Author: NewMexiKen

Teary-eyed

Shakespeare’s Sister asks, “What movie scenes always make you cry?”

Well, some might tell you that NewMexiKen can well up watching The Incredibles, but that’s because they don’t recognize the difference between emotions and an allergic reaction to popcorn. With that caveat, I’ll list three scenes that get to me.

Frankie Dunn in Million Dollar Baby: “Mo cuishle. It means my darling. My blood.” (Jeez, I welled-up just typing this.)

Adult Scout in To Kill A Mockingbird: “Neighbors bring food with death, and flowers with sickness, and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a knife, and our lives.”

(It’s also pretty powerful earlier in that film when Reverend Sykes says to Scout: “Jean Louise. Jean Louise, stand up. Your father’s passing.”)

When Paikea gives her report at the school in Whale Rider and her grandfather isn’t there.

Don’t be afraid to add to the discussion in the comments.

Link via Rox Populi, who links to a couple of other lists (read the comments).

Questions of Character

Paul Krugman concludes today’s column:

What we really need is political journalism based less on perceptions of personalities and more on actual facts. Schadenfreude aside, we should not be happy that stories about Mr. Bush’s boldness have given way to stories analyzing his facial tics. Think, instead, about how different the world would be today if, during the 2000 campaign, reporting had focused on the candidates’ fiscal policies instead of their wardrobes.

Best line of the day, so far

“Now when I try to watch there is so much scrolling and popping up that I can’t see the play on my television. I don’t care that LaDainian Tomlinson has two receptions for 8 yards in the first quarter of another game that I am not even watching.

“There’s a reason why people watch TV — because they don’t want to read.”

Comedian Lewis Black on “Inside the NFL” on HBO quoted via Sideline Chatter

Saguaro National Monument

… became Saguaro National Park on this date in 1994.

Saguaro National Park

This unique desert is home to the most recognizable cactus in the world, the majestic saguaro. Visitors of all ages are fascinated and enchanted by these desert giants, especially their many interesting and complex interrelationships with other desert life. Saguaro cacti provide their sweet fruits to hungry desert animals. They also provide homes to a variety of birds, such as the Harris’ hawk, Gila woodpecker and the tiny elf owl. Yet, the saguaro requires other desert plants for its very survival. During the first few years of a very long life, a young saguaro needs the shade and protection of a nurse plant such as the palo verde tree. With an average life span of 150 years, a mature saguaro may grow to a height of 50 feet and weigh over 10 tons.

Source: National Park Service

It’s the birthday

… of John Wooden. The Wizard of Westwood is 95.

… of Roger Moore. The oldest of the James Bonds in 78.

… of Ralph Lauren. The founder of Polo is 66.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th president of the United States, was born in Denison, Texas, on this date in 1890.

NewMexiKen is the third in a line of four Kenneths. Kenneth Sr., my eponymous grandfather, was born on this date in 1899.

666 Not So Evil?

Legions of metalheads who’ve saluted “the number of the beast” may need to subtract 50 from the numeral that adorns their notebook doodlings, T-shirts and tattoos.

A newly discovered fragment of the Book of Revelation challenges the conventional belief that the Antichrist’s mark is 666, indicating instead that it is 616. Expert classicists used multi-spectral imaging to get a better view of the text, which is written in archaic Greek and dates to the late third century.

“It is clearly an important new manuscript, giving us a relatively very early copy of the text of Revelation,” said Christopher Tuckett, a theology professor at Oxford University’s Pembroke College. “It is probably not the earliest manuscript of Revelation that we have … but this is the first time [the 616 reading] has been found in such an early text.”

Fear of 666 is so extensive it actually has a name — hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia — and has inspired everything from televangelist speeches to Hollywood films. …

mtv.com – News

So, as NewMexiKen has asked before, can we change the name of the highway back now?

Thanks to Reecie for the link (in her comment to the entry below).

The devil made me do it

Book it now: Angels closer Francisco Rodriguez will be card No. 666 in the 2006 edition of Topps Total baseball cards.

Topps officials acknowledge that the employee who assembles the company’s card checklists is a Yankees fan who assigns the undesirable number to the pitcher or player on the team that knocks the Yankees out of the playoffs.

That’s why Red Sox reliever Keith Foulke, who got the last out of the 2004 ALCS, was number 666 in 2005 Total, and why the Florida Marlins’ Josh Beckett of Spring [Texas], who beat the Yankees in the 2003 World Series finale, was 666 in the 2004 set.

And that’s why Rodriguez, who closed out the Angels’ victory Sunday in Game 5 of the Division Series, will be 666 in next year’s set. It’s the safest sure thing in the world of cardboard — unless Yankees Fan goes with Ervin Santana, who pitched 5 1/3 innings in relief of injured starter Bartolo Colon.

