Idle thought

Why is it that for more than 2,000 years February has had fewer days than the other eleven months? Why is it that in the first part of the year the odd numbered months have 31 days, but then without reason the eighth, tenth and twelfth months do? Why, if Augustus stole a day from February to add to his month (August, previously Sextilis), couldn’t we move it back?

Lets take it back and call it New New Mexico

It was 150 years ago today that Congress organized the Territory of Colorado and stole the Rio Grande headwaters, the San Luis Valley, nine fourteeners, a national park and a big chunk of plains from New Mexico. Colorado was given that part of New Mexico east of the Continental Divide between 37º (the current state line) and 38º (69 miles further north).

In the House version of the bill, the new territory was called Idaho. The Senate changed it to Colorado.

The good news is, two years later, New Mexico Territory gave up what is now Arizona.

So, lose some, win some.

Here’s an 1857 map of New Mexico.

Thank you, Jill

For every year putting together an Oscar ballot with all the nominees for family and friends to make their picks. It makes a fun night all the more engaging, enjoyable and memorable.

(I had a particularly poor showing this year and I still liked picking.)

I thought it was a better Oscar show than most. I thought Anne Hathaway was terrific. And I loved the Staten Island school choir — a portrait of America for sure.

Cool

Amazon Prime — $79 a year and already well worth it for the free two-day shipping — now includes video streaming. They’ve got about 5,000 films already available. Nothing much that Netflix doesn’t have, but competition is a good thing. We are not communists.

And besides, it’s free if you already have Prime, and I have for several years.

Jeff letter prime videos revised V170740515

It’s Washington’s Birthday

No matter what the stores call their sales, the federal holiday today is Washington’s Birthday.

Washington’s Birthday was celebrated on February 22 from its Congressional approval in 1879* until legislation in 1968 designated the third Monday of February as the official day to celebrate Washington’s birthday.

The states are not obliged to adopt federal holidays, which only affect federal offices and agencies. While most states have adopted Washington’s Birthday, a dozen of them officially celebrate Presidents’ Day. A number of the states that celebrate Washington’s Birthday also recognize Lincoln’s Birthday as a separate legal holiday.

14 weeks until the next holiday.
___________

* Washington’s Birthday was the fifth federal legal holiday. Only New Year’s Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas Day preceded it. There are 10 now, but Labor Day will be eliminated soon.

Best line most days

“The most valuable lesson I learned from the year I spent in Washington…was the extent to which senior government figures have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about.”

Paul Krugman

First posted here two years ago today. Politics doesn’t attract the best and the brightest. It attracts the most emotionally needy.

Why ask why?

Last year, the government deported 393,000 people, at a cost of $5 billion. Since 2007, felony immigration prosecutions along the Mexican border have surged 77 percent; nonfelony prosecutions by 259 percent. In Ohio last month, a single mother was caught lying about where she lived to put her kids into a better school district; the judge in the case tried to sentence her to 10 days in jail for fraud, declaring that letting her go free would “demean the seriousness” of the offenses.

So there you have it. Illegal immigrants: 393,000. Lying moms: one. Bankers: zero. The math makes sense only because the politics are so obvious. You want to win elections, you bang on the jailable class. You build prisons and fill them with people for selling dime bags and stealing CD players. But for stealing a billion dollars? For fraud that puts a million people into foreclosure? Pass. It’s not a crime. Prison is too harsh. Get them to say they’re sorry, and move on. Oh, wait — let’s not even make them say they’re sorry. That’s too mean; let’s just give them a piece of paper with a government stamp on it, officially clearing them of the need to apologize, and make them pay a fine instead. But don’t make them pay it out of their own pockets, and don’t ask them to give back the money they stole. In fact, let them profit from their collective crimes, to the tune of a record $135 billion in pay and benefits last year. What’s next? Taxpayer-funded massages for every Wall Street executive guilty of fraud?

Above from a provocative piece from Matt Taibbi — Why Isn’t Wall Street in Jail. Fascinating.

A Very Long Engagement

We watched A Very Long Engagement (Un long dimanche de fiançailles) last evening, streaming from Netflix. The 2004 film stars Audrey Tautou as a young woman just after World War I convinced that her fiancé was not killed at the Somme as reported. Among the cast are future and former best actress Oscar winners Marion Cotillard and Jodie Foster.

The film is excellent — wonderfully well-acted, beautifully and creatively filmed, just enough mystery, just enough romance, a perfect ending.

Although France did not submit Un long dimanche de fiançailles for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, it was nominated for the best art direction and best cinematography Oscars. Marion Cotillard won the French César Award for best supporting actress. Audrey Tautou was nominated for the César Award for best actress, one of the three times she has been nominated (the others being Amélie and Coco Before Chanel).

The film is in French with English subtitles.