… don’t take food, don’t take children, and don’t drive a minivan.
Our observations indicate that bears entering minivans typically did so by popping open a rear side window and it seems that this was easier for minivans compared to other vehicle classes. We note that bears are strong and well equipped (long claws) to open a variety of structurally sound materials (e.g., logs and ant mounds), and we commonly saw car doors bent open, windows on all sides of the vehicle broken, and seats ripped out, all of which appeared effortless for bears.
These photos were taken by Jill at Kings Canyon. Click for larger versions or a gallery of all three.
Aidan and Mack watch the bear (in the far background).Reidie wanted to know if he could sleep in the bear-proof box in the campsite.During the night the car alarm went off. In the morning this was on the side of the rental-SUV. Fortunately, not a minivan.
In light of all this, last night I heard back from Byron.
Our plan would be to drive Jill’s minvan out there in a few years and leave a bunch of food in it… then take another car to a different campground.
Bluebook value= nice down payment on a new minivan without the hassle of selling it. Plus it isn’t an auto accident, but rather force of nature, so deductible =$100
My eponymous grandfather, the first NewMexiKen, was born on October 14, 1899. (I’m III. My oldest son is IV. Luckily he only has a daughter.)
Pop, as he was called by his children, served in the U.S. Army Cavalry in New Mexico during World War I. My cousin has photos taken by Pop while stationed at Columbus, New Mexico. I’m hoping to display some of them here soon.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of Allied forces in Europe during World War II and the 34th president of the United States, was born in Denison, Texas, on October 14th in 1890. His family moved to Abilene, Kansas, in 1892 and he graduated from Abilene High School in 1909. Eisenhower attended the U.S. Military Academy, class of 1915, the class the stars fell on — of 164 graduates, 59 attained the rank of general, led by Eisenhower and Omar Bradley. Eisenhower never saw combat first hand during his 37 year army career.
Military leadership of the victorious Allied forces in Western Europe during World War II invested Dwight David Eisenhower with an immense popularity, almost amounting to devotion, that twice elected him President of the United States. His enormous political success was largely personal, for he was not basically a politician dealing in partisan issues and party maneuvers. What he possessed was a superb talent for gaining the respect and affection of the voters as the man suited to guide the nation through cold war confrontations with Soviet power around the world and to lead the country to domestic prosperity.
Eisenhower’s gift for inspiring confidence in himself perplexed some analysts because he was not a dashing battlefield general nor a masterly military tactician; apparently what counted most in his generalship also impressed the voters most: an ability to harmonize diverse groups and disparate personalities into a smoothly functioning coalition.
John Wooden, the Wizard of Westwood, would have been 101 this October 14th. Ten national championships in 12 years.
October 14th is the birthday
… of former surgeon general C. Everett Koop. Guess he knew what he was talking about because he’s 95.
… of Roger Moore. The oldest of the James Bonds is 84.
… of former Nixon White House Counsel and convicted multiple felon John Dean, 73.
… of Ralph Lauren. The founder of Polo is 72.
… of the judge of Night Court, Harry Anderson, who is 59.
… of Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks. She’s 37.
… of Usher. Usher Terry Raymond IV is 33.
Lillian Gish (her real name) was born on October 14th in 1893. Her career on stage, screen and television ran from 1912-1987. She lived to be 99, but never married or had children.
Edward Estlin Cummings was born October 14, 1894 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We know him as e.e. cummings.
In his verse, Cummings tended to substitute verbs for nouns, he used patently eccentric punctuation, and he disregarded norms of capitalization. But despite unconventional style, he wrote about traditional themes, stuff like love and nature.
my girl’s tall with hard long eyes
as she stands, with her long hard hands keeping
silence on her dress, good for sleeping
is her long hard body filled with surprise
like a white shocking wire, when she smiles
a hard long smile it sometimes makes
gaily go clean through me tickling aches,
and the weak noise of her eyes easily files
my impatience to an edge–my girl’s tall
and taut, with thin legs just like a vine
that’s spent all of its life on a garden-wall,
and is going to die. When we grimly go to bed
with these legs she begins to heave and twine
about me, and to kiss my face and head.
William Penn was born on October 14th, 1644. He was given 45,000 square miles of what is now eastern Pennsylvania and Delaware by the Duke of York in 1682 (anti-Quaker Delaware split off in 1704). In the 18th century, Pennsylvania, based on what Penn established, was the most tolerant and democratic of the colonies.
At Forbes, Peter Gleick writes a letter. He begins:
To the few of you left,
OK, you have fought hard to deny or challenge the realities of climate change, perhaps because you are afraid of the policies that might have to be put in place; or are afraid of the possibilities of increased government intervention; or you don’t think it will be that bad; or you think it will be too expensive to do anything about; or you don’t understand the science; or you don’t trust scientists, including, by the way, every national academy of sciences and every professional scientific organization in the geosciences (see the list attached to this Congressional testimony); or whatever.
