Casa Grande Ruins National Monument (Arizona)

… was designated such by President Wilson on this date in 1918.

CasaGrande.jpg

For over a thousand years, prehistoric farmers inhabited much of the present-day state of Arizona. When the first Europeans arrived, all that remained of this ancient culture were the ruins of villages, irrigation canals and various artifacts. Among these ruins is the Casa Grande, or “Big House,” one of the largest and most mysterious prehistoric structures ever built in North America. Casa Grande Ruins, the nation’s first archeological preserve, protects the Casa Grande and other archeological sites within its boundaries.

Casa Grande Ruins National Monument

Those Europeans, by the way, began heading this way 519 years ago today, when Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain.

Redux Posts of the Day & Today’s Photos

Three items first posted here two years ago today.

In all my years living in the West (more than 35), I had never been to Aspen, Colorado. And I had never been to see the Maroon Bells, in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass wilderness just southwest of Aspen. I guess I saved the best for now.

Though these photos taken in midday largely wash out the color, the Maroon Bells are actually maroon, and as you can see they are shaped much like bells. They are, according to the Forest Service, the most photographed mountains in North America. North Maroon Peak (on the right) rises to 14,014 feet above sea level; South Maroon Peak to 14,156 feet.

Maroon Creek Road ends just above Maroon Lake. These photos were taken in that area. We took a short hike, but downstream away from the panorama.

[Click the images to advance through the slideshows.]

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Colorado Highway 92, the West Elk Loop, parallels part of the north rim of Gunnison Canyon, though upstream from the dramatic Black Canyon of the Gunnison. The views from the highway turnouts are terrific if limited, though again I was unable to get the colors and shadows that the light earlier or later in the day might have enabled. Still, here’s a sample. Click image to advance through the slideshow.

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The third longest river in America begins on the north side of the pyramid shaped summit you see in the distance in the first photograph [below], the 13,821-foot Rio Grande Pyramid in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. From there the river flows nearly 1,900 miles to the Gulf of Mexico. In the foreground are some of the lakes and wetlands that form the Rio Grande headwaters. The second photo shows more of the wetlands downstream. The third and fourth the river as it bends and bows across another meadow, still above 9,000 feet.

Photos taken Sunday afternoon. Not the best time of day for lighting, but I hope to head back to this area soon. It was stunningly beautiful, with the exception of Creede, Colorado, the rattiest town I’ve ever seen (at least the part I drove through).

As the eagle flies, the Rio Grande Pyramid is about 18 miles ESE of Silverton, Colorado.

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The Fort Sumter Party

Michael Lind has an interesting article on The Tea Party, the debt ceiling, and white Southern extremism.

Lind points out that 39 of the 62 members of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus are from southern states: Texas (12), Florida (7), Louisiana and Georgia (5 each) and South Carolina, Tennessee and Missouri (3 each). And Maryland, southern certainly outside Baltimore and the Washington suburbs has the only northeastern member. (Lind does not reveal the 39th southern member.)

In other words, Lind maintains, the Confederate States of America are well represented. The Tea Party, he claims, is a much more Southern-based entity than generally recognized, in part because of the prominence of midwesterner Michele Bachmann. Lind suggests it be called the Fort Sumter movement rather than the Tea Party.

The goal, the methods and the passion of the Tea Party in the House are all characteristic of the radical Southern right.

From the earliest years of the American republic, white Southern conservatives when they have lost elections and found themselves in the political minority have sought to extort concession from national majorities by paralyzing or threatening to destroy the United States.

August Twoth

Eight-time Oscar nominee for best actor, Peter O’Toole is 79 today.

Director-writer-producer Wes Craven is 72. He will be celebrating on Elm Street.

Kathy Lennon of the Lennon Sisters is 68.

Eddie Munster, aka actor Butch Patrick, is 58.

Emmy-winner, for Angels in America, Tony-winner for Proof, and Weeds star Mary Louise Parker is 47 today. Parker also played Amy Gardner on West Wing.

Andrew Gold would have been 60 today.

