The Worst and the Dumbest

Rudy “I Just Make This Shit Up” Giuliani, as reported at Crooks and Liars:

“[I]f we flee Iraq, if we do what the Democrats want us to do – which is to not only flee Iraq, not only retreat in Iraq, but give them a timetable of our retreat.

“Have you ever heard of that in a history of war?”

Well, yes, that’s exactly what the U.S. did in Vietnam.

Meanwhile, AP relying on the Watergate tapes via Hullabaloo:

“Oh s—, that kid,” Nixon said when told by his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, of [Fred] Thompson’s appointment on Feb. 22, 1973.

“Well, we’re stuck with him,” Haldeman said.
…

Nixon expressed concern that Thompson was not “very smart.”

“Not extremely so,” Buzhardt agreed.

“But he’s friendly,” Nixon said.

Brown

NewMexiKen attended a talk Saturday evening by Richard Rodriguez. His presentation was sponsored by The Chicano, Hispano, Latino Program (CHIPOTLE) of the University Libraries at the University of New Mexico. He was excellent.

Rodriguez is an author and journalist, his most recent book being Brown: The Last Discovery of America (2002). He appears on The NewsHour on PBS.

Rodriguez’s 75-minute talk was on the browning of the world. It was an anecdotal, amusing, entertaining and provocative presentation. My notes are fleeting but include:

  • The Senate voted to designate English the only language. Won’t they have to stop selling burritos in the Senate cafeteria? How could you even describe a burrito — tortilla, no, guacamole, no, chile, no.
  • We don’t speak English, we speak American. (German words, Spanish words, French words, American Indian words.)
  • Outside the U.S. there is no such thing as Hispanics. It’s a number of cultures not a race.
  • HBO did a documentary on white culture. It was 15 minutes.
  • The Census suggests there will be no racial distinctions by the 2020 census. The races are becoming too intermingled.
  • One of his aunts, like Rodriguez part Spanish and part Indian, married an East Indian. Their daughter, his cousin, is an Indian Indian. (And she married an American Indian so their child is Indian Indian Indian.)
  • Why is Barack Obama considered an African-American (i.e., black)? His mother was white.
  • He’d gotten a letter from a woman who’s father was Muslim and mother was Jewish. She didn’t know what she was but Americans think of her as the frugal terrorist.

These one-liners, of course, do not do the talk justice. Underlying it all was the theme that individuals everywhere are crossing racial lines — as they have for centuries in some cultures. It’s the browning of the world. And now people are crossing religious lines, too. Reacting to it all are the extremists, doing all that they can to stop the mingling.

July 8th is the birthday

… of Anjelica Huston. The third generation Oscar winner is 56. Anjelica won the best supporting actress Oscar for Prizzi’s Honor; she has two other nominations. Her father John was nominated for 15 writing, directing or acting Oscars, winning director and writing for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Grandfather Walter was nominated four times for acting Oscars, winning the supporting award for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

… of journalist and author Anna Quindlen, 54. Three years ago The Writer’s Almanac had this:

She eventually got a job as a reporter for the New York Times.

Quindlen started writing a weekly column called “Life in the ’30s,” in which she talked about marriage, motherhood, religion, and other personal issues. She wrote about being raised as a Catholic, about the death of her father, and about the birth of her children. The columns were incredibly popular: they were syndicated in more than sixty newspapers, and Quindlen became known as a voice for the baby boom generation. Some people accused her of writing about trivial issues, but Quindlen once said, “Anybody who tries to convince me that foreign policy is more important than child rearing is doomed to failure.”

… of Kevin Bacon. He’s 49. And no, Kevin Bacon has never been nominated for an Oscar. He’s only a few degrees of separation however, from many who have.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, was born in Zurich, Switzerland on this date in 1926. The Writer’s Almanac informs us:

She was the first medical professional to argue that dying is a natural process, and that patients who are terminally ill should not be forced to fight the dying process every step of the way. …

Her book On Death and Dying (1969) helped start the hospice movement, which has since spread around the world. She also introduced the now-famous concept of the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Louis Jordan was born on this date in 1908.

