No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, the PBS American Masters film, proved to be exceptionally well done and well worth its two-night, 200 minute run.
PBS, at least here locally, had the good sense to leave the language alone, preferring advisories for the faint-of-heart rather than deleting the expletives. Joan Baez passed her audition for Deadwood with flying colors.
But today two Japanese scientists, Tsunemi Kubodera and Kyoichi Mori, report in a leading British biological journal that they have made the world’s first observations of a giant squid in the wild.
Working about 600 miles south of Tokyo off the Bonin Islands, known in Japan as the Ogasawara Islands, they photographed the creature with a robotic camera at a depth of 3,000 feet. During a struggle lasting more than four hours, the animal, about 26 feet long, took the proffered bait and eventually broke free, leaving behind an 18-foot length of tentacle.
The giant squid, the researchers conclude, “appears to be a much more active predator than previously suspected, using its elongate feeding tentacles to strike and tangle prey.” The tentacles could apparently coil into a ball, much as a python envelops its victims.
Source: The New York Times
Like the one that almost got Captain Nemo!
Update: National Geographic has photos.
Sadly, there are investors who simply do not understand what Gettysburg means to the United States. They want to build a casino in the shadow of this great national landmark …
Of course, the casino’s developers argue that the site they have chosen is not “battlefield” land. What they fail to realize, however, is that historical significance does not stop at the edges of the national park. Roads into and out of town were of huge consequence to the battle. Practically every farmhouse and barn for miles was used as a field hospital for the wounded and dying.
Regardless of how careful and sensitive the developers think their plans are, building a casino at Gettysburg will destroy the town’s character. Poorly managed growth and traffic already plague Gettysburg, and the casino will make congestion worse.
Source: James Lighthizer, president of the Civil War Preservation Trust, in The New York Times
From Forbes. Here’s the Top Ten:
1. William H. Gates
2. Warren E. Buffett
3. Paul G. Allen
4. Michael Dell
5. Lawrence Ellison
6. Christy Walton
7. Jim C. Walton
8. S. Robson Walton
9. Alice L. Walton
10. Helen R. Walton
None of the 400 is from New Mexico.
As floodwaters forced tens of thousands of evacuees into the Dome and Convention Center, news of unspeakable acts poured out of the nation’s media: evacuees firing at helicopters trying to save them; women, children and even babies raped with abandon; people killed for food and water; a 7-year-old raped and killed at the Convention Center. Police, according to their chief, Eddie Compass, found themselves in multiple shootouts inside both shelters, and were forced to race toward muzzle flashes through the dark to disarm the criminals; snipers supposedly fired at doctors and soldiers from downtown high-rises.
In interviews with Oprah Winfrey, Compass reported rapes of “babies,” and Mayor Ray Nagin spoke of “hundreds of armed gang members” killing and raping people inside the Dome. Unidentified evacuees told of children stepping over so many bodies, “we couldn’t count.”
The picture that emerged was one of the impoverished, masses of flood victims resorting to utter depravity, randomly attacking each other, as well as the police trying to protect them and the rescue workers trying to save them. Nagin told Winfrey the crowd has descended to an “almost animalistic state.”
Four weeks after the storm, few of the widely reported atrocities have been backed with evidence. The piles of bodies never materialized, and soldiers, police officers and rescue personnel on the front lines say that although anarchy reigned at times and people suffered unimaginable indignities, most of the worst crimes reported at the time never happened.
Source: Excerpt from the Times-Picayune
The much disputed Warren Commission Report was issued on this date in 1964. According to the report, the bullets that killed President Kennedy and injured Texas Governor John Connally were fired by Lee Harvey Oswald in three shots from a rifle pointed out of a sixth floor window in the Texas School Book Depository.
The Warren Commission was chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren, former Governor of California. It included Senators Richard B. Russell and John Sherman Cooper, House Members Hale Boggs and Gerald R. Ford, and two private citizens with extensive government service, Allen Dulles and John J. McCloy.
