Author: NewMexiKen

It’s the birthday

… of Deborah Kerr. The six-time Oscar nominee for Best Actress is 84 today.

… of Angie Dickinson. “Pepper” is 74 today.

… of Johnny Mathis. Chances are the singer is 70 today.

… of Barry Williams. Greg Brady is 51 today.

James Dean was killed on this date 50 years ago at the junction of California Highways 41 and 46.

[Dean] and his mechanic, Rolf Wuetherich, were traveling in Dean’s new Porsche Spyder 550, which he planned to race that afternoon in Salinas. Dean had traded in his Porsche Speedster just nine days earlier, purchasing the Spyder for $6,900 and naming it “Little Bastard.”

From JamesDean.com.

Truman Capote was born in New Orleans on this date in 1924. The Writer’s Almanac had more on Capote last year than this.

Jay talking

• Tom DeLay says he has a new priority in life. Outlawing prison rape.

• Remember when Republicans like Newt Gingrich or Bob Livingston would get in trouble for sex scandals. Tom DeLay is in trouble over money. Or as Republicans call it, a return to traditional values.

Jay Leno

Probably not quite as much shakin’ goin’ on

Jerry Lee Lewis is 70 today.

Ian McShane is 63. Big party at the Gem. (McShane plays the c***s**k** Al Swearengen on Deadwood.)

Bryant Gumbel is 57.

Gene Autry was born in Tioga, Texas, on this date in 1907. The following is from the biography at the Official Website for Gene Autry:

Discovered by humorist Will Rogers, in 1929 Autry was billed as “Oklahoma’s Yodeling Cowboy” at KVOO in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He gained a popular following, a recording contract with Columbia Records in 1929, and soon after, performed on the “National Barn Dance” for radio station WLS in Chicago. Autry first appeared on screen in 1934 and up to 1953 popularized the musical Western and starred in 93 feature films. In 1940 theater exhibitors of America voted Autry the fourth biggest box office attraction, behind Mickey Rooney, Clark Gable, and Spencer Tracy.

Autry made 635 recordings, including more than 300 songs written or co-written by him. His records sold more than 100 million copies and he has more than a dozen gold and platinum records, including the first record ever certified gold [That Silver-Haired Daddy of Mine]. His Christmas and children’s records Here Comes Santa Claus and Peter Cottontail are among his platinum recordings. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the second all-time best selling Christmas single, boasts in excess of 30 million in sales.

… Autry’s great love for baseball prompted him to acquire the American League California Angels in 1961. Active in Major League Baseball, Autry held the title of Vice President of the American League until his death [1998].

… Autry is the only entertainer to have five stars on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, one each for radio, records, movies, television, and live performance including rodeo and theater appearances.

Autry’s Melody Ranch radio show aired from 1940 to 1956. His television program from 1950 through 1955 (91 episodes), and long after in syndication.

Tough Love

Dear Abby,

I recently read your column advising grandparents on “tough love” for grandparents to give misbehaving grandchildren, whose own parents let them run wild. I have followed your advice, and enclosed a picture demonstrating my technique when my grandson just won’t behave while I’m babysitting for his parents. They have told me not to spank him, so I just take him for a ride, and he usually calms down afterward.

Sign me,

Tough Love Grandpa

[Originally posted by NewMexiKen on September 29, 2003.]

A Northwest Passage at last

The floating cap of sea ice on the Arctic Ocean shrank this summer to what is probably its smallest size in a century, continuing a trend toward less summer ice that is hard to explain without attributing it in part to human-caused global warming, various experts on the region said today.

The findings are consistent with recent computer simulations showing that a buildup of smokestack and tailpipe emissions of greenhouse gases could lead to a profoundly transformed Arctic later this century in which much of the once ice-locked ocean is routinely open water in summers.

Source: The New York Times

Prayer, crystal meth, whatever

Ashley Smith, the woman who was held hostage by the courthouse gunman in Atlanta, is a big Christian hero because she stated that she talked the gunman down using her Bible and her copy of The Purpose Driven Life.

But now she explains how she really chilled him out. According to the AP, “In her book, ‘Unlikely Angel,’ released Tuesday, Smith says Nichols bound her on her bed with masking tape and an extension cord. She says that he asked for marijuana, but that she did not have any, and that she dug into her illegal stash of crystal meth instead.”

Thanks to Jill for the pointer.

