… were married on November 28th in 1582. He was 18, she 26. As with many facets of Shakespeare’s life, there is some confusion about the marriage. Among other things, Shakespeare received a marriage license with an Anne Whatley the day before. Secondly, relatives of Anne Hathaway (or Hathwey) posted bond so that her marriage to Shakespeare could proceed with only one reading of the bans. Perhaps the confusion is best resolved by noting that, six months later, on May 26, 1583, William and Anne’s daughter Susanna was christened. It appears the Bard had a shotgun wedding.
Best line of the day, so far
“Drew Curtis of Fark.com, on the death of Gatorade inventor Robert Cade, 80: ‘Remains will be cremated, and then the ashes will be dumped over some coach’s head.'”
Reported by Sideline Chatter.
Do you myth me?
Examples: In the past two months, the Kyl-Lieberman amendment has played a major role in the Democratic primaries. Have you seen a single [media] report examining the merits of this amendment? Driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants have turned the Democratic race upside down. Have you seen any reports, of any length, about the states which already allow this? (About New Mexico, whose governor is one of the Democratic candidates?)
The Daily Howler, which once again explains how much of modern political coverage is just plain myth-making. Some good background on David Broder and his infamous 1972 report which described Ed Muskie, the leading Democrat, with “tears streaming down his face.” No other reporter mentioned tears.
November 28th
Today is the birthday
… of Barry Gordy. The founder of Motown is 78.
… of Gary Hart, 71. I wonder if he’s still hanging out on the “Monkey Business” with Donna Rice.
… of Randy Newman. The 16-time Oscar nominee (one win) is 64. The win was for “If I Didn’t Have You” from “Monsters, Inc.”
… of Paul Shaffer. “The Letterman Show” band-leader is 58.
… of Ed Harris. The four-time Oscar nominee is 57. Harris has been nominated for three best supporting actor Oscars and once as best actor (for “Pollock”).
… of S. Epatha Merkerson. Lt. Van Buren is 55.
… of Judd Nelson. John Bender of “The Breakfast Club” is 48.
… of Jon Stewart. “The Daily Show” star is 45.
Flip Flop
In May, [Albuquerque Mayor] Chavez had announced plans to expand his program to include freeway-based speed cameras. In April, he successfully lobbied New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (D) to veto legislation that would have limited profit from automated ticketing. The pro-camera lobbying effort was so strong that leaders of the state legislature asked for an investigation into whether lobbying rules were violated.
Despite this active and effective role in the photo enforcement program, the official Chavez for Senate campaign website biography limits his most important mayoral accomplishments to: “He declared war on gangs, graffiti and DWI.” Photo ticketing does not merit even a brief mention on an extensive list of his accomplishments while in office.
Most noteworthy line of the day, so far
“Social Security, in other words, is in much better financial shape than the rest of the government.”
Paul Krugman, who briefly explains. Worth a minute of your time.
Update: You should also read Ruth Marcus for another thoughtful and more concerned look at Social Security.
Best line of the day, so far
“The government is sending hand baskets this week to every American citizen. Apparently we’re all going somewhere.”
You Look a Lot Less Like You in Person
Man #1: What is going on here?
Man #2: They are filming the new Sex in the City movie with Sarah Jessica Parker. They have the entrance to the subway blocked off.
Man #1: Wonderful. I wouldn’t even know what Sarah Jessica Parker looks like.
Woman nearby: Hi. I’m Sarah Jessica Parker.
Man #1: Nice to meet you. Can I go home now?
Sarah Jessica Parker: Sure, go ahead.
–Outside 6 train entrance
Best line worth bringing up again
But, listen, let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works: the president makes decisions. He’s the Decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put ’em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know – fiction!
Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Dinner quoted by Glenn Greenwald.
Podcasts
NewMexiKen never ceases to be amazed at the amount of free material available at the iTunes store in the form of podcasts — ESPN, NPR, PBS, college courses and lectures, and so on. Today I copied a number of free episodes of old time radio programs for my next road trip. I find the old episodes of “Suspense” and “Gunsmoke” and the like to be fast-paced and easier to listen to than audio books [while driving].
Do any of NewMexiKen’s readers have any favorite podcasts they’d like to recommend?
Doing well, not good
Dan Neil objects to incremental improvements in SUV mileage.
Strategic: This is the strongest objection. In a time of surpassing urgency — whether your pet issue is global warming, oil security or economic disruption — we are accepting, even rewarding relatively modest and incremental changes in efficiency that require no sacrifice, no change in consumer behavior at all. This isn’t going to get it done, people. The notion that American drivers can sally on as before, driving the miles and tonnage they do, and only the technology under the hood has to change, is complete bollocks. We will incrementalize ourselves to the crack of doom.
Neil points out that the manufacturers and their accomplices legislators in Washington are working to exempt trucks (and thereby large SUVs) from future fuel economy standards (35 mpg by 2020). I will go on to point out, that for example, as noted here this morning, 57% of GMs sales in North America are trucks.
