Here’s another good revenue idea for Mayor Marty

Cite motorists for something bogus, then keep citing them even after the law gets changed, but before the change goes into effect.

Police in Houston, Texas issued $931,000 in tickets this year to motorists for the crime of using a frame on their license plate, often one supplied by a car dealer. Of this amount, $231,000 was raised after Governor Rick Perry (R) signed a law overturning a February Texas Appeals Court interpretation … of state law that gave police authority to issue the citations. Because the new law does not go into effect until September 1, Houston police believe that they have a green light to collect up until the deadline.

“It’s the law, and it’s our job not to interpret but to follow,” Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt told the Houston Chronicle newspaper. “When that law takes effect in September, then we will abide by the changes.”

At the current pace, Houston police expect to collect another $450,000 in revenue from the citations. A single officer, Matthew Davis, is responsible for a large share of the revenue. Davis this year issued 1216 license plate tickets at a rate of up to 30 a day. Police rewarded his ticket-writing skill with $162,000 in overtime bonuses since 2004.

Houston police cite motorists for other expired laws as well. Davis issued a ticket to Tammy Ayers, 38, for having a license plate frame as well as driving without corrective lenses. Ayers had laser eye surgery and has perfect vision.

theNewspaper.com

Hide and seek

There’s a cricket inside my house — how do they get in? One of us is going to have to move out soon.

Summer is here — 94°F. today. Low humidity though; still only 15% at 9PM. Beautiful this evening.

Casa NewMexiKen has some lovely new solar lanterns in the front courtyard. I know some wiseacre will come along and tell me it takes more resources to produce an NiMh battery than if I just wired the lamps, but I like that they sit there all day soaking up the energy to provide a small, pretty light all night. (The area where I live has no street lights and people are discouraged from leaving porch lights on unless actually in use. We get to see the stars that way.)

My kids have about two-dozen first cousins, mostly on their mother’s side. When all four generations get together at a family reunion, as they did this weekend, it can get confusing for the little guys. Three-year-old Aidan I’m told spent much of the weekend calling his Uncle Ken “Uncle Jason” (and Uncle Jason wasn’t even able to be there). Finally this morning, Aidan thought he’d figured it out. “I know it’s Uncle Ken,” he told his mom. “Which room is Uncle Jason’s room so I can tell him I know he’s Uncle Ken?”

Father’s Day

Today is Father’s Day, a holiday in this country that goes back to a Sunday morning in May of 1909, when a woman named Sonora Smart Dodd was sitting in church in Spokane, Washington, listening to a Mother’s Day sermon. She thought of her father who had raised her and her siblings after her mother died in childbirth, and she thought that fathers should get recognition too.

So she asked the minister of the church if he would deliver a sermon honoring fathers on her father’s birthday, which was coming up in June, and the minister did. And the tradition of Father’s Day caught on, though rather slowly. Mother’s Day became an official holiday in 1914; Father’s Day, not until 1972.

The Writer’s Almanac

On this date, June 17th

Barry Manilow is 64.

Thomas Haden Church is 46. Church was nominated for a supporting actor Oscar for Sideways.

Greg Kinnear is 44. Kinnear was nominated for a supporting actor Oscar for As Good As It Gets. Kinnear is a graduate of The University of Arizona (1985).

Venus Williams is 27.

M. C. Escher was born on June 17th in 1898.

Ralph Bellamy was born on June 17th in 1904. Bellamy was nominated for a supporting actor Oscar for The Awful Truth in 1937. He received an Honorary Oscar in 1987. Bellamy starred in an early TV crime series, Man Against Crime. (And NewMexiKen once waited on Bellamy and his party at the Tucson Country Club.)

John Hersey was born on June 17th in 1914. Hersey won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1945 for A Bell for Adano but is perhaps better known for Hiroshima, his nonfiction book, originally written for The New Yorker, about the victims of the atomic bomb.

And, posted here last year:

The decisive Day is come, the Battle of Bunker Hill.

And Beginning of ‘Watergate’.

Best lines of the President’s trip, so far

“President Bush met with the Pope this weekend and he made a mistake, because instead of calling the Pope ‘your holiness,’ Bush called him ‘sir.’ Then, instead of kissing the Pope’s ring, Bush went for a high five and said, ‘Up top Popey.'”

