“If God didn’t want us to make a buck off of 9/11, he’d have made those planes hit something we don’t care about like New Orleans.”
Dearly Departed iPod
There’s links to more photos of this sad event at The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).
A commenter noted that it’s illegal to bury an iPod (the battery I guess) and that Apple Stores will give you a discount toward a new one if you bring the deceased one in. I plan to turn mine into a diamond when that fateful day arrives.
(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay
Otis Redding was born on this date in 1941.
Though his career was relatively brief, cut short by a tragic plane crash, Otis Redding was a singer of such commanding stature that to this day he embodies the essence of soul music in its purist form. His name is synonymous with the term soul, music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of funky, secular testifying. Redding left behind a legacy of recordings made during the four-year period from his first sessions for Stax/Volt Records in 1963 until his death in 1967. Ironically, although he consistently impacted the R&B charts beginning with the Top Ten appearance of “Mr. Pitiful” in 1965, none of his singles fared better than #21 on the pop Top Forty until the posthumous release of “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay.” That landmark song, recorded just four days before Redding’s death, went to #1 and stayed there for four weeks in early 1968.
Redding wrote the song known as Aretha Franklin’s signature hit, “Respect.”
Best line of the day, so far
“I hate to be so quaint as to defend reality. There’s not much point. It’s as dead as dial-up.”
Best line of the day, so far
“We’ve all become accustomed to a Congress that behaves as if it’s divided between Bloods and Crips rather than Republicans and Democrats….”
— Tim Rutten in a Los Angeles Times opinion piece titled ABC follows a path to shame. He also says:
“It’s well understood, of course, that docudramas are seldom documentary and only sporadically dramatic. As a rule, they’re basically devices to free unimaginative writers from the burden of having to make up characters’ names.”
The Tao of Backup
OK, I see that it is just a lengthy ad, but it’s pretty good — and pretty good advice (even if you pass on the product).
Oops, gotta go, my backup program just came on.
To Whom It May Concern
“A responsible broadcast network should have nothing to do with the falsification of history, except to expose it.”
— Letter from several prominent historians to ABC president Iger.
Five Years of Consequence
This chart of events of the past five years from Ben Schott is pretty interesting. [.pdf file]
Best line of the day, so far
“The scene reminds me of the old World War II joke about the worker in a defense plant who’s asked what he’s building. ‘The front ends of horses,’ he replies, ‘to be shipped to Washington for final assembly.’ ”
New Mexico State Fair
It’s time for the FAIR! Today through September 24.
Here’s NewMexiKen’s report from last year’s Fair.
[Hey Fair people, your website is the opposite of the Fair. The Fair is exciting. Your web site is dull. Click the logo above to see what I mean.]
Take a Walk!
A handy web site for measuring the distance of your run or walk. MapMyRun.com.
Thanks to Veronica for the link. Her marathon is next month!
Best line of the day, so far
“I once sat in a car forever waiting for my mom to come out of a grocery store. I thought that was the definition of ‘interminable.’ I had no idea ‘The Path to 9/11’ was in my future.”
— Chicago Sun-Times critic Doug Elfman in a review titled: Accuracy aside, ABC’s “9/11” deserves to bomb.
He goes on to say:
Controversy could boost viewership, except “Path” is the dullest, worst-shot TV movie since ABC’s disastrous “Ten Commandments” remake. It substitutes shaky handheld cameras and dumb dialogue for craftsmanship. It could not be more amateurish or poorly constructed unless someone had forgotten to light the sets.
An appalling secondary concern is the tone makes almost every pre-9/11 American look like a fool.
NewMexiKen hopes ABC pulls the plug on this piece of propaganda, but the simple fact is that a large audience would be 30 million and that means nine out of ten Americans won’t be watching it anyway — and Scholastic has already replaced its supplemental material for schools, a more important development than whatever ABC chooses to do.
The Space Shuttle and the Horse’s Rear End
Did you know that the size of the booster rocket tanks that flank the Space Shuttle at take-off were determined by the width of a Horse’s Rear End?
And we think we’re so modern.
Best lines of the day, so far
“The President of Iran is coming to the United States. How would you like to be behind him in airport security?”