Ignorant question

NewMexiKen needs to purchase filters to protect my Nikon lenses. I understand 81A is recommended. Is this true? How does one determine the size? Is there any brand to seek out? Any brand to avoid? What’s a fair price (ballpark)?

Leave a comment, or email newmexiken at gmail dot com.

Update: A professional photographer recommended 81A multi-coated Hoya warming filters. In fact, he uses them to protect the lens and does not use bothersome lens caps. They’re about $35 each online.

The Dylan mythology

ONLY A HOBO
“I was raised in Gallup, New Mexico. Got a lot of cowboy songs there. Indian songs. Carnival songs. Vaudeville kinda stuff.”, Dylan claimed in his first ever radio interview on WNYC in autumn 1961. He also claimed to have lived in Cheyenne, South Dakota; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Phillipsburg, Kansas; Hibbing, Minnesota; and Minneapolis. At least the last two were true.

[This folklore was repeated by Nat Hentoff for the album liner notes for The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963).]

THE CIRCUS BOY
“Oh yea, I spent about six years in the carnivals. Clean-up boy; worked on the ferris wheel — went all the way around the Mid West.”, Dylan told a radio interviewer in 1961. “Didn’t that interfere with your schooling?”, he asked. “Oh, I skipped a bunch of school”, he blithely replied.

THE NAME GAME
“That’s just a rumor made up by the people who like to simplify things”. Dylan said when asked if he’d taken his name from Dylan Thomas. “It’s the name of my family—on my mother’s side. It’s spelt D-I-L-L-O-N and I changed it from there.??? In fact, his mother’s family name was Stone.

THE INDIAN CONNECTION
When he arrived in Greenwich Village, Dylan reinvented several new lives for himself. But of all his tall tales, none was more preposterous than his claim that he was descended from the Sioux Nation. “I remember he solemnly gave us a demonstration of Indian sign language, which he was obviously making up as he went along”, recalls Dave Van Ronk.

— From The Rough Guide to Bob Dylan

Juanita’s Congress Varmint

For the record again, I do not believe that Tom DeLay should have to step down as Majority Leader while he’s under indictment. In this country, you are innocent until proven guilty. I opposed this Republican supported rule when they made it – everybody knows they voted for the rule so they could look all church-lady and sanctimonious. Heck, I was even willing to give them the benefit of better thought and supported the move to reverse it a year ago. I think an indictment is just that – an indictment and no proof of guilt. However, Republicans disagree with me about that.

I think there’s petards and hoisting going on here.

— Juanita’s

Anti-competents

Molly Ivins:

Susan Wood resigns in protest over the politicization of women’s health care? Ha! We’ll show her — we’ll put a vet in charge, instead.

*****

But there is a certain arch, flippant malice to making Edwin Foulke assistant secretary in charge of the health and safety of workers.

Republican appointees who oppose the agencies to which they are assigned are a dime a dozen, but Foulke is a partner from the most notorious union-busting law firm in the country. What he does for a living is destroy the only organizations that care about workers’ health and safety.

Here’s another PP pick: put a timber industry lobbyist in as head of the Forest Service. How about a mining industry lobbyist who believes public lands are unconstitutional in charge of the public lands? Nice shot. A utility lobbyist who represented the worst air polluters in the country as head of the clean air division at the EPA? A laff riot. As head of the Superfund, a woman whose last job was teaching corporate polluters how to evade Superfund regulations? Cute, cute, cute. A Monsanto lobbyist as No. 2 at the EPA. A lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute at the Council on Environmental Quality. And so on. And so forth.

*****

The terrible lesson of Hurricane Katrina is that public policy is not a political gotcha game. The public interest is not well-served by appointing incompetents or anti-competents to positions of responsibility. Public policy is about our lives.

Short memory; Small person

“… I request that you declare an emergency for the State of Louisiana due to Hurricane Katrina for the time period beginning August 26, 2005, and continuing. The affected areas are all the southeastern parishes including the New Orleans Metropolitan area …”

— Governor Blanco letter to President Bush, August 27, 2005

REPRESENTATIVE BUYER: “So I’d like to know why did the president’s federal emergency assistance declaration of August 27th not include the parishes of Orleans, Jefferson and Plaquemines?”

[FORMER FEMA DIRECTOR] BROWN: “[I]f a governor does not request a particular county or a particular parish, that’s not included in the request.”

— During sworn testimony September 27, 2005

Pointer via Think Progress