“In the Forties, bandleader Louis Jordan pioneered a wild – and wildly popular – amalgam of jazz and blues with salty, jive-talking humor. The music played by singer/saxophonist Jordan and his Tympany Five got called “jump blues” or “jumpin’ jive,” and it served as a precursor to the rhythm & blues and rock and roll of the Fifties.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

John D. Rockefeller was born on this date in 1839. The world’s first billionaire, Rockefeller essentially retired from Standard Oil in 1911. Even so, his taxable income in 1918 was $33,000,000 and his personal worth was estimated at more than $800,000,000. By then, he had already donated about $500 million to charitable causes. Rockefeller died in 1937 at age 97. Ron Chernow has written a recent highly-regarded biography, Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr.. The New York Times has posted Rockefeller’s obituary.

Nelson Rockefeller, grandson of John D., was born on his grandfather’s birthday in 1908. Rockefeller was governor of New York 1959-1973 and vice president 1974-1977. He died in 1979. NewMexiKen once witnessed Rockefeller stirring his coffee with the temple of his eyeglasses. It was kind of endearing.

No, anything but that!

Chick #1: You know how people will, like, tell their parents a bunch of really horrible lies to make whatever they need to tell them seem not as bad?

Chick #2: Yeah…

Chick #1: I think that’s what I’m gonna do.

Chick #2: What’s worse than getting pregnant, dropping out of school, and moving to Jersey?

–3 train

Overheard in New York

The Darksider

He [Cheney] is pathologically (but purposefully) secretive; treacherous toward colleagues; coldly manipulative of the callow, lazy, and ignorant President he serves; contemptuous of public opinion; and dismissive not only of international law (a fairly standard attitude for conservatives of his stripe) but also of the very idea that the Constitution and laws of the United States, including laws signed by his nominal superior, can be construed to limit the power of the executive to take any action that can plausibly be classified as part of an endless, endlessly expandable “war on terror.”

More than anyone else, including his mentor and departed co-conspirator, Donald Rumsfeld, Cheney has been the intellectual author and bureaucratic facilitator of the crimes and misdemeanors that have inflicted unprecedented disgrace on our country’s moral and political standing: the casual trashing of habeas corpus and the Geneva Conventions; the claim of authority to seize suspects, including American citizens, and imprison them indefinitely and incommunicado, with no right to due process of law; the outright encouragement of “cruel,” “inhuman,” and “degrading” treatment of prisoners; the use of undoubted torture, including waterboarding (Cheney: “a no-brainer for me”), which for a century the United States had prosecuted as a war crime; and, of course, the bloody, nightmarish Iraq war itself, launched under false pretenses, conducted with stupefying incompetence, and escalated long after public support for it had evaporated, at the cost of scores of thousands of lives, nearly half a trillion dollars, and the crippling of America’s armed forces, which no longer overawe and will take years to rebuild.

Hendrik Hertzberg in The New Yorker. It’s worth reading his entire essay.

Live Earth

Interesting that Chris Rock appeared to bomb with a Paris Hilton joke at the Live Earth concert at Wembley Stadium. (He was there to introduce the Red Hot Chili Peppers.)

Do you suppose other parts of the world really don’t give a damn? What could be wrong with them?

7-7-7

Pinetop Perkins is 94 today. He’s playing at Russell City Blues in Hayward, California. “Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie” is one of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. It was recorded at Sun Studios in Memphis more than 50 years ago.

By this time, Pinetop had developed his own unmistakable sound. His right hand plays horn lines while his left kicks out bass lines and lots of bottom. It was Pinetop, along with Pete Johnson, Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, and Little Brother Montgomery, who provided the basic format and ideas from which countless swing bands derived their sound – whole horn sections playing out what Pinetop’s right hand was playing. Although Pinetop never played swing, it was his brand of boogie-woogie that came to structure swing and, eventually, rock ‘n’ roll.

Pinetop Perkins Official Web Page

Author David McCullough is 74 today. His works include some of the best—and best-selling—biographies ever, Truman and John Adams, and the more recent miliary history 1776.

