From the Los Angeles Times a gruesome, but well-told historical photo essay on the use of combat casualty photos.
From the article, Unseen Pictures, Untold Stories, which assesses the relative lack of casualty photographs from Iraq.
“Writing in a headline that 1,500 Americans have died doesn’t give you nearly the impact of showing one serviceman who is dead,” Van Hemmen said. “It’s the power of visuals.”
Selig resembled the Paul Newman character in the movie “Hud,” who after a series of beatings for his escapes from a chain gang eagerly obeyed orders. “Yes, boss. Yes, boss,” he said repeatedly with a smile. Only Luke was faking it. Selig is sincere.
It has been corrected in the online version, but they should send the writer and editor to “the box” for this one. The film with that dialogue is “Cool Hand Luke,” not “Hud.”
Juanita (Susan DuQuesnay Bankston) tells about the reaction to Nooky’s Erotic Bakery. She begins:
Most of you are familiar with our local Spirit of Freedom Republican Women. They are real; they meet monthly. They are one of the few local Republican clubs that doesn’t have a website of its own. I suspect that’s because they’re pretty much positive that the Internet is a tool of the devil, secular humanists, and Jennifer Anniston.
Go have a laugh.
Teaser on the news: “How long will the heat stick around?”
Answer from NewMexiKen: “Pretty much until September, you knuckleheads.”
Well, I thought it was funny, but then I’m easily amused.
Momentum is building to transfer federal lands in New Mexico to the heirs of Spanish and Mexican land grants.
Descendants of families who received government grants of land before New Mexico was annexed to the United States say that’s the only way to correct injustices caused when their ancestors lost control of some of their properties.
While the prospect of fencing off forests and streams now open to the public riles many who aren’t land-grant heirs, Gov. Bill Richardson and the New Mexico Legislature are urging Congress to transfer lands from the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management to land-grant heirs.
If the land is to be returned to “rightful” parties, you might want to consult with the Pueblos.
Two numbers begin and end this story.
• 5,633 — The number of students who began eighth grade in Denver Public Schools classrooms in the fall of 1999.
• 1,884 — The number of those students who graduated from a DPS high school five years later.
Read the story in the Rocky Mountain News.
The Massachusetts Legislature on Thursday repealed a 330-year-old law that barred American Indians from entering Boston and has long irked area tribes — even though it hasn’t been enforced.
Both the House and the Senate voted to strike down the 1675 law passed during King Philip’s War between colonists and area Indians, and that has remained on the books ever since.
Can’t yet locate a photo of Afleet Alex stumbling, but this is a great shot from SI.com.
Jesus’ General hits a home run. Go enjoy!
A rather interesting column from Joseph Nocera: Google This: Is Microsoft Still a Bully? He begins:
Not long ago, I went to Washington for a dinner given by a friend. She wanted to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the end of the Microsoft antitrust trial, which she had covered for a news agency and I had covered for Fortune magazine.
In all, about 10 of us made it to the dinner, and it wasn’t long before we were regaling one another about the “good old days” of the trial – laughing at the way Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson used to roll his eyes at Microsoft’s witnesses, and recalling how the superlawyer David Boies, whose daily skewering of Microsoft gave the trial most of its entertainment value, would put straws in his jacket pocket when he went out drinking with us so he could keep track of how many drinks he had.
President Bush’s meticulously stage-managed presentations on Social Security have slowly shifted into a new phase, in which White House aides find misinformed young people to share the stage with the president and assert that Social Security won’t be there at all when they retire.
And rather than correcting them on their misconception — government estimates, after all, say that after 2041 Social Security will still be able to pay at least three-quarters of currently promised benefits without any changes — Bush congratulates them on their perspicacity.
“The Air Force announced this week that it must secure outer space to protect the nation from attacks so they want President Bush’s approval of Star Wars space weapons. In fact, right after they made that announcement, Dick Cheney whispered in the president’s ear, ‘I am your father.'”
Jay Leno
Katie Brownell, we assume, doesn’t get many you-throw-like-a-girl catcalls from opposing dugouts.
Brownell, 11, pitching for her Dodgers Little League team in Oakland, N.Y., had the ultimate putdown for the boys on the opposing Yankees team in an 11-0 victory last Saturday: 18 batters up, 18 down — and all 18 via strikeouts. In fact, she didn’t even go to a three-ball count.
“As far back as I can remember, I don’t ever recall hearing of a perfect game,” Eric Klotzbach, president of the Oakland-Alabama Little League, told The Daily News of Batavia.
And her performance was no fluke, either. She threw five innings of one-hit ball — with 14 of the 15 outs strikeouts — in the season opener, and she’s hitting .714 after three games.
