Author: NewMexiKen

All the President’s Women

Maureen Dowd begins:

I hope President Bush doesn’t have any more office wives tucked away in the White House.

There are only so many supremely powerful jobs to give to women who are not qualified to get them.

The West Wing is a parallel universe to TV’s Wisteria Lane: instead of self-indulgent desperate housewives wary of sexy nannies, there are self-sacrificing, buttoned-up nannies serving as adoring work wives, catering to W.’s every political, legal and ego-affirming need.

Maybe it’s because his mom was not adoring enough, but more tart and prickly, even telling her son, the president, not to put his feet up on her coffee table. Or maybe it’s because, as his wife says, his kinship with his mom gives him a desire to be around strong, “very natural” women. But W. loves being surrounded by tough women who steadfastly devote their entire lives to doting on him, like the vestal virgins guarding the sacred fire, serving as custodians for his values and watchdogs for his reputation.

Ms. Dowd continues — Condi, Karen, now Harriet.

I will fight no more forever

I am tired of fighting. Our Chiefs are killed; Looking Glass is dead, Ta Hool Hool Shute is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say “Yes” or “No.” He who led the young men is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets; the little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are – perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.

Chief Joseph of the Nez-Percé surrendering to Gen. Nelson Miles on this date in 1877.

It’s the birthday

… of Bill Keane. The artist and creator of Family Circus is 83.

… of Diahann Carroll. The actress is 70. She was once married to singer Vic Damone and once engaged to Sidney Poitier and later to David Frost. Ms. Carroll was nominated for an Oscar for best actress for Claudine. Her TV sitcom “Julia” was the first to star an African-American woman.

… of Edward P. Jones. The author of the Pulitizer Prize winning novel The Known World is 55. A great book.

… of Grant Hill. The basketball player, high school classmate of Emily, official second daughter of NewMexiKen, is 33.

… of Kate Winslett. The actress is 30. She’s been nominated for the best actress and best supporting actress Oscar twice each.

… of Ray Kroc, developer of the McDonald’s empire, who was born on this date in 1902.

But by 1941, “I felt it was time I was on my own,” Mr. Kroc once recalled, and he became the exclusive sales agent for a machine that could prepare five milkshakes at a time.

Then, in 1954, Mr. Kroc heard about Richard and Maurice McDonald, the owners of a fast-food emporium in San Bernadino, Calif., that was using several of his mixers. As a milkshake specialist, Mr. Kroc later explained, “I had to see what kind of an operation was making 40 at one time.”

…

Mr. Kroc talked to the McDonald brothers about opening franchise outlets patterned on their restaurant, which sold hamburgers for 15 cents, french fries for 10 cents and milkshakes for 20 cents.

Eventually, the McDonalds and Mr. Kroc worked out a deal whereby he was to give them a small percentage of the gross of his operation. In due course the first of Mr. Kroc’s restaurants was opened in Des Plaines, another Chicago suburb, long famous as the site of an annual Methodist encampment.

Business proved excellent, and Mr. Kroc soon set about opening other restaurants. The second and third, both in California, opened later in 1955; in five years there were 228, and in 1961 he bought out the McDonald brothers.

Source: Kroc obituary in 1984 from The New York Times

And it’s the birthday of NewMexiKen’s mother; she would have been 80 today. In the month before she died in 1974, Mom made some cuttings of a spider plant (Chlorophytum comosum). Those cuttings (and their descendants) still grow in NewMexiKen’s living room more than 31 years later. I’m not sure what I believe about an afterlife, but I know what I believe about the spirit in those plants.

The Mournful Giant

From William Lee Miller’s excellent review of Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness by Joshua Wolf Shenk:

In 1998, Shenk (a young essayist who frankly mentions his own battles with depression) read a reference to Lincoln’s melancholy in an essay on suicide and set about learning more. In his researcher’s zeal, he read Lincoln scholars and also sought them out and interviewed them; he went to Lincoln’s birthplace and Ford’s Theater, stood where Lincoln delivered the “house divided” speech, held in his hand Lincoln’s letters to his friend Joshua Speed, saw the fatal assassin’s bullet and, since heredity is one ingredient inclining a person to depression, obtained the records admitting Mary Jane Lincoln, Lincoln’s father’s cousin, to the Illinois Hospital for the Insane in 1867. He even attended a convention of Lincoln impersonators, borrowed a Lincoln suit for himself and joined in. His book has page after page of acknowledgments, to the point that one may be tempted to say: No wonder a writer with this many friends could produce such a strong book.

“The goal,” Shenk writes, “has been to see what we can learn about Lincoln by looking at him through the lens of his melancholy, and to see what we can learn about melancholy by looking at it in light of Lincoln’s experience.” He has effectively cast light in both directions.

