Best line of last night

“I ask the citizens of Santa Fe,” he said, “Shall we now send Zozobra to his fiery death?”

“Burn him,” they shouted.

The Santa Fe New Mexican has photos and video of last night’s 86th annual Burning of the Zozobra, Old Man Doom and Gloom.

I wasn’t there this year, but I’ve decided all my gloom and doom were torched anyway. 😀

Zozobra is a hideous but harmless fifty-foot bogeyman marionette. He is a toothless, empty-headed facade. He has no guts and doesn’t have a leg to stand on. He is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. He never wins. He moans and groans, rolls his eyes and twists his head. His mouth gapes and chomps. His arms flail about in frustration. Every year we do him in. We string him up and burn him down in ablaze of fireworks. At last, he is gone, taking with him all our troubles for another whole year. Santa Fe celebrates another victory. Viva la Fiesta!

Zozobra.com

Burning the Zozobra began in 1924. The Santa Fe Fiesta originated in 1712. My photo is from 2008.

9-10

Today is the birthday

… of Arnold Palmer. Arnie is 81 today. The family story is that Palmer came on to her when he met our mom about 50 years ago when she was 35 (and had a 15-year-old future blogger son).

… of Jose Feliciano. He’s 65. Feliciano was one of the first to stylize The Star Spangled Banner, giving it a Latin touch at Tiger Stadium during the 1968 World Series.

… of Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Bob Lanier. He’s 62.

… of Amy Irving. She’s 57. Ms. Irving was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar for her performance in Yentl.

… of Colin Firth. He’s 50.

… of future Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Randy Johnson. He’s 47.

And it’s the birthday of Roger Maris, born on this date in 1934. The following is from The Official Roger Maris Web Site:

Roger and teammate Mickey Mantle entertained baseball fans throughout the summer of ’61 as the two New York Yankee sluggers chased the record many called the most cherished in all of sports. Mickey dropped out of the home run race early due to an illness, but finished with a career high 54 home runs. Roger tied Ruth on September 26, hitting his 60th home run. He then hit his 61st home run on the final day of the season, October 1, 1961, against the Boston Red Sox to set a new record. The Yankees won the game, 1 to 0, and later went on to win the World Series.

Roger was voted the Most Valuable Player in the American league for the second straight year, as he led the league in home runs and RBI’s. He was also named the 1961 Associated Press’ Male Athlete of the Year.

During his career, Roger Maris played in seven World Series and seven All-Star games. He hit 275 career home runs and won the Gold Glove Award for outstanding defensive play. The New York Yankees retired his number “9” in 1984.

Roger Maris is not in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Stephen Jay Gould evolutionary biologist and science historian was born on this date in 1941.

He campaigned against the teaching of creationism, but wasn’t anti-religious. Gould once said, “If there is any consistent enemy of science, it is not religion, but irrationalism.” He argued that science and religion shouldn’t be viewed as opposed to each other, but simply distinct from each other: non-overlapping disciplines that shouldn’t be used to try to explain aspects of the other. The National Academy of Sciences adopted his stance, saying officially a decade ago: “Demanding that they [religion and science] be combined detracts from the glory of each.”

Among his best-known works are the treatises The Mismeasure of Man (1981), Full House (1996), and Leonardo’s Mountain of Clams and the Diet of Worms (1998). He taught at Harvard for most of his life, and later at NYU.

Stephen Jay Gould died from cancer in 2002 at the age of 60. Published posthumously were his books The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister’s Pox: Mending the Gap between Science and the Humanities (2003) and Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville: A Lifelong Passion for Baseball (2003).

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

The Mountain Meadows Massacre was on September 10, 1857.

It was on September 10, 1813, that Oliver Hazard Perry sent the message, “We have met the enemy, and they are ours.” The enemy was a British fleet. Perry’s fleet had defeated it in the Battle of Lake Erie.

John Smith was elected president of Jamestown 402 years ago today.

Redux post of the day

From two years ago. Figures may need slight updating, but basics remain.

Primer on deficit and debt

What’s the difference between the federal deficit and the federal debt?

The federal deficit is the amount the federal government goes in the red during each fiscal year (October 1 through September 30). This fiscal year it is expected to be around $407,000,000,000 (that’s $407 billion).

The federal debt is the total amount from all the deficits (and surpluses, such as FY 2000) over the years. It gets higher most years because the deficit is greater than the amount of debt that is paid off during the year. The debt at present is about $9,650,000,000,000 (that’s $9.65 trillion).

To whom is the debt owed?

About half is owed to the government itself. The Social Security Trust Funds, for example, hold about $2.24 trillion (23%) of the federal debt.

