Much of current and a lot of past PBS shows now available to watch online. Quite a resource — American Experience, Frontline, NOVA. How about Ian McKellen as King Lear? Julia Child with toasted chiles and tomatillos? The current series, We Shall Remain?
Update on the News Video from El Paso
Yesterday I posted a link to a video of an altercation between an El Paso Police sergeant and a TV news crew.
Yesterday the police sergeant was put on desk duty.
And, according to news reports at KVIA, the sergeant has a dozen internal affairs allegations. And, also according to reports, he kept a health professional (a nurse) from attending to the injured at the same scene.
It’s always good advice not to argue with an individual who carries a gun. The sergeant seems to have forgotten advice almost as good, however — don’t lose your cool with individuals who carry a camera and microphone.
Be sure to see the Google Earth Day logo, coming to you today only. Click on the logo when you get there.
Best line of the day
“Until now we’d been led to believe that the people in the highest reaches of the White House, the Defense Department, the Justice Department were either stupid enough (Gonzales) or venal enough (Rumsfeld) or crazy enough (Cheney) …”
Well, duh, line of the day
“According to a study…college students who use Facebook have lower GPA’s and devote less time to studying than other students.”
[Any posting today is strictly in commemoration of Jack Nicholson’s birthday. He’s 72. Oh, and Earth Day. It’s 39.]
Most interesting line of the day
“So if you are part of the 30 percent of American households who rent and you’re trying to decide when to buy, relax.
“The market is still coming your way.”
David Leonhardt in The New York Times, observing that housing prices still have a way to fall.
Close Enough for Government Work
It turns out that in 1878, when they surveyed the boundaries of Utah-Colorado-New Mexico and Arizona, they adjusted the spot where the four territories met (unique in the U.S.) so that the location would be easier to get to.
It should have been at the confluence of 37ºN and 109ºW. That’s about 2½ miles east and slightly north of where the Four Corners Monument is located today near 36°59′56″N and 109°02′43″W.
The states and Congress ultimately recognized the error, but accepted it, and the Four Corners Monument marks the official boundary. You don’t have to go back to take photos all over again.
The present monument is on sovereign Navajo Nation land. The actual confluence of 37ºN and 109ºW is also on Indian land, the Ute Mountain Reservation.
Best line of the day
“Call it the Ticketmaster strategy: you can do anything you like once everybody hates you.”
Felix Salmon writing about when banks have no reputation left to lose.
You could also call it the Comcast strategy, the Best Buy strategy . . .
It’s A Thriller, Not A Crusade
Ron Howard’s brother’s older brother defends his new movie, Angels & Demons, from charges of anti-Catholicisim.
“And if fictional movies could never take liberties with reality, then there would have been no Ben-Hur, no Barabbas, The Robe, Gone With The Wind, or Titanic. Not to mention Splash!“
If You’re Open
Keeping Your Eye on the Ball
Rolling Out
What Are Friends For?
From Well, The New York Times health blog:
Last year, researchers studied 34 students at the University of Virginia, taking them to the base of a steep hill and fitting them with a weighted backpack. They were then asked to estimate the steepness of the hill. Some participants stood next to friends during the exercise, while others were alone.
The students who stood with friends gave lower estimates of the steepness of the hill. And the longer the friends had known each other, the less steep the hill appeared.
Filter Tips
Did you know most vehicles have an air filter for the cabin? Ever change yours? Manufacturers recommend you do so every 15,000 to 30,000 miles. Now, before you start using the A/C regularly, would be a good time.
Micronair Car Filters has a list of vehicles with instructions for each model. It appears to be rather simple and most cost around $20-25, some more.
Amazon.com has them cheaper.
One Sentence
True stories, told in one sentence. Many amusing, some poignant, a few both.
The Pioneer Woman can tell a good story, too.
[Any posting today is strictly in commemoration of Prince Charles’s mother’s birthday. The Queen is 83.]
I Sense Another Texas Policeman Will Be Resigning
The 2009 Pulitzer Prizes in Letters, Drama and Music
Fiction: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Drama: Ruined by Lynn Nottage
History: The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family by Annette Gordon-Reed
Biography: American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham
Poetry: The Shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin
General Nonfiction: Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II by Douglas A. Blackmon
Music: Double Sextet by Steve Reich, premiered March 26, 2008 in Richmond
Article Skimmer
A most excellent way to scan and select articles from The New York Times.
