Muir Woods National Monument (California)

… was proclaimed such by President Theodore Roosevelt on this date 102 years ago.

Muir Woods

Until the 1800’s, many northern California coastal valleys were covered with coast redwood trees similar to those now found in Muir Woods National Monument. The forest along Redwood Creek in today’s Muir Woods was spared from logging because it was hard to get to. Noting that Redwood Creek contained one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s last uncut stands of old-growth redwood, Congressman William Kent and his wife, Elizabeth Thacher Kent, bought 295 acres here for $45,000 in 1905. To protect the redwoods the Kents donated the land to the United States Federal Government and, in 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt declared it a national monument. Roosevelt suggested naming the area after Kent, but Kent wanted it named for conservationist John Muir.

Source: Muir Woods National Monument

Richard Nixon

… was born in Yorba Linda, California, on this date in 1913.

I was contacted by the staff working with Richard Nixon on his memoirs, RN, many years ago. I was asked to see if I could determine — from among the Nixon papers in my custody — the time of day he was born. As I remember it, my research was inconclusive. Someone else’s must have been helpful. The memoirs begin:

I was born in a house my father built. My birth on the night of January 9, 1913, coincided with a record-breaking cold snap in our town of Yorba Linda, California.

If not for this research request, for other efforts I received a copy of the memoirs inscribed to me: “To Ken, With appreciation for his service to the nation.” I’ve always cherished that inscription.

Nixon, by the way, did not use his middle name or initial. Though you always see him referred to as Richard M. Nixon, he himself signed as Richard Nixon and he titled his memoir RN.

Best redux post of the day

Andrew Tobias gave us all a little perspective when he posted this four years ago:

I am listening to 1776 on my Nano, and it’s 2 degrees Fahrenheit (in Boston, in 1776) and people are dragging 120 tons of can[n]ons from Ft. Ticonderoga 300 miles to General George Washington in Dorchester, and the suffering of the troops — civilians like you and me, who’ve left their families to fight the British — is astounding. Sentries are literally freezing to death. And all I can think about is how upset we get if we’re assigned a middle seat.

Idle thought

Got the software and took an early look at my 2009 income taxes. The good news is I actually had enough medical expenses last year to get a deduction. The bad news is I actually had enough medical expenses last year to get a deduction.

Also, as I pay off my mortgage the interest deduction decreases some each year. Isn’t it nice how the property taxes go up in almost perfect coordination to keep the net deduction the same?

Easily should have been a C+

But both authors tell the story of Gregory Watson, a University of Texas undergraduate who wrote a paper on one of the amendments proposed at the time of the Bill of Rights but not adopted. It would have made Congressional pay raises effective only after the next election. Watson started a letter-writing campaign, noting that in this case there was no deadline for ratification. The upshot was the most recent amendment, the 27th, ratified in 1992.

Characteristically, it is Lipsky who includes the killer detail. Watson’s professor, unconvinced that the amendment was still pending, gave him a C.

From an Adam Liptak review of Annotated Versions of the Constitution from Seth Lipsky and Jack N. Rakove

Book review

The discussion from Tom and Jill that followed my posting about the Wright Brothers on December 17th led me to read James Tobin’s To Conquer the Air: The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight, which I finished today.

It’s good.

Writing this review reminds me again of the time in high school when I spent most of the day reading a book during various classes so I could give an oral book report on it in last period English — Walter Lord’s A Night to Remember. I can still see the smiling, smirking and disapproving faces of a whole classroom full of high school juniors who thought it was somehow hilarious (and/or a mortal sin) that I pulled this off.

“On-demand delivery” is all the rage now. I was just ahead of the times.

The Battle of New Orleans

… was fought on this date in 1815.

News of the peace treaty between Britain and the United States that had been signed at Ghent on December 24, 1814, did not reach the United States in time to avert the battle. Major General Andrew Jackson’s army of six-to-seven thousand troops consisted chiefly of militiamen and volunteers from southern states who fought against 7,500 British regulars.

The British stormed the American position, fortified effectively with earthworks and cotton bales. The fighting lasted only half an hour, ending in a decisive U.S. victory and a British withdrawal. British casualties numbered more than 2,000 (289 killed); American, only 71 (31 killed). News of the victory reached Washington at the same time as that of the Treaty of Ghent and did much to raise the low morale in the capital.

