“All told, that places 100 million people — one in three Americans — either in poverty or in the fretful zone just above it.”
‘Near Poor’ – Not Quite in Poverty, but Still Struggling – NYTimes.com
National Book Award Winners 2011 and more
I downloaded the free sample of each of these. I read both samples. I will be buying both books ($9.12 and $9.43).
Salvage the Bones: A Novel
A hurricane is building over the Gulf of Mexico, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch’s father is growing concerned. A hard drinker largely absent, he doesn’t show interest in much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn’t much to save. Lately, Esch can’t keep down what food she gets; she’s fifteen and pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pit bull’s new litter, dying one by one in the dirt. Meanwhile, brothers Randall and Junior try to stake their claim in a family long on child’s play and short on parenting.
As the twelve days that make up the novel’s framework yield to a dramatic conclusion, the unforgettable family at the novel’s core—motherless children sacrificing for one another as they can, protecting and nurturing where love is scarce—pulls itself up to face another day.
The Swerve: How the World Became Modern
In the winter of 1417, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late thirties plucked a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. The man was Poggio Braccionlini, the greatest book hunter of the Renaissance. His discovery was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic, On the Nature of Things by Lucretius—a beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles in eternal motion, colliding and swerving in new directions.
The copying and translation of this ancient book fueled the Renaissance, inspiring artists such as Botticelli and thinkers such as Giordano Bruno; shaped the thought of Galileo and Freud, Darwin and Einstein; and had a revolutionary influence on writers such as Montaigne and Shakespeare and even Thomas Jefferson.
Elsewhere Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman
There Have Always Been Brutal Bastards
Only their tools have improved.
Photo taken at UC Davis.
Best line of the day
“If an alien with an accounting degree touched down in America, it might conclude that we’re a weird cult that spends 11 months living frugally and four crazy weeks buying tons of stuff we don’t need.”
Root Root Root for the Home Team
Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC today released its 2011 College Home Listing Report (College HLR), which ranks college towns across the country in home affordability. The report provides the average home listing prices for three-bedroom, two-bathroom properties that were listed for sale on coldwellbanker.com between August 2010 and August 2011 in markets home to 117* of the 120 schools in the Football Bowl Subdivision.
Least expensive are Memphis and Muncie (Ball State). Most expensive are Westwood (UCLA) and Palo Alto (Stanford) — their average listing is over $1 million.
* Tucscaloosa is not included because of tornado damage. Bowling Green (the one in Ohio) and Bloomington (Indiana University) did not have enough listings to make the list.
The 4 best places to retire in America?
We rate all kinds of things here at Consumer Reports, but places to retire aren’t one of them. Any number of other publications, websites, and organizations do, however, and the editors of the Consumer Reports Money Adviser newsletter follow their efforts with interest. Every so often, we like to compare different lists side by side and see what, if any, places they agree on. No single place made all four of the lists we looked at most recently, including one released just this week, but these four cities each made two:
Cape Coral/Fort Meyers, Fla.
Ithaca, N.Y.
Pittsburgh, Pa.
Tucson, Ariz.If you toss in a fifth, somewhat more specialized, list, USAA’s best places for military retirement, Pittsburgh gets a third vote, and two additional cities, Austin/Round Rock, Tex., and Harrisburg, Pa., each get a second vote.
What He Wrote
I know that it’s become the height of unreason now to ask the president to step up and, you know, lead on something, but this is a national problem and it demands a national response. It was only a matter of time before the massive looting of the country’s wealth occasioned a general response from the people whose wealth was looted. Americans are slow and they love their American Idol too much but, when they move, they move. None of this is going away. It’s beyond the mayors of the various cities. If they’re not Michael Bloomberg, who seems to think he masterminded the Normandy campaign in clearing out Zuccotti Park, then they’re paralyzed by the fear and being led around by the nose by their business communities and that their own police department. It would be helpful if the president would mention, in public, that people exercising their fundamental First Amendment rights of free speech and free assembly should not be made to bleed from the ears. When did we decide to look at our fellow citizens as enemies who deserve to be subject to military assault? When did we vote on that?
Best line of the day
“Anyway, for more updates on [Natalie Wood], watch your favorite news source (I imagine FOX News is claiming that Obama did it) or wait until next week when LAW & ORDER has their version of the case.”
What a Week: You’re Out
Take The New Yorker 12-question weekly news quiz.
I missed the first two but recovered and correctly answered the next 10, common sense and logic proving more useful than knowledge, as usual.