BTW, I am a little tired of newspaper publishers and journalists in their angst, moaning about how they just can’t survive with a business model that provides free content (via the internet) as opposed to paid (home delivery subscriptions). The advertising supported free content business model seems to have worked out pretty well for the television networks and their local affiliates during the past 60 years.
[Any posting today is strictly in commemoration of the 50th birthday of Ron Howard’s brother.]
Significant Milestone
Ron Howard’s brother is 50 today; a half-century.
One wonders how Ron Howard will spend this watershed day, having a younger brother turn 50. Surely Ron Howard’s family and friends will reach out to him to share the joy, and perhaps poignancy of having his brother attain this milestone.
The Howard brothers: Ron (right) and Ron’s brother
Click here for a page listing a number of postings about Ron Howard’s brother.
You still here?
• 15,000 is a very fascistic number and makes me quite uncomfortable. A prime number would have been much better. (The first prime after 15,000 is 15,013.)
• I miss sharing but not the sense of having to share, of having an empty blog every morning in need of feeding. Some have said, post less often or fewer items. But, of course, the whole point of this site has been to dazzle the internets with limitless quantities of wisdom, whimsy and wit.
• Ron Howard’s brother still generates a surprising number of page views every day. So does burning the Zozobra.
• I can see (from the website stats) that some people are still dropping by every day or two even after I haven’t posted anything for six weeks. This is very gratifying.
• But only a few have mentioned the coda at all. Perhaps some readers assumed I’d be back (fair enough) or perhaps they didn’t care (also fair enough). Not hearing from certain individuals, however, was discouraging.
• April 19th (see also this and this) really ought to be a national holiday and not just a holiday in Massachusetts. (And even in Massachusetts it has been bastardized into the third Monday in April.)
• I don’t want to write about just one or two topics. Or, if I do, I don’t know what they’d be.
• I don’t like the name NewMexiKen. I really never have.
• To be honest, I had more than seven regular readers.
• Two of my grandchildren are playing football this spring. Each is quarterbacking their team. One is a grandson and one is a granddaughter.
• The Susan Boyle video made me cry. I will be so disgusted if we find out, as some have suggested, that the whole thing is a gimmick. Whatever, the woman sure can sing.
• The hosting service is paid for until May 20.
Quittin’ time
This is the 15,000th post here at NewMexiKen; almost two million words.
__________
On this date
… a bunch of stuff happened and a bunch of people were born but, frankly, none of it or them interest NewMexiKen much.
Other than maybe, the fact that Oscar-winner Rachel Weisz is 38 today.
Oh, and Jenna Fischer is 35.
Best line of 2007, so far
Where’s the voting booth?
I am not entirely a fool. I recognize a campaign book when I read one. Even so, this is a remarkable person. I can’t say he’d be a excellent president or even a good one. I can say he’d be a positive one.
Me, two years ago today after reading Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream
Idle thoughts
Let’s say you pay $1,000 a year in federal income taxes.
How much of that goes for earmarks?
This fiscal year (2009) about $5. Next year, probably even less.
Who cares? Our house is on fire and the morons are clamoring about how much we spend on garden hose.
Elsewhere, The Wall Street Journal reports on who’s getting the money we’ve given to support A.I.G.
Among those institutions are Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Germany’s Deutsche Bank AG, each of which received roughly $6 billion in payments between mid-September and December 2008, according to a confidential document and people familiar with the matter.
Other banks that received large payouts from AIG late last year include Merrill Lynch, now part of Bank of America Corp., and French bank Société Générale SA.
More than a dozen firms with smaller exposures to AIG also received payouts, including Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC and HSBC Holdings PLC, according to the confidential document.
I’m guessing these same folks will get more from the new tranche of money we gave A.I.G. Monday.
Next question, where does it go from there — that is, who do Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank and Bank of America and Société Générale give the money to?
They’re probably investing it in U.S. Government T-Bills.
You know, if we still had pitchforks this would be a good time to march down the street with them.
Stuff
The Roku Digital Video Player
Why is this recession so different from the one in 1982? Unemployment was worse then than it is now (so far). The very important difference — interest rates. They were historically high in 1982 (3-month T-bills 12.49%). They are historically low today (3-month T-bills 0.28%). Then the Fed could lower interest rates to prime the economy (and did). Today the Fed has nowhere to go.
Bank number 17 for 2009 was gobbled up by FDIC this evening. That’s about 2 a week so far. It was 25 in all of last year. There were none that failed in 2005 and 2006 and only three in 2007.