Carroll O’Connor was born on this date in 1924. He won a Golden Globe and four Emmys for his portrayal of Archie Bunker on All in the Family and a Golden Globe as the sheriff in the TV series In the Heat of the Night. O’Connor was also the truck driver who hits Kirk Douglas on his horse in the wonderful 1962 film Lonely Are the Brave. He died in 2001.

Author James Baldwin was born on this date in 1924.

After writing a number of pieces that were published in various magazines, Baldwin went to Switzerland to finish his first novel. Go Tell It on the Mountain, published in 1953, was an autobiographical work about growing up in Harlem. The passion and depth with which he described the struggles of black Americans was unlike anything that had been written. Though not instantly recognized as such, Go Tell It on the Mountain has long been considered an American classic. Throughout the rest of the decade, Baldwin moved from Paris to New York to Istanbul, writing Notes of a Native Son (1955) and Giovanni’ Room (1956). Dealing with taboo themes in both books (homosexuality and interracial relationships, respectively), Baldwin was creating socially relevant and psychologically penetrating literature.

American Masters | PBS

Actress Myrna Loy was born on this date in 1905. IMDB has her listed for an incredible 138 roles, beginning with silent films when she was the femme fatale, but more famously as the witty, urbane Nora Charles in The Thin Man movies. NewMexiKen liked her in The Best Years of Our Lives, a film everyone should see. It won seven Academy Awards in 1946.

Inventor, engineer, co-founder of Western Electric, Elisha Gray was born on August 2nd in 1835. Gray and Alexander Graham Bell engaged in a long legal battle over patents for the telephone. Who won? Well, we don’t call AT&T Ma Gray (though Gray’s work may have been instrumental to Bell).

James Butler Hickok was killed while playing poker in Deadwood 135 years ago today.

Capitol Reef National Park (Utah)

… was first designated a national monument on this date in 1937. It became a national park in 1971.

The Waterpocket Fold, a 100-mile long wrinkle in the earth’s crust known as a monocline, extends from nearby Thousand Lakes Mountain to the Colorado River (now Lake Powell). Capitol Reef National Park was established to protect this grand and colorful geologic feature, as well as the unique historical and cultural history found in the area.

Capitol Reef National Park

NewMexiKen photo, 2002 (just after I dropped the camera)

The First Day of August

William Clark, the Clark of Lewis and Clark, was born on this date in 1770. He died in 1838. Here is Clark’s journal entry on his 36th birthday [1806] from Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition Online. He was on the Yellowstone River in what is now eastern Montana.

We Set out early as usial the wind was high and ahead which caused the water to be a little rough and delayed us very much aded to this we had Showers of rain repeetedly all day at the intermition of only a fiew minits between them. My Situation a very disagreeable one. in an open Canoe wet and without a possibility of keeping my Self dry. the Country through which we passed is in every respect like that through which I passed yesterday. The brooks have all Some water in them from the rains which has fallen. this water is excessively muddy. Several of those brooks have Some trees on their borders as far as I can See up them. I observe Some low pine an cedar on the Sides of the rugid hills on the Stard. Side, and Some ash timber in the high bottoms. the river has more Sand bars today than usial, and more Soft mud. the current less rapid. at 2 P. M. I was obliged to land to let the Buffalow Cross over. not withstanding an island of half a mile in width over which this gangue of Buffalow had to pass and the Chanel of the river on each Side nearly ¼ of a mile in width, this gangue of Buffalow was entirely across and as thick as they could Swim. the Chanel on the Side of the island the went into the river was crouded with those animals for ½ an hour. [NB: I was obliged to lay to for an hour] the other Side of the island for more than 3/4 of an hour. I took 4 of the men and killed 4 fat Cows for their fat and what portion of their flesh the Small Canoes Could Carry that which we had killed a few days ago being nearly Spoiled from the wet weather. encamped on an Island Close to the Lard Shore. two gangues of Buffalow Crossed a little below us, as noumerous as the first.

Francis Scott Key was born on August 1st in 1779.

Richard Henry Dana, author of the classic memoir Two Years Before the Mast, was born on August 1st in 1815. His trip to California was 1834-1836. Subsequently he graduated from Harvard Law School, practiced law and was a prominent abolitionist. Two Years Before the Mast (before the mast meaning among the crew, not as an officer) was published in 1840.