Mars
We’re now beginning several very special months for seeing Mars. This planet appears bright in our sky only about every two years, and that best time to see Mars is here. Mars is bright now, and it’ll be even brighter by December. That’s when Earth – in its smaller, faster orbit – will be quickly gaining on the red planet in the race of the planets around the sun.
In just a few more weeks – December 18, to be exact – Earth will swing closest to Mars for this two-year period. Mars, in turn, will shine at its brightest in our sky. In fact, December will bring Earth’s closest encounter with Mars, and Mars’ brightest appearance in our sky, until the year 2016.
Right now Mars rises in the east 2-3 hours after sunset and, of course, will be on the western horizon near dawn.
November 27th
Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg is 50 today.
Bill Nye, the Science Guy, is 52.
Angels manager Mike Scioscia is 49.
Jimi Hendrix might have been 65 today.
Jimi Hendrix expanded the range and vocabulary of the electric guitar into areas no musician had ever ventured before. Many would claim him to be the greatest guitarist ever to pick up the instrument. At the very least his creative drive, technical ability and painterly application of such effects as wah-wah and distortion forever transformed the sound of rock and roll. Hendrix helped usher in the age of psychedelia with his 1967 debut, Are You Experienced?, and the impact of his brief but meteoric career on popular music continues to be felt.
More than any other musician, Jimi Hendrix realized the fullest range of sound that could be obtained from an amplified instrument. Many musical currents came together in his playing. Free jazz, Delta blues, acid rock, hardcore funk, and the songwriting of Bob Dylan and the Beatles all figured as influences. Yet the songs and sounds generated by Hendrix were original, otherworldly and virtually indescribable. In essence, Hendrix channeled the music of the cosmos, anchoring it to the earthy beat of rock and roll.
Buffalo Bob Smith was born 90 years ago today. (He died in 1998.)
The new Howdy, who premiered in March 1948 was an all-American boy with red hair, forty-eight freckles (one for each state in the Union), and a permanent smile. Howdy’s face symbolized the youthful energy of the new medium and appeared on the NBC color test pattern beginning in 1954.
Smith treated the marionettes as if they were real, and as a result, so did the children of America. Among the many unusual marionettes on the show was Phineas T. Bluster, Doodyville’s entrepreneurial mayor. Howdy’s grumpy nemesis, Bluster had eyebrows that shot straight up when he was surprised. Bluster’s naive, high-school-aged accomplice, was Dilly Dally, who wiggled his ears when he was frustrated. Flub-a-dub was a whimsical character who was a combination of eight animals. In Howdy and Me, Smith notes, “Howdy, Mr. Bluster, Dilly, and the Flub-a-Dub gave the impression that they could cut their strings, saunter off the stage, and do as they pleased.”
Although the live characters, particularly the native Americans Chief Thunderthud and Princess Summerfall Winterspring, were by modern standards stereotypical and often clownish, each had a rich heritage interwoven into the stories.
NewMexiKen had an appendectomy when I was six. I checked into the hospital Thursday evening for the Friday surgery and so missed that Friday’s episode of “Howdy Doody.” I’m still wondering whether Salami Joe found the jewel in the banana. (He only ate bananas on Fridays.)
The Quad
It’s kind of late for me to mention this, but The Quad college football blog from The New York Times is, I think, quite good at following college football without getting carried away about it.
The Quad is a blog about the fierce competition and engrossing culture of college football. From the Bowl Championship Series and Heisman Trophy watch, to news and features about one’s alma mater or local collegiate team, The New York Times will take readers inside America’s great fall weekend ritual with interviews, insights and analysis from the tailgates to the sidelines.
Car talk
57% of General Motors’ sales units are trucks.
If Toyota stopped making vehicles on June 1st, their dealers would be out of stock by Independence Day. If GM stopped making vehicles on June 1st, their dealers could have kept selling stock until Labor Day. (The point being that GM has a million units in dealer stock on average; Toyota 200,000.)
(NewMexiKen was born in Detroit. I can’t help it, I find the automobile industry strangely fascinating.)
Facts gleaned from The Truth About Cars.
Best line of the day, so far
“Time Magazine politcal savant says Oprah won’t help Obama. Because we all know if there’s one thing Oprah’s bad at, it’s convincing middle-aged women to do something.”
FARK.com referring to Mark Halperin.
Interesting, very interesting
A new Zogby Interactive survey shows Democrat Hillary Clinton of New York would lose to every one of the top five Republican presidential contenders, representing a reversal of fortune for the national Democratic front–runner who had led against all prospective GOP opponents earlier this year.
Meanwhile, fellow Democrats Barack Obama of Illinois and John Edwards of North Carolina would defeat or tie every one of the Republicans, this latest survey shows.
. . .The online survey included 9,150 likely voters nationwide, and was conducted Nov. 21–26, 2007. It carries a margin of error of +/– 1.0 percentage points.
Obama beats each of the five Republicans by 5-7 percent. Clinton loses to each by 3-5 percent.
Oldies, but definitely goodies
An 800-year-old map, the sole surviving copy of a chart used by the Roman Empire’s courier service, was put on show for just one day on Monday after being accorded “Memory of the World” status by UNESCO.
