Author: NewMexiKen

Chalk talk

A history professor laments too much technology in the classroom: Professors, Stop Your Microchips.

Throughout the class the students took notes on the computers, creating a ceaseless keyboard clatter and making it difficult for anyone to hear the teacher’s voice. Worse, as they faced their screens they looked away from the professor and away from one another. The class had no sense of communal purpose, and some students scarcely gave the professor a glance.

The PowerPoint remote control didn’t work quite right at first — tinkering with it caused a delay — and students periodically whispered to one another about technical problems when they should have been learning the day’s topic.

…

I talked with the professor afterward, and he acknowledged that technology could be a distraction as well as an aid. He added that, although his was a writing-intensive class, the students didn’t like to write, and that they wrote badly. Every college teacher knows it. The current generation of students has devoted thousands of hours to mastering computers but hasn’t learned how to maintain verb-tense consistency in a sentence, hasn’t learned not to follow a singular subject with a plural verb, knows almost none of the more-advanced rules of grammar, and uses apostrophes with chaotic caprice.

Teachers’ overuse of technology sends a baleful signal to students that the machines are necessary. At a medical-history conference last year, I was the only history professor in a group of doctors. Many of them were good amateur historians, but all of them were cursed with a dependency on PowerPoint, which seems to exercise an even stronger appeal among physicians and scientists than among professors of the humanities and social sciences. Every word the doctors spoke was duplicated on a screen above their heads. It was numbingly repetitive. One speaker even spoiled what would have been a pretty good joke, giving away the punch line by bringing up the crucial PowerPoint slide too soon.

Once again NewMexiKen is reminded of the PowerPoint Gettysburg Cemetery Dedication.

Hoppy

HoppyandTopper.jpgHopalong Cassidy premiered on NBC-TV on this date in 1949. According to John Dunning’s On the Air:

One medium fed on the other, and by 1950 [William] Boyd was at the center of a national phenomenon. For two years he was as big a media hero as the nation had seen. In personal appearances he was mobbed: 85,000 people came through a Brooklyn department store during his appearance there. His endorsement for any product meant instant sales in the millions. It meant overnight shortages, frantic shopping sprees, and millions of dollars for Boyd. There were Hopalong Cassidy bicycles, rollerskates (complete with spurs), Hoppy pajamas, Hopalong beds. The demand for Hoppy shirts and pants was so great that a shortage of black dye resulted. His investment in Hopalong Cassidy paid off to an estimated $70 million.

Why a man of 52 years appealed to so many children remains a mystery. Possibly some of it had to do with the novelty of television: just as Amos ‘n’ Andy had capitalized on the newness of radio a generation earlier, a TV sensation was bound to occur. And the hero had a no-nonsense demeanor: he was steely-eyed and quick on the draw, and he meted out justice without the endless warbling and sugar-coated romance that came with the others. As for Boyd, he became Cassidy in a real sense. His personal habits changed; he gave up drinking and carousing and lived with his fifth wife until his death in 1972.

Hopalong Cassidy was NewMexiKen’s first hero. None has been as good since.

“…he just did my bust and my nose”

Miss World, the Peruvian beauty queen Maria Julia Mantilla, said Wednesday she was considering suing a plastic surgeon after he told the press he had given her buttock implants and trimmed her ears.

“The doctor is presenting photographs that have been altered and you can see, I’ve never had my ears operated on, I don’t have scars, any doctor can come and look at my ears,” an indignant Mantilla told RPP radio.

“He said he had built me, that he gave me buttock implants and fixed my ears and this is false — I’m not the creation of a surgeon, he just did my bust and my nose,” the 20-year-old said. “So I’m considering suing.”

Yahoo! News

Radio Candy Stunt Not So Sweet

This from The Smoking Gun:

A Kentucky woman who thought she won $100,000 in a radio station giveaway is suing for breach of contract after learning that her prize was actually a Nestle’s 100 Grand candy bar. According to the below June 22 Circuit Court complaint, Norreasha Gill, 28, claims that she was listening to WLTO-FM on the evening of May 25 when host DJ Slick announced that he would award “100 Grand” to the tenth caller. When Gill, the pregnant mother of three children, was that tenth caller, the radio host told her she could pick up her prize the following day at WLTO’s studio. She subsequently learned that the contest was a “joke,” according to her lawsuit, which names the radio station’s parent company, Cumulus Media, as a defendant. Gill’s lawsuit seeks the $100,000 prize and additional punitive damages.