David McCullough said, “History is about life. It’s awful when the life is squeezed out of it and there’s no flavor left, no uncertainties, no horsing around. It always disturbed me how many biographers never gave their subjects a chance to eat. You can tell a lot about people by how they eat, what they eat, and what kind of table manners they have.”

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media

It’s Ringo Starr’s birthday. He’s 67.

Shelley Duvall is 58 today.

Robert Heinlein was born 100 years ago today.

At the time, most science fiction stories were full of gimmicks and imaginary machines that had no relationship to actual science. Heinlein was one of the first science fiction authors to look at the world the way it was and try to imagine how it might actually look in the future. And he tried to make sure that all the imaginary technology in his stories could really work. He wrote about things like atomic bombs, cloning, and gay marriage years before they became realities. And he was one of the first writers to imagine how space travel could actually be accomplished.

He’s best known for his novel Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), about a boy who is born during the first manned mission to Mars, who is raised by Martians, and who then returns to Earth to become a preacher. Stranger in a Strange Land was also the first book to describe a waterbed.

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media

Stachel Paige

Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Satchel Paige was born 101 years ago today. A huge star in the Negro Leagues, Paige began pitching in 1926 and was the oldest major league rookie ever when he joined the Cleveland Indians at age 42. Paige pitched in his last major league game in 1965 (at age 59).

In the barnstorming days, he pitched perhaps 2,500 games, completed 55 no-hitters and performed before crowds estimated at 10 million persons in the United States, the Caribbean and Central America. He once started 29 games in one month in Bismarck, N.D., and he said later that he won 104 of the 105 games he pitched in 1934.

By the time Jackie Robinson signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947 as the first black player in the majors, Mr. Paige was past 40. But Bill Veeck, the impresario of the Cleveland club, signed him to a contract the following summer, and he promptly drew crowds of 72,000 in his first game and 78,000 in his third game. (The New York Times)

“And don’t look back — something might be gaining on you.” — Satchel Paige.

On July 7th just 467 years ago, Hawikuh Pueblo attempted “to repel Francisco Vazquez de Coronado’s army, but the Indians are forced from their homes within five days. The Spanish confiscate provisions and continue their search for the fabled Seven Cities of Cibola based on fabricated stories of New Mexico.” (New Mexico Magazine)

July 6th is the birthday

… of President Bush, 61 today.

… of Sylvester Enzio Stallone, also 61 today. Stallone is one of three people to be nominated for a writing Oscar and an acting Oscar for the same movie. The others are Chaplin and Welles.

… of Nancy Reagan (86), Merv Griffin (82) and William Schallert, Patty Duke’s TV father, (85).

… of Ned Beatty. Beatty, who is 70 today, was nominated for the supporting actor Oscar for Network.

Bill Haley (“Rock Around the Clock”) was born on this date in 1925; he died in 1981.

The Mexican artist Frida Kahlo was born on this date in 1907 [she claimed 1910]. Ms. Kahlo died in 1954.

Well, NewMexiKen got that one wrong

In an earlier post on Stuff you need to know NewMexiKen advised against reusing certain plastic water bottles. The information I had — from a magazine — was wrong. Thanks to commenter Bob, I followed up. Here’s better info.

Question: What do you make of this recent email warning that claims dioxins can be released by freezing water in plastic bottles?

Answer: No. This is an urban legend. There are no dioxins in plastics. In addition, freezing actually works against the release of chemicals. Chemicals do not diffuse as readily in cold temperatures, which would limit chemical release if there were dioxins in plastic, and we don’t think there are.

Question: So it’s okay for people to drink out of plastic water bottles?

Answer: First, people should be more concerned about the quality of the water they are drinking rather than the container it’s coming from. Many people do not feel comfortable drinking tap water, so they buy bottled water instead. The truth is that city water is much more highly regulated and monitored for quality. Bottled water is not. It can legally contain many things we would not tolerate in municipal drinking water.

Having said this, there is another group of chemicals, called phthalates that are sometimes added to plastics to make them flexible and less brittle. Phthalates are environmental contaminants that can exhibit hormone-like behavior by acting as endocrine disruptors in humans and animals. If you heat up plastics, you could increase the leaching of phthalates from the containers into water and food.

