… of Jim Henson. The creator of the Muppets was born on this date in 1936.
… of Jim McKay. The Wide World of Sports host is 84.
… of “Mean” Joe Greene. The Hall-of-Fame defensive tackle is 59.
… of Joseph Kennedy II. Robert Kennedy’s son, the former congressman, is 53.
President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed Devils Tower a national monument on this date in 1906. It was the first landmark set aside under the Antiquities Act.
The nearly vertical monolith known as Devils Tower rises 1,267 feet above the meandering Belle Fourche River. Once hidden below the earth’s surface, erosion has stripped away the softer rock layers revealing Devils Tower.
Known by several northern plains tribes as Bears Lodge, it is a sacred site of worship for many American Indians. The rolling hills of this 1,347 acre park are covered with pine forests, deciduous woodlands, and prairie grasslands. Deer, prairie dogs, and other wildlife are abundant.
Source: National Park Service
NewMexiKen, who has circumnavigated Devils Tower, thinks it should be renamed Bears Lodge.
From 1946 through 2004 there have been 59 Division I-A Football “National Championships.” According to the NCAA Record Book (page 89), 77 teams from 30 schools have won or shared in the 59 championships (14 times there have been co-champions, twice there have been three teams named).
Fourteen schools have won or shared the title more than once:
Oklahoma (6 outright, 1 tie)
Notre Dame (5 outright, 3 ties)
USC (4 outright, 3 ties)
Miami (4 outright, 1 tie)
Nebraska (3 outright, 2 ties)
Alabama (2 outright, 5 ties)
Ohio State (2 outright, 4 ties)
Texas (2 outright, 1 tie)
Penn State, Florida State, Tennessee (2 outright each)
Michigan State (1 outright, 2 ties)
Michigan (1 outright, 1 tie)
LSU (2 ties)
These 14 schools account for 61 out of 77 championship teams (79%).
I would argue that to win a national championship you have to schedule (and beat) at least one of the 14.
Seven schools have won the championship once. They are Maryland (1953), Syracuse (1959), Pittsburgh (1976), Georgia (1980), Clemson (1981), BYU (1984) and Florida (1996).
Nine schools have been co-champion once, but have never won the title outright. They are UCLA (1954), Auburn (1957), Iowa (1958), Minnesota (1960), Mississippi (1960), Arkansas (1964), Colorado (1990), Georgia Tech (1990) and Washington (1991).
As noted earlier, today Bruce Springsteen is 56. The Writer’s Almanac has posted the lyrics to “Glory Days” as its poem for the day. Good stuff.
Interesting story about Springsteen as well.
Hear Garrison Keillor read it all here [RealAudio].
Take The Week Quiz.
As for NewMexiKen, I missed some.
ASPEN, Colo. – Sky high real estate prices in this resort city in the mountains have driven yet another business out of town: The Aspen Board of Realtors.
AP via Yahoo! News
Maybe the realtors will take those silly glamour shot self-aggrandizing photos with them.
France announced financial incentives Thursday for parents to have a third child, hoping to boost its fertility rate by helping people to better juggle the demands of work and family life.
A new measure will award $916 a month to parents who take one year’s unpaid leave from work after the birth of a third child …
This Reuters item via Yahoo! News:
Scientists from Mexico’s tequila producing region say juice extracted from the blue agave plant, best known when distilled into the fiery spirit, may help dieters shed pounds and cut cholesterol.
Sadly for the world’s growing band of tequila lovers, agave’s possible health benefits are lost when the plant is distilled into alcohol.
… was acquired from the B&O Railroad on this date in 1938. The property became a National Historical Park in 1971. According to the National Park Service:
The C&O Canal follows the route of the Potomac River for 184.5 miles from Washington, D.C. to Cumberland, MD. The canal operated from 1828-1924 as a transportation route, primarily hauling coal from western Maryland to the port of Georgetown in Washington, D.C. Hundreds of original structures, including locks, lockhouses, and aqueducts, serve as reminders of the canal’s role as a transportation system during the Canal Era. In addition, the canal’s towpath provides a nearly level, continuous trail through the spectacular scenery of the Potomac River Valley.