Herman Melville was born on August 1st in 1819. The Writer’s Almanac has a brief bio that includes this:

The Melvilles then settled into a farm near Pittsfield, Massachusetts. It was here, in 1850, that Melville would meet Nathaniel Hawthorne, whom Melville would come to think of as a dear friend and confidant. The following year, after an intoxicating period of exploring the ideas of transcendentalism and allegorical writing, Melville penned his enduring masterpiece, Moby Dick, the lyrical, epic story of Ahab and the infamous white whale, dedicating it to Hawthorne in “admiration for his genius.” Moby Dick was met with mixed reviews. The London News declared Melville’s power of language “unparalleled,” while the novel was criticized elsewhere for its unconventional storytelling, and Melville’s fans were disappointed not to find the same kind of adventure story they had loved in Typee and Omoo. It was the beginning of the end of Melville’s career as a novelist and, following a series of literary failures, he turned to farming and writing articles to support his family.

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor [excerpt]

Mary Harris Jones was born on this date in 1830 (or, more likely, 1837, or possibly May 1, 1837). She is better known to us as Mother Jones. The magazine named after her has a brief biographical essay that includes this:

The moniker “Mother” Jones was no mere rhetorical device. At the core of her beliefs was the idea that justice for working people depended on strong families, and strong families required decent working conditions. In 1903, after she was already nationally known from bitter mine wars in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, she organized her famous “march of the mill children” from Philadelphia to President Theodore Roosevelt’s summer home on Long Island. Every day, she and a few dozen children — boys and girls, some 12 and 14 years old, some crippled by the machinery of the textile mills — walked to a new town, and at night they staged rallies with music, skits, and speeches, drawing thousands of citizens. Federal laws against child labor would not come for decades, but for two months that summer, Mother Jones, with her street theater and speeches, made the issue front-page news.

The rock of Mother Jones’ faith was her conviction that working Americans acting together must free themselves from poverty and powerlessness. She believed in the need for citizens of a democracy to participate in public affairs.

NewMexiKen has known about Mother Jones since the eponymous magazine first came out in 1976. What amazes me is that I had no knowledge of her before that, despite majoring in American history, and even though “For a quarter of a century, she roamed America, the Johnny Appleseed of activists.”

Robert Todd Lincoln, the first child of Abraham Lincoln and the only one to survive to adulthood, was born on this date in 1843. He died in 1926. (Lincoln’s son Eddie was born in 1846 and died in 1850. Son Willie died at age 12 in 1862. Son Tad (Thomas) died at age 18 in 1871.)

Jerry Garcia was born on this date in 1942. He died in 1995.

Elliot Charles Adnopoz was born 80 years ago today. He’s known as Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, prominent among the folk singers of the late 1950s and early 1960s, and very influential on Bob Dylan.

Robert Cray is 58 today.

Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes (American Beauty) is 46 today.

Redux post of the day

This is from three years ago today when I sold the revolver from my dad’s estate. I repost it for the punchline, timely in light of my recent commentary.

I sold the revolver without incident — for a good price too, I think.

The shop was interesting — and very busy before 11 in the morning. I am not anti-gun by the way. I’d kind of like to own some authentic 19th century firearms if I knew what I was doing — as an investment. When I was curator of Richard Nixon’s musuem items (after he left office), I was impressed by the nice collection of firearms the firearm manufacturers had given him. I suspect most politicians — and at least five supreme court justices — have similar collections.

Two guys working in the gun shop wanted to talk about the election; how it worried them. I assured them not to worry, that the black liberal guy was sure to win.

Black Hawk’s War

On this date in 1832, the fortunes of American Indians in Illinois, Iowa and Michigan Territory took a significant turn for the worse. On August 1-2 of that year, the final confrontation of the Black Hawk War took place just south of the Bad Axe River in the western region of modern day Wisconsin. The result was as decisive as the Battle of Fallen Timbers (1794) had been for the Indians of the Ohio River Valley, or the Battle of Horseshoe Bend (1814) had been for the Creeks. Though it is often overshadowed by the drama of the Cherokee removal, the Black Hawk War was no less critical to the history of Indian peoples east of the Mississippi.