You may not think the expected consequences of climate change are bad enough to do anything, despite what researchers have been telling us for years about higher temperatures, worsening frequency and intensity of storms and droughts, rising sea levels, altered water quality and availability, growing health risks from pests and heat, and much more.
Fine. But you are dragging the rest of us, who still believe in science and think that things can and should be done quickly, down into what increasingly seems like a future hell. You need to get on board. Why? Here is the final straw.
“Unfortunately, as iCloud is [Apple’s] fourth online service iteration, trying to upgrade can be confusing at best, slam-your-head-against-a-wall-in-frustration at worst.”
Well, some might tell you that NewMexiKen can well up watching The Incredibles, but that’s because they don’t recognize the difference between emotions and an allergic reaction to popcorn. With that caveat, I’ll list three scenes that get to me.
Frankie Dunn in Million Dollar Baby: “Mo cuishle. It means my darling. My blood.” (Jeez, I welled-up just typing this.)
Adult Scout in To Kill A Mockingbird: “Neighbors bring food with death, and flowers with sickness, and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a knife, and our lives.”
(It’s also pretty powerful earlier in that film when Reverend Sykes says to Scout: “Jean Louise. Jean Louise, stand up. Your father’s passing.”)
When Paikea gives her report at the school in Whale Rider and her grandfather isn’t there.
Don’t be afraid to add to the discussion in the comments.
… was upgraded from national monument on October 4th in 1994, but I’ve thought it was the 14th so here it is again on the wrong date.
It had first been proclaimed a national monument March 1, 1933. Currently 91,439.71 acres, 70,905 classified as wilderness.
This unique desert is home to the most recognizable cactus in the world, the majestic saguaro. Visitors of all ages are fascinated and enchanted by these desert giants, especially their many interesting and complex interrelationships with other desert life. Saguaro cacti provide their sweet fruits to hungry desert animals. They also provide homes to a variety of birds, such as the Harris’ hawk, Gila woodpecker and the tiny elf owl. Yet, the saguaro requires other desert plants for its very survival. During the first few years of a very long life, a young saguaro needs the shade and protection of a nurse plant such as the palo verde tree. With an average life span of 150 years, a mature saguaro may grow to a height of 50 feet and weigh over 10 tons.
The ever-wise and usually right Paul Krugman assesses human behavior. He begins with this, but click the link and read it all. It’s brief.
My sense, after 11 years of punditizing, is that people are complicated, but gangs of people less so. Individuals are often mixed in their behavior: incorruptible politicians may cheat on their spouses, political scoundrels may have impeccable personal lives. But groups, like a politician’s inner circle or the management team of a media empire, tend to behave similarly on multiple fronts. If they lie and cheat routinely in one domain, they tend to do it in others as well.
“No Republican candidate can go 30 seconds without suggesting that we’d all be much better off if we just handed the major functions of the national government over to the states or ‘back to the states,’ if you’re a Republican candidate who’s proud to line up with the losing side at both the Constitutional Convention and at Appomattox Court House. Over the last couple of days, we’ve seen the national Republican primary schedule torn into pieces and thrown into the air because various secretaries-of-state from the little duchies of Rubeland are fighting over who gets to be first like a bunch of spinsters fighting over the only widower capable of driving them to the Old Country Buffet for lunch.”
In addition to the White House and Sofie, October 13th is also the birthday
… of Margaret Thatcher, 86.
… of Melinda Dillon. That’s the mom in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. She’s 72. Dillon was nominated for the best supporting actress Oscar for that role and for her part in Absence of Malice. But best of all, she was the mom in The Christmas Story.
Mother: Randy, how do the little piggies go? Randy: [oinks like a pig] Mother: That’s right. Oink, oink! Now show me how the piggies eat.
[points to his plate] Mother: This is your trough. Show me how the piggies eat. Be a good boy. Show mommy how the piggies eat. Randy: [plunges face into mashed potatoes, oinks, eats, and laughs] Mother: [laughs] Mommy’s little piggie!
… of Paul Simon. He’s “Still Crazy After All These Years” at 70.
Paul Simon is among the most erudite and daring songsmiths in popular music. After the breakup of Simon and Garfunkel in 1970, Simon embarked on a fruitful solo career that’s been notable for lyrical acuity, impeccable musicianship and stylistic daring. While Simon and Garfunkel worked largely (but not exclusively) in the folk idiom, Simon the solo artist has roamed wherever his muse has taken him – and that has literally meant around the world. His is not so much a conventional career in music as an odyssey of discovery using “intuitive flashes, synaptic leaps and shorthand logic” (in Simon’s own words) to help him on his way.
