Author: NewMexiKen

‘The president has his duty to do, but I have mine too, and I feel strongly about that’

NewMexiKen’s very own Congress-person takes a stand for the Constitution:

A House Republican whose subcommittee oversees the National Security Agency broke ranks with the White House on Tuesday and called for a full Congressional inquiry into the Bush administration’s domestic eavesdropping program.

The lawmaker, Representative Heather A. Wilson of New Mexico, chairwoman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence, said in an interview that she had “serious concerns” about the surveillance program. By withholding information about its operations from many lawmakers, she said, the administration has deepened her apprehension about whom the agency is monitoring and why.

Ms. Wilson, who was a National Security Council aide in the administration of President Bush’s father, is the first Republican on either the House’s Intelligence Committee or the Senate’s to call for a full Congressional investigation into the program, in which the N.S.A. has been eavesdropping without warrants on the international communications of people inside the United States believed to have links with terrorists.

— The New York Times

The Dawes Act

… “An act to provide for the allotment of lands in severalty to Indians on the various reservations…” was approved by President Grover Cleveland on this date in 1887.

Named for its chief author, Senator Henry Laurens Dawes from Massachusetts, the Dawes Severalty Act reversed the long-standing American policy of allowing Indian tribes to maintain their traditional practice of communal use and control of their lands. Instead, the Dawes Act gave the president the power to divide Indian reservations into individual, privately owned plots. The act dictated that men with families would receive 160 acres, single adult men were given 80 acres, and boys received 40 acres. Women received no land.

The most important motivation for the Dawes Act was Anglo-American hunger for Indian lands. The act provided that after the government had doled out land allotments to the Indians, the sizeable remainder of the reservation properties would be opened for sale to whites. Consequently, Indians eventually lost 86 million acres of land, or 62 percent of their total pre-1887 holdings.

— This Day in History

The alloment of lands ended in 1934. The problems The Dawes Act created continue.

The College of William and Mary in Virginia

Just 313 years ago today, February 8, 1693 —

The Bridge

King William III and Queen Mary II granted a charter to establish The College of William and Mary in Virginia. The King provided £1,985 14s l0d from quitrents in Virginia, a penny tax on every pound of tobacco exported from Maryland and Virginia to countries other than England, the “Profits” from the surveyor-general’s office and 10,000 acres each in the Pamunkey Neck and on Blackwater Swamp. The Reverend James Blair was named president of the College and served until his death in 1743.

James Dean

… was born on this date in 1931.

James DeanJames Dean was born February 8, 1931, in Marion, Indiana, to Winton and Mildred Dean. His father, a dental technician, moved the family to Los Angeles when Jimmy was five. He returned to the Midwest after his mother passed away and was raised by his aunt and uncle on their Indiana farm. After graduating from high school, he returned to California where he attended Santa Monica Junior College and UCLA. James Dean began acting with James Whitmore’s acting workshop, appeared in occasional television commercials, and played several roles in films and on stage. In the winter of 1951, he took Whitmore’s advice and moved to New York to pursue a serious acting career. He appeared in seven television shows, in addition to earning his living as a busboy in the theater district, before he won a small part in a Broadway play entitled See the Jaguar….

Dean continued his study at the Actors Studio, played short stints in television dramas, and returned to Broadway in The Immoralist (1954). This last appearance resulted in a screen test at Warner Brothers for the part of Cal Trask in the screen adaptation John Steinbeck’s novel East of Eden. He then returned to New York where he appeared in four more television dramas. After winning the role of Jim Stark in 1955’s Rebel Without A Cause, he moved to Hollywood.

In February, he visited his family in Fairmount with photographer Dennis Stock before returning to Los Angeles. In March, Jimmy celebrated his Eden success by purchasing his first Porsche and entered the Palm Springs Road Races. He began shooting Rebel Without A Cause that same month and Eden opened nationwide in April. In May, he entered the Bakersfield Race and finished shooting Rebel. He entered one more race, in Santa Barbara, before he joined the cast and crew of Giant in Marfa, Texas.

James Dean had one of the most spectacularly brief careers of any screen star. In just more than a year, and in only three films, Dean became a widely admired screen personality, a personification of the restless American youth of the mid-50’s, and an embodiment of the title of one of his film Rebel Without A Cause. En route to compete in a race in Salinas, James Dean was killed in a highway accident on September 30, 1955. James Dean was nominated for two Academy Awards, for his performances in East of Eden and Giant. Although he only made three films, they were made in just over one year’s time.

Source: The Official Site of James Dean

It’s the birthday

… of Ted Koppel. Alfred E. Newman’s handsome brother is 66.

… of Nick Nolte. Twice nominated for the best acting Oscar (The Prince of Tides, Affliction), he’s 65.

… of Mary Steenburgen. The Oscar-winning actress (Melvin and Howard) is 53.

… of John Grisham. The attorney turned best-selling author is 51.

… of Gary Coleman. Arnold is 38.

… of Mary McCormack. West Wing’s national security advisor is 37. Beats playing Howard Stern’s wife (Private Parts).

