Author: NewMexiKen

Best picture

The Daily Howler’s Bob Somerby has his list:

Finding Neverland. Could anyone makes a duller film bio?

The Aviator. Omigod! Somebody did!

Sideways. As Quinn observes, a classic male fantasy. Creates modern film’s most soulful character. Instantly drops her like a rock.

Million Dollar Baby. A well-wrought tone poem. But what’s up with Clint’s now-repetitive gloomy tone? Explanation: It’s all about Clint! At the end, he rides off silently into the west, the way the big stars always do. Mopping up for the final time, Morgan Freeman gives the closing narration.

Ray. We thought this film was loaded with merit, but a bit short of a Best Picture.

Two we thought were better:

Maria Full of Grace. The most fascinating study of manners and morals we have seen in quite a long time. And then, of course:

Hotel Rwanda. No, [it] isn’t great film art, something we especially noticed on second viewing. But the importance of Hotel Rwanda’s meditation dwarfs that of the five nominees combined. With most films, we find ourselves wondering why anyone bothered to make it. In the case of the dissed Hotel, no one is likely to ask.

It’s not just me

Sally Quinn didn’t like Sideways either.

Imagine, if you can, a movie about two unattractive, gross women slobs going on a week-long spree and ending up with Brad Pitt and Ben Affleck. Imagine that becoming a hit, nominated for five Academy Awards, acclaimed by critics.

Wait, don’t even try. It ain’t gonna happen.

“Sideways,” the low-budget Oscar contender, is a guys’ movie that celebrates a certain cultural fantasy: Set off on a drinking-carousing-debauching adventure for a week with your buddy, seduce two great-looking girls and then dump them and go home. What fun!

The reviews were fabulous, and then Charles Krauthammer wrote a whole column about it on the op-ed page, calling it “sublime . . . intelligent . . . clever, funny, moving.” He concluded, “Trust me on this one. See it.”

I did. I hated it. And it wasn’t just me. Most of the women I know feel the same way.

Read the rest of Ms. Quinn’s critique.

You have the right to remain sober
Should you give up that right …

From Santa Fe New Mexican:

A 40-year-old Santa Fe woman who made headlines a month ago after provoking a three-hour police standoff showed up to court Friday morning loaded with drunken invective and was carted back to jail.

“She was screaming crazy nonsense,” said Tom Clark, an attorney who was in the crowded courtroom at the time.

Tracy Kope — whose breath-alcohol content Friday was nearly four times the legal limit for driving [0.29] — was scheduled to be arraigned on charges of aggravated assault and tampering with evidence stemming from a Jan. 20 standoff with police on Santa Fe’s southwest side.

It’s the birthday

… of Betty Hutton. The actress is 84.

… of Antoine “Fats” Domino. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer is 77.

… of Mitch Ryder. He’s 60. No report on the ages of the Detroit Wheels.

… of Michael Bolton. The singer is 52. The computer programmer’s age isn’t known.

… of Jennifer Grant. Cary Grant and Dyan Cannon’s daughter is 39.

It’s just a game

From The New York Times:

Temple suspended its men’s basketball coach, John Chaney, for the remainder of the regular season on Friday, three days after he ordered a player to commit hard fouls that resulted in a potentially career-ending broken arm for a senior forward at city rival St. Joseph’s.
…

This was the second time that Chaney has been suspended. In 1994, he was barred for one game after threatening to kill Massachusetts Coach John Calipari during an argument after a game.

Sideways

This afternoon NewMexiKen saw the fourth of the five relatively depressing films nominated for the Best Picture Oscar — Sideways. While well written and well acted, this film disappointed. Perhaps there was just too much praise when it was first released — or perhaps I’m just unsophisticated. It would rank fourth among the four I’ve seen. It wouldn’t have made my five best list.

Thomas Haden Church has been nominated for the best supporting actor Oscar for his performance as Jack in this film. I don’t get it. While good, and funny, it seemed to me as if Mr. Church was playing the actor who played the part of Lowell Mather in the TV series Wings.