David Barron, Houston Chronicle

Didn’t somebody figure out that the number in the Bible is actually 616, not 666?

Early North American free trade agreements

NewMexiKen is reading Charles Mann’s excellent 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. I found this passage particularly interesting:

Guns are an example. As Chaplin, the Harvard historian, has argued, New England Indians were indeed disconcerted by their first experiences with European guns: the explosion and smoke, the lack of a visible projectile. But the natives soon learned that most of the British were terrible shots, from lack of practice-their guns were little more than noisemakers. Even for a crack shot, a seventeenth-century gun had fewer advantages over a longbow than may be supposed. Colonists in Jamestown taunted the Powhatan in 1607 with a target they believed impervious to an arrow shot. To the colonists’ dismay, an Indian sank an arrow into it a foot deep, “which was strange, being that a Pistall could not pierce it.” To regain the upper hand, the English set up a target made of steel. This time the archer “burst his arrow all to pieces.” The Indian was “in a great rage”; he realized, one assumes, that the foreigners had cheated. When the Powhatan later captured John Smith, Chaplin notes, Smith broke his pistol rather than reveal to his captors “the awful truth that it could not shoot as far as an arrow could fly.”

At the same time, Europeans were impressed by American technology. The foreigners, coming from a land plagued by famine, were awed by maize, which yields more grain per acre than any other cereal. Indian moccasins were so much more comfortable and waterproof than stiff, moldering English boots that when colonists had to walk for long distances their Indian companions often pitied their discomfort and gave them new footwear. Indian birchbark canoes were faster and more maneuverable than any small European boat. In 1605 three laughing Indians in a canoe literally paddled circles round the lumbering dory paddled by traveler George Weymouth and seven other men. Despite official disapproval, the stunned British eagerly exchanged knives and guns for Indian canoes. Bigger European ships with sails had some advantages. Indians got hold of them through trade and shipwreck, and trained themselves to be excellent sailors. By the time of the epidemic, a rising proportion of the shipping traffic along the New England coast was of indigenous origin.

The “epidemic” Mann refers to is the one — probably viral hepatitis — during the late 1610s that killed as many as 90% of the Indians along the Atlantic coast of what is now called New England.

Top music

Just to keep you informed, from Billboard, the latest chart toppers (because all NewMexiKen ever wanted to be was a disc jockey) —

Hot Tracks:
Gold Digger, Kanye West Featuring Jamie Foxx

Top Albums:
All The Right Reasons, Nickelback

Hot Ringtones:
Gold Digger, Kanye West Featuring Jamie Foxx

Speaking of music, NewMexiKen hopes you didn’t bother downloading iTunes 5.0 a few weeks ago. That’s because iTunes 6.0 is here already.

The red states really are different from the blue states

From a report in The New York Times:

Generally, men and women in the Northeast marry later than those in the Midwest, West or South. In New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts, for example, the median age of first marriage is about 29 for men and 26 or 27 for women, about four years later than in Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Utah. And tracking the red state-blue state divide, those in California, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin follow the Northeast patterns, not those of their region.
…

Generally, the study found, states in the Northeast and the West had a higher percentage of unmarried-partner households than those in the South, In Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, unmarried couples made up more than 7 percent of all coupled households, about the twice the proportion of such households in Alabama, Arkansas and Mississippi.

On teenage births, the same differences become clear. In New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts, about 5 percent of babies are born to teenage mothers, while in Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, South Carolina, Texas and Wyoming, 10 percent or more of all births are to teenage mothers.

Leftovers in Tupperware?

Scientists said they had unearthed in China a sealed bowl of what they are calling the world’s oldest known noodles, dating back 4,000 years. The discovery, reported in the journal Nature, was made by Houyuan Lu of the Chinese Academy of Science and his colleagues near the Yellow River in northwestern China. “This is the earliest empirical evidence of noodles ever found,” Mr. Lu said. The thin, yellow noodles were found in a bowl that had probably been buried in an earthquake or flood. They are 20 inches long and made from a millet indigenous to China. Of the old debate over whether the the inventors of pasta were Middle Eastern, Asian or Italian, Mr. Lu said, “This study has established that the earliest noodle production occurred in China.” (Reuters)

The New York Times

The rule

In case you were watching the Angels-White Sox last night and wondered, here are the rules that apply:

Rule 6.05 (b)
A batter is out when a third strike is legally caught by the catcher; “Legally caught” means in the catcher’s glove before the ball touches the ground. …

Rule 6.09 (b)
The batter becomes a runner when the third strike called by the umpire is not caught, providing (1) first base is unoccupied, or (2) first base is occupied with two out; When a batter becomes a base runner on a third strike not caught by the catcher and starts for the dugout, or his position, and then realizes his situation and attempts then to reach first base, he is not out unless he or first base is tagged before he reaches first base. …

MLB.com has the video.

