James Smithson

… died on this date in 1829.

Smithson’s will left the bulk of his estate to his nephew, Henry James Hungerford. But should his nephew die without children—legitimate or illegitimate—a contingency clause stated that the estate would go to “the United States of America, to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge…”

Source: The Smithsonian Institution

The nephew did indeed die without children and in 1838 approximately $500,000 in gold was brought to the United States. After a decade of indecision and debate about how best to carry out the bequest, the Smithsonian Institution was created by Act of Congress (1846).

Here’s what that gift has led to:

An aside: According to the Smithsonian:

Senator John C. Calhoun opposed acceptance of the Smithson bequest, largely on the grounds that to do so on behalf of the entire nation would abridge states’ rights. He maintained that Congress had no authority to accept the gift. He also asserted that it would be “beneath [U.S.] dignity to accept presents from anyone.”

Best redux line of the day

“The irony is that when it comes to terror threats, the Administration has decided that a 1% chance is enough to impel decisive action. But when it comes to the global climate change that could wipe out most of the world’s coastal cities and threaten civilization itself, even near certainty is not enough to provoke action.”

Andrew Tobias, first posted here two years ago.

Works for Me

WENNER: “Is there a marker you would lay down at the end of your first term where you say, ‘If this has happened or not happened, I would consider it a negative mark on my governance’?”

OBAMA: “If I haven’t gotten combat troops out of Iraq, passed universal health care and created a new energy policy that speaks to our dependence on foreign oil and deals seriously with global warming, then we’ve missed the boat. Those are three big jobs, so it’s going to require a lot of attention and imagination, and it’s going to require the American people feeling inspired enough that they’re prepared to take on these big challenges.”

Daily Kos extracting from the Rolling Stone interview.

92nd Street Y on iTunes

New York City’s 92nd Street Y has been serving community interests for more than 133 years. And, now — thanks to iTunes U — it brings its programming to a really large community. For example, “92Y: George Carlin,” just one of the many programs available from 92Y: Online, lets us spend some time with Judy Gold and George Carlin, the renowned comedian who died this week.

92Y Online [iTunes]

Others include Steve Martin, Michael Pollan, Paul Krugman, Sydney Pollack, David Simon (The Wire), Kurt Vonnegut.

Newsweek embarrasses itself

Newsweek has an article online about a psychic who charges $10,000 per month to her clients. The article gushes all over her — she must have needed a towel after reading it — detailing her intuition, her successes, her clients.

But it forgets to mention one thing. A small thing, a minor detail, really: psychic powers don’t exist.
. . .

The Newsweek article is an embarrassment. It actually says this:

It’s impossible to objectively judge psychic powers.

Bad Astronomy Blog

Do you feel that somehow we are returning to the Middle Ages?

Hot Wheels vs. General Motors

That means the world’s largest auto maker has a stock market value of only about $7 billion. That compares with a market cap of about $56 billion in 2000, when the stock was at its all-time high of $94.62 a share.

To put that in even more perspective, GM’s market value is now roughly equivalent to that of tax-preparation provider H&R Block or toy maker Mattel.

Even more humbling for the auto maker, GM’s value is now:

• Half that of cosmetics company Avon
• A third of cruise operator Carnival Cruiselines
• A quarter of Internet media company Yahoo!
• A fifth of online auction house Ebay
• A sixth of retailer Home Depot
• A seventh of biotech firm Amgen’s
• An eighth of drugstore chain CVS
• A ninth of fast-food giant McDonald’s

CNBC.com

Most asinine decision of the day

(Beachwood [Ohio]) – Beachwood has cancelled its annual 4th of July Rec League All-Star Game for 9 to 12 year olds.

In a letter to coaches, Assistant Recreation Supervisor Frank Vicchiarelli announced that the decades old tradition would end because certain kids were being singled out as better players than others.

WTAM

As Fark.com put it, we won’t be hearing “Now batting, number twelve, Precious Snowflake.”

President Kennedy

… uttered his famous words “Ich bin ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner) on this date in 1963. As The New York Times put it at the time:

President Kennedy, inspired by a tumultuous welcome from more than a million of the inhabitants of this isolated and divided city, declared today he was proud to be “a Berliner.”

He said his claim to being a Berliner was based on the fact that “all free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin.”

Thomas Jefferson Memorial (Washington, D.C.)

A national memorial to Thomas Jefferson was authorized on this date in 1934. It was dedicated in 1943.

Jefferson Memorial

Thomas Jefferson-political philosopher, architect, musician, book collector, scientist, horticulturist, diplomat, inventor, and third President of the United States-looms large in any discussion of what Americans are as a people. Jefferson left to the future not only ideas but also a great body of practical achievements. President John F. Kennedy recognized Jefferson’s accomplishments when he told a gathering of American Nobel Prize winners that they were the greatest assemblage of talent in the White House since Jefferson had dinner there alone. With his strong beliefs in the rights of man and a government derived from the people, in freedom of religion and the separation between church and state, and in education available to all. Thomas Jefferson struck a chord for human liberty 200 years ago that resounds through the decades. But in the end, Jefferson’s own appraisal of his life, and the one that he wrote for use on his own tombstone, suffices: “Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia.”

Thomas Jefferson Memorial (National Park Service)

Jefferson Memorial Wedding Party
 
 
Some fortunate wedding parties are able to have photos taken at the Jefferson Memorial among architect John Russell Pope’s beautiful columns and curves. (That’s Emily and Rob, official daughter and son-in-law of NewMexiKen.)
 
 

Why Costco and not Sam’s

This was first posted here four years ago today, but is still valid. It’s from AlterNet:

Indeed, Costco’s pay is much, much, much better — a full-time Costco clerk or warehouse worker earns more than $41,000 a year, plus getting terrific health-care coverage. Wal-Mart workers get barely a third of that pay, plus a lousy health-care plan. Costco even has unions!