About a quarter of the federal debt is owed to foreign governments and institutions, foremost Britain ($280B), Japan ($584B) and China ($504B). And we owe Ecuador, Venezuela, Indonesia, Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Gabon, Libya, and Nigeria about $170B combined. (Guess where they got that money to invest in our Treasury securities.)

The remaining quarter is owed to the American public through mutual funds, pension funds, banks, insurance companies, etc., in the form of treasury securities — treasury bills, bonds, notes. If you are in a money market mutual fund or have savings bonds, you are carrying part of the federal debt.

Interest paid all those creditors this fiscal year is about $455 billion.

Idle thought

Anyone seen any of the 2010 quarters depicting Hot Springs National Park, Yellowstone National Park, Yosemite National Park, Grand Canyon National Park or Mount Hood National Forest?

New Mexico’s Quarter will depict Chaco Culture National Historical Park in 2012. The coins are being issued in chronological order based on the date the park or site was authorized. The Grand Canyon and Mount Hood quarters haven’t been released yet this year.

Best line of the day, so far

The basic position here is that people on the right favor high-end tax cuts that will worsen the deficit, while at the same time demanding both immediate fiscal austerity and cuts to Social Security, in the name of deficit reduction.

They justify their tax cuts/austerity position by arguing that what’s important is holding down current deficit numbers, never mind the 10-year outlook.

Meanwhile, they declare that it’s urgent that we act now to lock in cuts in Social Security benefits that won’t take place for decades.

Why, it’s almost as if they’re grabbing any argument at hand to justify spending cuts for the middle class and tax cuts for the rich, regardless of the inconsistency.

Paul Krugman

Now you don’t see that everyday

Trailing Cincinnati 5-0 after two innings, the Rockies game back to tie the game 5-5 in the eighth on Tulowitzki’s leadoff home run. Giambi walked and Chris Nelson went in to run, getting to third on a throwing error.

And then, with one out, Nelson stole home.

Rockies 6 Reds 5. Sweep.

Here’s the video.

Nelson spent most of the season with the Colorado Springs Sky Sox. It was his first Major League stolen base.

Line of the day

“Anyone who says to you, ‘As long as you’re safe, that’s only stuff you’ve lost,’ doesn’t understand. That stuff is valuable. Most of what we value is in our homes,” he said. “You don’t just lose stuff, you lose mementos, keepsakes, photos and memories that help define your life. It is irreplaceable.”

Gone are the shoes that are perfectly broken in or the favorite sweater that you always looked your best in or cherished family recipes, Rosenthal said. He lost the sports coats that once belonged to his father.

Fourmile Fire – Boulder Daily Camera

Latest reports state 169 homes have been burned. Residents in some areas were allowed to return today but are encouraged to evacuate again tonight in advance of a forecast for 50 mile-per-hour winds.

Gail Collins, two for two

“The governor [Mississippi’s Haley Barbour] claimed that Americans had been particularly deprived of information on Obama’s youth, while they knew a great deal about the formative years of the other chief executives all the way back to the way the youthful George Washington ‘chopped down a cherry tree.’

“Let us reconsider the above paragraph in light of the fact that while Obama wrote an entire book about his childhood, Washington never chopped down the cherry tree.”

Gail Collins

Ninth Day Ninth Month

Cliff Robertson is 87. Robertson won the best acting Oscar in 1969 for Charly. Most recently he played Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben.

Joe Theismann is 61. Allegedly his name was pronounced Thees-man until he went to Notre Dame and they realized that Thighs-man rhymed with Heisman (as in the Trophy). No, really. (Theismann was runner-up to Jim Plunkett of Stanford for the Heisman in 1970.) NewMexiKen was at RFK that Monday night in 1985 when Lawrence Taylor broke Theismann’s leg.

Once-upon-a-time child star Angela Cartwright is 58. She was Danny Thomas’s step-daughter, Brigitta in Sound of Music, and Penny Robinson in Lost in Space.

Hugh Grant is 50. Is it just me, or do he and Phil Mickelson have the same goofy look?

Adam Sandler turns 44 today.

Best supporting actress nominee for Brokeback Mountain, Michelle Williams is 30.

Otis Redding was born on this date in 1941.

Though his career was relatively brief, cut short by a tragic plane crash, Otis Redding was a singer of such commanding stature that to this day he embodies the essence of soul music in its purist form. His name is synonymous with the term soul, music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of funky, secular testifying. Redding left behind a legacy of recordings made during the four-year period from his first sessions for Stax/Volt Records in 1963 until his death in 1967. Ironically, although he consistently impacted the R&B charts beginning with the Top Ten appearance of “Mr. Pitiful” in 1965, none of his singles fared better than #21 on the pop Top Forty until the posthumous release of “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay.” That landmark song, recorded just four days before Redding’s death, went to #1 and stayed there for four weeks in early 1968.

— Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Redding wrote the song known as Aretha Franklin’s signature hit, “Respect.”

Try a Little Tenderness

Tolstoy was born 182 years ago today.

Elvis Presley’s first famous TV appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show was 54 years ago tonight.

And the Compromise of 1850 was put in place 160 years ago today with the admission of California as the 31st state and the creation of New Mexico and Utah territories.

Two country music immortals

… were born on September 8th.

Jimmie Rodgers, considered the “Father of Country Music,” was born in Meridian, Mississippi, on September 8, 1897. He died from TB in 1933. Jimmie Rodgers was the first person inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and among the first inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

James Charles Rodgers, known professionally as the Singing Brakeman and America’s Blue Yodeler, was the first performer inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He was honored as the Father of Country Music, “the man who started it all.” From many diverse elements—the traditional melodies and folk music of his southern upbringing, early jazz, stage show yodeling, the work chants of railroad section crews and, most importantly, African-American blues—Rodgers evolved a lasting musical style which made him immensely popular in his own time and a major influence on generations of country artists.

Blue Yodel No. 9

Patsy Cline, the most popular female country singer in recording history, was born in Winchester, Virginia, on September 8, 1932. She died in a plane crash in 1963. Patsy Cline is an inductee of the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Cline is invariably invoked as a standard for female vocalists, and she has inspired scores of singers including k. d. lang, Loretta Lynn, Linda Ronstadt, Trisha Yearwood, and Wynonna Judd. Her brief career produced the #1 jukebox hit of all time, “Crazy” (written by Willie Nelson) and her unique, crying style and vocal impeccability have established her reputation as the quintessential torch singer.

Crazy

Fort Davis National Historic Site (Texas)

. . . was established on this date in 1961.

Set in the rugged beauty of the Davis Mountains of west Texas, Fort Davis is one of America’s best surviving examples of an Indian Wars’ frontier military post in the Southwest. From 1854 to 1891, Fort Davis was strategically located to protect emigrants, mail coaches, and freight wagons on the Trans-Pecos portion of the San Antonio-El Paso Road and the Chihuahua Trail, and to control activities on the southern stem of the Great Comanche War Trail and Mescalero Apache war trails. Fort Davis is important in understanding the presence of African Americans in the West and in the frontier military because the 24th and 25th U.S. Infantry and the 9th and 10th U.S. Cavalry, all-black regiments established after the Civil War, were stationed at the post.

National Park Service

Best story of the day

This reminds me of my favorite unlucky criminal of all time — a guy in Spain who tried to steal the luggage of hurdler Larry Wade. At the time, Maurice Greene was the fastest man on earth, and he was there, and he chased after the criminal and caught him and got Larry’s luggage back. It always struck me that the criminal was sitting in a jail cell muttering, “Yeah, of course, my luck, MAURICE GREENE had to be there. If it had been anyone else, I get away. If even the second-fastest man in the world was there, I outrun the guy. But, no, it had to be Maurice Greene.”

Joe Posnanski

If you like baseball read this article and the related one. Best line in the article listing the 32 fastest pitchers is this:

“Lefty Grove could throw a lamb chop past a wolf.”

I had to hold off from including about a dozen more great lines.

The line of the day

“[F]rom 1980 to 2005, more than 80 percent of total increase in Americans’ income went to the top 1 percent.”

Timothy Noah, beginning a series at Slate Magazine on The Great Divergence:  Trying to understand income inequality, the most profound change in American society in your lifetime. To elaborate:

. . . Economic inequality is less troubling if you live in a country where any child, no matter how humble his or her origins, can grow up to be president. In a survey of 27 nations conducted from 1998 to 2001, the country where the highest proportion agreed with the statement “people are rewarded for intelligence and skill” was, of course, the United States. (69 percent). But when it comes to real as opposed to imagined social mobility, surveys find less in the United States than in much of (what we consider) the class-bound Old World. France, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Spain—not to mention some newer nations like Canada and Australia—are all places where your chances of rising from the bottom are better than they are in the land of Horatio Alger’s Ragged Dick.

All my life I’ve heard Latin America described as a failed society (or collection of failed societies) because of its grotesque maldistribution of wealth. Peasants in rags beg for food outside the high walls of opulent villas, and so on. But according to the Central Intelligence Agency (whose patriotism I hesitate to question), income distribution in the United States is more unequal than in Guyana, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and roughly on par with Uruguay, Argentina, and Ecuador. Income inequality is actually declining in Latin America even as it continues to increase in the United States. . . .