Kindness

NewMexiKen is taking the day off to celebrate the blog’s sixth anniversary.
The posts today are being written by readers just like you. This is from Rick Chlopan.

Tim O’Reilly (Founder and CEO, O’Reilly Media) twitter post this morning:

Lovely NYT review of book On Kindness: http://bit.ly/v5zF7 2nd para and last line are worth taking to heart. Hegelian antithesis of Ayn Rand.

The last line in the review he references:

Indeed, the ones who pay the largest price for our contemporary cloak-and-dagger relationship with kindness are children, whom adults fail by neglecting to help them “keep . . . faith with” kindness, and thereby sentence to a life “robbed of one of the greatest sources of human happiness.”

August 4th

NewMexiKen is taking the day off to celebrate the blog’s sixth anniversary.
The posts today are being written by readers just like you. This is from Debby.

1993 – Rwandian Hutu’s and Tutsi’s sign peace treaty in Arusha. [Apparently, it didn’t take.]

1987 – The Federal Communications Commission rescinds the Fairness Doctrine which had required radio and television stations to present controversial issues “fairly”.

1977 – President Carter establishes Department of Energy

1971 – U.S. launches 1st satellite into lunar orbit from manned spacecraft

1964 – North Vietnamese torpedo US ships Gulf of Tonkin

1956 – Elvis Presley releases “Hound Dog”

1949 – NBL and NBAA merge into National Basketball Association

1944 – Anne Frank and her family arrested in Amsterdam by Nazis

1914 – Germany invades Belgium. In response, the United Kingdom declares war on Germany. The United States declares its neutrality.

1892 – Sunday school teacher Lizzie Borden arrested in Fall River, Mass

1862 – U.S. government collects its 1st income tax

1855 – John Bartlett publishes “Familiar Quotations”

1821 – 1st edition of Saturday Evening Post (publishes until 1969)

1693 – Date traditionally ascribed to Dom Perignon’s invention of Champagne.

Births:

1792 – Percy Bysshe Shelly, English poet and author.

1901 – Louis Armstrong, American jazz musician (d. 1971)

1912 – Raoul Wallenberg, Swedish diplomat credited with saving nearly 100,000 Budapest Jews during World War II.

1920 – Helen Thomas, American journalist—Thomas has covered every president since John F. Kennedy. She was the first female officer of the National Press Club, the first female member and president of the White House Correspondents Association, and, in 1975, the first female member of the Gridiron Club.

1944 – Richard Belzer, American actor and comedian (Sgt. Munch)

1955 – Billy Bob Thornton, American actor and writer

1961 – Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States

1962 – Roger Clemens, American baseball player

1962 – Wesley Snipes, Orlando Fla, actor (New Jack City, Passenger 57

Seriously, people, get help

NewMexiKen is taking the day off to celebrate the blog’s sixth anniversary.
The posts today are being written by readers just like you. This is from Jill.

According to a poll released last week by Research 2000, only 42 percent of Republicans believe that President Obama was born in the United States.

Twenty-eight percent believe he was born elsewhere and another 30 percent are “not sure.”

Is it because he is black? Is it because he was born in Hawaii? Is it because his father was African? How can so many people actually subscribe to this idiocy?

I used to think only crazy people believed this. But even I can’t argue that 58 percent of Republicans are crazy. (Demented, maybe, but not crazy.)

Blue food dye

NewMexiKen is taking the day off to celebrate the blog’s sixth anniversary.
The posts today are being written by readers just like you. This is from Debby.

I first heard about this Saturday on PBS’s news quiz show, “Wait, wait. Don’t Tell Me.” When asked, “What substance has been found to help spinal injuries?” the correct multiple-choice answer was “Blue M & Ms.” Really. The host added that research has also found that: “Eating too many brown M & Ms causes weight gain.”

Blue Food Dye Treats Spine Injury in Rats | Wired Science | Wired.com

Common, safe blue food dye may treat broken spines | Science | Reuters

Blue food dye helps heal spinal cord injuries – More health news- msnbc.com

Way To Squick Me Out Line of the Day

NewMexiKen is taking the day off to celebrate the blog’s sixth anniversary.
The posts today are being written by readers just like you. This is from Karen Fayeth.

“The actor (Ryan O’Neal) admits he took comfort in the arms of a ‘beautiful blonde woman’ who came up and embraced him after the (funeral) service, and he didn’t realize it was his own daughter Tatum.”

He admits to Vanity Fair that he hit on his own daughter. At the funeral for Farrah Fawcett.

Ew.

Source: SFGate: Daily Dish : O’Neal opens up about Fawcett split

Supplies

NewMexiKen is taking the day off to celebrate the blog’s sixth anniversary.
The posts today are being written by readers just like you. This is from Jill.

Byron handled the school-supply shopping this evening. He thought he was doing me a big favor. But I’m kind of grumbly because I like doing it. It’s like the perfect type A activity – having to get everything in the right size, and the right color, and the right number, and “chisel tip,” and “alcohol free,” and “dries clear.”