“Last week when President Bush was in Albania, they named a street after him. During the street naming ceremony, Bush told the Albanians, ‘I am honored to be standing here on Lame Duck Boulevard'”

Conan O’Brien (Jay Leno said it was “a dead end street”.)

“President Bush made a stop in Albania on Sunday. Unlike just about every other place he’s ever been, they really like him there. They love him. They mobbed the president, and he ate it up. The only problem is that they may have also stolen his watch. … Today the White House said the president’s watch was not stolen. They said he took it off before he started shaking hands, which means there are two possibilities. Either … Albanians stole the president’s watch, or the president took off his watch because he doesn’t trust Albanians. Neither scenario paints a particularly rosy picture of Albanian-American relations.”

Jimmy Kimmel

When great men lived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By “business” I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level—I mean the wages of decent living.

Franklin D. Roosevelt in his statement on signing the National Industrial Recovery Act 74 years ago today.

June 16th is the birthday

… of novelist Joyce Carol Oates. She’s 69.

She is one of the most prolific writers of her generation, having published almost one hundred books in forty years, including novels, short stories, plays, poetry and essays. She’s the author of many novels, including Them (1969), Bellefleur (1980), and We Were the Mulvaneys (1996).
…

When asked how she can write so much, Oates says she just works steadily, about eight or ten hours a day. She spends a lot of her time thinking about her work while she’s running, walking, or bicycling. She said, “At such times the imagination floats free, and one can contemplate one’s work with an almost magical detachment.”

The Writer’s Almanac

… of Lamont Dozier, 66 today. Who is Lamont Dozier you say? Along with Eddie and Brian Holland, Dozier wrote a few songs you may know, among them:

Baby I Need Your Loving
Baby Love
Bernadette
Come See About Me
Nowhere To Run
I Hear a Symphony
My World Is Empty Without You
Reach Out, I’ll Be There
How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You
(Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch) I Can’t Help Myself
Stop! In The Name Of Love
This Old Heart Of Mine
It’s The Same Old Song
Jimmy Mack

… of Roberto Duran. “No mas” is 56. In a 1980 fight with Sugar Ray Leonard, with 16 seconds remaining in the 8th round, Duran had enough. He told the referee, “No mas, no mas.”

… of Phil Mickelson. Lefty is 37 today. Didn’t make the cut.

Geronimo

Several sources give June 16, 1829, as Geronimo’s date of birth. It’s not clear to NewMexiKen that the Apaches were using the Gregorian calendar at that time. And, indeed, one of those sources, The New York Times, stated in its obituary of Geronimo in February 1909 that he was nearly 90 — not 79 as this birth date would indicate. But, he had to be born some time. So why not June 16?

In her excellent 1976 biography of Geronimo, Angie Debo concludes:

Geronimo was born in the early 1820’s near the upper Gila in the mountains crossed by the present state boundary [Arizona-New Mexico], probably on the Arizona side near the present Clifton. …

He was given the name Goyahkla, with the generally accepted meaning “One Who Yawns,’ why or under what circumstances is not known.

As an adult in battle he was called Geronimo by Mexican soldiers, perhaps because they could not pronounce Goyahkla, or perhaps to invoke Saint Jerome (Geronimo is Spanish for Jerome). The name was adopted for him by his own people.

Continue reading Geronimo

How much longer will it last?

Ford Motor Company entered the business world on June 16, 1903, when Henry Ford and 11 business associates signed the company’s articles of incorporation. With $28,000 in cash, the pioneering industrialists gave birth to what was to become one of the world’s largest corporations. …

The earliest record of a shipment is July 20, 1903, approximately one month after incorporation, to a Detroit physician. With the company’s first sale came hope—a young Ford Motor Company had taken its first steps.

Ford Motor Company

It will become all one thing or all the other

Abraham Lincoln delivered his House Divided Speech at Springfield, Illinois, on this date in 1858.

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free.

I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided.

It will become all one thing or all the other.

Either the opponents of slavery, will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, old as well as new — North as well as South.

