… was discovered by James W. Marshall on the property of Johann Sutter near Coloma, California, 163 years ago today. By the end of the year the rush was on; nearly 100,000 people arrived in California in 1849.
But these days, as The Gatlin Brothers sang —
All the gold in California
Is in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills
In somebody else’s name
Rosie Flores by Rosie Flores
Produced by Pete Anderson, Rosie Flores’ debut made her out to be the female answer to Dwight Yoakam. Flores probably felt like that image straitjacketed her, but from a musical standpoint, it worked beautifully, incorporating Flores’ San Antonio roots into Anderson’s California country vision. Songs include “Crying Over You,” “Somebody Loses, Somebody Wins,” and “Blue Side of Town,” which Patty Loveless wouldn’t do nearly as well the following year.
Thanks Nora.
“This Blog would like to point out that the team currently favored to win the Super Bowl is community-owned.
“Oh, noes.
“SOCIALISM!”
“Having Nat[alie Portman] in a fairly standard romantic comedy is like having Meryl Streep show up on an episode of Hot in Cleveland.
Shoebox » Tiny Little Movie Review: No Strings Attached
The whole tiny little review is amusing.
You’ll have to click. Probably not amusing if you are less than 65.
The 24th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified by the required 38th state on January 23rd just 47 years ago (1964).
Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.
Virginia ratified the Amendment in 1977, North Carolina in 1989 and Alabama in 2002. Mississippi rejected the 24th Amendment in 1962. Wyoming, Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Georgia and South Carolina have never ratified the Amendment.
Poll taxes had been imposed late in the 19th century primarily as a means of keeping African-Americans from voting. In some instances, individuals whose parents and grandparents had voted were exempt from the tax — and, of course, the parents and grandparents of nearly all black voters had been slaves.
At the time the Amendment was approved, only five states still had a poll tax in federal elections: Virginia, Alabama, Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi. A Supreme Court decision in 1966 declared poll taxes unconstitutional for state elections under the Equal Protection clause of the 14th amendment.
Bob Keeshan (Captain Kangaroo) died 7 years ago today.
Johnny Carson died 6 years ago today.
… was established on this date in 1930.
Located in the Northern Neck of Virginia, 38 miles east of Fredericksburg on Virginia Route 3, George Washington Birthplace National Monument preserves the heart of Augustine Washington’s plantation, the 17th century homesite of the immigrant John Washington, and the Washington Family Burial Ground.
George Washington’s Birthplace contains a Memorial House and dependencies constructed in 1931 near the site of the original Washington home. Here, in the peace and beauty of this place untouched by time, the staunch character of our hero comes to the imagination.
“Today is 1/23. Only 34 more years til 1/23/45.”
Three-time Oscar nominee Piper Laurie is 79. She was nominated twice for supporting actress and once for leading, The Hustler.
Two-time best actor Oscar nominee John Hurt is 71. He was nominated for his performances in Midnight Express and Elephant Man.
One-time Oscar nominee Linda Blair is 52. She was nominated as best actress in a supporting role, but she didn’t win because the Devil made her do it.
One-time best actress nominee Diane Lane is 46. I liked her best as Laurie Darlin’ in Lonesome Dove. She was 14 when she was on the cover of Time.
LBJ died on this date 38 years ago.
Washington, Jan. 22 — The Supreme Court overruled today all state laws that prohibit or restrict a woman’s right to obtain an abortion during her first three months of pregnancy. The vote was 7 to 2.
In a historic resolution of a fiercely controversial issue, the Court drafted a new set of national guidelines that will result in broadly liberalized anti-abortion laws in 46 states but will not abolish restrictions altogether.
Establishing an unusually detailed timetable for the relative legal rights of pregnant women and the states that would control their acts, the majority specified the following:
For the first three months of pregnancy the decision to have an abortion lies with the woman and her doctor; and the state’s interest in her welfare is not “compelling” enough to warrant any interference.
For the next six months of pregnancy a state may “regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health,” such as licensing and regulating the persons and facilities involved.
For the last 10 weeks of pregnancy, the period during which the fetus is judged to be capable of surviving if born, any state may prohibit abortions if it wishes, except where they may be necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.
Today’s action will not affect existing laws in New York, Alaska, Hawaii and Washington, where abortions are now legally available in the early months of pregnancy. But it will require rewriting of statutes in every other state.
. . .
First posted here six years ago.
What You’ll Wish You’d Known, a possible talk for high schoolers by Paul Graham. Interesting reading.
I’ll start by telling you something you don’t have to know in high school: what you want to do with your life. People are always asking you this, so you think you’re supposed to have an answer. But adults ask this mainly as a conversation starter. They want to know what sort of person you are, and this question is just to get you talking. They ask it the way you might poke a hermit crab in a tide pool, to see what it does.
Like Paula Poundstone, NewMexiKen thought adults asked kids what they wanted to be because the adults were still searching for ideas.
… If you’d asked me in high school what the difference was between high school kids and adults, I’d have said it was that adults had to earn a living. Wrong. It’s that adults take responsibility for themselves. Making a living is only a small part of it.
… It’s dangerous to design your life around getting into college, because the people you have to impress to get into college are not a very discerning audience. At most colleges, it’s not the professors who decide whether you get in, but admissions officers, and they are nowhere near as smart.
… If you think it’s restrictive being a kid, imagine having kids.
… What you learn in even the best high school is rounding error compared to what you learn in college.