Yet, Costco’s labor costs are only about half of Wal-Mart’s. How’s that possible? One reason is that Costco workers feel valued, which adds enormously to their productivity, and they don’t leave — employee turnover is a tiny fraction of Wal-Mart’s rapidly revolving door.

Three times the pay but half the labor costs. Imagine that!

June 26

Today is the birthday

… of three-time Oscar nominee for best actress Eleanor Parker. She’s 86.

… of Derek Jeter, 34.

… of Michael Vick, 28.

Author Walter Farley was born on June 26, 1916.

He grew up loving horses and went on to write the novel The Black Stallion (1941). It’s the story of a boy and a wild stallion who survive a shipwreck and become friends on a deserted island. The book was so popular that Farley went on to write twenty novels about the horse, including The Black Stallion Returns (1945), The Black Stallion Revolts (1953), and The Black Stallion’s Ghost (1969).

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media

NewMexiKen’s favorite was always The Island Stallion.

Mildred (Babe) Didrikson Zaharias was born on June 26, 1914. Ms. Zaharias was named the top female athlete of the first half of the 20th century. She excelled in track and field, then took up golf at age 21, often hitting more than 1,000 golf balls a day as she learned the game. Eventually she won every important championship. Babe Zaharias died of cancer at age 42.

Pearl Buck was born on June 26, 1892. Ms. Buck won the Noble Prize for literature in 1938 “for her rich and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical masterpieces.” This is an excerpt from The Writer’s Almanac:

On the ship to America she started writing a new novel called East Wind, West Wind, which was published in 1930 and became a small success. The following year, she published The Good Earth (1931), about a Chinese peasant who becomes a wealthy landowner. At the time, Westerners saw China as one of the most exotic places on earth. Pearl Buck was the first writer to portray the ordinary lives of Chinese people for a Western audience. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize for literature and became an international best seller.

Nous Sommes Tous Sauvages

The best book about Custer is Evan S. Connell’s Son of the Morning Star: Custer and The Little Bighorn.

“Son of the Morning Star makes good reading—its prose is elegant, its tone the voice of dry wit, its meandering narrative skillfully crafted. Mr. Connell is above all a storyteller, and the story he tells is vastly more complicated than who did what to whom on June 25, 1876.” Page Stegner

This book is generally considered one of the half-dozen best written about the American west. (And I intend to go read it again when I finish this.)

The best book attempting to tell the vastly more important Indian side of the story is James Welch’s Killing Custer: The Battle of Little Bighorn and the Fate of the Plains Indians.

Rashly imprudent

The battle at Little Bighorn was 132 years ago today. This report is from The New York Times a few days later:

On June 25 Gen. Custer’s command came upon the main camp of Sitting Bull, and at once attacked it, charging the thickest part of it with five companies, Major Reno, with seven companies attacking on the other side. The soldiers were repulsed and a wholesale slaughter ensued. Gen. Custer, his brother, his nephew, and his brother-in-law were killed, and not one of his detachment escaped. The Indians surrounded Major Reno’s command and held them in the hills during a whole day, but Gibbon’s command came up and the Indians left. The number of killed is stated at 300 and the wounded at 31. Two hundred and seven men are said to have been buried in one place. The list of killed includes seventeen commissioned officers.

It is the opinion of Army officers in Chicago, Washington, and Philadelphia, including Gens. Sherman and Sheridan, that Gen. Custer was rashly imprudent to attack such a large number of Indians, Sitting Bull’s force being 4,000 strong.

Custer, often a reckless but previously a lucky commander, was to have his reputation rescued by what became the life-long work of Mrs. Custer.

Overflowing

This is revised from a comment NewMexiKen made last night.

Sea level has already been rising. According to NASA (and many other sources):

Twentieth century sea level trends, however, are substantially higher that those of the last few thousand years. The current phase of accelerated sea level rise appears to have begun in the mid/late 19th century to early 20th century, based on coastal sediments from a number of localities. Twentieth century global sea level, as determined from tide gauges in coastal harbors, has been increasing by 1.7-1.8 mm/yr, apparently related to the recent climatic warming trend. Most of this rise comes from warming of the world’s oceans and melting of mountain glaciers, which have receded dramatically in many places especially during the last few decades. Since 1993, an even higher sea level trend of about 2.8 mm/yr has been measured from the TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite altimeter. Analysis of longer tide-gauge records (1870-2004) also suggests a possible late 20th century acceleration in global sea level.

Here’s an experiment you can do at home. Fill a glass with water to the brim. Pretend the brim is Miami or Santa Monica or Bangladesh. Fill another glass with ice and set it out at room temperature. Pretend the ice is glaciers. As the ice melts, pour the contents of that glass into the glass filled with water. Have paper towel handy.

When glaciers melt, and particularly if the Greenland and Antarctica ice caps melt, the sea will rise. The meltwater has to go somewhere. It will go into the oceans and the oceans will rise.

Scientists only debate how much the glaciers will melt and how soon, not if.

Home Depot Offers a Solution

Some big retailers are promoting compact fluorescent light bulbs as a way to save energy. But improper disposal of the bulbs creates a hazard, because they contain small amounts of mercury.

Recycling them is about to get easier. Home Depot, the nation’s second-largest retailer, will announce on Tuesday that it will take back old compact fluorescents in all 1,973 of its stores in the United States, creating the nation’s most widespread recycling program for the bulbs.

The New York Times

It’s IMPORTANT the CFLs be properly disposed. The mercury in them is a hazard. Don’t put them in the trash!

And if you’re still using inefficient 125-year-old incandescent technology, why?

Thanks to Bob Ormond for the link.