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Will a plastic bottle leach harmful substances into water if I reuse it?
Most convenience-size beverage bottles sold in the U.S. are made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The FDA has determined that PET meets standards for food-contact materials established by federal regulations and therefore permits the use of PET in food and beverage packaging for both single use and repeated use. FDA has evaluated test data that simulate long-term storage and that support repeated use.

When consumers choose to refill and reuse convenience-size plastic bottles, should they be concerned about potentially harmful bacteria?
Not if they clean their plastic bottles between uses just as they would other drinking containers. Plastics are by nature extremely sanitary materials, and plastic bottles are no more likely to harbor bacteria than other kinds of packaging or drinking containers. Bacteria thrive in warm, moist environments. Once bacteria have been introduced, virtually any drinking container (coffee mugs, drinking glasses, serving pitchers, etc.) becomes a suitable environment for bacterial growth.

Consumers should clean any drinking container with hot soapy water and dry thoroughly between uses. Bottles specifically designed for extended reuse are often made with wide openings that allow consumers to use cleaning instruments and easily dry them.

FAQs: The Safety of Plastic Beverage Bottles

Stuff you need to know

Ever re-use water bottles? You know, refill them from the refrigerator dispenser or the tap, or freeze them?

Well, maybe you shouldn’t.

PETE 1There are various types of plastic used in bottles. PET or PETE 1 plastic, which is often used for manufactured water, should not be re-used because there is a risk the chemicals will leach out.

HDPE 2 or PP5 on the other hand, do not seem to leach.

Look on the bottom of the bottle to see what kind of plastic you have.

Update: See first comment and next post.

——–

A blue moon shows up about every two-and-a-half years. And guess what? The definition we’ve all known for a blue moon — the second full moon in a calendar month — is wrong. A blue moon occurs when a season (between a solstice and an equinox or between an equinox and a solstice) has four full moons. The blue moon is the third of the four.

The two full moons in one month definition got picked up by mistake about 60 years ago (by Sky & Telescope no less) and became the conventional wisdom. The seasonal definition makes more sense because seasons are natural events (defined by equinox and solstice) not human events defined by a calendar.

Of course, blue moons are human events too, so who really cares except the lyricist?

Blue Moon
You saw me standing alone
Without a dream in my heart
Without a love of my own
Blue Moon
You know just what I was there for
You heard me saying a prayer for
Someone I really could care for

——–

It was 100º officially in Albuquerque Tuesday, the first time in triple digits since July 15, 2003.

That and This

“Despite what we read in the popular press, the only known symptom of ’empty nest syndrome’ is increased smiling.”

Daniel Gilbert in Stumbling on Happiness, a fascinating and entertaining book NewMexiKen will write more about later.

Trivia time: What’s the longest un-dammed river in the lower 48 states?

The New West Network tells how that river kept its course. (Thanks to Coyote Gulch for the pointer.)

It’s the Yellowstone.

At Freakonomics Blog Steven D. Levitt suggests you might want to invite your enemies over if you live in Missouri, where a new law says that “people are not required to retreat from an intruder and can use deadly force once the person illegally enters their home, vehicle or other dwelling, including a tent.” Who’s to say whether you invited them in or they entered illegally?

Do you know the Stroop Effect?

The Stroop Effect is one of the most-studied phenomena in psychology. The test is easy to administer, and works in a variety of contexts. The simplest way to see how it works is just to look the following two lists. Don’t read them, instead say the color each word is displayed in, as quickly as you can:

Stroop

Source: Cognitive Daily, which has more.

Zebra Horse

Did you say the colors or read the words?

Did you know that zebras and horses could be bred?

Source: The Underwire, which has details.

And, this from Cheers and Jeers:

Percent of single American men and women who religious conservatives say should remain celibate until marriage: 100%

Percent of single American men and women who actually remain celibate until marriage (or so they say): 11%

Independence Day

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

The Declaration of Independence

History’s favorite coincidence

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on this date in 1826, 50 years to the day after the Declaration of Independence was adopted. Jefferson was the primary author of the Declaration; Adams, with Benjamin Franklin, was also key in its development.

[Image of first page of Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence with edits.]