It’s also the birthday

… of Paul Simon. He’s 64.

… of Marie Osmond. She’s 46.

… of Leonard Alfred Schneider, born on this date in 1925. That’s Lenny Bruce, who said, “All my humor is based on destruction and despair. If the whole world were tranquil, I’d be standing in the breadline, right back of J. Edgar Hoover.”

And it’s the second birthday of Sofie, The Sweetie who’s a fan of Tiger Woods.

It’s the birthday

… of the White House.

The cornerstone of the White House was laid on October 13, 1792. President John Adams and his wife Abigail moved into the unfinished structure on November 1, 1800, keeping to the scheduled relocation of the capital from Philadelphia. Congress declared the city of Washington in the District of Columbia the permanent capital of the United States on July 16, 1790. …

Constructed of white-grey sandstone that contrasted sharply with the red brick used in nearby buildings, the presidential mansion was called the White House as early as 1809. President Theodore Roosevelt officially adopted the term in 1902.

Source: Library of Congress

During the Truman Administration the White House was gutted except for the outside walls and rebuilt. This photo was taken in April 1950.

White House Construction

Gutted to the outside stone walls, deepened with a new two story basement, reinforced with concrete and 660 tons of steel, and fireproofed, the White House was stabilized. The protection of the historic stone walls was so important that workers dismantled a bulldozer and reassembled it inside to avoid cutting a larger doorway out of the walls. Shafts out of windows carried out debris from the inside of the house, and external stairs were built because the inside was completely empty during the renovation.

Source: The White House Historical Association

The Truman Presidential Museum and Library has a photo essay on the reconstruction — The White House Revealed — though the photos are too small to view much detail.

Lions and tigers and bears

Veronica, official daughter-in-law of NewMexiKen, wonders what Sofie’s dad has done to their child (who turns two this week):

For many reasons, Sofie is lucky to have Ken as her daddy. He is, simply put, a perfect dad who spends every minute that he’s not at work doing something for or with Sofie. However, I can’t help thinking that somehow, somewhere he’s failed.

Here’s why: Today, Sofie and I were playing with finger puppets. The theme of our puppet show was zoo animals. I held up the lion puppet, and Sofie roared. I held up the bear puppet, and Sofie growled. I held up the elephant puppet, and Sofie made a trumpet-like sound. I held up the tiger puppet, and Sofie said “Wack it, Tiger. Ball in the hole!”

For the Civic-minded

Dan Neil assesses the political debate over hybrid cars as a lead-in to a rave for the 2006 Honda Civic hybrid.

The reason hybrid cars are flying off dealers’ lots is not because they make such a galvanizing financial brief. It’s because people of goodwill, conservative and liberal, are growing weary of the moral calculus of gasoline. What people are learning is that private choices have public consequences. Sure, I’ll make my money back, but the more important thing is the 643 gallons of liquid crack I will save. Now that’s conservative.

Almost lost in all this is just how amazing these machines are. The Honda Civic hybrid is a five-passenger, full-featured sedan measuring 176.7 inches long; it’s packed with safety features, everything from compatibility-minded body structures (helping to protect occupants in collisions with heavier, higher vehicles such as SUVs) to an energy-absorbing hood to help lessen impacts to pedestrians. And yet, loaded like Tara Reid on Ibiza, the car weighs only 2,875 pounds, aces Honda’s internal tests mimicking the government’s frontal and side-impact resilience, gets in excess of 40 mpg and has almost immeasurably clean emissions. Such a car was the stuff of science fiction 10 years ago.

According to Neil, “The EPA rates the 2006 Honda Civic hybrid at 50 miles per gallon city and 50 mpg highway. Honda’s testing puts those numbers at more modest 47/49 mpg and suggests real-world results of around 44 mpg….”

Why it’s OK to Hate the Yankees

Eric Alterman on “Why it’s OK to Hate the Yankees” —

… I’d still not feel the slightest bit guilty about hating the Yankees and rejoicing in their misery. Am I a bad person? Perhaps but here are my reasons:

1. Steinbrenner.

2. Money. According to this ($) extremely useful analysis by the Wall Street Journal’s Allen St. John, the cost per victory of a team good enough to make the playoffs is approximately $900,000 per. The White Sox made the playoffs at just $759,373 per victory while the Angels paid $1.03 million. In the National League, the Cardinals managed at $862,685 per victory while the Astros ponied up $921,068. The Yankees, on the other hand (with its $208.3 million payroll) led the majors with a ridiculous $2.2 million per victory, which is seventy percent higher than that of the closest competitor, the Red Sox, at $1.3 million. To root for the Yankees, therefore, is to root for the power of the money, pure and simple. You might as well root for Citigroup…