Best commentary of the day, so far

“I don’t want our schools turned over to some socialist movement.”

The above quote comes from a “concerned parent” in Pearland, Texas about President Obama’s upcoming streaming education address.

[Any] willing volunteers to let concerned parent guy in on the well-known secret that the public school is inherently “socialist”? Along with our law enforcement, firefighting and road system?

Not to mention the military.

‘Burque Babble

Redux line of the day

“He also told us about the green-yellow-red behavior system and said that he won’t get any reds but we should expect a few yellows.”

That’s Mack’s mom reporting on Mack’s first day of kindergarten in 2006. Mack later said that it’s not that he might purposefully break a rule, it’s that you don’t always know the rules. Indeed. It’s difficult to go through kindergarten, or any other part of life, without a few yellows.

The 248th day of 2009

Jesse James was born on this date in 1847. If James were alive today, he’d be the kind of guy who’d park a Ryder truck in front of a federal building. He was not the Robin Hood character many learned, but rather a racist, anti-emancipation, anti-union murdering terrorist long after the civil war had effectively decided the larger matters. See T.J. Stiles masterful Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War.

“As this patient biography makes clear, violence came to Jesse James more or less with his mother’s milk.” — Larry McMurtry.

“Overall, this is the biography of a violent criminal whose image was promoted and actions extenuated by those who saw him as a useful weapon against black rights and Republican rule.” — Eric Foner

John Cage was born on this date in 1912. On his death in 1992, The New York Times described Cage as a “prolific and influential composer whose Minimalist works have long been a driving force in the world of music, dance and art.” Cage’s most influential and famous piece is 4’33”. It consists of four minutes and 33 seconds of silence. The work was among National Public Radio’s 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century.

The piece, premiered in 1952, directs someone to close the lid of a piano, set a stopwatch, and sit in silence for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. Musicians and critics alike initially thought the piece a joke. But its premiere pianist, who never played a note, calls it his most intense listening experience. “4:33” speaks to the nature of sound and the musical nature of silence.

Bob Newhart is 80. Raquel Welch is 69. Michael Keaton is 58.

Girls rule

To help out her sister, Jill adopted niece Kiley for a day yesterday. Jill reports:

Then she came with us as we ran lots of errands and went to (guess) Red Robin. In all, we were out for six hours — me and my brood of four.

It was fun to have her along as I got totally different comments from strangers. Usually I get variations on “Three boys! Oh my!” Or, “Did you want a girl?/Are you going to try for a girl?” Or the old, “I had all boys, too, dear. You will survive.” (accompanied by gentle patting of my hand).

But with Kiley we got “Oh, all those brothers and just one girl, she has it made.” And, “Just the one girl?” And my favorite, “Your children sound WONDERFUL.” I NEVER get that one when I just have the boys with me.

Also got to watch Aidan and Kiley waltz around Target, complete with dips and turns.

Idle thoughts from the American road

From the number of their trucks I saw, if I-40 didn’t exist FedEx would have to build it.

Z will do 100. That didn’t surprise me. What surprised me was how quickly it’ll go from 75 to 100.

How old do you have to be to hang your clothes on a bar across the backseat? I mean, is there some sort of legal age requirement like for buying beer or getting Medicare? I’m not THAT old yet from the looks of things, even if I had a backseat. But will we all hang our clothes like that when we get to the right age? Or will this practice die out when that generation passes?

You still see passengers with their feet on the dash even in new airbag equipped cars. What kind of injuries do you suppose those fools would sustain if the airbag inflates? Talk about hip replacement.

Idle thoughts while busy packing

I like dogs. I particularly love Jason and Nora’s dog Barkley, my furry seventh Sweetie. I think dog fighting is vile and reprehensible. But for the life of me I don’t understand why Michael Vick continues to be treated like he’s Jack the Ripper. It’s dogfighting.

Why are crazy people controlling our nation’s discussion? Why are we letting them?

There isn’t much room in a Z4 trunk. Do I really need to take shoes? Do I need both a tooth brush and a hair brush? Shall I leave the laptop at home?

Kind of Blue

Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue, which was released 50 years ago today, is a nearly unique thing in music or any other creative realm: a huge hit—the best-selling jazz album of all time—and the spearhead of an artistic revolution. Everyone, even people who say they don’t like jazz, likes Kind of Blue. It’s cool, romantic, melancholic, and gorgeously melodic. But why do critics regard it as one of the best jazz albums ever made? What is it about Kind of Blue that makes it not just pleasant but important?

Fred Kaplan tells us Why Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue is so great.

The sextet consisted of Miles Davis (trumpet), John Coltrane (tenor sax), Cannonball Adderley (alto sax), Paul Chambers (bass), Jimmy Cobb (drums) and Bill Evans (piano). Wynton Kelly replaced Evans on “Freddie Freeloader.”