The Edge of the American West tells the rest of the story.

5%

The federal government is projected to spend $46 trillion during the next 10 years; the proposed cuts of $2.4 trillion are just are a bit more than 5 percent.

5%. Why the fuss?

Because most of the 5% is going to come from that 15% of the budget that goes for non-defense “discretionary” spending. Do the math. That means that one-third of non-defense discretionary spending is on the block.

One third.

Of national parks, environmental regulation, medical research, space exploration (oh, wait we’ve already stopped doing that), bridges, highways, dams, agricultural research, labor mediation, pharmaceuticals review and approval, education, Indian affairs, forest firefighting, disaster relief, weather forecasting and warning, diplomacy. You know, the quality of life stuff.

Line of the day, so far

“If too many Americans don’t believe in or understand what government does to help them, to offset recessions, to protect their security in retirement and in hard times, to maintain the infrastructure, to provide educational opportunities and health care decent enough to offset the disadvantages so many are born with…if those functions are unknown, underfunded, and/or carried out poorly, why should they care about how much this deal or the next one cuts?”

Jared Bernstein

July 30th, holiday possibilities except for Arnold dragging it down

Edd “Kookie Kookie lend me your comb” Byrnes is 78 today.

Buddy Guy is 75.

Buddy Guy is one of the titans of the blues, straddling traditional and modern forms, as well as musical generations. He’s worked with Muddy Waters, Little Walter and Howlin’ Wolf, on one hand, and Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan and the Rolling Stones, on the other. There are few notable blues figures that Guy hasn’t brushed up against. He was even an influence on Jimi Hendrix.

Buddy Guy Biography | The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XUAg1_A7IE

Oscar nominee (direction and co-writer, The Last Picture Show) Peter Bogdanovich is 72.

Paul Anka is 70. Anka is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, is 64.

Kate Bush is 53.

Oscar best actor nominee Laurence Fishburne is 50.

The new coach of the American men’s national soccer team, Jürgen Klinsmann is 47.

Lisa Kudrow is 48.

Two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank is 37.

U.S. Open champion Graeme McDowell is 32.

Joe Nuxhall, the youngest player ever to appear in the major leagues, was born on this date in 1928. Nuxhall pitched 2/3rds of an inning for the Cincinnati Reds on June 10, 1944. He was 15 years, 316 days old. He gave up 5 runs, with 5 walks, 2 hits and a wild pitch. It was 1952 before he again appeared, but he pitched for 15 more seasons. Nuxhall was a longtime Reds broadcaster. He died in 2007.

The Hall of Fame manager Casey Stengel was born on this date in 1890.

Casey Stengel’s distinguished 54-year professional career spanned the era from Christy Mathewson to Mickey Mantle. He batted .284 over 14 seasons in the majors and accounted for both Giant victories in the 1923 World Series by hitting home runs. It was as a colorful and successful manager, though, that he earned Hall of Fame recognition. His feat of guiding the Yankees to 10 pennants and seven world titles in a 12-year span ranks as one of the most remarkable managerial accomplishments of all time.

Baseball Hall of Fame

A few Casey-isms:

“Can’t anybody here play this game?”

“Good pitching will always stop good hitting and vice-versa.”

“He’d (Yogi Berra) fall in a sewer and come up with a gold watch.”

One of the most remarkable Americans, Henry Ford, was born on this date in 1863. The following is an excerpt from Mr. Ford’s New York Times obituary in 1947:

Renting a one-story brick shed in Detroit, Mr. Ford spent the year 1902 experimenting with two- cylinder and four-cylinder motors. By that time the public had become interested in the speed possibilities of the automobile, which was no longer regarded as a freak. To capitalize on this interest, he built two racing cars, the “999” and the “Arrow,” each with a four-cylinder engine developing eighty horsepower. The “999,” with the celebrated Barney Oldfield at its wheel, won every race in which it was entered.

The resulting publicity helped Mr. Ford to organize the Ford Motor Company, which was capitalized at $100,000, although actually only $28,000 in stock was subscribed. From the beginning Mr. Ford held majority control of this company. In 1919 he and his son, Edsel, became its sole owners, when they bought out the minority stockholders for $70,000,000.