The anniversary of the Battle was widely celebrated with parties and dances during the nineteenth century, especially in the South. More recently it was commemorated in the “Battle of New Orleans,” as sung by Johnny Horton and others.

We are surrounded by fools and worse

From Amy Davidson at The New Yorker:

It’s hard to say who was thinking less clearly: Gilbert Arenas, of the Washington Wizards, who brought four guns into his locker room and then, depending on whom you believe, laid them out with a note that said “Pick one” as a joke or to threaten a teammate about a gambling debt; or Slovakian airport security, which planted real explosive materials in the luggage of an unwitting passenger as part of a training exercise and then, when the passenger got past the checkpoint, let the materials go on a plane to Ireland, through the Dublin airport, and home with the still ignorant passenger before alerting Irish authorities in terms unclear enough to cause them to surround the man’s apartment building and arrest him. What if someone had been shot before it was cleared up? (That question applies to both the basketball and airport scenarios.) There’s no tie breaker in the contrition department: Arenas released an apologetic statement, but then did a quick-draw pantomime during a pregame huddle; the Slovaks apologized, too, but then said that everyone was overreacting and that the Irish press was being mean to them.

The Decade's 50 Most Important Recordings

From the All Songs Considered Blog:

Over the past few months, contributors to NPR Music have been combing their collections, reading listener nominations and putting together a list of the Decade’s 50 Most Important Recordings. Not our favorites, but the music that made an impact.

Here’s the full alphabetical list:

John Adams: On The Transmigration Of Souls
Animal Collective: Merriweather Post Pavilion
Arcade Fire: Funeral
The Bad Plus: These Are The Vistas
Beyonce: Dangerously In Love
Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago
Bright Eyes: I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning
Burial: Untrue
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah: S/T
Kelly Clarkson: Breakaway
Coldplay: A Rush Of Blood To The Head
Danger Mouse: The Grey Album
Death Cab For Cutie: Transatlanticism
The Decemberists: The Crane Wife
Eminem: The Marshall Mathers LP
The Flaming Lips: Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
Osvaldo Golijov: La Pasion Segun San Marcos (Saint Mark’s Passion)
Green Day: American Idiot
Iron And Wine: Our Endless Numbered Days
Jay-Z: The Blueprint
Norah Jones: Come Away With Me
Juanes: Fijate Bien
LCD Soundsystem: Sound Of Silver
Lil’ Wayne: Tha Carter III
Little Brother: The Listening
Yo-Yo Ma: Silk Road Journeys: When Strangers Meet
Mastodon: Leviathan
M.I.A.: Kala
Jason Moran: Black Stars
OutKast: Stankonia
Brad Paisley: 5th Gear
Panda Bear: Person Pitch
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss: Raising Sand
The Postal Service: Give Up
Radiohead: In Rainbows
Radiohead: Kid A
Shakira: Fijacion Oral, Vol. 1
Sigur Ros: ( )
Britney Spears: In The Zone
Sufjan Stevens: Illinois
The Strokes: Is This It
The Swell Season: Once Soundtrack
Ali Farka Toure & Toumani Diabate: In The Heart of the Moon
TV On The Radio: Return To Cookie Mountain
Various: Garden State Soundtrack
Various: O Brother, Where Art Thou? Soundtrack
Kanye West: The College Dropout
The White Stripes: White Blood Cells
Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
Amy Winehouse: Back To Black

And here is where you can read about each.

The cold facts on wind chill

But no amount of tweaking will make wind chill more comprehensible. The language of “equivalent temperatures” creates a fundamental misconception about what wind chill really means. It doesn’t tell you how cold your skin will get; that’s determined by air temperature alone. Wind chill just tells you the rate at which your skin will reach the air temperature. If it were 35 degrees outside with a wind chill of 25, you might think you’re in danger of getting frostbite. But your skin can freeze only if the air temperature is below freezing. At a real temperature of 35 degrees, you’ll never get frostbite no matter how long you stand outside. And despite a popular misconception, a below-32 wind chill can’t freeze our pipes or car radiators by itself, either.

Daniel Engber – Slate Magazine has more on why wind chill is a silly and misleading number.

Full Body Scans to Double as Annual Checkups

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) — In what some in the White House are calling a “win/win” solution to the nation’s airport security and health care reform problems, starting next month U.S. airports will begin conducting full body scans that will double as annual physical checkups.