Burnishing the legend of Edward R. Murrow, the CBS newsman who in the 1940’s and 50’s established a standard of journalistic integrity his profession has scrambled to live up to ever since, “Good Night, and Good Luck” is a passionate, thoughtful essay on power, truth-telling and responsibility. It opens the New York Film Festival tonight and will be released nationally on Oct. 7. The title evokes Murrow’s trademark sign-off, and I can best sum up my own response by recalling the name of his flagship program: See it now.
A.O. Scott in The New York Times
It’s the birthday of John Coltrane (1926) and Ray Charles (1930) and Bruce Springsteen (1949).
Dubbed LaundryView, colleges and universities can set up networks of washing machines and dryers. Via an online site, students can see which machines are free and how much time is left on those that are currently in use.
What’s more, the system will send alerts to mobile phones and PDAs when the machine a student is using finishes its cycle. According to the site, LaundryView will also track overall usage for the last two weeks, so students can determine which days and times are usually the busiest.
Thanks to Jill, official oldest daughter of NewMexiKen, for the link. Jill thinks “this is quite possibly the coolest thing EVER invented. I may have to go back and get a doctorate.”
In what may come to be thought of as the “time between the hurricanes,” gasoline today is 30 cents a gallon less than it was Labor Day (the record $3.057). According to AAA, regular averaged $2.755 nationwide at close of business last night.
What’s the over/under for this time next week?
On this date in 1862 President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation, in effect threatening the rebellious states:
“That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom.
Reknowned Civil War historian James M. McPherson provides us this background in the Reader’s Companion to American History:
Most Republicans had become convinced by 1862 that the war against a slaveholders’ rebellion must become a war against slavery itself, and they put increasing pressure on Lincoln to proclaim an emancipation policy. This would have comported with Lincoln’s personal convictions, but as president he felt compelled to balance these convictions against the danger of alienating half of the Union constituency. By the summer of 1862, however, it was clear that he risked alienating the Republican half of his constituency if he did not act against slavery.
Moreover, the war was going badly for the Union. After a string of military victories in the early months of 1862, Northern armies suffered demoralizing reverses in July and August. The argument that emancipation was a military necessity became increasingly persuasive. It would weaken the Confederacy and correspondingly strengthen the Union by siphoning off part of the Southern labor force and adding this manpower to the Northern side. In July 1862 Congress enacted two laws based on this premise: a second confiscation act that freed slaves of persons who had engaged in rebellion against the United States, and a militia act that empowered the president to use freed slaves in the army in any capacity he saw fit—even as soldiers.
By this time Lincoln had decided on an even more dramatic measure: a proclamation issued as commander in chief freeing all slaves in states waging war against the Union. As he told a member of his cabinet, emancipation had become “a military necessity…. We must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued…. The Administration must set an example, and strike at the heart of the rebellion.” The cabinet agreed, but Secretary of State William H. Seward persuaded Lincoln to withhold the proclamation until a major Union military victory could give it added force. Lincoln used the delay to help prepare conservative opinion for what was coming.
The battle at Antietam on September 17, which while not a decisive Union victory, had forced the Confederate army to retreat into Virginia. It gave Lincoln the emphasis he needed.
The Emancipation Proclamation itself was issued on January 1, 1863. Like this Preliminary Proclamation, it abolished slavery only in those places outside Union control (that is, the Confederacy).
It was the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution that abolished slavery in the United States. It was ratified in December 1865.
Walt Mossberg still likes Yahoo Mail best.
I’ve been comparing the new version of Yahoo Mail, which claims to be the leader in Web mail, with Gmail, the challenger Yahoo most fears. My verdict: The new Yahoo Mail is far superior to Gmail. Yahoo more closely matches the desktop experience most serious email users have come to expect. Gmail, by contrast, is quirky and limited. Its only advantage is its massive free storage, which exceeds what most people will ever need. …
Yahoo’s new email program would blow Gmail away if it were widely released today. That’s partly due to its features, but also to its respect for user choice.
The new version of Yahoo Mail is not yet widely available. Hotmail doesn’t even get a mention.
… of Tommy Lasorda. The former Dodgers manager is 78 today.