I do wonder why Aidan needed 20 (twenty) glue sticks. There will be 25 or 26 kids in his class. What class needs more than 500 glue sticks for the year? What exactly will they be gluing? Is there some sort of black market in glue sticks, and the teachers plan to sell them off to supplement their salaries?

I’m also wondering why Mack needs, specifically, a ruler with three holes, a fabric pencil case with three holes, and paper with three holes…but no binders or folders with three rings.

Six pack

Six years. I should have been elected to the U.S. Senate instead.

NewMexiKen (i.e., this blog) began six years ago tomorrow, August 4, 2003. Because of changes in software and hosting services I have lost count, but I’m certain there have been more than a 1½ million visits to these pages. (And more than 800 posts since I last quit.)

As you may remember from 2006 and 2007, on my anniversary, you blog, I comment.

Send me your story, best line, link or other NewMexiKen type content to be posted on Tuesday. The first year I tried this, we had seven or eight good posts. In 2007 just one (thank you, Annette).

If you’re a regular reader (and there are a few of you), it’s your turn. And no boring stuff — it’s got to be Wise, Whimsical or Witty (or at least half-witty). Email to newmexiken at gmail dot com. Tell me if you do not want your name posted. And I do reserve my editorial prerogative.

Except for a photo essay for the Maroon Bells that I am working on, what you get between now and Wednesday depends on you.

Oh, and tomorrow should be a half-day national holiday. It’s my half birthday. Oh, and President Obama is 48 Tuesday.

The Maroon Bells

In all my years living in the West (more than 35), I had never been to Aspen, Colorado. And I had never been to see the Maroon Bells, in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass wilderness just southwest of Aspen. I guess I saved the best for now.

Though these photos taken in midday largely wash out the color, the Maroon Bells are actually maroon, and as you can see they are shaped much like bells. They are, according to the Forest Service, the most photographed mountains in North America. North Maroon Peak (on the right) rises to 14,014 feet above sea level; South Maroon Peak to 14,156 feet.

Maroon Creek Road ends just above Maroon Lake. These photos were taken in that area. We took a short hike, but downstream away from the panorama.

Click the image to advance through all six.

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Gunnison Canyon

Colorado Highway 92, the West Elk Loop, parallels part of the north rim of Gunnison Canyon, though upstream from the dramatic Black Canyon of the Gunnison. The views from the highway turnouts are terrific if limited, though again I was unable to get the colors and shadows that the light earlier or later in the day might have enabled. Still, here’s a sample. Click image to advance through the slideshow.

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Rio Grande Headwaters

The third longest river in America begins on the north side of the pyramid shaped summit you see in the distance in the first photograph, the 13,821-foot Rio Grande Pyramid in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. From there the river flows nearly 1,900 miles to the Gulf of Mexico. In the foreground are some of the lakes and wetlands that form the Rio Grande headwaters. The second photo shows more of the wetlands downstream. The third and fourth the river as it bends and bows across another meadow, still above 9,000 feet. Click on any image for larger versions of all four.

Click image to advance slideshow.

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Photos taken Sunday afternoon. Not the best time of day for lighting, but I hope to head back to this area soon. It was stunningly beautiful, with the exception of Creede, Colorado, the rattiest town I’ve ever seen (at least the part I drove through).

As the eagle flies, the Rio Grande Pyramid is about 18 miles ESE of Silverton, Colorado.

Roger Ebert’s on greatest movie lists

All lists of the “greatest” movies are propaganda. They have no deeper significance. It is useless to debate them. Even more useless to quarrel with their ordering of titles: Why is this film #11 and that one only #31? The most interesting lists are those by one person: What are Scorsese’s favorites, or Herzog’s? The least interesting are those by large-scale voting, for example by IMDb or movie magazines.

Roger Ebert’s Journal

Ebert continues about lists and discusses the 50 essential films ranking just published by The Spectator. “[Y]ou won’t find Casablanca (1942), It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) or Lawrence of Arabia (1962) anywhere among these pages.” The Spectator’s 50 Essential Films: Part One and The Spectator’s 50 Essential Films: Part Two.

Their top film is The Night of the Hunter.

Rio Bravo, the 1959 film with John Wayne, Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson, Angie Dickinson and Walter Brennan, is number 10.

I don’t know about you

… but I’ve always questioned the Michelin Guide ratings when they fail to account for the mounted moose head in a hotel lobby. Photo from The Delaware Hotel, Leadville, Colorado.

Click image for larger version (it's just a moose head)
Click image for larger version (it's just a moose head)

Speaking of mooses. Some folks with South Carolina accents and license tags asked me while we were admiring the view in the San Juan Mountains yesterday, if I’d seen any moose. Are there moose in Colorado? I did see an elk grazing along the side of the road.

August 3rd: Ernie Pyle’s Birthday

Ernie Pyle was born on this date in 1900. Until he was killed by enemy machine-gun fire in April 1945, Pyle “blogged” World War II for millions of Americans.

