15 things no airport terminal should be without

A good list from Ask the pilot. Here’s two I particularly liked:

11. Ample gate-side seating

If the plane at Gate 12 holds 250 people, there ought to be a minimum of 250 chairs in the boarding lounge — not 100, not 150. There is something extremely uncivilized about having to sit on the floor while waiting to board your flight. Do we sit on the floor when waiting for a table in a restaurant? Do we sit on the floor at the doctor’s office? (When Singapore’s award-winning Changi Airport was built, the gates were outfitted with no fewer than 420 chairs, matching the average number of seats on a 747.)

12. A quiet area

Every concourse needs a cordoned-off quiet zone with some comfy chairs and newspapers, insulated from the blare of public address announcements, cellphone yammering and CNN.

Rhapsody in Blue

George Gershwin’s phenomenal blending of jazz and classical music, premiered at Aeolian Hall, in New York City, on February 12, 1924, 85 years ago tonight. Gershwin wrote the piece in three weeks, reportedly improvising some of the piano parts during the premiere.

Rhapsody in Blue was one of NPR’s 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century. You can listen to the NPR report from NPR Music.

This video (audio with photographs actually) is, I believe, a recording made in June 1924 with Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra with Ross Gorman playing the clarinet opening as he did during the premier, and the composer at the piano.

200

Our greatest president was born 200 years ago today. It seems a good reason to read, once again, some of his most meaningful words — read them slowly and meticulously, perhaps almost saying them aloud as he did.

The Address at Gettysburg (November 19, 1863):

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met here on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled, here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they have, thus far, so nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain; that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom; and that this government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

And, from his Second Inaugural Address (March 4, 1865):

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

February 12th ought to be a national holiday

Even without including Lincoln (and Darwin) today deserves national holiday status. It’s the birthday of Bill Russell for heaven’s sake! And Omar Bradley.

Bill Russell is 75. Back-to-back NCAA championships at the University of San Francisco, 1955-1956 — 55 consecutive wins. Eleven NBA championships with the Celtics in 13 years, 1957-1969 — Russell was the only player there for all 11. Simply the greatest winner in basketball history. (And the best laugh.)

Today is also the birthday

… of Joe Garagiola, 83.

… of author Judy Blume. She’s 71.

… of Ray Manzarek. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee is 70.

The Doors formed in the summer of 1965 around Morrison and Manzarek, who’d met at UCLA’s film school. A year later the group signed with Elektra Records, recording six landmark studio LPs and a live album for the label. They achieved popular success and critical acclaim for their 1967 debut, The Doors (which included their eleven-minute epic “The End” and “Light My Fire,” a Number One hit at the height of the Summer of Love), and all the other albums that followed.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

… of actress Maud Adams. Octopussy is 64.

… of Arsenio Hall, 54.

… of Josh Brolin, 41. I wonder if his stepmom will sing “Happy Birthday” to him.

… of actress Christina Ricci. Wednesday Addams is 29.

Lorne Greene (aka Ben Cartwright) was born on this date in 1915.

Omar Bradley, the G.I General, was born on this date in 1893.

Except for his original division assignments, Bradley won his wartime advancement on the battlefield, commanding American soldiers in North Africa, Sicily, across the Normandy beaches, and into Germany itself. His understated personal style of command left newsmen with little to write about, especially when they compared him to the more flamboyant among the Allied commanders, but his reputation as a fighter was secure among his peers and particularly with General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Supreme Commander, who considered him indispensable.

Self-effacing and quiet, Bradley showed a concern for the men he led that gave him the reputation as the “soldier’s general.” That same concern made him the ideal choice in 1945 to reinvigorate the Veterans Administration and prepare it to meet the needs of millions of demobilized servicemen. After he left active duty, both political and military leaders continued to seek Bradley’s advice. Perhaps more importantly, he remained in close touch with the Army and served its succeeding generations as the ideal model of a professional soldier.

U.S. Army Center of Military History

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

 

And it’s the birthday of artist Thomas Moran, born on this date in 1837. The National Gallery of Art has an outstanding online exhibit on Moran. Click the image for a larger replica of his classic painting Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.

Still America’s Finest News Source

Every once in awhile I see a headline in my RSS reader and I click on the item without taking adequate notice of the source website. I read this whole piece — thinking it odd but strangely heart-warming — before I got to the end and realized where it was from.

First Grandma, Treasury Secretary Geithner Up All Night Talking, Laughing

That’s me, just another smart person doing a really dumb thing.

Future Self vs. Present Self

Interesting way of looking at it.

People “irrationally” value “newness” in cars. That is, above and beyond the quality of the car itself, people will pay for newness, and the price drops substantially when it is no longer new (in a way that seems to go beyond observable capital depreciation). So the time-consistent, quality-optimizing consumer should not fall prey to the lure of the car being new and overpaying for it, but instead would think ahead about the depreciation and the eventual resale value of the car and instead buy a one-year-old car. The time-inconsistent buyer puts too much emphasis on the immediate experience of the new car and not enough on the asset depreciation.

Jeffrey Kling of the Brookings Institution via Economix Blog.

How Much Your School District Stands to Lose in Stimulus Bill Construction Funds

“The House stimulus bill had $14 billion for school construction, but the Senate cut all school construction money from its version. See how much construction money your school district stands to lose if funding is not restored in the final bill.”

ProPublica has the data.

Nearly $28 million for Albuquerque Public Schools cut in the name of bipartisanship, or $291 per student.