Author: NewMexiKen

Little William

William Shakespeare was baptized on April 26, 1564, in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, England. As customary, the entry in the baptismal registry of Holy Trinity Church announces the event in Latin: “Gulielmus filius Johannes Shakspere.”

The poet’s birthday is traditionally celebrated on April 23 because babies generally were baptized about three days after birth. Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616, and is buried in the church where he was christened.

Although contemporary references to William Shakespeare and his family abound, the first biography of the playwright appeared in the early 18th century. In 1714, Nicholas Rowe published Some account of the life, &c., of Mr. William Shakespear, one of many rare books in the collection of the Folger Shakespeare Memorial Library.

A Library of Congress neighbor on Capitol Hill, the Folger Shakespeare Memorial Library was built and endowed by Henry and Emily Folger to house and maintain a valuable Shakespeare collection they bequeathed to the American people. Completed in 1932, the building is made entirely of American materials, including a neoclassical exterior of Georgia marble and a Tudor interior of Appalachian oak. Shakespearean scholars come from all over the world to use the Folger’s rich holdings related to Shakespeare and his times.

Library of Congress

Duane Eddy

… was born on this date in 1938, which would make him 68 today. Eddy was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.

One of the earliest guitar heroes, Duane Eddy put the twang in rock and roll. “Twang” is a reverberating, bass-heavy guitar sound boasted by primitive studio wizardry. Concocted by Eddy and producer Lee Hazlewood in 1957, twang came to represent the sound of revved-up hot rods and an echo of the Wild West on the frontier of rock and roll. Eddy obtained his trademark sound by picking on the low strings of a Chet Atkins-model Gretsch 6120 hollowbody guitar, turning up the tremolo and running the signal through an echo chamber. Behind the mighty sound of twang, Eddy became the most successful instrumentalist in rock history, charting fifteen Top Forty singles in the late Fifties and early Sixties. He has sold more than 100 million records worldwide. No less an authority than John Fogerty has declared, “Duane Eddy was the front guy, the first rock and roll guitar god.” Eddy’s influence is widespread in rock and roll. A twangy guitar drove Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” and twang echoes in the work of the Beatles, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Dave Edmunds, Chris Isaak and many more.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

“Cannonball,” “Rebel Rouser,” “Forty Miles of Bad Road” and NewMexiKen is cruising Speedway Boulevard in Tucson again. Someone else is driving — I’m not quite that old — but nevertheless, little rock and roll is as evocative as Duane Eddy, dated as it seems now.

Gertrude Pridgett

… was born on this date in 1886. Gertrude Pridgett began performing in 1900, singing and dancing in minstrel shows. In 1902, she married performer William “Pa” Rainey and became known as Ma Rainey.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum has this to say about inductee Ma Rainey.

If Bessie Smith is the acknowledged “Queen of the Blues,” then Gertrude “Ma” Rainey is the undisputed “Mother of the Blues.” As music historian Chris Albertson has written, “If there was another woman who sang the blues before Rainey, nobody remembered hearing her.” Rainey fostered the blues idiom, and she did so by linking the earthy spirit of country blues with the classic style and delivery of Bessie Smith. She often played with such outstanding jazz accompanists as Louis Armstrong and Fletcher Henderson, but she was more at home fronting a jugband or washboard band.

The Red Hot Jazz Archive has several Ma Rainey recordings you can listen to.

Channel Islands National Park (California)

… first became Channel Islands National Monument on this date in 1938.

Channel Islands Sunrise

Comprised of five in a chain of eight southern California islands near Los Angeles, Channel Islands National Park is home to a wide variety of nationally and internationally significant natural and cultural resources. Over 2,000 species of plants and animals can be found within the park. However only four mammals are endemic to the islands. One hundred and forty-five of these species are unique to the islands and found nowhere else in the world. Marine life ranges from microscopic plankton to the endangered blue whale, the largest animal to live on earth. Archeological and cultural resources span a period of more than 10,000 years. The park consists of 249,354 acres, half of which are under the ocean, and include the islands of San Miguel, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz, Anacapa, and Santa Barbara. Even though the islands seem tantalizingly close to the densely populated, southern California coast, their isolation has left them relatively undeveloped, making them an exciting place for visitors to explore.