On the face of it, could her lawsuit have any merit? It seems like typical, and rather harmless, radio fun to me.

At the pump

In case you were wondering, according to AAA, gasoline is about 25¢ more a gallon than it was a year ago, but about a dime less than it was in April.

Average nationwide price for regular yesterday: $2.18.

Oily

“As I’m sure you know by now, oil has hit a new high, $60 a barrel. In fact, the price of oil is so high that today President Bush called the Saudi prince he was holding hands with and said, ‘How about dinner and a movie?'”

“In fact, when asked today what effect these prices would have on the average car owner, President Bush said, ‘Not much because most Americans buy oil in little cans. They don’t buy the big barrels.'”

Jay Leno

Iron Mike

At The New Yorker David Remnick has a brief item on Mike Tyson and his “last” fight. An excerpt:

When he became champion, his renunciation of poverty was absolute. During one thirty-three-month period in the mid-nineties, he spent $4,477,498 on cars and motorcycles. (Over the years, he owned a red Lamborghini Countach, a Bentley with a bumper sticker reading “I ♥ Allah,” and a Lamborghini “jeep” that had been built for the Saudi king.) He spent ninety-five thousand dollars a month on jewelry and clothing, $411,777 on pigeons and cats, and an untold amount on pet lions, tigers, and “royal blood” Shar-Peis. When he was not training, he redirected his energies. For one erotic marathon, a satrap lined up twenty-four women for the night. His cultural influences were various. When all the tattooing was complete, his face was that of a Maori warrior; Mao smiled murderously from one biceps, and the pacific tennis ace Arthur Ashe was portrayed on the other. Ashe’s widow, Jeanne, once said, “If I could sue a body part, I would.”

Bulldozers given right-of-way

A divided Supreme Court ruled today that local governments may seize people’s homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth often is at war with individual property rights.

The 5-4 ruling — assailed by dissenting Justice Sanday Day O’Connor as handing “disproportionate influence and power” to the well-heeled in America — was a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They had argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.

As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax revenue.

Los Angeles Times

O’Connor sided with Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas in the minority.

Second opinion

“I never said, She responded. I said I reviewed the court videotapes — the same ones the other doctors reviewed — and I questioned, Is her diagnosis correct?

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist
Today Show
June 16, 2005

***

“I have looked at the video footage. Based on the footage provided to me, which was part of the facts of the case, she does respond.”

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist
Senate Floor Remarks
March 17, 2005

Whiskey Bar: Second Opinion

The nation’s attic

Anne Applebaum thinks they should Give This ‘Attic’ A Story To Tell. NewMexiKen recommends you go read the whole column, but here’s an excerpt:

Just about the only thing that the Museum of American History does not do, in fact, is teach anyone American history. That is, it doesn’t tell the whole American story, or even chunks of the American story, in chronological order, from Washington to Adams to Jefferson, or from Roosevelt to Truman to Eisenhower. When the museum was built in 1964, this sort of thing probably wasn’t necessary. But judging from a group of teenagers whom I recently heard lapse into silence when asked if they could identify Lewis and Clark, I suspect it’s now very necessary indeed.

Opinion polls bear out my suspicions. According to one poll, more U.S. teenagers can name the Three Stooges than the three branches of government. Even fewer can state the first three words of the Constitution. A San Francisco reporter once did an informal survey of teenagers watching Fourth of July fireworks in a park and found that only half could name the country from which the United States had won its independence. (“Japan or something, China,” said one seventh-grader. “Somewhere out there on the other side of the world.”) We’re not talking about ignorance of semi-obscure facts here: We’re talking about ignorance of basic information.

Given this yawning knowledge gap, the Museum of American History could perform a real service to its 3 million annual visitors just by telling them, in at least one or two permanent exhibitions, something about what actually happened. After all, museum visitors can see Mickey Mouse and his ilk any time. But many visitors, after their once-in-a-lifetime trip to Washington, won’t go to another history museum again. Ever.