You have to get up and at it might darn early to see the streets of Hogsmeade this empty. This iPhone photo was taken at 8:43 AM on December 16th at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter in Universal Studios Florida.
Vocals by Michelle Wright, Iris DeMent and Mairead Ni Mhaonaight.
God may forgive you, but I won’t
Yes, Jesus loves you, but I don’t
They don’t have to live with you, neither do I
You say that you’re born again, well so am I
God may forgive you, but I won’t
I won’t even try
“God May Forgive You (But I Won’t)”
Sung by Rosie Flores (Iris DeMent has a great version, too).
Words and music by Harlan Howard and Bobby Braddock.
Critic Anthony Tommasini selects The Greatest Composers – A Top 10 List. Alas, his list does not include Willie Nelson or Lieber and Stoller. It’s those same old boring Europe guys. Interesting assessments though.
“It’s not so much my coworkers as it is their ability to talk that annoys me.”
-Allyson
In a comment, Bob asked about my “favorite Mexican food restaurant” in Albuquerque.
To answer, I need to begin with some qualifiers.
First, New Mexican cuisine is distinct from Mexican, which has numerous subsets, of course. The New Mexico distinction is chiles, which while part of many Mexican dishes, are to New Mexicans like sauce is to pasta for Italian food. Hence, the state question: Red or green? Chiles are the Pueblo Indian contribution to conventional Mexican food.
Second, my favorite New Mexican restaurant isn’t in Albuquerque. It’s in Santa Fe: Maria’s New Mexican Kitchen. And I like the enchiladas at the Pink Adobe Cafe, though it has gone from one set of owners to another and just last month back to the first, so who knows.
And third, I don’t have a favorite in Albuquerque, though several are OK.
SnoLepard refers to Garduño’s, but the only one of that local chain that I particularly liked was the one on North Fourth, now closed.
I used to think that the Church Street Cafe was exceptional, but it has been disappointing lately.
El Pinto has a delightful physical ambience, especially when the weather permits dining in the courtyards. But El Pinto had become hit or miss for both the food and the service recently. In fact, most recently, it has been miss and the prices keep climbing to pay for all the vanity photos on the walls (and there is the fact that it was George W. Bush’s favorite).
Sadie’s has the hottest chiles. Monroe’s has the best prices and is always tasty. La Hacienda in Old Town was Bill Clinton’s favorite, but not mine. Some like Los Cuates, but I can’t say.
And none of these is the least bit fancy — if you count tablecloths and menus that aren’t plastic-coated as some sort of threshold for fancy.
But even so-so New Mexican food is ahh-some — it makes me hungry just writing about it. And you do understand, that the hotter the chiles the greater the reward. The capsaicinoids result in increased metabolism (also perspiration, runny nose and teary eyes). And the pain leads to a release of endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers, which reward us with blissful feelings.
Hey, they’re all my favorites.
Joe Posnanski writes about snow days, as only he can. Delightful.
Which got me to thinking. I may never have had a snow day in school. I went to high school in Tucson. It rarely snows there, and I don’t remember a snow day. I went to kindergarten through eighth grade in Michigan, but I happen to know there had never been a snow day at the school I attended for first, second, third, fifth and part of sixth grade. (I know this because the first snow day in school history was when I was a teacher at the same school.) Maybe there was a snow day the other years, but I sure don’t remember any.
Yesterday, number three page for visits: Ron Howard’s Brother
Today, so far, number two page for visits: Ron Howard’s Brother
Do you double space between sentences?
Well, you should never, ever do it.
Thanks to Jill for the pointer.
A couple of years ago I gave an external hard drive that I no longer used to my daughter Emily. Before I gave it up, I erased all the files and reformatted the drive at least once.
Recently the same hard drive became unreadable and Emily asked me to help recover her files.
Lesson 1: Never rely on one copy of ANY electronic files!
The file structure was unreadable, so I went to brute force, reading the physical hard drive file-by-file. Over 100,000 files were recovered.
Including some of mine from years ago!
Lesson 2: Erasing a disk does not erase the files — unless you use special security erasure, and even then perhaps not completely.
The recovered files do not have their former names. We have 100,000+ files with random numerical names. The files do have their extension — pdf, doc, jpg, etc.
Lesson 3: Recovering lost data is a tedious task.
“One of the more visceral details of the account involves the late Judge John M. Roll who died while apparently saving the life of Ronald Barber, a Giffords staffer. After Loughner shot Barber, Judge Roll grabs the injured man and attempts to guide him to safety while shielding Barber with his own body.”
“He lied.”
Natalie Portman, accepting the Best Actress Golden Globe for Black Swan, reminding “the audience that her baby daddy, the film’s choreographer Benjamin Millepied, played the cameo role of the dancer who said he wouldn’t sleep with her” as reported by Peter Travers.
“For instance, it’s not against the law to be the highly-compensated attorney representing the Gigantic International Megabank that recently foreclosed on an old lady in suburban New Jersey because she entered one number incorrectly on one check for one monthly mortgage payment (there actually is such a case). That’s not illegal, but if that’s how you make your living — if you paid for your S-Class Mercedes helping Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein throw old ladies out of their houses — I’m pretty sure you’re an asshole.”
Matt Taibbi in a wonderful blog post — he’s establishing a Supreme Court to rule on Assholedom — “to wit, to decide a) whether or not a certain person is an asshole, and b) if he or she is, how much of an asshole.”
