“Stately. Imposing. Maybe just this side of penal.”
The Albuquerque Tribune describing the architecture of Albuquerque’s oldest still in-use high school, Highland High (1949). It has a bomb shelter.
Author: NewMexiKen
Albuquerque A to Z
From The Albuquerque Tribune “an A to Z handbook to the well known and little-known things that make Albuquerque great.”
Pointer by the always good — and getting even better — Duke City Fix.
Following the story
The Today’s Front Pages feature at the Newseum web site shows a fascinating (if sad) progression of news overnight from the Sago Mine disaster. The headlines in newspapers closing early refer to dwindling hopes. Then, most papers, including nearly all in the Eastern and Central time zones, banner “Miner Miracle” and “Found Alive.” Finally, in the Mountain and especially Pacific time zone papers, the headlines reveal the stark truth that only one miner of the 13 survived.
The site keeps today’s front pages only until tomorrow’s new editions. There are 506 papers in batches of 48 thumbnails. Click on each thumbnail to enlarge. (If you enable pop-ups, you can get an even larger version.) The papers are alphabetical by state with foreign papers at the end.
Update: Good summary with several frontpages at The Talent Show.
Update 2: And see the CJR Daily on How the Press Got the Sago Story Wrong:
A close reading of the articles themselves tells the tale of how journalists bungled the story: In most, there are no sources at all for the information; in some, the sources are the rumors spread by frantic family members. Those sorts of sources are hardly a solid basis for headlines screaming, “They’re Alive!”
Home alone
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A California couple left their 5- and 9-year-old children home alone for the weekend while they went to gamble in Las Vegas.
Police said the parents could be charged with child neglect but have not been able to interview the couple in person because bad weather was delaying their return from Las Vegas until Wednesday.
The couple went to Las Vegas Friday, leaving the children cereal to eat and the father’s cell phone number to call in an emergency.
Coffee is actually good for us
This from USNews via Left Off Colfax:
But “if you’re already drinking five or six cups a day, I’d be hard pressed to come up with a reason you should cut back,” says Walter Willett, chairman of the department of nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health and a leading investigator of coffee.
…A word of caution: Decaf coffee may be an exception to this rule. A recent Stanford study found that even consumers of filtered decaf had modestly higher levels of fatty acids and other precursors of LDL, or bad cholesterol.
From the Tell Us Something We Don’t Already Know Department
This from the Law Blog at WSJ.com:
A fancy 28-page study released yesterday by something called the Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research makes a breathtaking discovery: the first two years of law school are more demanding than the third.
Among the survey’s chapters: The First Year: “They Scare You to Death”; the Second Year: “They Work You to Death”; The Last Year: “They Bore You to Death.” Some 28,000 law student participated in the survey, which reported that law students, on average, emerge from law school saddled with more than $77,000 in debt from student loans.
While our headline jests, we here at law blog think the IUCPR raises an important issue: the third year of law school benefits university balance sheets, and that’s pretty much it.
Google Zeitgeist
1. Janet Jackson
2. Hurricane Katrina
3. tsunami
4. xbox 360
5. Brad Pitt
6. Michael Jackson
7. American Idol
8. Britney Spears
9. Angelina Jolie
10. Harry Potter
The Google Zeitgeist provides other interesting analysis:
It turns out that looking at the aggregation of billions of search queries people type into Google reveals something about our curiosity, our thirst for news, and perhaps even our desires. Considering all that has occurred in 2005, we thought it would be interesting to study just a few of the significant events, and names that make this a memorable year. (We’ll leave it to the historians to determine which ones are lasting and which ephemeral.) We hope you enjoy this selective view of our collective year.
A fatal accident waiting to happen?
Kevin Drum has posted this information about the coal mine where 12 miners died:
How bad was the accident and injury rate at the Sago Mine? Terrible. The national average for mining accidents (non-fatal days lost) in 2004 was 5.66 per 200,000 manhours worked. The Sago Mine, which was owned by Anker West Virginia Mining Co. at that time, had an accident rate of 15.90. In 2005, Sago’s accident rate increased to 17.04, and 14 miners were injured.
Best line of the day, so far
“The media is working hard to make this into a bi-partisan scandal but that is simple bullshit.”
Digby (Hullabaloo), who adds:
“Just in the past couple of weeks we’ve had news reports about legal trouble for corrupt Republicans George W. Bush, Ken Lay, Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Duke Cunningham, Ralph Reed and Jack Abramoff. Lot of dots there. Is it too much trouble for the media to connect them?”
A Prairie Home Companion
Garrison Keillor’s long-time radio program will be the subject of a Robert Altman film to debut in March (and open in theaters in June). The cast includes Keillor as himself, and Woody Harrelson, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Kline, Lindsay Lohan, Virginia Madsen, John C. Reilly, Maya Rudolph, Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin.
All brought to you I’m sure by Powdermilk Biscuits and Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery.
Understanding Abramoff
According to Paul Kiel at the TPM Cafe:
The best piece of reporting this morning on the Abramoff plea is from the Post. As to how many members of Congress Abramoff will finger, the Post does not equivocate: six. In addition to those six “House and Senate members,” Abramoff “will provide evidence about congressional staffers, Interior Department workers and other executive branch officials, and other lobbyists.”…
The prosecution’s strategy so far seems to be to obtain guilty pleas from lobbyists and staffers in order to prosecute members of Congress….