This from Dwight Perry’s Sideline Chatter:
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel spotted this placard posted by a Green Bay fan at Lambeau Field:
“Wedding, 25K.
“House, 250K.
“Divorce, 30K.
“Ex-husband’s front-row Packers tickets: Priceless.”
Samuel Adams Beers are named for Sam Adams the brewer of beer and revolution, who was born on this date in 1722.
Adams’s contributions to the independence movement were many and varied. During the 1760s and 1770s he frequently wrote polemical articles for the Boston newspapers, and he recruited talented younger men—Josiah Quincy, Joseph Warren, and his second cousin John Adams, among others—into the Patriot cause. It was Samuel Adams who conceived of the Boston Committee of Correspondence and took a leading role in its formation and operations from 1772 through 1774. He was among those who planned and coordinated Boston’s resistance to the Tea Act, which climaxed in the famous Tea Party, and he later worked for the creation of the Continental Congress, helping propel it into supporting Massachusetts in the crisis.
Adams was one of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence.
… Wilford Brimley. He’s 71 today. Wilford, you’ve got to cut out the old man commercials. I thought you were at least 10 years older. (Brimley was 53-54 when he played the old guy in Cocoon.)
… Gwyneth Paltrow. She’s 33. Sigh.
… Baseball Hall-of-Famer Mike Schmidt. He’s 56. NewMexiKen had to admire Schmidt when, during a recent interview, he said he “would have” used steroids if they were around when he played. Whatever it took.
Wrong, but refreshing candor.
NewMexiKen was actually at a Phillies game circa 1982 or 83 where Schmidt struck out four times on 12 pitches. Then, after we left, he hit the game winning home run.
David Remnick has an excellent piece in The New Yorker on New Orleans and the aftermath of Katrina. Good historical perspective.
For Fiscal Year 2005, which ends Friday, the last White House estimate (the July Mid-Session Review) was that there would be $2.140 trillion in receipts and $2.479 trillion in expenditures. That means a deficit of $339 billion. This was before hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Based on this estimate, for every dollar the federal government has spent since last October 1:
All of the hurricane money will have to be borrowed.
A report in this morning’s New York Times:
By all accounts the turnaround of the Yellowstone grizzly is an all-too-rare success story of the Endangered Species Act.
After dwindling to 200 or so by the 1970’s, the number of the big bears in the mountains and grassy meadows around Yellowstone National Park has grown to more than 600, thanks to the federal protections given to the species in 1975. …
While there is widespread agreement that the story is a good one, however, there is disagreement on the next chapter.
The Fish and Wildlife Service, saying that the mission to bring the bear back has been accomplished, will propose removing the bear from the list of threatened species this fall and, after a comment period, make a final decision in 2006. Delisting has happened for only about 15 species out of the 1,830 on the imperiled list.
But opponents of delisting say the bear is still endangered, primarily because of threats to critical food sources.
Both sides say the science is on their side.
“[T]he Louisiana delegation’s $250 billion bill would cost more than the Louisiana Purchase under the Jefferson administration on an inflation-adjusted basis.”
 |
The 2005 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta begins this weekend. |
Jonathan Chapman was born in Massachusetts on this date in 1774. Chapman earned his nickname “Johnny Appleseed” because he planted orchards and apple trees across 100,000 square miles of wilderness and prairie in the Midwest. According to the Library of Congress:
Chapman, sometimes referred to as an American St. Francis of Assisi, was an ambulant man. As a member of the first New-Church (Swedenborgian), his work resembled that of a missionary. Each year he traveled hundreds of miles on foot, wearing clothing made from sacks, and carrying a cooking pot which he is said to have worn like a cap. His travels took him through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana.
Chapman died in 1845.
… of Michael Douglas. He’s 61.
… of Mrs. Douglas. Catherine Zeta-Jones is 36.
… of Will Smith. The Prince is 37.
… of Mark Hamill. Luke is 54.
… of Barbara Walters. She’s 74.