However, Van Halen bounced back strong following Roth’s departure. The group recruited Sammy Hagar, who sang and played guitar. Hagar had started out with the hard-rock group Montrose and had a highly successful solo career. He fit well with Van Halen, with whom he was more personally compatible than his predecessor. In fact, the newly harmonious group scored its first Number One album with 5150, on which Hagar handles lead vocals.
… of John Ford Coley and Lucy J. Dalton; each is 63.
… of Marie Osmond. She’s 52, born on her father’s 42nd birthday.
… of Jerry Rice. He’s 49.
… of Kate Walsh, 44. “The real question is, when you turn your car on, does it return the favor?”
… of skater Nancy Kerrigan. She’s 42. “Why, why, why?”
… of Borat. Sacha Baron Cohen is 40.
The woman known as Molly Pitcher was born on October 13, 1754.
An Artillery wife, Mary Hays McCauly (better known as Molly Pitcher) shared the rigors of Valley Forge with her husband, William Hays. Her actions during the battle of Monmouth on June 28, 1778 became legendary. That day at Monmouth was as hot as Valley Forge was cold. Someone had to cool the hot guns and bathe parched throats with water.
Across that bullet-swept ground, a striped skirt fluttered. Mary Hays McCauly was earning her nickname “Molly Pitcher” by bringing pitcher after pitcher of cool spring water to the exhausted and thirsty men. She also tended to the wounded and once, heaving a crippled Continental soldier up on her strong young back, carried him out of reach of hard-charging Britishers. On her next trip with water, she found her artilleryman husband back with the guns again, replacing a casualty. While she watched, Hays fell wounded. The piece, its crew too depleted to serve it, was about to be withdrawn. Without hesitation, Molly stepped forward and took the rammer staff from her fallen husband’s hands. For the second time on an American battlefield, a woman manned a gun. (The first was Margaret Corbin during the defense of Fort Washington in 1776.) Resolutely, she stayed at her post in the face of heavy enemy fire, ably acting as a matross (gunner).
For her heroic role, General Washington himself issued her a warrant as a noncommissioned officer. Thereafter, she was widely hailed as “Sergeant Molly.” A flagstaff and cannon stand at her gravesite at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. A sculpture on the battle monument commemorates her courageous deed.
Burr Tillstrom was born on October 13, 1917. He was a puppeteer, creator of Kukla, Ollie and a passel of other characters who interacted with actress Fran Allison in the early days of television. Kukla, Fran and Ollie began in Chicago and then was on NBC each evening Monday through Friday, shortened to 15 minutes, then made weekly, but lasting until 1957. Early on the show won a Peabody Award for, “whimsy and gentle satire of the James Barrie-Lewis Carroll sort.” Time said KFO, “flourished in this desert as an oasis of intelligent fantasy.”
Kukla, Fran and Ollie was the first children’s show to be equally popular with children and adults. The show’s immense popularity stemmed from its simplicity, gentle fun and frolic and adult wit. Burr Tillstrom’s Kuklapolitan Players differed from typical puppets in that the humor derived from satire and sophisticated wit rather than slapstick comedy. At the height of the show’s popularity, the cast received 15,000 letters a day, and its ratings were comparable to shows featuring Milton Berle and Ed Sullivan.
The basic format of the show was simple: Fran Allison stood in front of a small stage and interacted with the characters. The format was derived from the puppet act Tillstrom performed for the RCA Victor exhibit at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.
It’s hard to summon enough superlatives for Tatum’s piano playing: his harmonic invention, his technical virtuosity, his rhythmic daring. The great stride pianist Fats Waller famously announced one night when Tatum walked into the club where Waller was playing, “I only play the piano, but tonight God is in the house.”
Leonard Alfred Schneider was born on this date in 1925. We know him as Lenny Bruce.
On April 1, 1964, four New York City vice squad officers attended Bruce’s performance at the Cafe Au Go Go in Greenwich Village. The officers arrested Bruce and owner Howard Solomon following Bruce’s 10:00 P.M. show. Assistant District Attorney Richard Kuh presented a grand jury with a typed partial script of Bruce’s performance including references to Jackie Kennedy trying to “save her ass” after her husband’s assassination, Eleanor Roosevelt’s “nice tits,” sexual intimacy with a chicken, “pissing in the sink,” the Lone Ranger sodomizing Tonto, and St. Paul giving up “fucking” for Lent. The jury indicted Bruce on the obscenity charge. The trial before a three-judge court in New York City that followed stands as a remarkable moment in the history of free speech. Both the prosecution and defense presented parades of well-known witnesses to either denounce Bruce’s performance as the worst sort of gutter humor or celebrate it as a powerful and insightful social commentary. Among the witnesses testifying in support of Bruce were What’s My Line? panelist Dorothy Kilgallen, sociologist Herbert Gans, and cartoonist Jules Feiffer. In the end, the censors won. Voting 2 to 1, the court found Bruce guilty of violating New York’s obscenity laws and sentenced him to “four months in the workhouse.”