Adams and Jefferson were colleagues during the Revolution, but fell apart over political differences during their terms as president (Adams 1797-1801, Jefferson 1801-1809). After Jefferson left office they resumed a remarkable correspondence that lasted until their deaths.

Also, on that same day in 1826, Stephen Foster, the first great American songwriter, was born. “His melodies are so much a part of American history and culture that most people think they’re folk tunes. All in all he composed some 200 songs, including ‘Oh! Susanna’ ‘Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair,’ and ‘Camptown Races.'” [American Experience]

And “Old Folks at Home (Swanee River),” “My Old Kentucky Home” and “Beautiful Dreamer.”

‘Even Richard Nixon knew it was time to resign’

An excerpt from Tuesday evening’s commentary by Keith Olbermann.

I accuse you, Mr. Bush, of lying this country into war. I accuse you of fabricating in the minds of your own people a false implied link between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. I accuse you of firing the generals who told you that the plans for Iraq were disastrously insufficient. I accuse you of causing in Iraq the needless deaths of 3,586 of our brothers and sons, and sisters and daughters, and friends and neighbors. I accuse you of subverting the Constitution, not in some misguided but sincerely motivated struggle to combat terrorists, but to stifle dissent. I accuse you of fomenting fear among your own people, of creating the very terror you claim to have fought. I accuse you of exploiting that unreasoning fear, the natural fear of your own people who just want to live their lives in peace, as a political tool to slander your critics and libel your opponents. I accuse you of handing part of this republic over to a vice president who is without conscience and letting him run roughshod over it.

Take me out to the ballgame

NewMexiKen managed to break away from surfing the web long enough this evening to take in a ballgame — Isotopes vs. the Iowa Cubs. 15,002 other folks joined us, the second largest crowd ever here.

It was a beautiful night for the game — 103º at the first pitch, but cooling down to a sweater-inducing 98º by the third inning. The Cubs went up 4-0 by the top of the second, but the ‘Topes fought back to win 7-6. Each team had a hellacious home run well over the 428 foot sign in left center.

And it was all followed by a great Independence Day eve fireworks show.

Could you pass the U.S. citizenship test?

Just in time for Independence Day from MSNBC.com.

When immigrants want to become Americans, they must take a civics test as part of their naturalization interview before a Citizenship and Immigration Services (INS) officer. The questions are usually selected from a list of 100 sample questions that prospective citizens can look at ahead of the interview (though the examiner is not limited to those questions). Some are easy, some are not. We have picked some of the more difficult ones.

NewMexiKen is proud to report that I scored an ace — 20 for 20!

Thanks to Cat’s Mom Tanya for the link.

Update: Last year’s Independence Day trivia quiz is getting a number of visits today. Want to test your U.S. history and geography trivia knowledge again?

Sums it up pretty well

The Plame investigation was urged by the Bush CIA and commenced by the Bush DOJ, Libby’s conviction pursued by a Bush-appointed federal prosecutor, his jail sentence imposed by a Bush-appointed “tough-on-crime” federal judge, all pursuant to harsh and merciless criminal laws urged on by the “tough-on-crime/no-mercy” GOP. Lewis Libby was sent to prison by the system constructed and desired by the very Republican movement protesting his plight.

But our political discourse and media institutions are so broken and corrupt that Bush followers (and their media enablers) feel free to make the completely-backwards and fact-free claim that the Libby prosecution was driven by “partisan” and “political” motives … because they know that there is no such thing as a claim too false to be passed on without real objection by our vapid, drooling press corps.

Glenn Greenwald

It wasn’t just the Summer of Love

We should remember 1967 not as the time the nation turned on and tuned in but as the moment the United States began hurtling toward a nervous breakdown, riven by conflict that would change the country and the world forever. It was the beginning of an era of intense polarization – one in which, arguably, we are still living. More than a momentous year, 1967 was a seedbed for our own times.

So says Princeton historian Sean Wilentz in assessing The Legacy of 1967. While Country Joe and Janis Joplin opened the year in San Francisco, Ronald Reagan was taking the oath of office in Sacramento. It was a time of cultural revolution, but equally one of political counter-revolution.

An interesting look at the year and its legacy.