Famed “Sweater Girl” Lana Turner — Julia Jean Mildred Frances Turner — was born on this date in 1921.

Unfortunately, her private life – seven marriages, affairs almost too numerous to mention, a long bout with alcoholism and the famous incident where her gangster lover, Johnny Stompanato, was killed by her daughter, Cheryl Crane – came to overshadow her professional accomplishments. (IMDB Mini biography)

Well, I guess.

The Cute Boy Drive By

Give Me the Booger tells a great story about her night out with the Buick. Wonderful stuff. She begins:

In 1979, two weeks before my 16th birthday, I hit a house with a Buick.

It wasn’t my house or even the house next to mine. It was several blocks away from my house, even though, yes, it was still in the same suburban neighborhood. And I didn’t just hit a house. I hit shrubbery, lots of shrubberies… and even a small foundling pear tree someone was trying to grow. Oh, I was driving the car when all of these things–plant life, inanimate objects–were struck, so it wasn’t like a freak accident involving a tow truck and some black ice or anything.

Kings and Queen

NewMexiKen viewed the French film Kings and Queen (Rois et reine) last evening. I’m not even certain why I added it to my Netflix queue, but I’m glad I did. The film is in French with English subtitles; it runs about 150 minutes.

The movie is essentially about Nora (Emmanuelle Devos), a beautiful 35-year-old art gallery manager and single mother. It details her past and present relationships with her eleven-year-old son, her dying father, her first (and dead) husband, and her second husband, the erratic and unstable Ismaël (Mathieu Amalric).

This is a film about relationships — with lovers, children, siblings, co-workers — and that relationships often are not what they seem. The movie is long enough that the viewer begins to think they know Nora and Ismaël — and the father and others — but not so.

The contrasting personalities of Nora and Ismaël are study enough to make the fim interesting. Catherine Deneuve in a brief appearance as the psychiatrist, Mme. Vasset, is a bonus. “You’re very beautiful,”says Ismaël. “I’ve been told,” says Mme. Vasset.

Recommended for a contemplative evening, though the film is not without humor. (There are no ‘splosions or car chases.)

Just in time for Valentine’s Day (in one week)

Apple® today unveiled a new 1GB iPod® nano for just $149, offering the same features as the 2GB and 4GB iPod nano models and holding up to 240 songs or 15,000 photos. The new 1GB iPod nano’s ultra-portable design is thinner than a #2 pencil and features Apple’s patent pending Click Wheel and the same gorgeous color screen as the other iPod nano models. In addition, Apple announced that the iPod shuffle is now more affordable than ever with the 512MB and 1GB models priced at $69 and $99 respectively.

— Apple

Frederick Douglass

… was born on this date in 1817.

With the headline Death Of Fred Douglass, The New York Times reported Frederick Douglass’ death in 1895. It’s a fascinating contemporary article. An excerpt:

Frederick Douglass has been often spoken of as the foremost man of the African race in America. Though born and reared in slavery, he managed, through his own perseverance and energy, to win for himself a place that not only made him beloved by all members of his own race in America, but also won for himself the esteem and reverence of all fair-minded persons, both in this country and in Europe.

Mr. Douglass had been for many years a prominent figure in public life. He was of inestimable service to the members of his own race, and rendered distinguished service to his country from time to time in various important offices that he held under the Government.

He became well known, early in his career, as an orator upon subjects relating to slavery. He won renown by his oratorical powers both in the northern part of the United States and in England. He had become known before the civil war also as a journalist. So highly were his opinions valued that he was often consulted by President Lincoln, after the civil war began, upon questions relating to the colored race. He held important offices almost constantly from 1871 until 1891.

Mr. Douglass, perhaps more than any other man of his race, was instrumental in advancing the work of banishing the color line.

It’s the birthday

… of James Spader. He’s 46.

… of Yukon, Oklahoma’s Garth Brooks. He’s 44. (The paint with his name is fading on the town water tower.)

… of Eddie Izzard. He’s 44.

… of Chris Rock. He’s 41.

… of Ashton Kutcher. He’s 28.

Manohla Dargis explains all

A terrific Oscar-focused Q&A with Times film critic Manohla Dargis. It includes this:

Q. My friends and I seem to be asking each other the following two questions:

1. How did Reese Witherspoon become such a shoo-in when, as a lead actress, she doesn’t have that much screen time, and worse, she seems to be playing Reese Witherspoon the whole time?

2. How did “Crash,” a somewhat obvious, over-the-top, contrived drama, score so many nominations and now come to be considered as a possible dark horse for best picture?
—Danny, Austin, TX

A. Reese Witherspoon was nominated for “Walk the Line” because she’s beautiful, talented, has paid her dues (and I don’t mean by marrying Ryan Phillippe) and did a credible job in a big studio movie that made money and won kudos, if not across the board. (My pal A. O. Scott wasn’t wild about the movie, but he called her performance “lively” and “smart.”) Her performance seems more supporting than not, true, but given the paucity of good female lead performances (see above) the Academy’s choice of Ms. Witherspoon this year was a no-brainer.