The parchment scroll, nearly 7 metres (yards) long, could only be displayed briefly because too much light would damage it, before it was returned to storage at Austria’s National Library, where it has been since 1738.
Named Tabula Peutingeriana after the German antiquarian who owned it in the 16th century, the map shows roads linking some 4,000 settlements as well as mountains, rivers and forests from Spain in the west to China in the east.
From north to south, the map covers the British Isles to north Africa. But because the scroll is just over 30 cms (12 inches) high, the north-south axis is greatly compressed, depicting the Mediterranean Sea as a small stretch of blue squeezed between today’s Croatia and Italy.
A Springfield rifle owned by the famed Apache warrior Geronimo fetched $100,000 during an auction of Wild West guns and weapons that brought in more than $1 million.
Lawman Wyatt Earp’s double-barreled shotgun garnered $65,500, while a saber attributed to U.S. Army cavalry commander George Custer sold for $20,315 at the Bonhams & Butterfields auction Tuesday.
November 26th
Today is the birthday of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee (with Ike) Tina Turner; she’s 68.
The Ike and Tina Turner Revue was one of the highest energy ensembles on the soul circuit in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.
Ike Turner had begun as a bandleader and talent scout in the ‘40s for blues and R&B performers. He recorded “Rocket 88,” considered by many the first rock ‘n’ roll recording, under the name of his baritone sax player, Jackie Brenston, in 1951.
Turner and his band, the Kings of Rhythm, found a young singer named Annie Mae Bullock in 1956. Eventually, the singer was renamed Tina Turner and the two married.
Their first hit, “A Fool in Love,” was recorded in 1961 when another singer failed to show up for a session. After several early ‘60s hit R&B singles, including “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine” in 1961, they became major stars in England.
A 1971 cover version of John Fogerty’s “Proud Mary” reached No. 4 on the pop chart. Ike and Tina divorced in 1976.
John McVie is 62 today. McVie is the Mac in Fleetwood Mac. (Stevie Nicks is 59½ today.)
Despite all the changes, two members have remained constant over the years: drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie, whose surnames provided the group name Fleetwood Mac. Though most rock fans are familiar with the lineup that includes Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks—by far the longest-running edition of the band, responsible for the classic albums Fleetwood Mac and Rumours—the group possesses a rich and storied history that predates those epics.
Art Shell is 61 today. Shell is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a player and he was the first African-American head coach in modern NFL history.
Hall of Fame pitcher Vernon Louis “Lefty” Gomez was born on this date in 1908. He died in 1989.
“No one hit home runs the way Babe (Ruth) did. They were something special. They were like homing pigeons. The ball would leave the bat, pause briefly, suddenly gain its bearings, then take off for the stands.” Lefty Gomez
“When Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon, he and all the space scientists were puzzled by an unidentifiable white object. I knew immediately what it was. That was a home run ball hit off me in 1933 by Jimmie Foxx.” Lefty Gomez
“I talked to the ball a lot of times in my career. I yelled, ‘Go foul. Go foul.'” Lefty Gomez
Charles M. Schulz was born on this date in 1922. He died in February 2000, the night before his last Sunday strip appeared. Last month John Updike wrote a fascinating review of Schulz and Peanuts, a biography by David Michaelis — Sparky from St. Paul.
Best line of the weekend, so far
“By the Sunday after Thanksgiving I’ve usually been enough of a glutton that I swear off food entirely. You know, go cold turkey.”
NewMexiKen
Best line of the day, so far
From the Maryland-North Carolina State game. Just listen.
Via Awful Announcing.
Update: Apparently this is now a legit call. Here’s another instance.
No Eli, throw to the Blue jerseys
Q: Why are the Peyton Manning’s Brother action figures expected to be brisk sellers this holiday season?
A: The latest version comes with a liberal return policy.
Adapted from Sideline Chatter.
Another Year of Automotive Turkeys
In compiling our fourth annual list of Automotive Turkeys, we looked at four factors, all pertaining to 2007 model-year vehicles: number of recalls to date, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) database; reliability ratings from Consumer Reports; depreciation, in the form of Automotive Leasing Guide’s (ALG) star ratings; and safety, from NHTSA and Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) crash-test ratings.
Besides a standout number of recalls, we looked specifically for below-average reliability, high depreciation, and NHTSA ratings below four stars and/or IIHS results of “Marginal” or “Poor.” Of the vehicles that met at least two of these qualifications, we also looked subjectively at other factors, such as fuel efficiency and cost.
Topping the list are the Chrysler Sebring, Dodge Nitro, Jeep Liberty, Dodge Caliber, and Dodge Magnum.
Turkeys six through ten: Ford Crown Victoria, Chevrolet Aveo, Nissan Quest, Hyundai Entourage and Pontiac Grand Prix.
Can Barack Obama catch Hillary Clinton?
NewMexiKen doesn’t know quite what to think yet about the Democratic candidates for president, but I did find this piece in The New Yorker to be a particularly cogent — and perhaps persuasive — argument for Barack Obama.
Religious Art
From this week’s Cartoons from The New Yorker.