But some of us can’t help ourselves. Nearly as common as the abandoned blog is the “final comments before I reclaim my life” post. Followed by “an update to something I said in my final comments.” And, “Well, I couldn’t let this story go by.” And on it goes.
Christianity Today explaining why some of us can’t quit blogging. Via Andrew Sullivan.
NewMexiKen thinks I should just quit blogging and defer to Mental Floss, “Where Knowledge Junkies Get Their Fix.”
Try their Weekend Genius Challenge — win a T-shirt! Here’s the description of the quiz:
Below are five numbered entries. Each entry is an alphabetical list of states that are unique in some way; they have something specific in common. You try to figure out what that “something” is. It might have to do with geography, symbols, history or cities, but could be anything at all.
The key word is “only.” An example entry: Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon. The answer? They’re the only states whose names begin with the letter “O.” Easy, huh? Well, they’re not all that easy!
NewMexiKen got one right off, then two more, then after awhile another, but the last not yet at all.
Update: My answers seem not to be what they’re looking for. I thought I had it on my second try.
Update update: Hey, I won a T-shirt — mostly because they are good folks at Mental Floss because I didn’t really follow the rules. I’ve just discovered the site in the past few days, and it’s filled with fun knowledge-trivia based stuff!
This is a very poor photo I’m sorry to say; I’ll have to work on my wildlife photo taking skills. It was taken from my computer desk through a window because its subjects fly away at the least movement and sound (the velcro on the camera case, for instance).
Anyway, it’s a sample of what the bird seed has brought me. Click the photo, of course, for the larger version. Note the “lookouts” on the corners.
Today marks the anniversary of the first American train robbery. An east bound Ohio & Mississippi passenger train was boarded by the Reno brothers near Seymour, Indiana, on this date in 1866.
The Today in History page at the Library of Congress provides background about train robberies and early railroads including this excerpt from “The Early Days in Silver City” —
I happened to be riding that train. I had gone overland to Safford and Solemisvelle prospecting. I decided to come home Thanksgiving to be with my family at Silver City. I boarded the train at Wilcox. There was a large shipment of gold on the train. Just out of Steins Pass we could see a large bon-fire. One of the trainmen remarked, ‘Wonder what the big fire is, I hope we don’t run into any trouble.’ The bon-fire we discovered to our sorrow was on the R. R. Then as today curiosity got the best of some of us so we had to find out why the train came to an abrupt stop, and what the bon-fire was put on the track. We found ourselves looking into the barrel of guns.
… if it’s Westinghouse.
George Westinghouse was born on this date in 1846 in Central Bridge, New York.
In 1869, Westinghouse received a patent for the air brake, which permitted the locomotive engineer to apply the brakes equally to all cars. Previously brakemen had applied the brakes manually and accidents were common. The invention was adopted by most railroads worldwide.
In 1884, Westinghouse formed Westinghouse Electric and acquired Nikola Tesla’s patents for alternating current. He was opposed by Thomas Edison whose own company (General Electric) fostered direct current. Ultimately, of course, alternating current (and Westinghouse) emerged victorious, but not before one of the more gruesome battles in industrial competion. The following is from the Kirkus review of Executioner’s Current: Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and the Invention of the Electric Chair:
Enron and Worldcom executives take heart: this grim account of the origins of execution by electrocution proves that business-based sleaze can go a lot further than accounting fraud. As Moran (Sociology/Mount Holyoke Coll.) shows, the Edison Electric Co., with Thomas A. himself at the helm, relentlessly lobbied the State of New York in 1890 to establish electrocution as the preferred “humane” disposal of those given the death penalty. What actually motivated Edison, despite his professed opposition to capital punishment, was his rivalry with the Westinghouse Company for the vast US market for electrical lighting and power. Edison equipment generated only direct current (DC), but the tide was turning towards the Westinghouse alternative, AC power. Each side claimed that the other had serious safety deficiencies. By persuading authorities to adopt alternating current for the death chair, Edison and his minions hoped to foster a public image of AC as the truly “lethal” form of electricity. Moran spares readers no details of the gruesomely botched first electrocution at Auburn Prison in August 1890, during which convicted murderer William Kemmler was seen by some witnesses to “suffer horribly,” as current from the Westinghouse dynamo (purchased under false pretenses) was shut off twice while attending doctors pondered the presence of respiration and heartbeat, then switched on again. Its proponents, however, continued to endorse electrocution as a best-case method (absent the bungling at Auburn) while the debate continued over decades. The author points out that we still don’t know exactly how electricity kills a human being (cardiac arrest being the prime suspect), and survivors of serious accidental shocks do report varieties of excruciating pain.
