One of two forest fires burning in New Mexico is at Capitan Peak, the mountain where Smokey Bear “was found as a fire-orphaned cub clinging to a smoldering tree trunk” in May 1950.
The second and larger of the two New Mexico fires appears to have been started by a campfire in an area where campfires are currently banned.
Source: AP via the Santa Fe New Mexican
“It grows out of the suspicion that we all may be passengers in a vehicle that has made a radically wrong turn and is barreling along a dark road, with its headlights off and with someone behind the wheel who may not know how to drive.”
Bob Herbert, The New York Times
Scott Ostler in the San Francisco Chronicle reminds us that life is unfair:
— Kelli White, first-time loser, forfeits four years of victories, loses the next two years of competition, including the Olympics, loses her income, and is publicly disgraced.
— Now, if any big-time baseball player gets similarly BALCO’d, busted by hard evidence of steroid use, here is his Draconian punishment: zero fine, zero suspension, zero public disclosure, zero loss of sponsorship and endorsement money, and a paid drug treatment program. Seriously. That’s it.
*****— The bottom line at the U. of Colorado, from the board of regents: Many young women claim they were sexually assaulted, scores of young men were recruited for the football team using drugs, booze and sex, but let’s not get carried away and hold accountable any of the adults who run the system.
— Yet if a college athlete accepts a free T-shirt or a Happy Meal, he’s a felon for life.
From Morning Briefing by Larry Stewart in the Los Angeles Times:
Bill Walton, asked by CBS’ Craig Kilborn about reports that Britney Spears had a crush on his son Luke, said, “Isn’t she married?”
NewMexiKen saw Shrek 2 Sunday afternoon at a multiplex where it had to be playing on at least six screens (out of 24). Every showing was sold out in advance.
While not quite the equal of the first Shrek, 2 was delightful and warm-hearted (of course) with lots of laughs for all ages — or at least for all children and those adults able to catch the pop-culture riffs. Seeing the film in a full theater where half the audience’s feet didn’t reach the floor added to the delight. Young laughter is infectious.
Best new character — Puss-In-Boots.
Kos reports on the so-called rainy weather in Crawford.
So rain on the 13th and (barely) 14th was blamed for a Bush fall on the 22nd. As everything else, it wasn’t Bush’s fault. Nothing is Bush’s fault.
NewMexiKen did not attend his own college graduation ceremonies, so this is not entirely fair, but then this is love and war. From TBogg (news story from CNN):
President Bush wasn’t the only one who skipped the pomp and circumstance of his daughter’s graduation from the University of Texas on Saturday. Jenna Bush did not participate either.
Despite her name being listed on the commencement program, Bush was not among the more than 150 English majors receiving degrees Saturday afternoon at the Austin campus. Attendance at the event is not required to graduate from the university.[…]
A White House spokeswoman said she did not know why Jenna Bush did not attend the commencement but added that the administation declines to comment on matters related to the president’s daughters.
Jenna claims that she instead attended graduation ceremonies at the University of Alabama…but no one remembers seeing her there.
From Talk Left
Dixie Shanahan’s story isn’t pretty. Her husband beat her for three days, angry that she became pregnant with their third child. He responded to her refusal to get an abortion by repeatedly punching her in the stomach. When she fled, her husband dragged her back into the house, pointed a shotgun at her and threatened to kill her.
At some point, Shanahan shot her husband. Whether she did so in response to another threatening move, or shot him in his sleep, was disputed at her trial. An Iowa jury convicted her, and a judge imposed a mandatory 50 year sentence. The judge didn’t think the sentence was fair under the circumstances, but mandatory sentencing laws gave him no discretion.
The sentence, said Shanahan’s attorney, was like one last beating.Mandatory sentencing laws often lead to injustice.
But then, justice has become a rarer commodity since the "get tough on crime" movement swept the nation during the Reagan years. Declaring the courts too soft on crime, state legislators around the country decided that judgment was too important to be left to judges. They enacted mandatory sentencing guidelines that were supposed to produce tougher and more uniform sentences. Instead, those guidelines produce travesties.It will be 35 years before Shanahan is eligible for parole.
From AP via The Durango Herald:
Months ago, national fire managers predicted the 2004 wildfire season would be a bad one. Now, they’re changing their forecast: It’s going to be worse.
With unseasonably warm temperatures in March and April, the potential loss of heavy airtankers for safety reasons and a years-long drought continuing, Western states and the federal government are grimly facing the possibility of another devastating fire season.
known to us better as Scatman Crothers, was born on this date in 1910. Crothers is best remembered as the permissive orderly in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the concerned chef in The Shining and as Louie the Garbage Man on the TV show Chico and the Man. He was also a successful composer and singer and did a number of cartoon voices. The nickname Scatman came from his scat singing.
Crothers died in 1986.
