“We are no longer the nation that used to amaze the world with its visionary projects. We have become, instead, a nation whose politicians seem to compete over who can show the least vision, the least concern about the future and the greatest willingness to pander to short-term, narrow-minded selfishness.”
Today’s Photo IV
Today’s Photo III
Today’s Photo II
All in the game, yo
‘The Wire’ Monopoly Game.
Based around the journey a young gangster might take through the fictionalised Baltimore of the show, players move from corner to stoop, past institutions featured in successive series like the school system and the stevedores union, acquiring real estate, money and power before ending up at the waterfront developments and City Hall itself.
“Where the original game has ‘Community Chest’ and ‘Chance’,” McDougall continues, “we have ‘Re-up’ and ‘The Game’ which reflects the chance element of life on the streets. If you draw a ‘The Game’ card you might for instance get ‘Prop Joe calls a meet – go straight to Collington Square’ or ‘Drive-By! You get shot. Miss a go’ or even ‘Chris and Snoop are looking for you! Hide! Miss 2 goes.’”
From The Poke via kottke.org.
Well, it is the prize for Literature they won, not Peace
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That’s Mario Vargas Llosa, winner today of the Nobel Prize in Literature. The photo was taken in 1976.
And who gave Vargas Llosa the shiner you might ask. None other than Gabriel García Márquez, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1982. |
Baseball Thoughts
Our latest fav Joe Posnanski is blogging about baseball. Just different, interesting stuff — baseball tools, Halladay, ballparks.
That’s a lot line of the day
“Analysts expect Apple to sell 11 million to 12 million iPads this year, more than double many initial estimates, and reach 20 million next year.”
Line of the day
“It is the best movie I have ever seen.”
Dilbert creator Scott Adams on The Social Network.
Even less surprising line than cyclist doping lines
“For years, Lou Dobbs made millions of dollars a year sputtering in rage every night on CNN against illegal immigrants — and the employers who hired them. But then he nimbly flipped around and spent some of that cash paying undocumented workers to take care of his mansions and prize horses.”
Salon.com has the story — which actually was broken by The Nation.
October 7th
In addition to Kiley, 8 today, it’s the birthday of these fine Libras.
Mary Badham is 58 today. You know her as Jean Louise ‘Scout’ Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. She was nine going-on 10 when they made the film and she received a best supporting actress Oscar nomination. Badham has just five other film and TV credits.
Desmond Tutu is 79.
John Mellencamp is 59.
Yo-Yo Ma is 55.
Simon Cowell is 51.
Sherman Alexie was born 44 years ago today on the Spokane Indian Reservation.
He has written many novels, books of poetry, short stories, and screenplays, including The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven (1993), Reservation Blues (1995), and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007). His most recent books are Face, a book of poems published earlier this year, and War Dances, a book of short stories that just came out this week.
He wrote, “He loved her, of course, but better than that, he chose her, day after day. Choice: that was the thing.”
Alexie’s books and stories are good stuff, and the movie Alexie adapted from Lone Ranger and Tonto, Smoke Signals, is delightful.
Andy Devine was born in Flagstaff, Arizona, 105 years ago today. He grew up in Kingman, and is still their favorite son. Devine and his unusual voice were in more than 400 films, on radio and TV. I always liked Andy, but Smilin’ Ed McConnell was definitely better on Saturdays with Froggy the Gremlin and Buster Brown shoes.
June Allyson was born Eleanor Geisman in The Bronx, New York, on October 7, 1917.
The American poet James Whitcomb Riley was born in Greenfield, Indiana, on October 7th in 1849. RIley was quite successful — as poets go — much of his income from his reading tours. He is generally regarded as one of the founders of midwestern America cultural identity.
The labor leader and martyr Joe Hill was born Joel Hägglund in Gävle, Sweden, on this date in 1979. Hill was executed for murder he most likely didn’t commit in Utah in 1915 — reportedly his last word before the firing squad shot, was “Fire.” The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor has an informative narrative about Hill.
Today’s Photo
Kiley is 8 today. Her Aunt Jill took this photo in June. Happy Birthday, Kiley. For six days The Sweeties are 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.
Best baseball line of the day, so far
“And still, major league hitters come up, they swing at his cutter, the ball breaks in two inches more than they expected, they break their bat. In Las Vegas, I’ve seen David Copperfield make a car appear out of thin air, and I’ve seen Lance Burton duel someone in a costume who turns out to be Lance Burton. I’m sure I could watch those tricks 50 times and never figure out how they are done. I’m sure I could watch those tricks 100 times and never figure out how they’re done.
“But Mariano Rivera has pitched 1,150 innings in the big leagues. He has pitched another 135 or so postseason innings. He has faced almost 900 different big league hitters. And this same trick, precisely this same trick, works almost every time.”
Cigar Guy
No No
Only the second postseason no-hitter in 107 seasons. And two no-hitters this year for Roy Halladay — been 37 years since a pitcher threw two no-hitters in one season and he’s just the fifth to do it in 135 years.
Tales of a Bankrupt Culture
Sad, just sad. And disgusting.