Westinghouse opposed the execution, of course, and even helped fund Kemmler’s appeals, but Westinghouse’s money was no match for Edison’s celebrity.
While you’re watching the “big game,” the players are watching the cheerleaders, the crowd is watching the jumbotron, and the coaches are watching… well, the other team’s coaches (with or without the aid of cameras).
What’s more, the game is also watching YOU. Below are 12 “eyes” as depicted on the helmet logos of NFL teams. Match the team to the image by typing in the corresponding number in the white blanks.
Take the Eyes on the NFL quiz.
“A verdict of $222,000.00, for infringement of 24 song files worth a total of $23.76?”
All across America, communities are working to protect our public lands from threats like oil and gas drilling, unchecked development, irresponsible recreation, logging, and global warming. In order to save what remains of our nation’s wild legacy, the Sierra Club has launched a campaign to protect fifty-two of our most exceptional places–one in every state, plus Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia–over the next ten years.
Follow the link to read about the places — and to download a Google Earth file that lets you see each of the 52.
The Wall Street Journal has a good review (and a chapter) of Rick Atkinson’s The Day of Battle — A Terrible Slog.
If you decide to buy the book, here’s the link — The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944
I’m experimenting with a new feature that allows you to find material related to the subject matter of any post (any post having more than 30 words). I noticed the WSJ was using the feature — and my very own blog was one of its links — so I thought I’d give it a try. Let me know what you think; the link is in the post metadata. NewMexiKen has almost no control on the selection.
The two strongest Democrats, Governor Richardson and Representative Tom Udall (Stewart’s son) say they aren’t interested in Domenici’s senate seat.
The neighborhood phantom has been back this week after a month when I hadn’t noticed him. Nice new Cadillac sedan, at least. We don’t allow no low rent suspicious people in this neighborhood.
Any ideas for an exciting new NewMexiKen poll?
It’s the birthday
… of Bill Keane. The artist and creator of Family Circus is 85.
… of Diane Cilento. Ms. Cilento received a supporting actress Oscar nomination for her performance in Tom Jones but NewMexiKen liked her best as the spicy, outspoken passenger in Hombre. She’s 74 today.
… of Edward P. Jones. The author of the Pulitizer Prize winning novel The Known World is 57. A great book.
… of Marion Ravenwood. Karen Allen is 56. She’s in the new Indy film, too.
… of Bernie Mac, 50.
… of Maya Lin. The designer of the Vietnam Memorial is 48.
… of Mario Lemieux, 42.
… of Grant Hill. The basketball player, high school classmate of Emily, official daughter of NewMexiKen, is 35.
… of Kate Winslet. The actress is 32. She’s been nominated for the best actress Oscar three times and the best supporting actress Oscar twice.
… of Ray Kroc, developer of the McDonald’s empire, who was born on October 5th in 1902.
But by 1941, “I felt it was time I was on my own,” Mr. Kroc once recalled, and he became the exclusive sales agent for a machine that could prepare five milkshakes at a time.
Then, in 1954, Mr. Kroc heard about Richard and Maurice McDonald, the owners of a fast-food emporium in San Bernadino, Calif., that was using several of his mixers. As a milkshake specialist, Mr. Kroc later explained, “I had to see what kind of an operation was making 40 at one time.”
…
Mr. Kroc talked to the McDonald brothers about opening franchise outlets patterned on their restaurant, which sold hamburgers for 15 cents, french fries for 10 cents and milkshakes for 20 cents.
Eventually, the McDonalds and Mr. Kroc worked out a deal whereby he was to give them a small percentage of the gross of his operation. In due course the first of Mr. Kroc’s restaurants was opened in Des Plaines, another Chicago suburb, long famous as the site of an annual Methodist encampment.
Business proved excellent, and Mr. Kroc soon set about opening other restaurants. The second and third, both in California, opened later in 1955; in five years there were 228, and in 1961 he bought out the McDonald brothers.
