“Take a moment here to refer to the performance of Viola Davis in the role of Donald’s mother: If she doesn’t get an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress I’ll throw shoes.”
Frank McCourt in his look at the movie Doubt.
A stong-willed nun in the 1960s. Imagine that.
“You haven’t the slightest proof of anything,” Father Flynn.
“But I have my certainty,” Sister Aloysius.
No where in the collection of holiday songs is the singer lamenting for Christmas of their youth were it was 65 and sunny.
Or having tamales to eat on Christmas Eve.
Or plucking a piñon tannenbaum out of the pile for 15 bucks a piece at the flea market.
Or filling paper bags with sand.
No, the “east coast bias” that applies to sports seems to infiltrate the holiday as well.
Click to see Karen’s photo of another Albuquerque Christmas tradition.
A simple animated explanation of why it isn’t really a good thing — from ABC News.
From TPM Reader DM …
Bill Simmons, a sportswriter for ESPN, coined the term “Tysonic”. It refers to Mike Tyson, and applies to anyone who has entered a sphere of existence so bizarre, you will believe any news you hear about them, no matter how absurd. Aside from Mike Tyson, Britney Spears is Tysonic. After the turkey interview, I classify Sarah Palin as Tysonic.
As a native Chicagoan, I say Blogo is definitely Tysonic. If someone told me, “Hear about Blogo? He dressed himself up as Elvis, highjacked an Air Yugo flight from O’Hare to Belgrade, and is now living under the protection of Serbia… And he’s formed an exploratory committee for 2016.”I’d pause for a moment and say, “Yeah, that sounds right.”
“According to a new survey that just came out, the most admired profession is doctor. Doctor is the most admired profession. Yeah. The least admired profession? Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s barber.”
Conan O’Brien
Runner-up:
“I tell you, the economy’s rough. People are standing behind President Bush just to get the free shoes.”
Jay Leno
Regret the Error compiles the errors and corrects of the year. Some very amusing errors and some pretty stylistic corrections, too.
Link via Chantal on Facebook.
NewMexiKen feels a cold coming on — it is after all the week before Christmas. I’m doing all I can think of — even have both the humidifier and the de-humidifier going full blast.
It’s the birthday of Al Kaline. The hall of fame right fielder is 74.
Today is also the birthday
… of Oscar-nominee Cicely Tyson. She’s 75. Tyson was nominated for the 1973 best actress award for her performance in Sounder.
… of Kevin McHale. The basketball hall of fame member is 51.
… of Mike Lookinland. Bobby Brady is 48.
… of Flashdance’s Jennifer Beals. She’s 45. Flashdance was her second film. She played Clifford’s girlfriend in My Bodyguard. Adam Baldwin (no relation to “the” Baldwins) was the bodyguard, Matt Dillon the bully, and Joan Cusack another girlfriend.
… of Jake Gyllenhaal. The Oscar nominated actor is 28.
Edith Piaf was born on this date in 1915. Petite Piaf (4-10, 90 pounds) was known as the “sparrow of the streets.” She was the leading chanteuse of her day, most well-known for “La vie en rose.” According to some reports she used her fame to ingratiate herself to Nazi officers during the occupation of France, then in turn used that to gain access to French prisoners with whom she had her photo taken. The prisoners used the photo to create false identity cards to assist in an escape. Ms. Piaf died in 1963.
… was published 165 years ago today.
Scrooge. a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas.
Al Unser Jr. paid an undisclosed sum to an extortionist who threatened to release a “compromising” videotape of the two-time Indy 500 winner, AP reported.
Though New Mexico prosecutor Mark Drebing picked an inopportune time to invoke Unser’s nickname when he said, “I don’t think Little Al did anything wrong.”
If they don’t quit running those asinine Dodge Ram truck ads again and again and again, I’d just as soon Chrysler did go bankrupt.
“It’s a Wonderful Life” is a terrifying, asphyxiating story about growing up and relinquishing your dreams, of seeing your father driven to the grave before his time, of living among bitter, small-minded people. It is a story of being trapped, of compromising, of watching others move ahead and away, of becoming so filled with rage that you verbally abuse your children, their teacher and your oppressively perfect wife. It is also a nightmare account of an endless home renovation.
“It struck me that our understanding of success was really crude ….”
Gladwell discusses Outliers, his latest best-seller. Two excerpts:
3. In what way are our explanations of success “crude?”
That’s a bit of a puzzle because we certainly don’t lack for interest in the subject. If you go to the bookstore, you can find a hundred success manuals, or biographies of famous people, or self-help books that promise to outline the six keys to great achievement. (Or is it seven?) So we should be pretty sophisticated on the topic. What I came to realize in writing Outliers, though, is that we’ve been far too focused on the individual—on describing the characteristics and habits and personality traits of those who get furthest ahead in the world. And that’s the problem, because in order to understand the outlier I think you have to look around them—at their culture and community and family and generation. We’ve been looking at tall trees, and I think we should have been looked at the forest.