In 1903 the Ford Motor Company sold 1,708 two-cylinder, eight horsepower automobiles. …

With this material he began the new era of mass production. He concentrated on a single type of chassis, the celebrated Model T, and specified that “any customer can have a car painted any color he wants, so long as it is black.” On Oct. 1, 1908, he began the production of Model T, which sold for $850. The next year he sold 10,600 cars of this model. Cheap and reliable, the car had a tremendous success. In seven years he built and sold 1,000,000 Fords; by 1925 he was producing them at the rate of almost 2,000,000 a year.

He established two cardinal economic policies during this tremendous expansion: the continued cutting of the cost of the product as improved methods of production made it possible, and the payment of higher wages to his employes. By 1926 the cost of the Model T had been cut to $310, although it was vastly superior to the 1908 model. In January, 1914, he established a minimum pay rate of $5 a day for an eight-hour day, thereby creating a national sensation. Up to that time the average wage throughout his works had been $2.40 a nine-hour day.

The entire obituary is really rather fascinating reading.

Douglas Brinkley’s Wheels for the World (2003) is considered a good biography of Ford and the Ford Motor Company.

Vladimir Zworykin was born in Murom, Russia, on this date in 1889. He came to the U.S. in 1919. Zworykin’s television transmitting and receiving method using cathode ray tubes, developed in the 1920s and early 1930s, ranks him as the prime inventor of television.

The Indianapolis

If you saw Jaws or read it, you will remember the harrowing story Quint (Robert Shaw) tells of surviving the sinking of the cruiser Indianapolis. It was on this date in 1945 that the ship, which had carried the Hiroshima atomic bomb and was out of communication, was torpedoed by the Japanese. According to the USS Indianapolis CA-35 web site:

At 12:14 a.m. on July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine in the Philippine Sea and sank in 12 minutes. Of 1,196 men on board, approximately 300 went down with the ship. The remainder, about 900 men, were left floating in shark-infested waters with no lifeboats and most with no food or water. The ship was never missed, and by the time the survivors were spotted by accident four days later only 316 men were still alive.

The ship’s captain, the late Charles Butler McVay III, survived and was court-martialed and convicted of “hazarding his ship by failing to zigzag” despite overwhelming evidence that the Navy itself had placed the ship in harm’s way, despite testimony from the Japanese submarine commander that zigzagging would have made no difference, and despite that fact that, although over 350 navy ships were lost in combat in WWII, McVay was the only captain to be court-martialed. Materials declassified years later adds to the evidence that McVay was a scapegoat for the mistakes of others.

Shark attacks began with sunrise of the first day (July 30) and continued until the survivors were removed from the water almost five days later.

The Navy web site includes oral histories with Indianapolis Captain McVay and Japanese submarine Captain Hashimoto. The Discovery Channel has a wealth of material.

The site dedicated to the Indianapolis is perhaps the best source.

In Harm’s Way: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the Extraordinary Story of Its Survivors (2001) by Doug Stanton is a book on the voyage, the sinking, the survivors and McVay’s court martial.

July 29th

“Professor” Irwin Corey, The World’s Foremost Authority, is 97 today.

Ken Burns is 58.

William Powell was born on this date in 1892. He was nominated for three best actor Academy Awards — The Thin Man (1934), My Man Godfrey (1936) and Life with Father (1947). Powell was Nick Charles and Myrna Loy was Nora Charles in the six Thin Man films.

250px Clara Bow 1927

The “It Girl” Clara Bow was born on this date in 1905. A huge star when movies didn’t talk, her career wound down quickly and unhappily after sound. As with many other silent film stars, it was a new medium that necessitated less physical acting, the reason they had become big stars to begin with. The clip is from It (1927).

Charlie Christian was born on this date in 1916. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 (fifth class).