Top 100 movie quotes

The American Film Institute announced its Top 100 movie quotes of all time. Here’s the top 10.

  1. “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” “Gone With the Wind,” 1939.
  2. “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse,” “The Godfather,” 1972.
  3. “You don’t understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I could’ve been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am,” “On the Waterfront,” 1954.
  4. “Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore,” “The Wizard of Oz,” 1939.
  5. “Here’s looking at you, kid,” “Casablanca,” 1942.
  6. “Go ahead, make my day,” “Sudden Impact,” 1983.
  7. “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up,” “Sunset Blvd.,” 1950.
  8. “May the Force be with you,” “Star Wars,” 1977.
  9. “Fasten your seatbelts. It’s going to be a bumpy night,” “All About Eve,” 1950.
  10. “You talking to me?” “Taxi Driver,” 1976.

Greatest American — The Final Five

Joel Achenbach:

      Ronald Reagan is a greater American than Franklin Delano Roosevelt or Thomas Jefferson. That is the implication of the final 5 names on this Greatest American show running on Discovery. FDR and Jefferson got voted out Sunday, along with 18 others, leaving just five people still singing: Reagan, King, Washington, Lincoln and Franklin.

      With the exception of Reagan, it’s a solid list, almost as good as the one I produced last week (I had a Fab Four of King, Washington, Lincoln and FDR, and if someone had forced me I would have let Franklin play keyboards). The slight of FDR is appalling (and consternating, and causes my gorge to rise, and gets my dander up — all sorts of things that are physically uncomfortable). FDR got us out of the Depression, Reagan got us out of a very mild Jimmy Carter malaise. FDR overcame polio and paralysis, Reagan overcame a mediocre acting career. People say that Reagan won the Cold War, but dagnabbit, FDR won a hot one. (Was WW2 so long ago that people have forgotten? As Dick Durbin would say, that was the war that was a lot like Gitmo.)

      They announce the winner on Sunday after each contestant sings one final song of his choosing. Obviously George Washington will win. Why? Because being first is his shtick. He was just that kind of guy. After that little disaster at Fort Necessity in 1754, he didn’t come in second to anyone. Look at the monument to him on the Mall and you’ll see how he’ll finish in this competition.

Summertime, and the living is easy

Summer arrived at 46 minutes after midnight Tuesday, Mountain Daylight Time.

What this means astronomically speaking is that at 06:46 Universal Time today (June 21) the northern hemisphere of the earth was tilted 23.4° toward the sun; the southern hemisphere was tilted 23.4° away.

This is best explained with an orange and a flashlight.

“By 15 to 18 months, the most common vegetable consumed is French fries”

From Bananas, Maybe. Peas and Kale? Dream On in The New York Times:

Picky eating among toddlers and preschoolers appears to be widespread. Experts say that about half of all 2-year-olds are picky eaters, and some research suggests that the pattern continues into childhood, findings that seem well supported by the collective whine of frustrated mothers.

Many nutritionists and public health scientists say eating a high-fiber diet rich in fruits and vegetables in childhood is important in preventing diseases like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, obesity and osteoporosis, a position that other experts question. The research on the developmental and long-term health effects of poor diet in young children is scant.

…

Researchers say that as onerous as it sounds, parents should expose a child to a food at least 10 times before giving up. Most parents give up after five attempts.

If the battle is staked over vegetables, experts say, give it a rest.

Mommie dearest

JUNE 8–Sometimes, we have to spend a couple of hundred words explaining certain documents. But the one below, a June 6 District Court filing from Frederick County, Maryland, explains it all for you. Here’s what Sgt. Shawn Tyler said transpired when he executed a traffic stop on Lanora Lucas:
“Did I do something wrong?”
“Yes, you did.”
“I don’t think so.”
“What about the three children you have in the trunk of the car?”

Read the police report from The Smoking Gun.

Just awful

The most fascinating thing about Mr. & Mrs. Smith, the Brad Pitt-Angelina Jolie film, is that some in the audience actually laughed. In fact some people even applauded when this horrible movie ended. (At the time I thought they were applauding the film. I now wonder if maybe they felt like me and just were applauding it being over.)

Two totally unsympathetic video game characters — professional killers, no less — attempting to kill one another; even beating each other up. Hilarious.

Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks
Or not

It was on this day in 1893 that the verdict was announced in the trial of Lizzie Borden. She was accused of murdering her father and her stepmother with an ax. It was one of the first murder trials in America that got covered by the national press because of the sensational nature of it.

Her father was the president of a bank. He was one of the richest and stingiest men in the town of Fall River, Massachusetts. He’d come home on a hot August morning, 1892, taken a nap on his couch, and about an hour later Lizzie started calling out to the neighbors that her father had been killed. The police found the stepmother upstairs was also dead. They determined the murder weapon had been some kind of hatchet.

The case against Lizzie Borden was entirely circumstantial. Nobody had seen the murders. No weapon was found. There was no physical evidence linking Lizzie to the crime. All the police could prove was that she had been in the house at the time of the murders. She had a lot of money to gain from it, and she’d recently tried to buy poison at the local pharmacy.

The trial lasted two weeks. Lizzie was found innocent. No one else was ever tried for the murder. After the trial, she bought herself a three-story mansion where she lived for the rest of her life.

The Writer’s Almanac

Big Bend National Park …

was authorized 70 years ago today. From the National Park Service:

BigBend.jpg

Big Bend is one of the largest and least visited of America’s national parks. Over 801,000 acres await your exploration and enjoyment. From an elevation of less than 2,000 feet along the Rio Grande to nearly 8,000 feet in the Chisos Mountains, Big Bend includes massive canyons, vast desert expanses, and the entire Chisos Mountain range. Here, you can explore one of the last remaining wild corners of the United States, and experience unmatched sights, sounds, and solitude.

In Big Bend National Park all roads end at the Rio Grande, the boundary between the United States and Mexico. But far more than two nations meets here. Three states come together at Big Bend: Texas in the United States and Coahuila and Chihuahua in Mexico. Many of the park’s famous, expansive vistas mix scenes belonging to both nations.

Big Bend National Park also marks the northernmost range of many plants and animals, such as the Mexican long-nosed bat. Ranges of typically eastern and typically western species of plants and animals come together or overlap here. Here many species are at the extreme limits of their ranges. Latin American species, many from the tropics, range this far north, while northern-nesting species often travel this far south in winter. Contrasting elevations create additional, varied micro-climates that further enhance the diversity of plant and animal life and the park’s wealth of natural boundaries.

Father’s Day

Today is Father’s Day, a holiday in this country that goes back to a Sunday morning in May of 1909, when a woman named Sonora Smart Dodd was sitting in church in Spokane, Washington, listening to a Mother’s Day sermon. She thought of her father who had raised her and her siblings after her mother died in childbirth, and she thought that fathers should get recognition too.

So she asked the minister of the church if he would deliver a sermon honoring fathers on her father’s birthday, which was coming up in June, and the minister did. And the tradition of Father’s Day caught on, though rather slowly. Mother’s Day became an official holiday in 1914; Father’s Day, not until 1972.

Mother’s Day is still the busiest day of the year for florists, restaurants and long distance phone companies. Father’s Day is the day on which the most collect phone calls are made.

The Writer’s Almanac

What an ass

Gov. Jeb Bush said Friday that a prosecutor has agreed to investigate why Terri Schiavo collapsed 15 years ago, citing an alleged time gap between when her husband found her and when he called 911.

Bush said his request for the probe was not meant to suggest wrongdoing by Michael Schiavo. “It’s a significant question that during this ordeal was never brought up,” Bush told reporters.

In a statement issued by his lawyer, Schiavo called the development an outrage.

CNN.com

The beginning of “Watergate”

Five men, one of whom said he is a former employee of the Central Intelligence Agency, were arrested at 2:30 a.m. [on this date in 1972] in what authorities described as an elaborate plot to bug the offices of the Democratic National Committee here.

Three of the men were native-born Cubans and another was said to have trained Cuban exiles for guerrilla activity after the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.

They were surprised at gunpoint by three plain-clothes officers of the metropolitan police department in a sixth floor office at the plush Watergate, 2600 Virginia Ave., NW, where the Democratic National Committee occupies the entire floor.

There was no immediate explanation as to why the five suspects would want to bug the Democratic National Committee offices or whether or not they were working for any other individuals or organizations.

The Washington Post