Virginia Madsen has also been nominated for a best supporting Oscar for her performance as Maya. Ms. Madsen was fine, but it’s almost as if she was nominated because Maya is just so damn appealing.

Paul Giamatti on the other hand was excellent and, I think, deserving of an Oscar nomination. He didn’t get one.

His Excellency

NewMexiKen has completed reading Joseph J. Ellis’ His Excellency: George Washington, a first class biographical study.

In effect, there were two distinct creative moments in the American founding, the winning of independence and the invention of nationhood, and Washington was the central figure in both creations. No one else in the founding generation could match these revolutionary credentials, so no one else could plausibly challenge his place atop the American version of Mount Olympus. Whatever minor missteps he had made along the way, his judgment on all the major political and military questions had invariably proved prescient, as if he had known where history was headed; or, perhaps, as if the future had felt compelled to align itself with his choices. He was that rarest of men: a supremely realistic visionary, a prudent prophet whose final position on slavery served as the capstone to a career devoted to getting the big things right. His genius was his judgment.

Highly recommended.

Enrico Caruso …

was born in Naples on this date in 1873. The Writer’s Almanac had this to say about Caruso two years ago:

It’s the birthday of tenor Enrico Caruso, born in Naples, Italy (1873), the eighteenth of twenty-one children and the first to survive past infancy. He was determined to become a singer, but several teachers told him he had neither voice nor talent. He finally persuaded one teacher to let him observe other students’ lessons; eventually he was given his own private classes. Legend has it that when the young tenor was asked to sing as Rodolfo in La Bohème, he first had to get permission from Puccini himself. After listening to Caruso sing a few pages, Puccini allegedly leapt from his chair and cried, “Who sent you to me? God!?!” In 1902, Caruso made his debut in Rigoletto at London’s Covent Garden, and the following year at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He was engaged there continually for the next eighteen years. Caruso has often been called the greatest tenor of the twentieth century, known for his brilliant high notes and his dramatic interpretations. He was immensely popular, partly because he was the first major tenor to be recorded on gramophone records.

NewMexiKen had this about Caruso last year.

John Foster Dulles …

was born on this date in 1888. Dulles was Secretary of State under Eisenhower from 1953 until April 1959. He is the person for whom Washington Dulles International Airport is named.

Unbiased opinion

From The New York Times:

Ten of the 32 government drug advisers who last week endorsed continued marketing of the huge-selling pain pills Celebrex, Bextra and Vioxx have consulted in recent years for the drugs’ makers, according to disclosures in medical journals and other public records.

If the 10 advisers had not cast their votes, the committee would have voted 12 to 8 that Bextra should be withdrawn and 14 to 8 that Vioxx should not return to the market. The 10 advisers with company ties voted 9 to 1 to keep Bextra on the market and 9 to 1 for Vioxx’s return.

The votes of the 10 did not substantially influence the committee’s decision on Celebrex because only one committee member voted that Celebrex should be withdrawn.

A gift

Via The New York Times:

CHICAGO (AP) — A man who says his former lover deceived him by getting pregnant using semen obtained through oral sex can sue for emotional distress — but not theft, an appeals court has ruled.

Dr. Richard O. Phillips accuses Dr. Sharon Irons of a “calculated, profound personal betrayal” six years ago, but she says they had the baby through sexual intercourse.

The Illinois Appeals Court said Wednesday that Phillips can press a claim for emotional distress after alleging Irons had used his sperm to have a baby, but agreed that however the baby was conceived, Irons didn’t steal the sperm.

“She asserts that when plaintiff ‘delivered’ his sperm, it was a gift,” the decision said. “There was no agreement that the original deposit would be returned upon request.”

Impeachment

The House of Representatives voted 126-47 to impeach President Andrew Johnson on this date in 1868. The New York Times report on the vote begins:

The first act in the great civil drama of the nineteenth century is concluded. Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, stands impeached of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” It is of no use to argue whether his acts were right or wrong, whether the law he violated is constitutional or otherwise, or whether it is good or bad policy to proceed to this extreme. The House of Representatives, with a full realization of all the possible consequences, has solemnly decided that he shall be held to account in the manner prescribed by the Constitution for his alleged misdemeanors, and, be the result what it may, the issue is made. It must be met without delay, and the first step is already complete.