Channel Islands National Park

How Would a Patriot Act?

A must read essay by Digby includes this:

I’m not naive about American history. I know that the last two hundred plus years are rife with examples of our government failing to live up to its ideals. But for many of us who have grown up in the post World War II world of American dominance, watching our country casually discard its hard-won moral authority in favor of a childish insistence on “might makes right” is beyond disturbing. It hurts.

This is an issue with which every American, regardless of party, should be concerned. The founders knew that relying on the good will of men in power is stupid and we are seeing their predictions come true before our very eyes. The modern Republican leadership may currently have a monopoly on authoritarian impulses, but they are by no means the only people in this country who could be seduced by this Republican notion of executive authority. The constitution is what protects all Americans from the dark side of human nature when it has power over others, regardless of party or political philosophy. Those of us who worry about this usurpation of the constitution and degradation of the Bill of Rights know that this is not a passing fashion that will easily be tucked back into its former shape. Once you allow powerful men to seize power it’s awfully hard to persuade their successors to give it back.

Digby urges us to read How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok, by Glenn Greenwald, out May 15.

Sometimes there really is a conspiracy

Via law professor Michael Froomkin’s Discourse.net:

The multimillion-dollar lobbying effort to repeal the federal estate tax has been aggressively led by 18 super-wealthy families, according to a report released today by Public Citizen and United for a Fair Economy at a press conference in Washington, D.C. The report details for the first time the vast money, influence and deceptive marketing techniques behind the rhetoric in the campaign to repeal the tax.

It reveals how 18 families worth a total of $185.5 billion have financed and coordinated a 10-year effort to repeal the estate tax, a move that would collectively net them a windfall of $71.6 billion.

The report, available at www.citizen.org, profiles the families and their businesses, which include the families behind Wal-Mart, Gallo wine, Campbell’s soup, and Mars Inc., maker of M&Ms. Collectively, the list includes the first- and third-largest privately held companies in the United States, the richest family in Alabama and the world’s largest retailer.

These families have sought to keep their activities anonymous by using associations to represent them and by forming a massive coalition of business and trade associations dedicated to pushing for estate tax repeal. The report details the groups they have hidden behind — the trade associations they have used, the lobbyists they have hired, and the anti-estate tax political action committees, 527s and organizations to which they have donated heavily.

But is this a great country or not? The list includes both the Waltons and the Nordstroms.

Those wishing to abolish the estate tax call it the “death tax.” Those thinking it should remain as is, think of it as the “Paris Hilton tax.”

Best environmental line of the day, so far

“The folks at Rocky Mountain National Park call it ‘lethal reduction,’ a plan to shoot hundreds of elk in an effort to save a habitat they say have been devastated by elk herds growing out of control.

“The park is planning on dispatching rangers with guns equipped with silencers to kill the elk at night. Park officials say the shooting them at night would minimize run-ins with visitors (who usually come to see the elk alive).”

David Frey at New West Network

Ella Fitzgerald

… was born in Newport News, Virginia, on this date in 1918. Scott Yanow’s essay for the All Music Guide is first rate. It begins:

“The First Lady of Song,” Ella Fitzgerald was arguably the finest female jazz singer of all time (although some may vote for Sarah Vaughan or Billie Holiday). Blessed with a beautiful voice and a wide range, Fitzgerald could outswing anyone, was a brilliant scat singer, and had near-perfect elocution; one could always understand the words she sang. The one fault was that, since she always sounded so happy to be singing, Fitzgerald did not always dig below the surface of the lyrics she interpreted and she even made a downbeat song such as “Love for Sale” sound joyous. However, when one evaluates her career on a whole, there is simply no one else in her class.