A sampling of lyrics

… from three of the six songs that have been number one on the Billboard Hot 100 this year.

(Faint-hearted people may be offended.)

Gold Digger
by Kanye West featuring Jamie Foxx
[Current number one, fourth week]

[Chorus]
(She give me money) [Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles]
Now I aint sayin she a gold digger (When I’m in need)
But she aint messin wit no broke niggaz
(She give me money)
Now I aint sayin she a gold digger (When I’m in need)
But she aint messin wit no broke niggaz

[Second Verse]
18 years, 18 years
She got one of yo kids got you for 18 years
I know somebody payin child support for one of his kids
His baby momma’s car and crib is bigger than his
You will see him on TV any given Sunday
Win the Superbowl and drive off in a Hyundai
She was spose to buy ya shorty TYCO with ya money
She went to the doctor got lypo with ya money
She walkin around lookin like Michael with ya money
Should of got that insured GEICO for ya money
If you aint no punk holla We Want Prenup
We Want Prenup!, Yeaah
It’s something that you need to have
Cause when she leave yo ass she gone leave with half
18 years, 18 years
And on her 18th birthday he found out it wasn’t his

Hollaback Girl
by Gwen Stefani
[Number one four weeks, May 7 – June 3]

Oooh, this my shit, this my shit [4x]

I heard that you were talking shit
And you didn’t think that I would hear it
People hear you talking like that, getting everybody fired up
So I’m ready to attack, gonna lead the pack
Gonna get a touchdown, gonna take you out
That’s right, put your pom-poms down, getting everybody fired up

A few times I’ve been around that track
So it’s not just gonna happen like that
Cause I ain’t no hollaback girl
I ain’t no hollaback girl
[2x]

Candy Shop
by 50 Cent with Olivia
[Number one nine weeks, March through April]

[Chorus]
[50 Cent]
I take you to the candy shop
I’ll let you lick the lollypop
Go ‘head girl, don’t you stop
Keep goin ’til you hit the spot (whoa)
[Olivia]
I’ll take you to the candy shop
Boy one taste of what I got
I’ll have you spending all you got
Keep going ’til you hit the spot (whoa)

For the record, the other three songs:

Let Me Love You by Mario (nine weeks)
We Belong Together by Mariah Carey (fourteen weeks)
Inside Your Heaven by Carrie Underwood (one week)

SCOTUS

Some welcome balance about Harriet Miers from Siva Vaidhyanathan at Altercation.

There have been hints that the Dem strategy to shake her up will consist of calling her appointment another example of “cronyism and incompetence.” Some will accuse her of lacking the resume for the job. I say that’s crap for a couple of reasons:

1. For a woman of her generation to achieve all she has is remarkable. She had to work in firms full of the goodest and oldest of the good old boys. Think about all the snide remarks she must have had to put up with over the years. Think of all the men she has had to school. So few women have been appointed to the federal bench that we can’t expect any president to limit himself to judges when considering such an appointment. It’s good to see a president look beyond the usual suspects.
2. White House Counsel is a hell of a difficult job, full of constiutional judgements complicated by political contingencies. The very fact that she has served in that job without making headlines is to her credit. Alberto Gonzales was not that deft. Neither was John Dean. So kudos to Miers for serving her client well.

That said, I shall now proceed to gather more reasons why she should not serve on the High Court.

News you can use

Lots of interesting things in the Science Times today.

Pluto may not be a planet.

Despite the movies, you should not drown in quicksand (unless the tide comes in).

Elk may get wasting disease because they slobber and lick each other too much.

Some experts say maybe we shouldn’t live on the coast.

Bicycle saddles may cause erectile dysfunction for serious male riders. (Justly for some I might add, given their arrogance and rudeness on public streets.)

Do not play dead if a bear seems to be attacking you in a predatory way. (As opposed to when their attack is defensive; perhaps you can ask the bear for a time out to inquire about their motives.)

It’s the birthday

… of Charlton Heston. Moses is 81 today. Heston won the best actor Oscar for Ben-Hur (1959), his only nomination.

… of Susan Sarandon. The five-time nominee for best actress (she won for Dead Man Walking) is 59 today.

It’s also the birthday of Buster Keaton, born on this date in 1895.

Buster Keaton is considered one of the greatest comic actors of all time. His influence on physical comedy is rivaled only by Charlie Chaplin. Like many of the great actors of the silent era, Keaton’s work was cast into near obscurity for many years. Only toward the end of his life was there a renewed interest in his films. An acrobatically skillful and psychologically insightful actor, Keaton made dozens of short films and fourteen major silent features, attesting to one of the most talented and innovative artists of his time. …

It was this “stone face,” however, that came to represent a sense of optimism and everlasting inquisitiveness.