There are a few obvious reasons why “Crash” connected with the Academy. First, Los Angeles, where most of Academy members live, is a profoundly segregated city, so any movie that makes it seem like its white, black, Asian and Latino inhabitants are constantly tripping over one another has appeal. If nothing else it makes Los Angeles seem as cosmopolitan as, well, New York or at least the Upper West Side. Second, no matter how many times the camera picks out Oprah Winfrey on Oscar night, the Academy is super white. Third, the Academy is, at least in general terms, socially liberal. You see where I’m going, right? What could better soothe the troubled brow of the Academy’s collective white conscious than a movie that says sometimes black men really are muggers (so don’t worry if you engage in racial profiling); your Latina maid really, really loves you (so don’t worry about paying her less than minimum wage); even white racists (even white racist cops) can love their black brothers or at least their hot black sisters; and all answers are basically simple, so don’t even think about politics, policy, the lingering effects of Proposition 13 and Governor Arnold. This is a consummate Hollywood fantasy, no matter how nominally independent the financing and release. I also think it helped the film’s cause that its distributor sent out more than 130,000 DVD’s to the industry, ensuring easy viewing.

Quick, let’s all go there before it’s ruined

Scientists said on Tuesday they had found a “Lost World” in an Indonesian mountain jungle, home to dozens of exotic new species of birds, butterflies, frogs and plants.

“It’s as close to the Garden of Eden as you’re going to find on Earth,” said Bruce Beehler, co-leader of the U.S., Indonesian, and Australian expedition to part of the cloud-shrouded Foja mountains in the west of New Guinea.

— Reuters via Yahoo! News

The power-law curve

Malcolm Gladwell has a New Yorker article currently online that provides new insight into the homeless and other issues and the whole way we understand and react to social problems.

One brief excerpt from this especially informative article:

The homelessness problem is like the L.A.P.D.’s bad-cop problem. It’s a matter of a few hard cases, and that’s good news, because when a problem is that concentrated you can wrap your arms around it and think about solving it. The bad news is that those few hard cases are hard. They are falling-down drunks with liver disease and complex infections and mental illness. They need time and attention and lots of money. But enormous sums of money are already being spent on the chronically homeless, and Culhane saw that the kind of money it would take to solve the homeless problem could well be less than the kind of money it took to ignore it. Murray Barr used more health-care dollars, after all, than almost anyone in the state of Nevada. It would probably have been cheaper to give him a full-time nurse and his own apartment.

Read Gladwell’s article and it will change your thinking on the homeless, police violence and smog-control.

“It is very much ingrained in me that you do not manage a social wrong. You should be ending it.???

Some Guy Told Me

The Dilbert Blog, like the strip itself, is a hit-or-miss proposition, but when he hits it’s pretty good. This information about whales seemed like a hit to me (but NewMexiKen is a hit-or-miss proposition, too, so caveat lector).

Household hint

Another in a series of household hints based upon NewMexiKen’s personal experience.

There are three essential steps to making coffee: (1) Add filter and coffee, (2) Add water, (3) Turn on the coffee maker. EACH of these steps is essential. Failure to turn on the coffee maker can delay the entire process.

Other hints here, here, here, here and here.

Update: I hate it when I come up with two household hints in the same morning, but here’s the second: When you’ve had a cold for several days, before starting the washer it’s a good idea to check the pockets of any laundry to make certain you didn’t stick a tissue in a pocket.

Little House

The Library of Congress devotes its Today in History page today to Laura Ingalls Wilder. It begins:

On every side now the prairie stretched away empty to a far, clear skyline. The wind never stopped blowing, waving the tall prairie grasses…And all the afternoon, while Pa kept driving onward, he was merrily whistling or singing. The song he sang oftenest was:

Oh, come to this country,
And don’t you feel alarm,
For Uncle Sam is rich enough
To give us all a farm!

Laura Ingalls Wilder,
By the Shores of Silver Lake

And goes on to tell us:

On February 7, 1867, Laura Elizabeth Ingalls, the author of the beloved semi-autobiographical Little House series, was born in Wisconsin, the second daughter of Charles and Caroline Ingalls. The basic facts of her life correspond to those related in her books about her family’s experiences on the American frontier during the 1870’s and 1880’s.

There’s much, much more about the author who was sixty-three years old she started writing about her pioneer childhood.

Jewel Cave National Monument (South Dakota)

… was proclaimed on this date in 1908.

Jewel Cave

With more than 133 miles surveyed, Jewel Cave is recognized as the third longest cave in the world. Airflow within its passages indicates a vast area yet to be explored. Cave tours provide opportunities for viewing this pristine cave system and its wide variety of speleothems including stalactites, stalagmites, draperies, frostwork, flowstone, boxwork and hydromagnesite balloons. The cave is an important hibernaculum for several species of bats.

Jewel Cave National Monument

Here’s Jay

“I don’t want to say the stones are getting old. But this is not the first time the Rolling Stones performed at an event where Roman numerals were used.”

“Some sad news – Lance Armstrong and Sheryl Crow have split up. Apparently she met some guy with a car. You know how girls are.”