Author: NewMexiKen

Groceries online

NewMexiKen hates going to the grocery store. No particular reason; just hate it. The New York Times has an article about online grocery shopping today and the article led me to this list of Home Delivered Grocers and Food Providers.

NewMexiKen liked this exchange in the Times article —

A customer service representative named Jeff asked me what kind of a computer I was using.

“A Mac,” I said.

“That’s your problem,” he said. “We have some compatibility problems with a Mac.”

“Actually, it’s your problem,” I said. “I’m the one who’s trying to give you $205, remember?”

Is random truly random?

From The New York Times, an article on the iPod shuffle feature —

Such are the perils of using Shuffle, a genre-defying option that has transformed the way people listen to their music in a digital age. The problem is, now that people are rigging up their iPods to stereos at home and in their cars, they may have to think twice about what they have casually added to their music library.

Shuffle commands have been around since the dawn of the CD player. But the sheer quantity of music on an MP3 player like the iPod – and in its desktop application, iTunes – has enabled the function to take on an entirely new sense of scale and scope. It also heightens the risk that a long-forgotten favorite song will pop up, for better or for worse, in mixed company.

There is an unintended consequence of the allure of Shuffle: it is causing iPod users to question whether their devices “prefer” certain types of music.

NewMexiKen adapted to shuffle when he bought a CD jukebox (now two jukeboxes with 8,984 tracks on line). Howling Wolf to Mozart works, but it takes some getting used to — and occasionally use of the disc skip button.

Missed opportunity

From Dave Fairbank at the Daily Press of Newport News, Virginia —

A case can be made that [Bud] Selig’s legacy extends far beyond baseball, as well. Murray Chass, a longtime baseball writer for the New York Times, pointed out that when Selig was acting commissioner, George W. Bush was managing general partner of the Texas Rangers.

Bush told Selig that he was willing to become commissioner if the owners wanted him. In the meantime, the Texas Republican Party wanted Bush to run for governor.

Selig never gave Bush a definitive answer, Chass wrote, and Bush chose politics over baseball. Bush sold his stake in the Rangers, became governor of Texas and eventually was elected president.

Well, he was designated president by the Supreme Court, but the point is taken.

Link via The Sports Economist.

Effort counts

From The Sports Economist —

Here are the facts. President Swinton of Benedict, a historically black college in Columbia, South Carolina, instituted a grading policy whereby 60% of a freshman’s grade was to be based on “effort,” and 40% on performance. Effort is a subjective basis on which to grade, but elements which could be factored in were “attendance, completion of assignments and class participation.” One of the professors refused to change an F for a “student whose highest exam score was less than 40 percent”, claiming he could not pass a student who had clearly demonstrated he did not learn what was taught in the course.

Makes sense to me. We pay doctors and auto mechanics for effort (by the visit or by the hour) and not for results. Why not grade students that way?

Olympics

NewMexiKen agrees with the Sports Law Blog:

But in the era of OnDemand and Pay-Per-View, I hope that by 2008 there is an option to pay $100 for an “All Sports” telecast — all of the races (even the ones without Americans!) and none of the stories. I may not know about the Romanian gymnast who lost her home or the American swimmer that had a toe amputated, but that is ok by me.

Of course, I wouldn’t buy the $100 package, but I don’t watch the Olympics now either. Watching Seabiscuit a few more times is actually preferable.

Pants on fire

Like Atrios, NewMexiKen is busy fabricating a lie about one of the presidential candidates so that I can become a media star and get my 15 minutes. The media seems to make no distinction between facts (including those documented in the federal records I worked to preserve for 30 years) and every Tom, Dick and Harry’s opinion, so this should be easy.

Not as if there aren’t real issues to discuss

Eric Alterman sums it up —

It’s amazing and a bit disgusting that our election seems to be turning on a war that took place thirty years ago in which the man who served honorably both in the war and in the anti-war movement is on the defensive against the man who supported the war but took a pass on any service or sacrifice it might have involved, but there it is.

It’s more than a “bit” disgusting.

The President of the United States …

has absolutely no class.
Ranch.jpg
Or as Steve Gilliard puts it:

Yes, this was a campaign stunt, and yes, Cleland has his own grudges against these people, but a real man would have invited Cleland and Rassman up to the ranch house, gave them some sweet tea, taken the letter and let them go.

This wasn’t some guy off the street. It was a former United States Senator delivering a letter from other senators. It was going to generate publicity one way or the other. Why not have some savoir faire?

Love wins out

Julia Thorne, the first Mrs. Kerry:

When she was interviewed for the Washingtonian story [1996], Thorne said she didn’t want to get married again. However, she hadn’t totally soured on love.

“I went to a Wyoming ranch every summer and one year a man came out in the ranch truck to meet me. I saw him and I thought: ‘This man looks like a middle-aged hippie alcoholic.’ And he looked at me and thought: ‘She looks like a bitch on wheels.’ And we’ve been together ever since.”

Thorne and her husband, Richard Charlesworth, now live in Montana.

From Washingtonian Online. Link via Makes Me Ralph.

Born on this date …

in 1916, actor Van Johnson.

in 1917, actor Mel Ferrer.

in 1918, composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein (d. 1990).

in 1919, Alabama governor George Wallace (d. 1998).

in 1921, deal-maker Monty Hall.

Regis Philbin and Tom Skerritt share this birthday. They were born in 1933.

Kobe who?