As the War ended in 1865, there were essentially two different approaches to Reconstruction. The first, shared by Lincoln and Johnson, was that the southern states had not left the Union. There had simply been a rebellion by their citizens. The Union’s purpose in the war had been to end the rebellion, replace the southern leaders and restore the state governments, albeit with freedom for all, black and white. The second approach took the view that the south was a conquered nation to be governed by the federal government. This view was held by many Republicans in Congress.

Johnson was a Democrat and slave-owner from Tennessee selected to run with the Republican Lincoln in 1864 in hopes of attracting pro-Union, pro-war Democratic votes. Johnson was far less inclined than Lincoln to support the former slaves or demand much from the new southern governments. He vetoed Freedmen’s Bills (which were passed over his vetoes) and he openly opposed the Fourteenth Amendment. The Reconstruction Act of 1867 was also passed over Johnson’s veto. It established military governments in the south.

Ultimately, when Johnson attempted to remove Secretary of War Stanton (the official charged by Congress with carrying out the Reconstruction Act) the House voted to impeach.

The trial was held in the Senate in the spring of 1868. The Senate voted 35-19 to remove Johnson from office, but 36 votes were required. He completed his term as President (until March 1869) and was elected U.S. Senator from Tennessee in 1875, but served only five months before he died.

The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson has contemporary reports from Harper’s Weekly.

A pregnant moment

Amy, official niece of NewMexiKen, was in a minor traffic collision yesterday. A gentleman Amy describes as “this ancient, tiny, little, old man” was let into traffic by a good samaritan and, while waving to his benefactor, he ran right into Amy.

As Amy tells it:

The funny thing was there was an ambulance right next to me in the 2nd lane. They saw everything (even though there was no damage, my car was quite jostled at the time – it was apparent that something had happened). So they turned on their lights and pulled over and jumped out to make sure everything was ok. You should have seen everyone’s reaction when I got out of the car and they saw my belly. [Amy’s baby is due in May.] They were all hustling around, “Do you need to sit down? Do you need a drink? Do you want us to call the police? Maybe you should lay down.” I thought the little old man was gonna have a heart attack right there. I was amused. Sometimes the belly comes in handy.

Well since there was no damage we exchanged info and such and I sent [the man] on his way. He was very grateful that I was nice about it but really I guess he caught me in a non-hormonal moment.

Worth knowing

Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

From the text of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary, approved by President John Adams and unanimously ratified by the United States Senate without debate in 1797. This language does not appear in the original Arabic version of the Treaty. How it was added is not known, but it was ratified.

All wet

It’s now officially the wettest January-February in Albuquerque ever, edging out the record set in 1863, and with more rain possible through Sunday.

Update: NewMexiKen needs to point out that “wettest ever” here means just 3.16 inches over almost eight weeks.

Strangers in the night

A good friend’s mother was prescribed a new painkiller Monday. That night she thought she heard a burglar, then saw a woman sitting on her porch. She called the police. A grandson came over as well to make certain everything was OK.

The second night (Tuesday night/Wednesday morning), the mother heard the morning paper arrive before 5. She went out and the same woman she’d seen on the porch the night before went past her into the house and sat on the couch. Then the stranger went into the bathroom. The friend’s mother called the police. When they arrived the stranger was gone. It was clear to the police my friend’s mother was seeing things.

Turns out that one reported side effect of the new painkiller is hallucinations. The mother stopped taking the pills and no strangers arrived last night. Certain as she was that the stranger was there when she called the police (something she may never have done before in 80+ years), she now recognizes it must have been the pill. She’s fine.

NewMexiKen is thinking however, of getting a presecription to this drug. I figure after three or four nights I might be able to hallucinate someone coming in and cleaning the bathroom.