Everyone — every one — should own this album (if you own it, you will listen to it). It rarely costs more than $10, and you can get it from iTunes right now.

“Kind of Blue isn’t merely an artistic highlight for Miles Davis, it’s an album that towers above its peers, a record generally considered as the definitive jazz album, a universally acknowledged standard of excellence.” — allmusic

To this day Kind of Blue sells 5,000 copies a week.

The last gold rush

Before August 17, 1896, Americans had little interest in Alaska, a far off “district”—not even a territory—full of wolves and ice and forests. That attitude started to change [113] years ago today, when a Tagish Indian known as Skookum Jim spotted something shimmering among the stones in a creek near the Yukon River. The Klondike Gold Rush began as soon as news of the discovery reached the states, and between 1897 and 1899 1 in every 700 Americans abandoned home and set out for the “Golden River.”

There’s more at American Heritage, including this nugget: “At a time when workers were lucky to make 10 cents an hour, gold was worth $17 an ounce.”

Cape Hatteras National Seashore (North Carolina)

… was authorized on this date in 1937.

Hatteras.jpgStretched over 70 miles of barrier islands, Cape Hatteras National Seashore is a fascinating combination of natural and cultural resources, and provides a wide variety of recreational opportunities. Once dubbed the “Graveyard of the Atlantic” for its treacherous currents, shoals, and storms, Cape Hatteras has a wealth of history relating to shipwrecks, lighthouses, and the U.S. Lifesaving Service. These dynamic islands provide a variety of habitats and are a valuable wintering area for migrating waterfowl. The park’s fishing and surfing are considered the best on the east coast.

National Park Service

It’s Electric!

Tad Friend test drives the Tesla:

But you don’t buy a hundred-and-nine-thousand-dollar electric car for its glove compartment. The first difference I noticed was the engine’s catlike purr: when I tooled through the Stanford University campus, cyclists and runners did double takes as I coasted past more softly than the wind. Then I realized that I was unusually elated, filled with an odd combination of moral increase (I’m saving the planet!) and of consumerist glee (I’m faster than a hungry cheetah!).

Zero to 60 in 3.9.

Political thought of the day

I’ll say this for George Bush: you’d never have caught him frantically negotiating against himself to take the meat out of a signature legislative initiative just because his approval ratings had a bad summer. Can you imagine Bush and Karl Rove allowing themselves to be paraded through Washington on a leash by some dimwit Republican Senator of a state with six people in it the way the Obama White House this summer is allowing Max Baucus (favorite son of the mighty state of Montana) to frog-march them to a one-term presidency?

Matt Taibbi – True/Slant

August 17th

Maureen O’Hara is 89 today. Once voted one of the five most beautiful women in the world, Miss O’Hara is proabably best known now as Natalie Wood’s unbelieving mother in the classic Miracle on 34th Street; or perhaps as Esmeralda to Charles Laughton’s Quasimodo in the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Nobel Prize-winning author V.S. Naipaul is 77.

Robert De Niro is 66 today. De Niro has been nominated for the Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscar five times, winning for Raging Bull in 1981. He also won the Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role as the young Vito Corleone in Godfather II. De Niro’s other nominations were for Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter, Awakenings and Cape Fear.

Novelist Jonathan Franzen is 50 today. His The Corrections won the 2001 National Book Award.

Oprah chose it for her Book Club, but Franzen made several ambivalent comments about the honor in his interviews. He said, “I see this as my book, my creation, and I didn’t want that logo of corporate ownership on it,” and, “She’s picked some good books, but she’s picked enough schmaltzy, one-dimensional ones that I cringe, myself, even though I think she’s really smart and she’s really fighting the good fight.” Oprah announced that Franzen was “seemingly uncomfortable and conflicted about being chosen as a book club selection,” and for the first time ever, withdrew her invitation to an author to be part of the book club. But The Corrections was still a huge best seller and won the National Book Award.

The Writer’s Almanac

Sean Penn is 49 today. Penn has been nominated for the Best Actor in a Leading Role Oscar five times, winning for Mystic River and Milk. Penn’s other nominations were for Dead Man Walking, Sweet and Lowdown and I Am Sam.

Football coach Jon Gruden is 46.

Davy Crockett — frontiersman, soldier, three-term congressman, restless soul — was born on this day in 1786. He died at the Alamo in on March 6, 1836. Crockett opposed the Indian Removal Act.

After seeing Mae’s jewelry the coat check girl exclaims, “Goodness, what lovely diamonds!” Mae replies, “Goodness had nothing to do with it.” That’s screen legend Mae West in Night After Night. Ms. West was born on this date in 1893.