— Jay Leno, who had this to say about Paris Hilton’s arrest:
“She was taken to a holding room and given one phone call. She called room service.”
Well, she hadn’t eaten all day.
Two Country Music Immortals
… were born on this date.
Jimmie Rodgers, considered the “Father of Country Music,” was born in Meridian, Mississippi, on September 8, 1897. He died from TB in 1933. Jimmie Rodgers was the first person inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and among the first inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
James Charles Rodgers, known professionally as the Singing Brakeman and America’s Blue Yodeler, was the first performer inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. He was honored as the Father of Country Music, “the man who started it all.” From many diverse elements—the traditional melodies and folk music of his southern upbringing, early jazz, stage show yodeling, the work chants of railroad section crews and, most importantly, African-American blues—Rodgers evolved a lasting musical style which made him immensely popular in his own time and a major influence on generations of country artists.
Patsy Cline, the most popular female country singer in recording history, was born in Winchester, Virginia, on September 8, 1932. She died in a plane crash in 1963. Patsy Cline is an inductee of the Country Music Hall of Fame.
Cline is invariably invoked as a standard for female vocalists, and she has inspired scores of singers including k. d. lang, Loretta Lynn, Linda Ronstadt, Trisha Yearwood, and Wynonna Judd. Her brief career produced the #1 jukebox hit of all time, “Crazy” (written by Willie Nelson) and her unique, crying style and vocal impeccability have established her reputation as the quintessential torch singer.
Boycotting Advertisers
Michael Froomkin engages Miami ABC affiliate WPLG in a futile discussion about the crock-a mentary “The Path to 9/11.”
“So, left with no alternative, I’ve started by contacting ABC’s national advertisers whose products I currently use. But doing it on a local level would be much, much more effective. Anyone have a list of local WPLG advertisers?”
Don’t know about Miami, but it often seems as if all the local advertisers on Albuquerque’s television stations are car dealers and most of us are already doing a pretty good job of boycotting GM, Ford and Chrysler.
This May Explain Ford’s Problems
From a report on new Ford chief executive Alan Mulally in The New York Times:
Company insiders say [Chairman William] Ford views the relationship as owner and manager, akin to a sports team such as his family’s Detroit Lions, where neither can be successful without the other.
The Lions are one of the least successful franchises in NFL history. They last played in an NFL championship game in 1957. Since then they have been in the post-season only nine times (in 48 seasons) and won just one post-season game out of ten.
William Clay Ford Sr. became president of the Lions in 1961 and purchased the team outright in 1963.
William Clay Ford Jr. is the chairman of the Ford Motor Company.
ABC’s ‘9/11’ Libel By Fiction Exposure
Michael Froomkin thinks ABC/Disney might want to be in discussions with their attorneys:
“[I]t seems to me that one aspect of ABC/Disney’s position has been missed: if the public descriptions of the show are accurate, then the people who made it and those who plan to show it have some serious libel exposure.”
According to Froomkin, while it’s difficult to libel a public figure, it’s not impossible. He explains.
More Natural-Born Leader
Yeah, [Mack’s] a leader all right. But he’s going to lead them all right over a cliff.
Today they went around their room each saying their favorite color. Mack’s table was the last to go. As he tells it, “I said my favorite color was black. And then four little hands popped up and they all said, ‘Actually, my favorite color is black, too!’, ‘My favorite is black, too!’.”
Great, now I’ll have a bunch of moms wondering who turned their five-year-olds into Goths.
Department of Fame
This takedown of Matt Dillon at Fametracker is pretty funny. It begins:
You know how behavioral scientists do studies on animals raised in captivity, and how if the first thing a newborn gerbil (or whatever) sees is a ball of twine, it’ll think that twine ball is its mother? We sometimes wish there were a Department of Fame that could bankroll a study of child pop-culture consumers, and how the stars a child watches in her formative years can imprint themselves on the child forever — make her not just feel nostalgic affection for those actors once she’s reached adulthood, but believe in their talent and defend their career missteps in the present day by making arguments that rest heavily on the work she may have watched when she was a kid. And God help that now-adult’s friends if one of those disproportionately beloved actors somehow falls ass-backward into an Oscar nomination. “See? You see?” that now-adult will say. “He is not washed up and flabby!” And the now-adult’s friends are all like, “Thanks a lot, The Academy. She’ll be dining out on this one for years.”