‘It just works’
No it doesn’t Steve, wherever you may be.
Caveat lector. This is posted as therapy for me. You probably don’t want to read it.
What doesn’t work is the Apple ID. It has caused me more frustration in the past month than you can imagine — and while I am occasionally obtuse, I remain, like Yogi Bear, smarter than the average.
Here, as concisely as I can explain it, is what has happened.
I began eight years ago with one Apple ID (October 31, 2003, to purchase Peter Malick’s album New York City featuring Norah Jones). Through 500+ iTunes tracks, a few movies, and a few hundred apps I continued to use this ID, let’s call it NMK. (This is not the actual ID.) All my Apple devices (two iMacs, a MacBook Pro, my first two iPhones, an iPad, two iPods and two Apple TVs) are registered with this Apple ID.
In 2008 I purchased MobileMe, Apple’s email/syncing/online storage service. MobileMe required that my Apple ID have an email suffix (@mac.com or @me.com, they are interchangeable). Unbeknownst to me, that turned my Apple ID into two Apple IDs. Let’s call the second one NMK @mac.com (but that is not actually it).
Which was OK. I didn’t even know except every once in a while I would sign into email with my first, the store ID (NMK) and get rejected, or sign into the store with my email ID (NMK with the @mac.com) and get rejected. I, alas, never gave it much thought, just changed the ID thinking the sign-in requirements were different, not that I was dealing with two different IDs. After all the unique ID part was the same for both! The password was the same for both! The credit card was the same for both!
Until iOS 5 and iCloud last month.
I had a helluva time getting it to work until I finally realized I had two different Apple IDs — and it took me two frustrating days to realize that. Ultimately I learned to sign up to the store with the first and to iCloud with the second. Everything seemed to work, though my OCD caused me to twitch. [I bought an iPhone 4S last month. I see now that I registered it to the second account, unlike every other Apple device I own.]
Then this week, iTunesMatch became available — for $24.99 a year it matches your iTunes library in the cloud so that all of your music is available to all of your devices. Very nice. (It does seem to work reasonably well.)
I subscribed to iTunesMatch Monday without thinking about which ID I was using. And I used the second, the iCloud ID. The one where I have only one device. The one where I own no iTunes music or movies. The one where I cannot update my apps. The one I don’t use with my Apple TVs for Home Sharing.
So, this week, by telephone or email, I have dealt with four different Apple customer service reps to correct my mistake. As Apple claims to be unable to merge Apple IDs (WTF?) or to transfer purchases between IDs, I suggested they refund my iTunesMatch subscription and let me start over with the correct Apple ID. A little while ago this is what I was told:
“With that in mind, I consulted two supervisory agents to seek assistance and a possible refund. Ken, I am truly sorry, both have let me know that because of the nature of iTunesMatch, we do not have the option to provide a refund. If I could make this right I certainly would.”
Apple’s solution is to log in and out of the two IDs depending on whether I want to update purchases or listen to the music in the cloud. “[Y]ou can manually manage your devices and content and enjoy purchases from both accounts.
Manually manage! Manually!? WTF?
(This is even stupider than it sounds. When I sign into the store to buy or update an app for example, all of the iTunesMatch data disappears. And, as I have thousands of tracks, it takes considerable time to reload it on any of my exclusively Apple devices.)
So, it doesn’t just work then, does it?
Best line of the day
And, thankfully, Nancy Pelosi replied to Rick Perry’s strangely odd request for a debate with her by saying –
“Monday I’m going to be in Portland in the morning. I’m going to be visiting some of our labs in California in the afternoon. That’s two,” Pelosi told reporters. “I can’t remember what the third thing is I’m going to be doing.”
Via Juanita
Need Advice
Gmail thinks this is spam, but I don’t know. It seems sincere to me.
What do you think?
Dear Beloved,
I am Mrs. Wand Smith an aging widow suffering from long time illness. I have some funds I inherited from my late husband, the sum of US$12,400,000.00 and I needed a very honest and God fearing person who can use the fund for charity work in any part of the world, I found your email address from the internet and decided to contact you. Please if you would be able to use the funds for the charity work, kindly reply back immediately for further details.
Yours in the Lord,
Mrs. Wand Smith.