The Shakespeare of sportswriters was born on this date 100 years ago. That’s Red Smith. Here he is on the 1951 World Series (after the Giants’ miraculous playoff win to be there):
Magic and sorcery and incantation and spells had taken the Giants to the championship of the National League and put them into the World Series … But you don’t beat the Yankees with a witch’s broomstick. Not the Yankees, when there’s hard money to be won.
On DiMaggio:
Sometimes a fellow gets a little tired of writing about DiMaggio; a fellow thinks, “there must be some other ball player in the world worth mentioning.” But there isn’t really, not worth mentioning in the same breath with Joe DiMaggio.
“The moral of The March of the Penguins is that we’d all be much better off if the religious right lived in Antarctica.”
Michael Bérubé has some strong, yet heartfelt words about abortion and politics. Well worth your time.
Banned Books Week 2005 is September 24 through October 1.
“Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak just because a baby can’t chew it.” — Mark Twain
The Ten Most Challenged Books of 2004:
Thanks to Debby for the reminder.
For some reason earlier today NewMexiKen got to thinking about his very first day of work. It was Thanksgiving 1960. The place was the Cliff House restaurant in Tucson. At the time, the Cliff House was considered one of the best restaurants in town — great menu plus a wonderful view of the city from its foothill location on Oracle Road. The chef was known simply by his first name, Otto.
Thanksgiving was a very busy day at the Cliff House. I started at noon and got off sometime around 10:30. I was the dishwasher’s second assistant. The dishwasher, who on a regular shift worked just by himself, needed all the help he could get on Thanksgiving. He sprayed the loose residue off the plates and out of the cups and glasses and loaded the racks to go into the machine. The first assistant took the clean dishes out of the machine and got them back into circulation. My job was to clear the trays as the busboys brought them in, scraping the uneaten turkey and dressing and mashed potatoes off the plates into the garbage pail. For more than 10 hours. For $1 an hour.
I did well for my first day of work, being reprimanded only once — by Otto himself, no less. I was throwing out the uneaten dinner rolls instead of returning them to the bread warmer. In chefly like fashion he blew his top, but calmed down when he realized no one had told me differently (and I was a nice deferential kid whose mom was a waitress).
As the day went on into evening, however, this fine restaurant developed a mini-crisis. The Cliff House ran out of cranberries. Now there is one thing a restaurant must have on Thanksgiving and that is turkey. And there is one thing a restaurant must serve with turkey and that is cranberries (or cranberry sauce). And someone had miscalculated and none was left.
It was the dishwasher’s second assistant who saved the day. As the dirty dishes came in from the dining room I not only rescued the dinner rolls, I now also recycled the cranberries. From each plate I corralled the dark red glob and scraped it into a bowl. Periodically Otto would come over and switch out my trove with an empty new bowl. He’d take the cranberries I had reclaimed and scoop them (not so generously as earlier) onto some eager gourmand’s plate.
Amazingly I still love cranberries (especially cranberry relish).
A Sumter County [S.C.] sheriff’s deputy was fired for being married to two women at the same time, and his second wife was married to another man at the time of their wedding, according to a department investigation.
Source: AP via Yahoo! News
NewMexiKen gets dizzy trying to figure out all the in-law permutations.
My mom was feeling very hopeful through all this. Then we met with FEMA this morning. After two hours waiting in line for it’s cold bureaucratic embrace, her hope started to flicker. This is what it looks like when poor people have lost it all, and are told to get in line. Which line? Did you fill out that form? I hear they suspended the vouchers. Who do I call for shelter? Call this 800 number to get your number. But sir, I don’t have a phone. Go to this website to get a number. But sir, I don’t have a computer, or a home to put it in, or a phone to connect it to.
Get in line, ma’am.
This what it looks like when you can’t take anymore. If I could strangle an entire bureaucracy with my bare hands, I would.
Go see the photo of his mother at Operation Eden.
Click image to visit Jesus’ General (and see larger version of image).
Functional Ambivalent writes about sex and his visitor statistics shoot through his mirrored ceiling.