The Million Dollar Homepage
Wish I’d thought of this. The guy auctioned off one million pixels at $1 each. The Million Dollar Homepage is down to its last 1,000 pixels.
Best Google logo
Google today has a logo to honor the birthday of Louis Braille.
BTW, each dollar put into Google stock when it opened 17 months ago is worth $5.20 this morning.
‘Hero’ cat
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Police aren’t sure how else to explain it. But when an officer walked into an apartment Thursday night to answer a 911 call, an orange-and-tan striped cat was lying by a telephone on the living room floor. The cat’s owner, Gary Rosheisen, was on the ground near his bed having fallen out of his wheelchair.
Rosheisen said his cat, Tommy, must have hit the right buttons to call 911.
The cat probably wanted to be fed.
Factoid
Older teenage girls and younger women are more likely to be on the internet than males in their age group.
NPR discussion of new Pew study of internet use..
Top Records of 2005
Rolling Stone lists its top 50 records of 2005. Here’s their top 10:
1. Kanye West, Late Registration
2. The Rolling Stones, A Bigger Bang
3. White Stripes, Get Behind Me Satan
4. Fiona Apple, Extraordinary Machine
5. Bruce Springsteen, Devils and Dust
6. My Morning Jacket, Z
7. Beck, Guero
8. Bright Eyes, I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning
9. Sufjan Stevens, Illinois
10. 50 Cent, The Massacre
Traffic
34,481 visits to NewMexiKen from 21,097 different IP addresses in December. 104,268 visits total for October, November and December.
For the year 2005, just more than 420,000 visits.
The 49,974 visits last April are still the most in one month.
Stupidest line of the day, so far
“When there are three women for every two men graduating from college, whom will the third woman marry?”
John Tierney beginning today’s column, Male Pride and Female Prejudice, in the New York Times.
How to Order Wine
Without Looking Like an Asshole from Waiter Rant. Some of the recommendations:
2. Don’t ask, “What’s cheap?”
6. Remember the mark up — Most establishments mark up the price of a bottle from 1 ½ to 5 times the wholesale price. … Since you’re paying so much I recommend getting something you can’t get at the gas station….
9. DO NOT SMELL THE CORK!
10. DON’T SMELL THE PLASTIC CORK EITHER!
11. … But SWIRL the wine! Don’t spin it like you’re trying to separate U-235 in a centrifuge machine!
25. Merlot is a perfectly good wine. Don’t believe all that “Sideways” crap. God I hate that movie!
26. It’s wine, not the Blood of Christ. Don’t worship it. Enjoy it.
It’s an informative and amusing post.
Back to the old…
Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, author of Playing With Boys and The Dirty Girls Social Club, has a blog, La Queen Sucia. (It was she who authored the review of The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, mentioned here a few weeks back.)
During the past couple of weeks, Ms. Valdes-Rodriguez has included commentary on her personal social life beginning with The Dating Game (December 21), followed by Happy Things (December 29) and yesterday, Back to the old…drawing board.” One wishes Ms. Valdes-Rodriguez more satisfying endings, but these three posts together struck NewMexiKen as a fascinating short story in real time.
Valdes-Rodriguez’s newest novel, Make Him Look Good, will be published in April.
Paging the French judge
Jamie Sale and David Pelletier, Canada’s gold-medal figure-skating tandem, exchanged wedding vows in Banff last Friday.
The nuptials took an unexpected twist, however, when the IOC awarded an identical pair of gold rings to the Russian skaters.
Best line of the day, so far
“Cellphones are what America has substituted for parenting.”
Joel Achenbach, who has more in his “the day after…The Day After The Day After New Year’s Eve” entry.
State Quarters for 2006
Nevada
Nebraska
Colorado
North Dakota
South Dakota
Source: The 50 State Quarters Program of the United States Mint
Best line of the day, so far
“Byron surprised Jill with a short birthday trip to New York, where they saw a show and actually had dinner in a restaurant where crayons were not given out with the menus.”
Jill, official oldest daughter of NewMexiKen and mother of two (going-on-three) sons, in Jill and Byron’s holiday newsletter.
America’s Top-Selling Albums of All Time
The Recording Industry Association of America’s Top-Selling Albums of All Time:
28 million
Eagles: Their Greatest Hits, 1971–1975, Eagles (Elektra)
26 million
Thriller, Michael Jackson (Epic)
23 million
The Wall, Pink Floyd (Columbia)
22 million
Led Zeppelin IV, Led Zeppelin (Swan Song)
21 million
Greatest Hits, Volumes I & II, Billy Joel (Columbia)
19 million
Rumours, Fleetwood Mac (Warner Bros.)
Back in Black, AC/DC (Elektra)
The Beatles, The Beatles (Capitol)
Come On Over, Shania Twain (Mercury Nashville)
17 million
Boston, Boston (Epic)
The Bodyguard (soundtrack), Whitney Houston (Arista)
The list continues with all albums selling 10 million copies or more through May 16, 2005.