country music from the late 1950s forward by developing a rhythmic brand of honky-tonk that has been hugely influential ever since. As steel guitarist Don Helms, a veteran of Hank Williams’s Drifting Cowboys once put it, “Ray Price created an era.” (Country Music Hall of Fame)

… of Glenn Yarbrough. He’s 78.

… of William Lee Golden. The big, bearded member, but not the bass voice, of the Oak Ridge Boys is 69.

… of Smokin’ Joe Frazier. The champ is 64.

… of Cynthia Robinson. She’s dancing to the music at 62.

You might like to hear the horns blowin’,
Cynthia on the throne, yeah!
Cynthia & Jerry got a message they’re sayin’:
[Cynthia:] All the squares, go home!

… of Kirstie Alley. She’s 57.

… of the most dangerous man in America, Rush Limbaugh. The audio-terrorist is 57.

… of Howard Stern. He’s 54.

… of broadcast journalist Christiane Amanpour. She’s 50.

… of Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. The billionaire is 44.

Jack London was born in San Francisco on this date in 1876. London wrote more than 50 books, including The Call of the Wild and White Fang (1906). His most unforgettable story may be To Build a Fire. London died at age 40.

John Hancock was born on this date in 1737. Hancock was President of the Continental Congress of the United States of America in the summer of 1776. He was the first to sign the Declaration of Independence.

John Hancock

No papers

The Department of Homeland Security announced the final regulations Friday that [implement] the Real ID act, legislation that requires states to standardize their driver’s licenses, forces current license holders to re-apply with certified copies of birth certificates and marriage licenses, and penalizes states that don’t comply by making their licenses unacceptable for federal purposes, such as entering Federal buildings. Without any hearings, the measure was slipped into a must-pass military spending bill in 2005 by Congressman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI).

Threat Level

Capt. Vasili Borodin: I will live in Montana. And I will marry a round American woman and raise rabbits, and she will cook them for me. And I will have a pickup truck… maybe even a “recreational vehicle.” And drive from state to state. Do they let you do that?

Captain Ramius: I suppose.

Capt. Vasili Borodin: No papers?

Captain Ramius: No papers, state to state.

The music industry

IN 2006 EMI, the world’s fourth-biggest recorded-music company, invited some teenagers into its headquarters in London to talk to its top managers about their listening habits. At the end of the session the EMI bosses thanked them for their comments and told them to help themselves to a big pile of CDs sitting on a table. But none of the teens took any of the CDs, even though they were free. “That was the moment we realised the game was completely up,” says a person who was there.

The Economist

By the way, Amazon.com sells DRM-free 256kbps MP3 files for 89 or 99 cents. It’s a good alternative to iTunes. The files are watermarked to show that they were bought from Amazon.

Prius Whoops Some Ass

[T]he Prius was one of America’s best-selling vehicles in 2007. That’s vehicles, not just hybrids. Toyota sold 181,221 of the gas-electric hatchbacks. That’s more than the entire Acura or Mercury lineups, and the model was nipping on all of Buick’s heels. The Prius also outsold the Chevrolet Tahoe, the Toyota Tacoma, the Honda Odyssey, every Jeep, every Chrysler, every Dodge (except Ram) and every Ford but the F-series.

The Truth About Cars

Alexander Hamilton

… was born in the British West Indies on this date in 1757 (or possibly in 1755).

Hamilton Ten Dollar Bill

He grew up on the tiny island of Nevis, where his father abandoned the family and his mother died when he was just a boy. He was taken in by a local merchant who gave him a job at a general store. He turned out to be quite good at accounting, so when he was thirteen, his boss took a trip to Europe and left young Alexander in charge of the store. He started writing on the side, and an article about a recent hurricane so impressed the adults around him that they all pitched in to pay for his passage to New York, where he could attend school.

He arrived in America just as rebellion against Great Britain was brewing, and he immediately began to write for New York newspapers in support of the colonies’ rights. He impressed George Washington so much that he became Washington’s right hand man when he was barely twenty-years old. After the revolution, when many American politicians believed that the colonies should remain mostly independent of each other, Hamilton was one of the earliest supporters of a strong central government.

In just three years, between 1787 and 1790, he served on the constitutional convention, wrote the majority of the Federalist Papers, which helped garner support for the new constitution, became the first secretary of the treasury, and set up the U.S. National Bank.

While serving on Washington’s cabinet, Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson became bitter enemies, and set out to undermine each other with gossip about each other’s scandalous private lives. Hamilton was having an affair at the time, and there were rumors that Jefferson had had children with one of his slaves. But despite their bitter rivalry, Hamilton later spoke in favor of Jefferson as president over Aaron Burr, whom he considered a scoundrel.

Four years later, Burr challenged him to a duel. They met at sunrise in a wooded area of Weehawken, New Jersey, above the Hudson River. Hamilton showed up for the duel to prove his courage, but he purposely fired his gun straight up into the air. Burr aimed at him anyway, and Hamilton was mortally wounded and died the next day.

He hasn’t been as well remembered as Washington or Jefferson, but by setting up the national treasury, the national bank, the first budgetary and tax systems, and most of all by helping gather support for the U.S. constitution, he did more to design the system of government we now live under than almost any other man.

The columnist George F. Will said, “We honor Jefferson, but live in Hamilton’s country.”

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media

Where do I buy Apple stock?

Three years ago today Apple introduced the iPod shuffle, the Mac Mini, and iLife and iWork 05. Apple stock closed at $64.56 that day. It later split 2:1. At this writing it is $177.

So $1000 in Apple stock bought three years ago today would be worth $5483. (And the stock has reached $200.)

This year the day for Apple’s big announcements is next Monday.

Update: On the other hand, according to Atrios, “Had you invested $10,000 in [Countrywide 11 months ago], it would now be worth about $1050.00.”

The Grand Canyon

… was first designated for preservation on this date in 1908 when President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed the area a national monument. It was designated a national park in 1919.

Grand Canyon

NewMexiKen photo 2006. Click image for larger version.