President Obama announced the breakthrough solution this morning, telling reporters, “With this all-purpose exam, we will be able to find everything from a hidden weapon to a spot on your lung.”

After scanning a passenger, Mr. Obama said, “We will either give you a clean bill of health or wrestle you to the ground.”

The President added that instituting the body scan/checkup could ward off some terrorists right from the start, “because a lot of them will balk at the $25 co-pay.”

Borowitz Report

There’s more.

But, of course

In addition, the Nexus One, and other Android devices, still pale beside the iPhone for playing music, video and games. The apps available for these functions aren’t nearly as sophisticated as on the Apple devices.

Finally, the iPhone is still a better apps platform. Not only are there more apps, but, in my experience, iPhone apps are generally more polished and come in more varieties.

Walt Mossberg

January 7th

Today is the birthday

… of William Peter Blatty, author of The Exorcist. He’s 82.

… of Paul Revere Dick, 72. He and Mark Lindsay formed Paul Revere & The Raiders in 1960. They recorded “Louie Louie” in the same studio as The Kingsmen in Portland, Oregon in 1963. (The song was written in 1955.) The Kingsmen won that battle, but The Raiders went on to record five top 10 hits, including the number one, “Indian Reservation,” which sold six million copies.

… of Jann Wenner, publisher of Rolling Stone. He’s 64.

… of Kenneth Clark Loggins. He’s 62.

… of David Stephen Caruso, 54.

… of Katherine Anne Couric. University of Virginia grad (1979), head resident of the Lawn and Tri-Delt, Katie Couric is 53.

… of Donna Rice, 52 today. That’s her in 1988 on Senator Gary Hart’s lap near the boat Monkey Business. That particular monkey business removed the married senator from the presidential race where he had been considered the front-runner.

… of Nicholas Kim Coppola. The Oscar-winner, known better as Nicolas Cage, is 46.

Prissy, actress Butterfly McQueen, was born Thelma McQueen on this date in 1911. Prissy was her first movie role. Ms. McQueen, who never married, earned a college degree at age 64. She died in 1995.

Cartoonist Charles Addams, from whom the Addams family emerged, was born on this date in 1912. Addams’s cartoons appeared in The New Yorker from 1932 until his death in 1988. His estate has managed to keep his cartoons largely off the internet.

Best this-will-make-you-sick line of the day

“[A] team of microbiologists from Hollins University found that 48% of sodas tested from the fast food fountains contain coliform bacteria, which is typically fecal in origin. And most bacteria found were antibiotic resistant, as icing on the cake.”

Huffington Post

And, of course, the ice in many of those soda fountains has already been shown to be nastier than the average toilet.

2009’s Most Disturbing Film Is A Documentary

You might have already heard about The Cove. Described by one critic as “Flipper meets the Bourne Identity,” it’s a compelling marriage of edge-of-your-seat infiltration/espionage and more traditional documentary storytelling, all in the service of exposing the bloody secret of one small town in Japan, where every year in a secluded cove tens of thousands of dolphins are rounded up in nets and harpooned to death, their meat repackaged as other kinds of seafood and sold in supermarkets across Japan. I saw the film a few weeks ago and it quite honestly gave me nightmares.

mental_floss Blog

Meanwhile —

Dolphins have been declared the world’s second most intelligent creatures after humans, with scientists suggesting they are so bright that they should be treated as “non-human persons”.

Studies into dolphin behaviour have highlighted how similar their communications are to those of humans and that they are brighter than chimpanzees. These have been backed up by anatomical research showing that dolphin brains have many key features associated with high intelligence.

The researchers argue that their work shows it is morally unacceptable to keep such intelligent animals in amusement parks or to kill them for food or by accident when fishing. Some 300,000 whales, dolphins and porpoises die in this way each year.

Times Online

Welcoming 2010

People all around the world gathered in groups large and small last night to usher out the previous year, and welcome the arrival of 2010. Under a rare New Year’s Eve Blue Moon, crowds watched fireworks, cheered, made resolutions, and counted down to midnight. 2010 is the year of the Tiger in the Chinese zodiac, signifying a year of bravery and courage. Collected here are some photographs of people across the earth as they welcomed the new year in many different ways. (38 photos total)

The Big Picture – Boston.com