The speech was made at the Illinois Republican State convention that had nominated Lincoln for U.S. Senator. It was a precursor to the Lincoln-Douglas debates in the campaign that followed, which Lincoln lost. It seems to be about as succinct a statement of the core issue of the Civil War as one could find.

Amazing

The greens at Oakmont, where the U.S. Open is underway, are 103-years-old and have never been redone.

Listening to the announcers yesterday and today and one is left with the impression that this is the best golf course in the best condition in the world.

June 15th is the birthday

… of Jim Belushi. He’s 53.

… of Julie Hagerty. Airplane’s flight attendant is 52.

… of Wade Boggs, 49.

… of Oscar-winner Helen Hunt. (Hard to believe, but true.) At 44, Tami Maida’s quarterbacking days are over.

… of Courteney Cox Arquette, now 43.

… of O’Shea Jackson. Ice Cube is 38.

And it’s the birthday of Doogie. Neil Patrick Harris was born in Albuquerque 34 years ago today. He grew up in Ruidoso, New Mexico.

Wait until Mayor Marty sees this

You may see Paris, you may see France, but in Delcambre, Lousiana, you won’t see underpants.

In an attack on baggy trousers, the Mayor is signing an ordinance that imposes a possible 6 month jail sentence and hefty fine for those who wear baggy pants that expose their underwear.

TalkLeft

Albuquerque’s Mayor Marty just unilaterally prohibited smoking on all city property extended the no smoking ban to all city property — even outside (parks, bus stops). I’m no smoker and hate being around second-hand smoke, but I hate living in a nanny community more. Add the mayor’s smoking ban to redlight cameras, the APD party patrols, DUI roadblocks, cell phone bans and what do you have? When does nanny end and fascist begin?

Obama did nothing wrong, they typed. And then, they kept on typing

This is the kind of self-impressed work that only appears in the New York Times. No other paper lets its reporters show the world how they love the sound of their voices. “There is no sign that Obama did anything improper.” Thirty-two paragraphs later, we’re being told how some people said it seemed—“a bit [awkward]”—at a charity function.

Daily Howler

The “bit awkward” was what some thought at a charity event where Michelle Obama appeared: “Mrs. Obama attended, though others there said it seemed a bit awkward.” (New York Times)

Flag Day

On this date in 1777 the Continental Congress approved a national flag:

Resolved, that the Flag of the thirteen United States shall be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the Union be thirteen stars, white on a blue field, representing a new constellation.

In 1916 President Wilson issued a proclamation declaring June 14 Flag Day.

The present design of the flag was established in 1818 — thirteen stripes to represent the original states and a star for each state. Until 1912 the arrangement of the stars was left to the discretion of the flag-maker. The current flag with 50 stars was established on July 4, 1960, when Hawaii was admitted to the Union.

The Star-Spangled Banner at Fort McHenry during the War of 1812 had 15 stars and 15 stripes.

 Avenue in the Rain, Childe Hassam

Inconsistency alert

The themes of the [Creation Museum] exhibits resound in the theater presentations: Men in White, Six Days of Creation, The Last Adam, and Dinosaurs and Dragons. Our Special Effects Theater, complete with rumbling seats and rising mists, takes visitors on a fantastic quest to find the real purpose and meaning of life.

Each seat is a rocket launching pad in our Stargazers Planetarium. Prepare for lift-off. The digital projector showcases a spectacular gravity-defying spaceflight, a thrilling 22-minute ride billions of light years away to the vast outer regions of our universe. Breathtaking images and inconceivable distances make this cosmic journey under the dome a fully engaging experience.

Creation Museum [emphasis added]

Billions of light years? What’s up with that? I thought we were dealing with about 6,000 years since the Biblical creation.

Idea from Jesus’ General.

Oh, and as long as I’m borrowing, I have a take on a cartoon in the current New Yorker caption contest.

The cartoon depicts Noah’s ark with pairs of animals — including a human pair. There are three potential winning captions (all of them good).

But my version would be the ark with pairs of animals including a pair of dinosaurs. And the dinosaur male says to the female dinosaur, “Don’t tell Noah about the vasectomy.”

(Here’s that particular Cartoon Caption Contest.)