There are many great Fitzgerald CDs but an excellent, inexpensive place to start is The Best of the Song Books.

Hear that lonesome whistle blow

A nice tribute to trains from Joel Achenbach. An excerpt:

It was a dark morning, rainy, and Trenton is not a town that looks better when wet. The New Jersey Transit commuter train sat on Track 4, hissing. The station had the full array of sound effects, of humming electrical wires, squeaky brakes, bells, whistles, the shouts of conductors, and indecipherable intercom announcements. Those of delicate sensitivities might have found the place grubby. But I wouldn’t trade it for the cleanest airport concourse. Planes are just buses now, and you starve, and there’s no leg room, and you never know if you’re going to get where you’re going or will wind up stranded in a terminal for 8 hours, sleeping on your luggage.

This one’s for you Jon.

10 basic science questions

Think you know your science? Recently, several science gurus — Nobel Prize winners, institute heads, teachers and others who spend most of their time thinking about science — were asked, “What is one science question every high school graduate should be able to answer?”

Take their quiz and see how you do.

Why is the sky blue? Facts you should know.

Too little, too late

While stopping short of actually tapping the reserves, Bush ordered a temporary halt to any further deposits — a move that will slightly increase supply available to consumers.

Dow Jones reports that the move would free up about 70,000 barrels a day otherwise destined for the reserve in the coming weeks.

By my calculations, that’s about one third of one percent of the total U.S. consumption of about 20 million barrels a day — anyone want to call that a drop in the bucket?

Dan Froomkin

NewMexiKen is so excited at the President’s move that I’m going out for a drive.

The President went out for a ride too. Via Froomkin:

Julie Mason of the Houston Chronicle notes in her pool report: “President Bush rode a 14-vehicle motorcade there and back to the Marriott Wardman to talk to the Renewable Fuels Association about energy conservation and other topics. En route, the motorcade passed the Exxon station next to the Watergate, where gas prices were $3.29, $3.39 and $3.49 a gallon. Just saying.”

Oh, and the President ordered a temporary suspension of environmental rules for gasoline. How temporary one wonders?

‘We are not descended from fearful men.’

Egbert Roscoe Murrow was born on this date in 1908. He died in 1965.

A Murrow radio report from a bombing raid over Berlin (he made 25 bombing runs).

The clouds were gone and the sticks of incendiaries from the preceding waves made the place look like a badly laid out city with the streetlights on. The small incendiaries were going down like a fistful of white rice thrown on a piece of black velvet. As Jock hauled the Dog up again, I was thrown to the other side of the cockpit, and there below were more incendiaries, glowing white and then turning red. The cookies—the four-thousand-pound high explosives—were bursting below like great sunflowers gone mad. And then, as we started down again, still held in the lights, I remembered the Dog still had one of those cookies and a whole basket of incendiaries in its belly, and the lights still held us. And I was very frightened.

The above from a fine article earlier this year by Nicholas Lehmann in The New Yorker. This article is excellent background for those who have seen Good Night, And Good Luck. (Quotation actually taken from Bob Edwards’ Edward R. Murrow and the Birth of Broadcast Journalism.)

NPR has some good stuff including clips from World War II and commentary on McCarthy.

And here is the complete text of Murrow’s 1958 speech to the Radio-Television News Directors Association featured in the film, Good Night, And Good Luck.

Size matters

Among the crowing, slurs and insults being flung around in Mexico’s election race, campaign ads in this country are even competing over which candidate has the greatest manhood.

From television spots to interviews with presidential hopefuls, you could be forgiven for wondering if the only thing that counts in this election race is size.

“We know why we are with Roberto. It’s because he has big ones,” says a farmer in a TV spot to promote Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, candidate Roberto Madrazo, running in third place in opinion polls.

A radio ad for ruling party candidate Felipe Calderon, ranked second in polls, says the conservative is the one who could spur job creation because “he’s got balls.”