Source: Kroc obituary in 1984 from The New York Times
Chester A. Arthur, the 21st president, was born on October 5th in 1829. Arthur became president when Garfield was assassinated.
And it’s the birthday of NewMexiKen’s mother, born in Laredo, Texas, 82 years ago today. In the month before she died in 1974, Mom made some cuttings of a spider plant (Chlorophytum comosum). Those cuttings (and their descendants) still grow at Casa NewMexiKen more than 33 years later. I’m not sure what I believe about an afterlife, but I know what I believe about the spirit in those plants.
With 2,000 U.S. soldiers in pursuit, Chief Joseph led fewer than 300 Nez Percé Indians towards freedom at the Canadian border. For over three months, the Nez Percé outmaneuvered and battled their pursuers traveling over 1,000 miles across Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. On October 5, 1877, Chief Joseph, exhausted and disheartened, surrendered in the Bear Paw mountains of Montana, 40 miles south of Canada.
Surrendering to Gen. Nelson Miles 130 years ago today, Joseph spoke:
I am tired of fighting. Our Chiefs are killed; Looking Glass is dead, Ta Hool Hool Shute is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say “Yes” or “No.” He who led the young men is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets; the little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are – perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.
Nancy Franklin has a loving and appreciative — and worried — review of the NBC series “Friday Night Lights.” It includes this:
I took a wait-and-not-see approach to “Friday Night Lights” last year, until an unlikely friend recommended it—a young filmmaker who had grown up in Manhattan in a literary and theatrical milieu and had no interest in sports. We were in the Museum of Natural History when we had this conversation, and when she told me that she and her husband were “addicted” to the show, even the animals in the dioramas were so stunned that they froze in their tracks. The following week, I watched an episode, and went from ignorance to bliss.
“If you watch bad television because you think it’s good, you’re screwed up. But if you watch bad television because you like the feeling of watching bad television, you’re OK.”
“Happiness among American men and women reaches its estimated minimum at approximately ages 49 and 45 respectively.”
National Bureau of Economic Research
Link via Paul Krugman.
Reporter: “One last quick question, and this is just kind of a lighter note, you don’t have an American flag pin on, is this a fashion statement? Those have been on politicians since September 12, 2001?”
Obama: “You know, the truth is that right after 9/11 I had a pin. Shortly after 9/11, particularly because as we’re talking about the Iraq war, that became a substitute for I think true patriotism, which is speaking out on issues that are of importance to our national security, I decided I won’t wear that pin on my chest, instead I’m gonna’ try to tell the American people what I believe will make this country great and hopefully that will be a testimony to my patriotism.”
I’m afraid America isn’t ready for a candidate who thinks for himself.
(As if Obama didn’t have this checked with focus groups beforehand.)
“32% said it’s time for some tax increases on the wealthiest Americans to reduce the budget deficit and pay for health care.”
And why is that a best line of the day? Because it’s the Wall Street Journal citing a poll of REPUBLICANS.
Oh, and: “By a nearly two-to-one margin, Republican voters believe free trade is bad for the U.S. economy.”
Check out the GOP’s new “wide-stance” logo.
Today, October 4th, is the 50th anniversary of Sputnik, the first man-made satellite. Google has a logo. Good only while supplies last.
At Slate Magazine, Laura Moser reviews the best Bluetooth cell phone headsets. To begin she offers this interesting trivia:
The name Bluetooth is a tribute to 10th-century Danish Viking King Harald Blatand (Bluetooth in English), renowned for unifying the battling tribes of Denmark and Norway. Bluetooth similarly unites different electronics devices, transferring small files of sound and data over short distances (up to about 30 feet) without the mess of cords and cables. For example, it can wirelessly connect your laptop to your printer, your speaker to your stereo, and your cell phone headset to your cell phone.
“They simply do not believe that they have to adhere to the rule of law — it’s awe-inspiring in its pathology.”
— Digby on the latest torture revelations.
“There is no doubt – no doubt at all – that these tactics are torture and subject to prosecution as war crimes.”
“And then there was the saddest lesson, to be learned again and again in the coming weeks as they fought across Sicily, and in the coming months as they fought their way back toward a world at peace: that war is corrupting, that it corrodes the soul and tarnishes the spirit, that even the excellent and superior can be defiled, and that no heart would remain unstained.”