Perhaps Pyle’s most famous piece: The Death of Captain Waskow. If you’ve never read it, do so now! If you’ve read it before, read it again!

From The New York Times obituary.

Ernie Pyle was haunted all his life by an obsession. He said over and over again, “I suffer agony in anticipation of meeting people for fear they won’t like me.”

No man could have been less justified in such a fear. Word of Pyle’s death started tears in the eyes of millions, from the White House to the poorest dwellings in the country.

President Truman and Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt followed his writings as avidly as any farmer’s wife or city tenement mother with sons in service.

Mrs. Roosevelt once wrote in her column “I have read everything he has sent from overseas,” and recommended his writings to all Americans.

For three years these writings had entered some 14,000,000 homes almost as personal letters from the front. Soldiers’ kin prayed for Ernie Pyle as they prayed for their own sons.

NewMexiKen has before posted this quote from Pyle, but why not do so again on his birthday, and because there’s no place like home.

Yes, there are lots of nice places in the world. I could live with considerable pleasure in the Pacific Northwest, or in New England, on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, or in Key West or California or Honolulu. But there is only one of me, and I can’t live in all those places. So if we can have only one house — and that’s all we want — then it has to be in New Mexico, and preferably right at the edge of Albuquerque where it is now. Ernie Pyle, January 1942

Pyle’s home on Girard SE is now a branch of the Albuquerque/Bernalillo County Library System.

Today is also the birthday

… of author P.D. James. Phyllis Dorothy James is 89.

… of Tony Bennett. He’s 83.

… of Martin Sheen, 69. Sheen won one Golden Globe for West Wing, but no Emmys. He did win an Emmy once for a guest role on Murphy Brown.

… of Martha Stewart, 68.

… of hockey hall-of-famer Marcel Dionne and of Jay North (TV’s Dennis the Menace). They’re 58 each.

… of Randy Scruggs, 56.

… of quarterback Tom Brady, 32.

Workers of the World unite — oh, except for you government workers

The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) walked off their jobs with the Federal Aviation Administration 28 years ago today. President Reagan threatened to fire the controllers if they didn’t return within 48 hours. Other unions failed to support PATCO. And so began the end of the labor movement in the United States.

Reagan fired 11,345 striking air traffic controllers.

Casa Grande Ruins National Monument (Arizona)

… was designated such by President Wilson on this date in 1918.

CasaGrande.jpg

For over a thousand years, prehistoric farmers inhabited much of the present-day state of Arizona. When the first Europeans arrived, all that remained of this ancient culture were the ruins of villages, irrigation canals and various artifacts. Among these ruins is the Casa Grande, or “Big House,” one of the largest and most mysterious prehistoric structures ever built in North America. Casa Grande Ruins, the nation’s first archeological preserve, protects the Casa Grande and other archeological sites within its boundaries.

Casa Grande Ruins National Monument

Those Europeans, by the way, began heading this way 517 years ago today, when Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain.

Update: Why is the word “prehistoric” in that National Park Service description (twice)? What purpose does it serve?

Final best beer talk line

“Some dismissed the event as a mere photo op, but surely there is a place for symbolic gesture in the effort to instill in future generations the importance of facing racial difficulties with relaxed, respectful conversation. It seems that message is being received loud and clear. When asked what he learned this week, third-grader Billy Etherington, of Plano, Texas, said, ‘If you have fights or problems or whatever, you can usually fix them with drinking.’”

The Cartoon Lounge : The New Yorker

My own best beer talk line: “Obama should have ordered a Dos Equis; Lou Dobbs’s head would have exploded.”

Z goodness

Z isn’t talking to me because she noticed me eyeing a Ferrari parked on the street in Aspen. Before that though, she was eager that I share that she got 33.6 mpg on the 425 mile trip up from Albuquerque (via Leadville).

Leadville

Friday night in Leadville, Colorado. Elevation 10,152 feet. Temperature at 8:30 48 degrees. Forecast low 35.

Staying at the Delaware Hotel, built in 1886. Plumbing and electrical updated since then. Second floor room; no elevator. Fourth time I climbed the stairs, I felt the altitude.

Leadville was once the largest city between St. Louis and San Francisco.

Had breakfast for dinner; eggs, hash browns, sourdough toast. And a beer.

Lunch today was in Taos. Fantastic scenery all day.

Z enjoying the trip too.

(Blogged from my phone.)

July 31st

Other than J.K. Rowling mentioned in a previous post, there aren’t many well-known individuals born on the last day of July. Oh sure, Wesley Snipes is 47 and Geraldine Chaplin is 65. The governor of Massachusetts is 53. (Quick now, what is his name?) S.S. Kresge was born on this date in 1867. Wonder what he’d think of K-Mart today?

No, I guess we’ll just have to make today a national holiday to celebrate Nora’s birthday. Generous, gracious, attractive, intelligent, educated, accomplished. Sounds like holiday material to me (even if I am biased in favor of a daughter-in-law).

Oh, and a secret, Nora’s birthday today is a round year.