And Madrazo himself recently took a dig at leftist front-runner Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s manliness after the leftist opted not to take part in a live election debate on Tuesday. “He didn’t have the guts, he didn’t have the manhood to be in the debate,” Madrazo told a reporter.

Reuters via Yahoo! News

It’s the birthday

… of Al Pacino. The 8-time Oscar nominee is 66. He won for Scent of a Woman, but not for The Godfather or Godfather II. Pacino was nominated for a supporting actor Oscar for the first Godfather, which seems odd until one remembers that Caan and Duvall were also nominated for supporting and Brando won for lead.

… of another Godfather cast member Talia Shire. She’s 60 today. Connie Corleone-Rizzi in the Godfather movies, Miss Shire was Adrian in the Rocky films. She was nominated for the best supporting actress Oscar for Godfather II (1974) and for the best actress Oscar for Rocky (1976). Talia Shire’s actual name is Talia Rose Coppola. She is the sister of director Francis Ford Coppola, which makes her the aunt of Sofia Coppola (daughter of Francis Coppola) and the aunt of Nicolas Cage (son of another Coppola brother).

… of Agador Spartacus. He’s 42 today. So are Moe Szyslak, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, Chief Wiggum, Professor Frink, Comic Book Guy and Dr. Nick Riviera. All are played by the multi-talented Hank Azaria, who was born on this date in 1964. Agador Spartacus is the Guatemalan houseboy in The Birdcage. Azaria appeared on Friends six times and 13 times on Mad About You.

… of Renee Zellweger. Twice nominated for best actress, Miss Zellweger won the Oscar for a supporting role in Cold Mountain (without her that film would have died of its own weight). She was born in Katy, Texas, but her parents were born in Switzerland and Norway.

… of Earl Hickey. Earl’s name isn’t Earl at all, it’s Jason Lee and he’s 36 today.

… of Tim Duncan. He’s 30.

Albert Nelson was born on this date in 1923 (he died in 1992). We know him as Albert King.

Albert King is truly a “King of the Blues,” although he doesn’t hold that title (B.B. does). Along with B.B. and Freddie King, Albert King is one of the major influences on blues and rock guitar players. Without him, modern guitar music would not sound as it does — his style has influenced both black and white blues players from Otis Rush and Robert Cray to Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan. It’s important to note that while almost all modern blues guitarists seldom play for long without falling into a B.B. King guitar cliché, Albert King never does — he’s had his own style and unique tone from the beginning.

Albert King plays guitar left-handed, without re-stringing the guitar from the right-handed setup; this “upside-down” playing accounts for his difference in tone, since he pulls down on the same strings that most players push up on when bending the blues notes. King’s massive tone and totally unique way of squeezing bends out of a guitar string has had a major impact. (All Music)

The last dozen

… Pulitizer prize-winners in History.

  • 2006 Polio: An American Story by David M. Oshinsky
  • 2005 Washington’s Crossing by David Hackett Fischer
  • 2004 A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles in the Rural South from Slavery to the Great Migration by Steven Hahn
  • 2003 An Army at Dawn: The War in Africa, 1942-1943 by Rick Atkinson
  • 2002 The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America by Louis Menand
  • 2001 Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph J. Ellis
  • 2000 Freedom from Fear by David M. Kennedy
  • 1999 Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace
  • 1998 Summer for the Gods by Edward J. Larson
  • 1997 Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution by Jack N. Rakove
  • 1996 William Cooper’s Town by Alan Taylor
  • 1995 No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin

We all worship something

Pope Benedict XVI is appealing to a new group of admirers: marketers seeking not blessings but pontifical product placements.

Since his election last year, the pope has been spotted wearing Serengeti-branded sunglasses and brown walking shoes donated by Geox. He owns a specially engraved white Apple iPod, and he recently stirred much publicity with a pair of stylish red loafers that may or may not be from Prada.

Wall Street Journal