5. Doesn’t that make it sound like success is something outside of an individual’s control?
I don’t mean to go that far. But I do think that we vastly underestimate the extent to which success happens because of things the individual has nothing to do with. Outliers opens, for example, by examining why a hugely disproportionate number of professional hockey and soccer players are born in January, February and March. I’m not going to spoil things for you by giving you the answer. But the point is that very best hockey players are people who are talented and work hard but who also benefit from the weird and largely unexamined and peculiar ways in which their world is organized. I actually have a lot of fun with birthdates in Outliers. Did you know that there’s a magic year to be born if you want to be a software entrepreneur? And another magic year to be born if you want to be really rich? In fact, one nine year stretch turns out to have produced more Outliers than any other period in history. It’s remarkable how many patterns you can find in the lives of successful people, when you look closely.
Oil is under $40 a barrel at the moment. There’s no reason to think gasoline won’t soon be under a buck a gallon, in some places at least. You can get regular for $1.27 a gallon in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
Is this good news or bad news?
[Update: I don’t recommend driving to Cheyenne to buy gas. It just seems to have the lowest price in the country at the moment.]
Are you a bigger film addict than your friends? Find out! Check off the movies you’ve seen below and then compare!
NewMexiKen registered a paltry 51.6%. Ken, who sent me the link, had 81.6.
Motherlode discusses My Favorite Mommy (and Daddy) Blogs.
Richard Wetherill and his brother-in-law Charles Mason rode out on what is now Sun Point in search of lost cattle 120 years ago today and found Cliff Palace at Mesa Verde. That afternoon, Richard found Spruce Tree House, and the next day, the two men discovered Square Tower House. Al Wetherill, Richard’s brother, saw Cliff Palace sometime the year before, but he did not enter the dwelling, so the credit for “discovering” the dwelling has been given to Richard Wetherill and Charles Mason.
In 1901, Richard Wetherill homesteaded land that included Pueblo Bonito, Pueblo Del Arroyo, and Chetro Ketl in what is now Chaco Culture National Historical Park. Wetherill remained in Chaco Canyon, homesteading and operating a trading post at Pueblo Bonito until his murder in 1910. Chiishch’ilin Biy, charged with the murder, served several years in prison, but was released in 1914 due to poor health. Wetherill is buried in the small cemetery west of Pueblo Bonito.
NewMexiKen took this photo of Cliff Palace in 2006. Click image for a larger version.
… of Keith Richards. The Rolling Stone is 65.
… of Steven Spielberg. The director is 62. The Writer’s Almanac has an interesting little biographical essay about Spielberg.
… of Ray Liotta. The actor, a good fella, is 53.
… of Brad Pitt. Still pretty at 45.
… of Rachel Griffiths, 40.
… of Katie Holmes, 30. (Tom is 46.)
… of Christina Aguilera. She’s 28.
Ty Cobb was born on this date in 1886.
Ty Cobb may have been baseball’s greatest player, if not the game’s fiercest competitor. His batting accomplishments are legendary – a lifetime average of .367, 297 triples, 4,191 hits, 12 batting titles (including nine in a row), 23 straight seasons in which he hit over .300, three .400 seasons (topped by a .420 mark in 1911), and 2,245 runs. Intimidating the opposition, “The Georgia Peach” stole 892 bases during a 24-year career, primarily with the Detroit Tigers. (National Baseball Hall of Fame)
… just 143 years ago that the 13th amendment to the U.S. Constitution was officially adopted.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Twenty-seven of the 36 states ratified the amendment between February 1st and December 6, 1865. Five more of the 36 ratified it by early 1866. Texas ratified the amendment in 1870, Delaware in 1901, Kentucky in 1976, and Mississippi in 1995.
When I was a child, I tell my offspring, my brother and I often would receive just one present at Christmastime, typically an individual crayon. It wouldn’t even be a full crayon, but merely a stub. Still, we’d be grateful and would pretend that “brown” was our favorite of the 64 Crayola colors. We would talk about how great this crayon would be if only we could afford paper.
Joel Achenbach
[First posted here three years ago.]
FedEx is reducing the pay of its salaried employees 5% effective January 1. Do I hear the D-word (deflation)?
Dean Baker wonders why news articles about the auto industry mention employee pay, but similar articles about the newspaper industry don’t.
Calculated Risk has an update graph of the Four Bad Bears. (Be sure to click on the chart to get the readable version.) Doesn’t look to me like the game is over yet. Am I waiting too long to get back in equities?
While at the dry cleaner one day, Rob’s iPhone was stolen. He immediately chalked it up as gone forever, and proceeded to purchase a brand new one that same evening. It was the next day when unfamiliar contacts began to appear on the new phone. The (not-too-bright) thief was unwittingly supplying him with names and phone numbers of his or her closest friends, via the magic of MobileMe synchronization from the stolen phone to the cloud and eventually to his new phone. “It didn’t take long for me to realize that MobileMe was leading me right to the thief!” wrote Rob.
Thanks to the fact that he caught on to it before he’d had time to remotely disconnect his account, MobileMe provided the groundwork for a little social engineering. Rob made quick work of wrangling a name and phone number from the provided contacts, supplying the police with everything they needed to get Rob his phone back. By the end of the night, he had his original iPhone in his possession.
National Parks Traveler has a very difficult quiz this week about the national parks.
This week’s quiz explores many colorful aspects of our national parks. We’re going to depart from custom here and mix in some true-false and short-answer items. Answers are at the end. If we catch you peeking we’ll confiscate your crayons.