… of Lute Olson. The University of Arizona’s Hall-of-Fame basketball coach is 71.
… of semi-famous daughters of very famous fathers. Shari Belafonte is 51. Debby Boone is 49.
… of Joan Jett. The rocker is 47. Hey Joan, send me a digital copy of I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll.
… of Ronaldo Luiz Nazario de Lima. The Brazilian football star is 29.
And it’s also the birthday of John, official youngest brother of NewMexiKen. John is a multi-talented guy — photography (as you can see), black belt, racing cyclist, actor and world traveler.
Faced with the biggest crisis of his political life, President Bush has hit the bottle again, The National Enquirer can reveal.
Bush, who said he quit drinking the morning after his 40th birthday, has started boozing amid the Katrina catastrophe.
Family sources have told how the 59-year-old president was caught by First Lady Laura downing a shot of booze at their family ranch in Crawford, Texas, when he learned of the hurricane disaster.
His worried wife yelled at him: “Stop, George.”
NewMexiKen doesn’t actually think hurricanes are to be taken lightly, but I just couldn’t neglect reporting on this particular Pacific storm:
Hurricane Kenneth is just one of a series of tropical storms which have formed in the middle of September off the coast of Baja California. At the time of this image, it was bracketed by Hurricane Jova to the west and Tropical Storm Max to the east.— NASA
NOAA’s map showing Strike Probabilities for Rita.
“Hurricane Rita is ready to hit the gulf coast. This time President Bush is not screwing around. Today he evacuated all the crooked voting machines out of Florida.”
— David Letterman
PostSecret will make you happy, sad, nervous. It will make you laugh, and shake your head, and maybe cry.
First mentioned here in May. There are numerous new cards.
The news item Recruits Sought for Porn Squad reminds NewMexiKen of one of the things I don’t list on my résumé. I’ve already served on an FBI “porn squad.”
About 25 years ago, a lawsuit was brought against the National Archives and the FBI for violating the Federal Records Act. The Archives, it was alleged, had allowed the Bureau too much independence in deciding which records to keep. As a result of the litigation, the Court ordered the Archives to exert much more oversight. In effect, it was almost as if the Bureau couldn’t empty its wastebaskets without the Archives sifting through to make sure there were no valuable records.
Things began to pile up. Among the heaps were whole warehouses full of confiscated pirated copies of popular films and music, particularly in Los Angeles (that is, Hollywood) where I was the National Archives’ regional archivist. Ultimately I was dispatched to the Los Angeles FBI field office to “review” these tapes and affirm they were not legally records and that they could be disposed of consistent with the court order. I’d slap a cassette into the VCR, watch enough of it to attest that it was in fact just another copy of “Patton” or “The Empire Strikes Back,” sampling my way through endless boxes and palettes. Then I’d go back to the office and draft a document saying such-and-such was trash. The Deputy Archivist of the U.S. would sign it and file it with the court. We cleaned out a large warehouse this way. (Keep in mind that this was just confiscated material. A sample was retained with the case materials to serve as evidence and to provide a historical record.)
[I was not, however, allowed to apply my sampling process to the confiscated cars in the FBI garage. Even then, L.A. drug distributors drove some fancy automobiles.]
It turned out about this time that there was a big bust of audio-visual materials in Honolulu and the FBI field office there was bursting at the seams with worthless junk. “Could I go out to Hawaii for a week and help them out?” “Well,” I said, “OK, if I have to.”
But, in Honolulu, the pirated copies of popular movies were interspersed with confiscated pornography — and in those days at least, the pornography the FBI confiscated wasn’t smut. It was animals and kids and stuff. So there I was in a darkened room at the FBI offices in Honolulu putting cassettes into the VCR and sampling enough to attest that it was in fact just another pornographic film and not a federal record.
Take it from NewMexiKen, there are better ways to spend one’s time than on an FBI porn squad.
NewMexiKen has added a new page — Enchanted Places. It’s a listing — with links — of New Mexico’s top attractions.
“But if this is the end for a lame duck president, then perhaps it’s time to look at Bush: The Next Generation. After all, we are already into the second generation of Bush presidencies, and bad news does come in threes.”