Wednesday May 23rd 8 Indians Kick: [Kickapoo] Came to Camp with meat we recved their pesents of 3 Deer & gave them Whisky:
The beginning of Clark’s entry for this date, 1804
The Political Compass uses six pages of questions (3-5 minutes) to evaluate your political/economic attitudes and place you on a four-dimensional chart. It’s interesting, and more thoughtful and thorough than most of these things. As the authors point out: “The old one-dimensional categories of ‘right’ and ‘left’, established for the seating arrangement of the French National Assembly of 1789, are overly simplistic for today’s complex political landscape.”
NewMexiKen is proud to report that I was positioned somewhere in the territory of Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama.
Also take a look at their Iconochasms. Your heroes may surprise you, as mine did me somewhat.
Thanks to Byron and Jill for the pointer.
Beer floats worth rooting for, an uncertain summer taste treat.
First posted by NewMexiKen last August.
“[L]ovemaking and fishing don’t manage to dominate your life like you wish they could.”
Narrator David Burkett in True North by Jim Harrison
Clyde Champion Barrow and Bonnie Parker were shot to death in an ambush near Sailes, Bienville Parish, Louisiana, on this date 70 years ago. The FBI has a web page with details about Bonnie and Clyde, including a photo of each.
Not exactly Warren Beatty, Faye Dunaway and Gene Hackman (who portrayed Clyde’s brother Buck). All three were nominated for an acting Oscar, as was Michael J. Pollard. Estelle Parsons, who played Buck’s wife Blanche in the 1967 film, won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar.
was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor on this date in 1900 — for duty performed nearly 37 years earlier at Fort Wagner, S.C. Sergeant Carney was the first African-American to receive the Medal of Honor.
Carney was a member of the 54th Massachusetts Colored Infantry, the regiment whose story was told in the film Glory (1989) with Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman and Matthew Broderick. Carney was not portrayed in the film by name.
The citation for Carney’s Medal of Honor reads: “When the color sergeant was shot down, this soldier grasped the flag, led the way to the parapet, and planted the colors thereon. When the troops fell back he brought off the flag, under a fierce fire in which he was twice severely wounded.”
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police were established on this date in 1873 as the North-West Mounted Police. The RCMP web site has an extensive history that begins:
On May 23, 1873, the Dominion Parliament passed an act to provide for the establishment of a “Mounted Police Force for the Northwest Territories”. The Force was recruiting men between the ages of 18 and 40, of sound constitution, able to ride, active, able-bodied and of good character. The pay was set at 75 cents per day for sub-constables, $1.00 for constables. Furthermore, the men were required to “be able to read and write either the English or French language.”
The Command was to be divided into Troops. The Commanding Officer was to be termed “Commissioner”. The term of service was set at three years. The Force was to be a paramilitary body. Its immediate objectives: to stop liquor trafficking in the North-west; to gain the respect and confidence of the natives; to collect customs dues; and to perform all the duties of a police force.
ratified the U.S. Constitution on this date in 1788, thereby becoming the eighth state.
Timothy Egan has an informative and at times moving front page piece in The New York Times on illegal border crossings in the Sonoran Desert. He begins:
At the bottleneck of human smuggling here in the Sonoran Desert, illegal immigrants are dying in record numbers as they try to cross from Mexico into the United States in the wake of a new Bush administration amnesty proposal that is being perceived by some migrants as a magnet to cross.
“The season of death,” as Robert C. Bonner, the commissioner in charge of the Border Patrol, calls the hot months, has only just begun, and already 61 people have died in the Arizona border region since last Oct. 1, according to the Mexican Interior Ministry — triple the pace of the previous year.
Nearly 300,000 persons have been apprehended between Yuma and Nogales since October 1.
“It’s like catch-and-release fishing,” Mr. Stroud, the Border Patrol agent, said with a shrug after helping Mr. García with his blisters. “One week, I arrested the same guy three times. If I dwell on it, it can be frustrating.”
“Michael Moore gets Cannes’ top prize for his ‘Fahrenheit 9/11,’ a documentary that is an indictment of the Bush administration.” See Los Angeles Times critic Kenneth Turan’s article.
Read Frank Rich’s review of the film [mentioned Friday by NewMexiKen].
Abba To Zappa. Take the quiz.
Marlee MacLeod’s “In Other News…”
I’ve been wondering…do you think the Romans watching various events at the Coliseum did the Wave?
There’s really no reason they couldn’t have, right?
Stephen W. Terrell reports from Santa Fe that, “My friend Dana has a friend Robin who always thought Crystal Gayle’s biggest hit was called the above.”
Democratic Senator Selector. Answer 10 questions to see whioh Democratic Senator most supports your positions. Not all Democratic Senators included, but Zell Miller is, so Republicans may find someone simpatico.
NewMexiKen agreed 100% with Hawaii’s Daniel Inouye and New Jersey’s Jon Corzine.
Link via Burnt Orange Report.
“Being called partisan and vindictive by Tom DeLay is like being called ugly by a frog.”
Travis County (Texas) District Attorney Ronnie Earle, February 24, 2004
Thanks to Juanita’s for the link.