“She had older brothers, and we were always outside,” said her mother, Denise Bischoff, “so the minute she could pick up a ball, she was [playing].”
With rumblings that this thing could go Hollywood, Tatum O’Neal is reportedly warming up in the bullpen.
Update: Sideline Chatter’s Dwight Perry informs NewMexiKen that Miss Brownell plays in the Oakfield, N.Y., little league, not Oakland, and that she is the only girl in the league.
How much do you love Yosemite? Do you love it enough that you want it to be your final resting place?
If you’ve ever thought about being cremated and having your ashes spread over the National Park then here’s some news, you can.
Yosemite Blog tells us more.
Paris, May 21 — Lindbergh did it. Twenty minutes after 10 o’clock tonight suddenly and softly there slipped out of the darkness a gray-white airplane as 25,000 pairs of eyes strained toward it. At 10:24 the Spirit of St. Louis landed and lines of soldiers, ranks of policemen and stout steel fences went down before a mad rush as irresistible as the tides of ocean.
“Well, I made it,” smiled Lindbergh, as the little white monoplane came to a halt in the middle of the field and the first vanguard reached the plane. Lindbergh made a move to jump out. Twenty hands reached for him and lifted him out as if he were a baby. Several thousands in a minute were around the plane. Thousands more broke the barriers of iron, rails round the field, cheering wildly.
From American Heritage, a modern tour of America’s oldest highway.
In 1598 Oñate blazed the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro, a trail that became the most used and most significant route of commerce and culture for 300 years. At its peak the Camino Real ran 1,800 miles from Mexico City north to Santa Fe. Spaniards used the trail to settle towns and villages all along the way, Franciscans used it to spread their gospel, troops from the United States and Mexico used it for waging battles and building forts, Indians used it to fight the swelling tide of foreigners, and traders used it for commerce.
(Reposted from NewMexiKen, May 21, 2004)
Albuquerque made it to 90° Thursday, 93° Friday (a record for the date) and is looking for 97° today. Albloggerque claims The Evaporative Cooler As An Alter Of Manhood; personally I think they’re a pain in the behind, but I got mine running this morning and I’m grateful.
According to the National Weather Service, Albuquerque averages three days a year where the temperature reaches 100°, 22 where it reaches 95° or more, and 63 with a max of 90° or more. Three down, 60 to go.
NewMexiKen is taking today off. Last year for May 20 I did all the birthdays and some other good stuff. Take a look.
It’s a quarter to four and NewMexiKen can’t sleep. Wandering around the house in the dark just to stretch I look out and see a gold-to-orange moon setting over the city lights. That would make a wonderful photo I think.
So I get the still new Nikon out and try — foolishly, of course — to take a picture while holding the camera. After two tries I realize that isn’t working. So I get the tripod and set it up. I’m in front of the house trying to hurry. The moon is getting too low (how come it seems to move so fast when you don’t want it to?) but finally I’m ready.
Flash!
I have no idea why it flashed. Damn camera seems to have a mind of its own, one more clever than mine I fear. What I can’t figure now is why the sheriff hasn’t shown up yet to see why I’m taking flash photos outdoors at four in the morning. To pay back all the neighbors whose lights flood my yard I’d say.
The photo isn’t good — not sharp at all. But I thought you might like it. (It’s well cropped.) I’ve titled it, “The View at Four with Flash,” or “Are You Sure Ansel Adams Started This Way?”
NewMexiKen knows I’m not the only grandpa blogger, but I’ll wager I’m the only grandpa blogger whose dad makes comments on the blog.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — A pregnant student who was banned from graduation at her Roman Catholic high school announced her own name and walked across the stage anyway at the close of the program.
Alysha Cosby’s decision prompted cheers and applause Tuesday from many of her fellow seniors at St. Jude Educational Institute.
But her mother and aunt were escorted out of the church by police after Cosby headed back to her seat.
“I can’t believe something like this is happening in 2005,” said her mother, Sheila Cosby. “My daughter has been through a lot, and I am proud of her. She deserved to walk, and she did.”
The school’s guidance counselor delivered Cosby’s degree to her house earlier Tuesday, but she still wanted to participate.
“I worked hard throughout high school, and I wanted to walk with my class,” she said.
Cosby was told in March that she could no longer attend school because of safety concerns, and her name was not listed in the graduation program.
The father of Cosby’s child, also a senior at the school, was allowed to participate in graduation.
Don’t get an abortion but if you keep the baby we will shun you. Damn hypocrites.
Link via The American Street
PostSecret will make you happy, sad, nervous. It will make you laugh, and shake your head, and maybe cry.
Thanks to Musings from America’s Outback for the link.