Best Juanita Line of the Day
“A couple of interesting things for the local folks here. I live in Richmond. In the past three months, I have lived in all three of Fort Bend’s districts without ever moving. First I was in 26 (Reynolds) where I was perfectly happy, then the Republicans moved me to 27 (C. Howard) where I woke up every morning and threw up. And now I am in 28 (Zerwas), who is one of the lesser offensive Republicans if we can get his goofy wife to shuddup about Planned Parenthood.”
Juanita Jean in a post about Texas redistricting.
Best line of the day
“So, Freddie Mac paid Gingrich a cool mil and half for his ‘advice as a historian?’ For Pete’s sake, I know some history majors who will give you their advice for free at the drive-through window.”
Fun Reads
Supreme Court of Assholedom: The People vs. Steve Jobs by Matt Taibbi.
The Comedy Actress Litmus Test by Ken Levine. Be sure to watch the Mary Tyler Moore video.
Eleven Eleven Eleven
Today really ought to be a national holiday.
Oh, wait, it is a holiday.
Three-time Oscar nominee Leonardo DiCaprio is 37 today.
Calista Flockhart, Mrs. Harrison Ford, is 47. (He’s 69.)
Demi Moore is 49.
Stanley Tucci is 51.
Carlos Fuentes Macías is 83.
Jonathan Winters is 86.
The late Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was born on November 11, 1922.
“Do you realize that all great literature — Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, A Farewell to Arms, The Scarlet Letter, The Red Badge of Courage, The Iliad and The Odyssey, Crime and Punishment, the Bible, and”The Charge of the Light Brigade” — are all about what a bummer it is to be a human being?” — Kurt Vonnegut
George Patton was born on November 11, 1885. From his New York Times obituary in 1945:
Gen. George Smith Patton Jr. was one of the most brilliant soldiers in American history. Audacious, unorthodox and inspiring, he led his troops to great victories in North Africa, Sicily and on the Western Front. Nazi generals admitted that of all American field commanders he was the one they most feared. To Americans he was a worthy successor of such hardbitten cavalrymen as Philip Sheridan, J. E. B. Stuart and Nathan Bedford Forrest.
His great soldierly qualities were matched by one of the most colorful personalities of his period. About him countless legends clustered–some true, some untrue, but all testifying to the firm hold he had upon the imaginations of his men. He went into action with two pearl-handled revolvers in holsters on his hips. He was the master of an unprintable brand of eloquence, yet at times he coined phrases that will live in the American Army’s traditions.
“We shall attack and attack until we are exhausted, and then we shall attack again,” he told his troops before the initial landings in North Africa, thereby summarizing the military creed that won victory after victory along the long road that led from Casablanca to the heart of Germany.
Honoring All Who Served
Veterans Day
Veterans Day originated as “Armistice Day” on Nov. 11, 1919, the first anniversary of the end of World War I. Congress passed a resolution in 1926 for an annual observance, and Nov. 11 became a federal holiday beginning in 1938. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation in 1954 to change the name to Veterans Day as a way to honor those who served in all American wars. The day honors living military veterans with parades and speeches across the nation. A national ceremony takes place at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
From 1971 to 1978 Veterans Day was celebrated on the fourth Monday in October.
How Penn State can try to help repair damage
I like Michael Rosenberg’s column today.
At The Atlantic the longer term reality is discussed — Joe Paterno and the Law.
Now may be the time for remorse and regret — we’ve heard plenty of it already. But it’s also time for JoePa to lawyer up, as it’s now being reported he has. He was fired, presumably for cause, by the university that had employed him since 1950. He is still in clear jeopardy of criminal sanctions by state prosecutors. He has a huge blue-and-white bull’s eye on his back for civil liability from the alleged victims of the assaults and their family members. His reputation is in tatters and his pension presumably is in jeopardy. It is the end of his life as he knew it — just as it was, it must be said, for those poor young boys who were allegedly assaulted.
No matter what ends up happening from here, no matter how much hush money is paid or how many indictments are handed up, the winningest coach in major college football history is likely to spend the next few years, perhaps what’s left of the rest of his life, in and out of courtrooms and lawyer’s offices. There will be no Happy Valley students there to scream his name in adulation. There will be only smart lawyers with good questions demanding answers. For Joe Paterno, the reckoning is at hand.
November 10, 1978
… was a great day for the National Park Service and, of course, us. On that date President Jimmy Carter signed Public Law 95-625, the National Parks and Recreation Act of 1978. The bill authorized $1.2 billion for more than 100 parks, rivers and historic sites and trails.