Charlie Christian elevated the guitar as a lead instrument on par with the saxophone and trumpet in jazz and popular music. His single-string technique established a solo style that was carried on by such contemporaries as T-Bone Walker and emulated by later disciples like B. B. King and Chuck Berry. Born in Bonham, Texas, on July 29th, 1919, and raised in Oklahoma City, Christian was influenced by country music and jazz, an odd hybrid of influences that can be heard in his recorded works, such as “Seven Come Eleven,” with the Benny Goodman Sextet. Unfortunately, his recording career lasted less than two years, as he was brought down in his prime by tuberculosis, dying on March 2, 1942, in New York. Though his life was short, his hornlike, single-note style, which capitalized on innovations in amplification technology, revolutionized and redefined the role of the electric guitar in popular music. The reverberations from Christian’s pioneering efforts have echoed down the decades, through Western swing, rockabilly and rock and roll to the present day.”

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer were married 30 years ago today.

Redux Post of the Day

Most days, to get the muse started, I go through what I have posted on NMK for this date during the past almost eight years. In many ways the blog is a journal of my interests — movies, books, what not — as well as current events, and of course The Sweeties. Every once in awhile a post catches more than passing interest and holds me. This is one of those — from five years ago today.

Someone else’s Sweeties

I know I’m just a bleeding heart liberal old grandpa, but this Reuters photo of Afghan children taking a break from looking for things to recycle in Kabul, taken today, breaks my heart.

Found at TalkLeft.

Or put it in a slot machine and take our chances

Sovereign governments such as the United States can print new money. However, there’s a statutory limit to the amount of paper currency that can be in circulation at any one time.

Ironically, there’s no similar limit on the amount of coinage. A little-known statute gives the secretary of the Treasury the authority to issue platinum coins in any denomination. So some commentators have suggested that the Treasury create two $1 trillion coins, deposit them in its account in the Federal Reserve and write checks on the proceeds.

An excerpt from “3 ways Obama could bypass Congress” by Jack M. Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law at Yale Law School

The 14th Amendment

… to the United States Constitution was ratified on this date in 1868. The amendment reads:

Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section. 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section. 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

July 28th

Jackie Kennedy would have been 82 today. She was born Jacqueline Lee Bouvier on this date in 1929. She died in 1994.

Bill Bradley is 68.

Linda Kelsey, the red-headed reporter on Lou Grant, is 65. She received five Emmy nominations, but no wins.

Sally Struthers and Georgia Engel are each 63 today.

Hugo Chávez, the President of Venezuela, is 57. Venezuela supplies about 6% of U.S. daily oil consumption.

Catherine Howard married Henry VIII on this date in 1540. She was Mrs. VIII number five.

Maximilien Robespierre got nicked with a razor on this date in 1794. Witnesses said Robespierre died within seconds of the guillotine blade severing his head from his neck but, after viewing A Tale of Two Cities, Dr. Former Senator Bill Frist was certain guillotine victims “respond to visual stimuli.”

Beatrix Potter was born on this date in 1866.

Beatrix Potter thought she might become a scientist, but when she wrote a paper to present to the Royal Botanic Gardens, she was turned away because only men were allowed to present. So she continued to make detailed drawings of animals and plants, and she continued to refuse the suitors her parents brought home for her, because she didn’t want to be a Victorian housewife and raise children and have no time left for her own interests.

In 1893, Potter sent an illustrated letter to the child of her former governess, and it was in that letter that Peter Rabbit made his debut. She liked creating animal characters, writing and illustrating their stories. So she decided to write children’s books, but for years publishers didn’t take her seriously.

You’ll have to read the rest at The Writer’s Almanac (2008).

An earthquake in China killed an estimated 242,000 people 35 years ago today (1976).

Why bother?

I see Garret’s and Avelino’s and Elaine’s photos and I think, why bother.

I post about politics for 8 years and a regular reader thinks I could be a “right-winger” — or just stupid — and I think, why bother.

I spend an hour on the birthdays and almost no one ever says a thing and I think, why bother.

I see today’s top NMK search terms — ron howards brother, ron howard’s brother, omarosa nude, ron howard brother, sleeping bear dunes national lakeshore — and — after 19,819 posts — I think, why bother.

No I am not quitting and you don’t need to comment — in fact I’ve turned off comments for this post. It’s my blog. Just let me vent.

Although I wonder, why bother.