We know there are some of you reading this who are like, “Yeah, it’s just like my friend Betty with John Travolta. She loved him so much from Grease that she owned all the Look Who’s Talking movies, and we were all like, ‘He sucks, Betty, and he’s a Scientologist,’ and then he got nominated for Pulp Fiction and we were like, ‘Shit.’ But what does any of this have to do with Matt Dillon — whose Oscar nomination for Crash may finally get him the respect he deserves and make people take his more challenging work in the current Factotum more seriously?”
Oh, some of you. Don’t you see? Matt Dillon is John Travolta. And you are Betty.
Thanks to Jill for the link.
Best line of the day, so far
“As with global warming and the handgun crisis, future generations will judge us harshly for not preventing Paris Hilton’s music career while there was still time.”
Poor thing, that on top of last night’s DUI arrest.
Other than putts, drives and short game, how’d she do?
Wie struggled around the Alpine layout and failed to make many putts — particularly on the crucial par-3s.
“I had trouble on the par 3s today,” Wie said. “That’s what really killed me — 5 over on the par 3s. I didn’t play that bad the rest of the round. I felt like I played pretty solidly.”
Wie consistently hooked shots to the left, leaving tough second shots around the hilly course.
“My tee shots were a little erratic,” she said. “And I’ll work on a few more bunker shots. I didn’t really have my rhythm today in my short game. Hopefully it will come back to me tomorrow.”
— SI.com
This sounds amazingly like Functional Ambivalent’s Hillbilly Golf Best Line of the Day: “After taking an eight on a par four my friend Pat said: ‘You know, except for that one I put in the water I had six great shots on that hole.'”
Wie shot a first-round 78 in the European Masters, a men’s event.
Teen Brain: It’s All About Me
As if it were some sort of surprising finding, WebMD reports:
“Brain scans show that teen’s brains may still be developing when it comes to sensitivity to other people’s feelings.”
All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten, Redux
Remember Tuesday and the Red-Yellow-Green behavior system in Mack’s kindergarten? And remember Mack being told by his dad that if he got through the whole year without any yellows, he’d get a car? Well, Mack’s mom reported today, the second day the system was in effect.
“Mack’s not getting a car.”
Update: He was talking when he should have been listening. Jill reports:
I spoke to Mack about it and told him that it wasn’t fair to be loud in class. I said that all the other students were being quiet and trying to learn, and if he was loud that was disturbing to them.
His reply was, “No. The other kids see that I am talking and then they all do it, too.”
Natural born leader.
Mindset
Members of the class of 2010, entering college this fall, were mostly born in 1988. For them: Billy Carter, Lucille Ball, Gilda Radner, Billy Martin, Andy Gibb, and Secretariat have always been dead.
1. The Soviet Union has never existed and therefore is about as scary as the student union.
2. They have known only two presidents.
3. For most of their lives, major U.S. airlines have been bankrupt.
6. There has always been only one Germany.
7. They have never heard anyone actually “ring it up” on a cash register.
8. They are wireless, yet always connected.
11. A coffee has always taken longer to make than a milkshake.
12. Smoking has never been permitted on U.S. airlines.
15. They have never had to distinguish between the St. Louis Cardinals baseball and football teams.
17. They grew up pushing their own miniature shopping carts in the supermarket.
18. They grew up with and have outgrown faxing as a means of communication.
19. “Google” has always been a verb.
20. Text messaging is their email.
22. Mr. Rogers, not Walter Cronkite, has always been the most trusted man in America.
23. Bar codes have always been on everything, from library cards and snail mail to retail items.
24. Madden has always been a game, not a Superbowl-winning coach.
32. Reality shows have always been on television.
34. They have always known that “In the criminal justice system the people have been represented by two separate yet equally important groups.”
35. Young women’s fashions have never been concerned with where the waist is.
36. They have rarely mailed anything using a stamp.
47. Small white holiday lights have always been in style.
48. Most of them never had the chance to eat bad airline food.
From the Beloit College Mindset List. There’s 75 altogether.
Via Ample Sanity.