From Morning Briefing:

According to Internet search engine Lycos, Kobe Bryant has lost the top spot on the list of most-searched athletes on the Internet. The new No. 1 is U.S. Olympic swimmer Amanda Beard.

Bryant dropped to sixth. Nos. 2-5: Russian gymnast Svetlana Khorkina, U.S. high jumper Amy Acuff, U.S. gymnast Carly Patterson and tennis player Anna Kournikova.

Nothing like scantily clad female Olympians to divert attention from a sexual assault case.

Walt Kelly …

was born on this date in 1913. The tribute to Kelly at The International Museum of Cartoon Art Hall of Fame reads:

Like a number of other successful newspaper cartoonists of his day, Walt Kelly learned his craft as an animator at the Walt Disney Studios between 1935 and 1941, and the Disney style was always evident in his work. After a brief stint as a comic book artist and an editorial cartoonist, Kelly launched his masterpiece, Pogo, in 1949. The strip featured a colorful cast of furry and not-so-furry creatures who inhabited the Okefenokee Swamp, including Pogo, Albert, Howland Owl, P.T. Bridgeport, Beauregard and Churchy la Femme. Out of the mouths of these innocent animals came everything from profound musings on the human condition to downright nonsense. The superb artistry, satirical humor and playful language of Pogo enchanted millions of readers and even now, years after his death in 1973, Kelly still has a loyal following.

According to the web site I Go Pogo:

Walt Kelly first used the quote “We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us” on a poster for Earth Day in 1970. … In 1971, he did a two panel version with Pogo and Porky in a trash filled swamp.
Pogo.jpg

A classic Pogo strip is published each week at Welcome to Pogo’s Website!

Caveat lector

NewMexiKen is trying to restore his blogging groove. Perhaps I need a muse. Gwyneth Palthrow comes to mind. Then there could be a movie “NewMexiKen in Love.”

In any case, this entry and the two that follow were first posted here a year ago (some minor edits).

Letter from Birmingham Jail

If you’ve never had the opportunity to read Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Letter from Birmingham Jail I encourage you to do so. It’s one of the most remarkable documents in American history.

Dr. King’s note provides some background.

Note from the author: This response to a published statement by eight fellow clergymen from Alabama (Bishop C. C. J. Carpenter, Bishop Joseph A. Durick, Rabbi Hilton L. Grafman, Bishop Paul Hardin, Bishop Holan B. Harmon, the Reverend George M. Murray. the Reverend Edward V. Ramage and the Reverend Earl Stallings) was composed under somewhat constricting circumstance. Begun on the margins of the newspaper in which the statement appeared while I was in jail, the letter was continued on scraps of writing paper supplied by a friendly Negro trusty, and concluded on a pad my attorneys were eventually permitted to leave me. Although the text remains in substance unaltered, I have indulged in the author’s prerogative of polishing it for publication.

The letter is lengthy; nine pages. It is an Adobe PDF file.

24 Angry Men

Until last August NewMexiKen was unaware there had been a 1997 remake of the 1957 classic 12 Angry Men, a movie which tells the story of jury deliberations in a murder trial. The original is superb. Directed by Sidney Lumet (Network, Serpico, The Pawnbroker) and starring Henry Fonda as the protagonist, it is well written, exceptionally well acted, and a film worth seeing again and again.

Reginald Rose’s screenplay remains remarkably intact 40 years later in the 1997 version. Produced for the cable network Showtime, the film was directed by William Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection) and stars Academy Award winners Jack Lemmon and George C. Scott. It is a surprisingly fine film in its own right, made even more compelling by comparisons with its predecessor.

 

1957

1997
Juror #1 Martin Balsam Courtney Vance
Juror #2 John Fiedler Ossie Davis
Juror #3 Lee J. Cobb George C. Scott
Juror #4 E.G. Marshall Armin Mueller-Stahl
Juror #5 Jack Klugman Dorian Harewood
Juror #6 Edward Binns James Gandolfini
Juror #7 Jack Warden Tony Danza
Juror #8 Henry Fonda Jack Lemmon
Juror #9 Joseph Sweeney Hume Cronyn
Juror #10 Ed Begley, Sr. Mykelti Williamson
Juror #11 George Voskovec Edward James Olmos
Juror #12 Robert Webber William L. Petersen

Washington burned

The invading British burned the public buildings of Washington on this date in 1814.

On August 24, 1814, as the War of 1812 raged on, invading British troops marched into Washington and set fire to the U.S. Capitol, the President’s Mansion, and other local landmarks. The ensuring fire reduced all but one of the capital city’s major public buildings to smoking rubble, and only a torrential rainstorm saved the Capitol from complete destruction. The blaze particularly devastated the Capitol’s Senate wing, the oldest part of the building, which was honeycombed with vulnerable wooden floors and housed the valuable but combustible collection of books and manuscripts of the Library of Congress, then located in the Capitol building. Heat from the intense fire reduced the Senate chamber’s marble columns to lime, leaving the room, in one description, “a most magnificent ruin.”

Source: U.S. Senate Art & History

After 26 hours in Washington, the British moved toward Baltimore, where they met with resistance and the Star-spangled banner still waved.

An observation

NewMexiKen would feel even worse about the presidential campaign sliding into the swamp if the country had any security, health care, education, environmental or economic problems that needed to be addressed.

Best lines of the day, so far

“A hypocrite is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for conservation.”

“If the Republicans will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.”

“An editor is someone who separates the wheat from the chaff and then prints the chaff.”

Attributed to Adlai Stevenson. Found at Daily Kos.