In films such as THE NAVIGATOR (1924), THE GENERAL (1926), AND THE CAMERAMAN (1928), Keaton portrayed characters whose physical abilities seemed completely contingent on their surroundings. Considered one of the greatest acrobatic actors, Keaton could step on or off a moving train with the smoothness of getting out of bed. Often at odds with the physical world, his ability to naively adapt brought a melancholy sweetness to the films.

Source: American Masters | PBS

And it’s the birthday of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, 19th President of the United States. Hayes was born in Delaware, Ohio, on this date in 1822.

As the Library of Congress tells it:

Rutherford B. Hayes became…president in 1877 after a bitterly-contested election against Democrat Samuel J. Tilden of New York. Tilden won the popular vote, but disputed electoral ballots from four states prompted Congress to create a special electoral commission to decide the election’s result. The fifteen-man commission of congressmen and Supreme Court justices, eight of whom were Republicans, voted along party lines deciding the election in Hayes’s favor.

Take me out to the ballgame

Sports Curmudgeon puts some perspective on the Nats:

This [Washington, DC] is the city they describe as having been starved for baseball for the last 35 years. This is the city that has a high level of disposable income and a burgeoning metropolitan area. This is the city that sold 2.7 million tickets.

Compare that to Denver Colorado in the first year that baseball was there. Denver was vilified by these local baseball poets when it got an expansion franchise and Washington did not. But Denver sold 4.4 million tickets in its first year — and most if not all of those seats had people in them.

Best lines of the day, so far

“President Bush, apparently stung by criticism that he had installed political cronies of spotty experience into critical positions in FEMA, turned to a political crony of spotty experience to fill the open seat on the Supreme Court.”

— FunctionalAmbivalent

“The president carefully and deliberately selected as his nominee for the vacant Supreme Court position the first person he ran into in the hallway this morning.”

— Achenblog

Tons of Ice on Trips to Nowhere

From an article in The New York Times:

When the definitive story of the confrontation between Hurricane Katrina and the United States government is finally told, one long and tragicomic chapter will have to be reserved for the odyssey of the ice.

Ninety-one thousand tons of ice cubes, that is, intended to cool food, medicine and sweltering victims of the storm. It would cost taxpayers more than $100 million, and most of it would never be delivered.

The somewhat befuddled heroes of the tale will be truckers like Mark Kostinec, who was dropping a load of beef in Canton, Ohio, on Sept. 2 when his dispatcher called with an urgent government job: Pick up 20 tons of ice in Greenville, Pa., and take it to Carthage, Mo., a staging area for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Mr. Kostinec, 40, a driver for Universe Truck Lines of Omaha, was happy to help with the crisis. But at Carthage, instead of unloading, he was told to take his 2,000 bags of ice on to Montgomery, Ala.

After a day and a half in Montgomery, he was sent to Camp Shelby, in Mississippi. From there, on Sept. 8, he was waved onward to Selma, Ala. And after two days in Selma he was redirected to Emporia, Va., along with scores of other frustrated drivers who had been following similarly circuitous routes.

At Emporia, Mr. Kostinec sat for an entire week, his trailer burning fuel around the clock to keep the ice frozen, as FEMA officials studied whether supplies originally purchased for Hurricane Katrina might be used for Hurricane Ophelia. But in the end only 3 of about 150 ice trucks were sent to North Carolina, he said. So on Sept. 17, Mr. Kostinec headed to Fremont, Neb., where he unloaded his ice into a government-rented storage freezer the next day.

“I dragged that ice around for 4,100 miles, and it never got used,” Mr. Kostinec said.

It’s the birthday

… of James Whitmore. The actor, twice nominated for an Oscar, is 83. He was the sole cast member of Give ’em Hell, Harry!.

… of Jimmy Carter. The 39th President is 81 today.

… of Tom Bosley. Richie Cunningham’s father is 78.

… of Julie Andrews. Mary Poppins is 70. Ms. Andrews won the Best Actress Oscar for Mary Poppins; she was nominated for The Sound of Music and Victor/Victoria. Of course, her claim to fame really was as Eliza Doolittle in the stage version of My Fair Lady.

… of Rod Carew. The baseball hall of fame player is 60.

… of Tim O’Brien. The novelist is 59. O’Brien is the author of Going After Cacciato, winner of the 1979 National Book Award in fiction, and The Things They Carried, which was named by The New York Times as one of the ten best books of 1990, received the Chicago Tribune Heartland Award in fiction, and was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. In the Lake of the Woods was named by Time as the best novel of 1994. The book also received the James Fenimore Cooper Prize from the Society of American Historians and was selected as one of the ten best books of the year by The New York Times.