Today’s Photo
Obviously I did not take this photo. Mail on Sunday photographer Mark Pain did. Click here to see a larger version, a subsequent photo and some explanation.
And thanks to Mike for the link!
Gesundheit
So susceptibility to cold symptoms is not a sign of a weakened immune system, but quite the opposite. And if you’re looking to quell those symptoms, strengthening your immune system may be counterproductive. It could aggravate the symptoms by amplifying the very inflammatory agents that cause them.
In any case, the supplements, remedies and cereals that claim to strengthen immunity (and thereby protect you from colds) do no such thing. It would be one thing if by some magic they made your body produce antibodies to any particular virus. But they don’t. And though some of these products contain ingredients that have been shown in studies to affect elements of the immune system, there’s scant evidence that they bolster protection against infection by cold viruses. No one knows which immune agents — other than antibodies — accomplish that.
Aurora Over Alaska
Click image for larger version and to learn more.
Nez Perce National Historic Trail
. . . was established on this date in 1986.
The 1877 flight of the Nez Perce from their homelands while pursued by U.S. Army Generals Howard, Sturgis, and Miles, is one of the most fascinating and sorrowful events in Western U.S. history. Chief Joseph, Chief Looking Glass, Chief White Bird, Chief Ollokot, Chief Lean Elk, and others led nearly 750 Nez Perce men, women, and children and twice that many horses over 1,170 miles through the mountains, on a trip that lasted from June to October of 1877.
Forced to abandon hopes for a peaceful move to the Lapwai reservation, the Nez Perce chiefs saw flight to Canada as their last promise for peace. The flight of the Nez Perce began on June 15, 1877. Pursued by the Army, they intended initially to seek safety with their Crow allies on the plains to the east. Their desperate and circuitous route as they tried to escape the pursuing white forces is what we now call the Nez Perce National Historic Trail.
Stand and deliver
Today marks the anniversary of the first American train robbery.
On October 6, 1866, thieves boarded an eastbound Ohio & Mississippi Railroad passenger train near Seymour, Indiana, and entered an Adams Express Company car. Pointing guns at Adams Express employee Elem Miller, the masked bandits demanded keys to the safes. Miller held keys for the local safe only, so the robbers emptied that safe and tossed the other off the train intending to open it later. Signaling the engineer to stop the train, the robbers, later identified as the infamous Reno brothers, made an easy get away. Unaware of what had happened, the engineer sped off into the night while the thieves congratulated themselves on a job well done.
Above from the Today in History page at the Library of Congress, which has more background about train robberies and early railroads including this excerpt from “The Early Days in Silver City” —
I happened to be riding that train. I had gone overland to Safford and Solemisvelle prospecting. I decided to come home Thanksgiving to be with my family at Silver City. I boarded the train at Wilcox. There was a large shipment of gold on the train. Just out of Steins Pass we could see a large bon-fire. One of the trainmen remarked, ‘Wonder what the big fire is, I hope we don’t run into any trouble.’ The bon-fire we discovered to our sorrow was on the R. R. Then as today curiosity got the best of some of us so we had to find out why the train came to an abrupt stop, and what the bon-fire was put on the track. We found ourselves looking into the barrel of guns.
Which sport has more action line of the day
“The total 14 minutes of action [for Major League Baseball] was about three minutes more action than one might see in a football game… .”
Amazing success line of the day
“The sales rate of the iPad after one quarter matches up with the DVD sales rate after five years.”
“Apple sold 3 million iPads within the first 80 days of launch.” Compared to one million iPhones in their first quarter; and compared to 375,000 iPods in their first year.
You can fool some of the people all of the time
“A rising number of Americans — nearly one-in-five — incorrectly believe Barack Obama is a Muslim.”
“Fully 31% [of Republicans] say Obama is Muslim, up 14 points from March 2009. An additional 39% of Republicans say they do not know Obama’s religion, up 11 points from March 2009.” [That’s 70% of Republicans.]
“Most Americans (60%) who claim Obama is a Muslim say they learned about his religion via the media.”
Burn, Baby, Burn
[A] nightmare for Gene Cranick, a rurual homeowner in Obion County, Tennessee. Cranick hadn’t forked over $75 for the subscription fire protection service offered to the county’s rural residents, so when firefighters came out to the scene, they just stood there, with their equipment on the trucks, while Cranick’s house burned to the ground. According to the local NBC TV affiliate, Cranick “said he offered to pay whatever it would take for firefighters to put out the flames, but was told it was too late. They wouldn’t do anything to stop his house from burning.”
The fire chief could have made an exception on the spot, but refused to do so. Pressed by the local NBC news team for an explanation, Mayor David Crocker said, “if homeowners don’t pay, they’re out of luck.”
This particular report is from AlterNet, which is all agitated about this example of Ayn Rand government.
But I don’t know. I figure Cranick gambled and lost. Pay and get protection. Don’t pay and take your chances.
Should the firefighters have said, “Oh, sure, Cranick, we’ll bail you out”?
I say no. I say Cranick practiced Ayn Rand government, not the fire department.