The cornerstone of the White House was laid on October 13, 1792. President John Adams and his wife Abigail moved into the unfinished structure on November 1, 1800, keeping to the scheduled relocation of the capital from Philadelphia. Congress declared the city of Washington in the District of Columbia the permanent capital of the United States on July 16, 1790. …
Constructed of white-grey sandstone that contrasted sharply with the red brick used in nearby buildings, the presidential mansion was called the White House as early as 1809. President Theodore Roosevelt officially adopted the term in 1902.
During the Truman Administration the White House was gutted except for the outside walls and rebuilt. This photo was taken in April 1950.
Gutted to the outside stone walls, deepened with a new two story basement, reinforced with concrete and 660 tons of steel, and fireproofed, the White House was stabilized. The protection of the historic stone walls was so important that workers dismantled a bulldozer and reassembled it inside to avoid cutting a larger doorway out of the walls. Shafts out of windows carried out debris from the inside of the house, and external stairs were built because the inside was completely empty during the renovation.
The Truman Presidential Museum and Library has a photo essay on the reconstruction — The White House Revealed — though the photos are too small to view much detail.
This too is from Juanita’s, first posted here seven years ago today.
“Okay, so you’re going to tell me that professional baseball is no longer pure — that players make too much money, owners rip off the fans, and there’s drug use. Yeah, well, the same is true for Congress, but I still vote.”
… because I spit my coffee all over the computer screen and can’t see to cut and paste excerpts.
There ain’t no hoochy-koochy in Texas among teenagers. We have the least sparkin’ teenagers in the whole damn United States of America. That’s why our Attorney General, Greg Abbott, once again refused to file for a federal grant to fund sex education for teenagers. We don’t need it. Our teenagers are all virgins.
Which is prettty damn amazing considering that we have the highest teenager birth rate in the country. Obviously, they’re getting pregnant from public toilet seats. We don’t have a sex problem. We have a public toilet seat problem.
The Super DeLux Brand Steeple People believe that if you educate teenagers about sex, they’ll have some. However, if you don’t tell them about sex, they’ll never, ever figure out how that telephone pole got into the ground.
Teen pregnancies are costing Texas taxpayers one billion dollars a year. You’d think that the rightwing would hate the money part more than they hate the sex part.
Juanita thinks they don’t want sex education because then they’ll find out that they’ve been doing it wrong.
Bless her heart, [Anita Perry] only has one nerve left and Rick’s obviously getting all over it.
So, in the passive-aggressive way that some Texas women have honed to an art form, she goes out and says stuff like him needing to improve his debating and that he’ll be “better prepared next time,” making him seem like a first grader who failed a spelling test. She might as well open her purse and show everybody that his winkie is in there.
Sweetie Sofia is 8-years-old today. Her birthday party Saturday will feature a Georgia O’Keefe theme.
Happy Birthday, Sofie!
(Click on any of the photos for larger versions or the gallery.)
Her grandfathers bought Sofie her first pumpkins, but she chooses her own now. A colorful school girl.
And a couple of more over the years.
There's always a lot going on behind that lovely face.Self portrait from last December.Sofie's first 'puppy love' was Snuggle Puppy, but Coco has gotten some nice hugs too. This is from Spring 2010.Look at all this nature to learn about.On her birthday, five years ago.Pretty in pink
“If someone with Jon Huntsman’s pedigree accepts, even in theory, the notion that too-big-to-fail is too-big-to-exist, all that pounding on the drums may be worth it. Of course, had he said it on-stage during the actual debate, somebody would have eaten his face.”
… of Melinda Dillon. That’s the mom in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. She’s 72. Dillon was nominated for the best supporting actress Oscar for that role and for her part in Absence of Malice. But best of all, she was the mom in The Christmas Story.
Burr Tillstrom was born on October 13, 1917. He was a puppeteer, creator of Kukla, Ollie and a passel of other characters who interacted with actress Fran Allison in the early days of television. Kukla, Fran and Ollie began in Chicago and then was on NBC each evening Monday through Friday, shortened to 15 minutes, then made weekly, but lasting until 1957. Early on the show won a Peabody Award for, “whimsy and gentle satire of the James Barrie-Lewis Carroll sort.” Time said KFO, “flourished in this desert as an oasis of intelligent fantasy.” 