— Rick Atkinson in The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944
The retirement of Senator Pete Domenici has put our local politicos and journalists into a tither. C’mon, none of you thought an increasingly unpopular 75-year-old who wears pajamas to work might not run? It’s unexpected, but surely not a shock.
The speculation this morning about the probable senate candidates and then who will rush to fill the other chairs has NewMexiKen thinking about Bill [Richardson] and the 7 dwarves.
Mayor Marty couldn’t win reelection in Albuquerque today. Why would anyone think he’d be a good U.S. senator?
Current Representative Heather “Are you working on those indictments?” Wilson barely won her race last year. She’d get about three votes in northern New Mexico (and those from former Texans living in Santa Fe).
Patricia Madrid. Puh-leese, she is so o-ver. She couldn’t beat Wilson in a Democratic year. And god forbid if there was a candidates debate. Might as well have that big hair blonde that does the Beaver Toyota ads run.
It’s enough to give me a brain disease.
Mental Floss has an article on “12 College Classes We Wish Our Schools Had Offered.” Here’s just three; follow the link for the others and details:
Simpsons and Philosphy (Cal-Berkeley)
The Science of Harry Potter (Frostburg State)
Far Side Entomology (Oregon State)
Extra bonus: Strange High School Mascots
The above, one of many great T-shirts from the Mental Floss Store.
It’s the birthday
… of Charlton Heston. Moses is 83 today. Heston won the best actor Oscar for Ben-Hur (1959), his only nomination.
… of gothic author Anne Rice, 66. She is said to have sold 100 million books.
… of Susan Sarandon. The five-time nominee for best actress (she won for Dead Man Walking) is 61 today.
… of Alicia Silverstone, probably not so clueless at 31.
It’s also the birthday of Buster Keaton, born on this date in 1895.
Buster Keaton is considered one of the greatest comic actors of all time. His influence on physical comedy is rivaled only by Charlie Chaplin. Like many of the great actors of the silent era, Keaton’s work was cast into near obscurity for many years. Only toward the end of his life was there a renewed interest in his films. An acrobatically skillful and psychologically insightful actor, Keaton made dozens of short films and fourteen major silent features, attesting to one of the most talented and innovative artists of his time. …
It was this “stone face,” however, that came to represent a sense of optimism and everlasting inquisitiveness.
In films such as THE NAVIGATOR (1924), THE GENERAL (1926), AND THE CAMERAMAN (1928), Keaton portrayed characters whose physical abilities seemed completely contingent on their surroundings. Considered one of the greatest acrobatic actors, Keaton could step on or off a moving train with the smoothness of getting out of bed. Often at odds with the physical world, his ability to naively adapt brought a melancholy sweetness to the films.
Source: American Masters | PBS
Frederic Remington was born on October 4th in 1861. 
With his dynamic representations of cowboys and cavalrymen, bronco busters and braves, 19th-century artist Frederic Remington created a mythic image of the American West that continues to inspire America today. His technical ability to reproduce the physical beauty of the Western landscape made him a sought-after illustrator, but it was his insight into the heroic nature of American settlers that made him great. This painter, sculptor, author, and illustrator, who was so often identified with the American West, surprisingly spent most of his life in the East. More than anything, in fact, it was Remington’s connection with the eastern fantasy of the West, and not a true knowledge of its history and people, that his admirers responded to.
Photo of sculpture from Amon Carter Museum.
And it’s the birthday of Rutherford Birchard Hayes, 19th President of the United States. Hayes was born in Delaware, Ohio, on this date in 1822.
As the Library of Congress tells it:
Rutherford B. Hayes became…president in 1877 after a bitterly-contested election against Democrat Samuel J. Tilden of New York. Tilden won the popular vote, but disputed electoral ballots from four states prompted Congress to create a special electoral commission to decide the election’s result. The fifteen-man commission of congressmen and Supreme Court justices, eight of whom were Republicans, voted along party lines deciding the election in Hayes’s favor.
“Still, Bush was insane to veto S-CHIP, not only because it’s become a necessary program, but also because the outrage the veto causes should help grease the skids for universal health care. What a lucky break that Bush doesn’t seem to get that.”