Among the National Park Service units that associate this date with their authorization, enhancement or re-designation are:
- Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument, Texas
- Antietam National Battlefield, Maryland
- Badlands National Park, South Dakota
- Continental Divide National Scenic Trail, Canada-Mexico
- Delaware National Scenic River, Pennsylvania-New Jersey-New York
- Ebey’s Landing National Historical Reserve, Washington
- Edgar Allen Poe National Historic Site, Pennsylvania
- Friendship Hill National Historic Site, Pennsylvania
- Iditarod National Historic Trail, Alaska
- Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve, Louisiana
- Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park, Hawaii
- Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail, Missouri to Oregon
- Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site, Virginia
- Middle Delaware National Scenic River, Pennsylvania-New Jersey
- Missouri National Recreation River, Nebraska-South Dakota
- Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail, Illinois to Utah
- New River Gorge National River, West Virginia
- Oregon National Historic Trail, Missouri to Oregon
- Palo Alto Battlefield National Historic Site, Texas
- New Jersey Pinelands National Preserve, New Jersey
- Pu’uhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park, Hawaii
- Rio Grande Wild and Scenic River, Texas
- Saint Paul’s Church National Historic Site, New York
- San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, Texas
- Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, California
- Theodore Roosevelt National Park, North Dakota
- Thomas Stone National Historic Site, Maryland
- Upper Delaware Scenic and Recreation River, New York-Pennsylvania
- Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Corridor, Massachusetts-Rhode Island
LOL
Checking my iPad for any updated applications just now, I found this:
Yelp
New in 5.4.3
There are three types of bugs that are now gone:
- Bookmarks-related bugs
- iOS5 styling & layout bugs
- And the um… uh, what’s the third one? Let’s see… Bookmarks, IOS layout… and the um… the third one we can’t recall. Oops.
Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site (Pennsylvania)
… was authorized on this date in 1978.
The literary works of Edgar Allan Poe continue to thrill readers today. Here he established his reputation as a literary critic, perfected his gothic tales, invented the modern detective story, and wrote poetry. Today his home offers visitors an opportunity to reflect on the author’s life and legacy.
Alibates Flint Quarries National Monument (Texas)
… was renamed on this date in 1978. It had been Alibates Flint Quarries and Texas Panhandle Pueblo Culture National Monument since 1965.
Imagine yourself standing where an ancient civilization once lived, surrounded by colorful flint, that was used to make weapons and tools. Alibates flint is a multi-colored stone with the ability to hold a sharp edge. This agatized dolomite was highly prized and traded throughout much of North America by pre-historic American Indians.
For thousands of years, people came to the red bluffs above the Canadian River for flint that was vital to their existence. Prehistoric people needed raw materials for tools and weapons, and Alibates flint was some of the finest. Many of the quarry pits are located on the hilltops overlooking the Canadian River. These pits vary from five to twenty-five feet across, and were originally about four to seven feet deep. Over the centuries the quarry pits have filled with blowing dust and vegetation, creating the landscape that we see today.
Theodore Roosevelt National Park (North Dakota)
… was designated a national park on this date in 1978. It had been designated a national memorial park in 1947.
Theodore Roosevelt was the nation’s 26th President and is considered by many to have been our country’s “Conservationist President.” Here in the North Dakota badlands, where many of his personal concerns first gave rise to his later environmental efforts, Roosevelt is remembered with a national park that bears his name and honors the memory of this great conservationist.
Theodore Roosevelt’s rugged, outdoor experience here in the North Dakota badlands shaped his attitudes and philosophy regarding the conservation of our nation’s natural resources.
Many watchable wildlife species inhabit Theodore Roosevelt National Park including bison, elk, prairie dogs, white-tail and mule deer, sharp-tailed grouse, golden eagles, feral horses, and pronghorns.
Theodore Roosevelt said the badlands were “so fantastically broken in form and so bizarre in color as to seem hardly properly to belong to this earth.” Discover the “grim fairyland” of Theodore Roosevelt National Park’s geologic formations.
Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park (Hawaii)
… was established on this date in 1978.
Established in 1978 for the preservation, protection and interpretation of traditional native Hawaiian activities and culture, Kaloko-Honokohau NHP is an 1160 acre park full of incredible cultural and historical significance. It is the site of an ancient Hawaiian settlement which encompasses portions of four different ahupua’a, or traditional sea to mountain land divisions. Resources include fishponds, kahua (house site platforms), ki’i pohaku (petroglyphs), holua (stone slide), and heiau (religious site).