Chief Justive William Rehnquist would have been 81 today.

I don’t think so

“Many people around the world do not understand the important role that faith plays in Americans’ lives,” she said. When an Egyptian opposition leader inquired why Mr Bush mentions God in his speeches, Hughes asked him whether he was aware that “previous American presidents have also cited God, and that our constitution cites ‘one nation under God’.”

Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes quoted by Sidney Blumenthal

The word God does not appear in the Constitution.

Pool party

As is often the case, the White House pool reporter has a little fun. This from Ken Herman of Cox Newspapers:

The presidential and vice presidential motorcades departed together in gas-guzzling tandem at 9:51 a.m., arriving at Fort Myer at 9:57 a.m. for the Armed Forces Farewell Tribute and Armed Forces Hail marking retirement of Gen. Richard Myers as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and swearing-in of Gen. Peter Pace (first Marine to hold the job) as his replacement.

Honor guards, bands, etc., were arrayed on the Summerfield Field parade ground when we arrived, making it seem as if we had arrived at halftime. Cannon fire in honor of Gen. Myers set off at least one car alarm, meaning either the vibration was sufficient to set off the alarm or that our troops had successfully downed a Chevy.

Via Wonkette

Get-out-of-jail-free card

Dan Froomkin rightly chastises Judith Miller:

So what was Miller doing in jail? Was it all just a misunderstanding? The most charitable explanation for Miller is that she somehow concluded that Libby wanted her to keep quiet, even while he was publicly — and privately — saying otherwise. The least charitable explanation is that going to jail was Miller’s way of transforming herself from a journalistic outcast (based on her gullible pre-war reporting) into a much-celebrated hero of press freedom.

Note to reporters: There is nothing intrinsically noble about keeping your sources’ secrets. Your job, in fact, is to expose them. And if a very senior government official, after telling you something in confidence, then tells you that you don’t have to keep it secret anymore, the proper response is “Hooray, now I can tell the world” — not “Sorry, that’s not good enough for me, I need that in triplicate.” And if you’re going to go to jail invoking important, time-honored journalistic principles, make sure those principles really apply.

Thank god it’s Fria’s day

Next to the day, the week is the most important calendric unit in our life. And yet, there is no astronomical significance to the week. Nothing cosmic happens in the heavens in seven days. How, then, did the week come to assume such importance?

The first thing to understand is that a week is not necessarily seven days. In pre-literate societies weeks of 4 to 10 days were observed; those weeks were typically the interval from one market day to the next. Four to 10 days gave farmers enough time to accumulate and transport goods to sell. (The one week that was almost always avoided was the 7-day week — it was considered unlucky!) The 7-day week was introduced in Rome (where ides, nones, and calends were the vogue) in the first century A.D. by Persian astrology fanatics, not by Christians or Jews. The idea was that there would be a day for the five known planets, plus the sun and the moon, making seven; this was an ancient West Asian idea. However, when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire in the time of Constantine (c. 325 A.D.), the familiar Hebrew-Christian week of 7 days, beginning on Sunday, became conflated with the pagan week and took its place in the Julian calendar. Thereafter, it seemed to Christians that the week Rome now observed was seamless with the 7-day week of the Bible — even though its pagan roots were obvious in the names of the days: Saturn’s day, Sun’s day, Moon’s day. The other days take their equally pagan names in English from a detour into Norse mythology: Tiw’s day, Woden’s day, Thor’s day, and Fria’s day.

The amazing thing is that today the 7-day week, which is widely viewed as being Judeo-Christian, even Bible-based, holds sway for civil purposes over the entire world, including countries where Judaism and Christianity are anathema. Chinese, Arabs, Indians, Africans, Japanese, and a hundred others sit down at the U.N. to the tune of a 7-day week, in perfect peace (at least calendrically!). So dear is this succession of 7 days that when the calendar changed from Julian to Gregorian the week was preserved, though not the days of the month: in 1752, in England, Sept. 14 followed Sept. 2 — but Thursday followed Wednesday, as always. Eleven days disappeared from the calendar — but not from the week!

Source: Seven Day Week, via the United States Naval Observatory

Best line of the day, so far

“The way news is driven today is not through print,” [Jon] Stewart said. “I don’t consider print media as relevant.” When [Graydon] Carter argued that television news consistently siphons what first appears in print, as evidenced by its coverage of the 2004 presidential campaign, Stewart said: “I didn’t say you weren’t important; I said you’re at the children’s table.”

Jon Stewart as reported by Folio Magazine