Unity the theme

From the Albuquerque Journal:

Together, state Sen. Richard Romero and the man he defeated walked into an Albuquerque hotel ballroom arm and arm to the cheers of fellow Democrats.

Unity was the theme of the victory party Tuesday night after Romero handily beat Dr. Miles Nelson to grab the Democratic primary election nomination for the 1st Congressional District.

NewMexiKen can’t remember another instance where the winner and loser in an election, even a primary, appeared together on election night. Nice idea.

Catty remarks

George W. Bush is out jogging one morning, and notices a little boy on the corner with a box. Curious, he runs over to the child and says, “What’s in the box kid?”

The little boy says, “Kittens, they’re brand new kittens.”

George W. laughs and says, “What kind of kittens are they?”

“Republicans,” the child says.

“Oh that’s cute,” George W. says and he runs off.

A couple of days later George is running with his buddy Dick Cheney and he spies the same boy with his box just ahead. George W. says to Dick, “You gotta check this out” and they both jog over to the boy with the box. George W. says, “Look in the box, Dick, isn’t that cute? Look at those little kittens. Hey kid tell my friend Dick what kind of kittens they are.”

The boy replies, “They’re Democrats.”

“Whoa!”, George W. says, “I came by here the other day and you said they were Republicans. What’s up?”

“Well,” the kid says, “Their eyes are open now”

————

Thanks to South Knox Bubba.

Too stupid to vote

That would be me.

NewMexiKen went to vote this afternoon in the New Mexico primary. The precinct officials and I were troubled when my name did not appear on the roster of eligible voters. I voted last election; what could be wrong? The precinct captain called the country clerk’s office. It seems I had declined to state my party so, of course, I don’t get to vote in the primary. D’oh.

[It is perhaps a reflection of the very light turnout that all this was resolved in about two minutes.]

Negative

As he so often does, Dave Pell at Electablog has a different kind of take, this time on negative ads:

I always find it interesting that politicians focus their efforts on negative ads when the rest of world’s top marketers stay positive. Can you imagine a Coke commercial that criticizes Pepsi for flip-flopping on the saccharine vs nutrasweet issue, or a series [of] Harry Potter ads that imply that Shrek was once in favor of a 50 cent gas tax hike?

Of course, Budweiser and Miller are doing exactly that these days, which is yet another reason for prefering micro-brews.

Pat Boone addendum

NewMexiKen has been reminded that Pat Boone’s visit to the school (see below) was in 1975. He would have been a 41-year-old grandpa. It’s hard to believe I was ever so young I thought 41 was old enough that someone could “look good” for 41?

The national parks

The Rocky Mountain News laments cutbacks at the national parks in Colorado:

For instance, hours at Rocky Mountain National Park’s visitor centers were trimmed from 390 hours per week to 260.

Patterson said the centers will all close at 6 p.m., instead of staying open until 9 p.m., because visitor traffic slows in the evening.

The Casper Star-Tribune tells about the impact in Wyoming:

[At Devil’s Tower, the] park’s 2004 annual budget is $3,000 less than its 2003 budget, dropping from $771,000 to $768,000.

Wade said the public should know that when they travel to national parks, they will likely see fewer rangers, fewer educational services, and less maintenance of campgrounds and picnic areas.

The Salt Lake Tribune looks at the situation in Utah:

“We are not providing the same level of service that we have been able to in years past,” said Paul Henderson, chief of interpretation at Arches and Canyonlands. “Things are definitely tight.”

Managers at Utah’s five national parks said last year that they need to increase their annual operating budgets by $12.1 million to keep up with visitor demand and to run the parks in a way that fulfills the Park Service’s other mission of protecting resources.

Canyonlands, for example, needs $359,000 more each year to boost visitor information services and backcountry management, while Zion needs $422,000 to hire additional interpretive rangers.

But, last year, Utah’s parks saw no increases to their budgets.

The Denver Post has an editorial:

Instead of following optimistic talking points, the Bush administration needs to take a realistic look at the deterioration of the Park Service’s finances.

How green was my valley

The Canadian National Post has some of the science about climate change NewMexiKen mentioned — “Scientists raise alarms about an impending water crisis in the West but governments have yet to heed the call.” Concerning the western U.S. the article tells us:

Phillip Mote, a climatologist at the University of Washington recently found snowpack levels in the western United States have dropped considerably in recent decades. That has led to predictions that, over the next 50 years, snowpacks in such regions as the Cascade Mountains in Washington could be reduced 60%, cutting summertime stream flows as much as 50%. Those forecasts match the findings of Daniel Cayan, climate researcher at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., who recently reported in the journal Climate Change that snowmelt in California’s Sierra Nevada now comes three weeks earlier than it did in 1948. “Snow is our water storage in the west,” Dr. Mote recently commented in the U.S. journal Science, “when you remove that much storage, there is simply no way to make up for it.”

Meagre snowfalls in the western U.S. last winter have resulted in projections suggesting snowmelt runoff into the Colorado River — the main water artery for Denver and Los Angeles as well as huge expanses of agriculture — could be 45% below average this year. The United States Geological Survey says the period since 1999 has been the driest in the 98 years of recorded history of the Colorado River.

The relatively humid 20th century is being shown to be an anomaly.

Grammar

Brad DeLong believes in the final comma in a series: “The final comma in a list before the “and” or “or” is an important banisher of confusion, ambiguity, and general silliness.”

NewMexiKen used to include the final comma, but generally I don’t now. I am so confused.

DeLong also questions the lack of an apostrophe in the possessive its.

Artesia family nation’s biggest oil and gas leaseholders – by a massive margin

From AP via the Albuquerque Tribune:

A single New Mexico family – the Yates family of Artesia – and a dozen big oil companies now control one-quarter of all federal lands leased for oil and gas development in the continental United States despite a law intended to prevent such concentration, federal records show.

Since 1997, mainly as a result of mergers and acquisitions, six companies have exceeded the limit of 246,080 acres in leaseholdings on public lands in a single state other than Alaska. But the Bureau of Land Management, in charge of enforcing the 1920 law, has chosen to extend compliance deadlines for years.

Individuals and companies affiliated with the Yates family, which is by far the biggest leaseholder, have given $276,926 to Republican candidates and efforts since 1999. Democrats have received $11,400 from those companies and individuals during the same period.

Casino riches spur some American Indians to swap tribes

From AP via the Albuquerque Tribune:

Charles Leno worked a dead-end job dealing cards at the Chinook Winds casino on the Oregon coast, earning minimum wage and not much in fringe benefits.

He saw little in his future, so he was casting about for a change – and the change he decided on was his tribe.

Last year the 28-year-old moved from the tribe of his mother’s ancestry, the Siletz, to his father’s tribe, the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde – operators of Oregon’s most successful casino.

“They help you more here,” he said.

As a tribal member, he receives between $4,000 and $5,000 a year in per-capita payments. He had hiring priority for a higher-paying job at Spirit Mountain casino. And his newborn son, Future Warrior, receives the same benefits every year in a trust – a solid investment of tens of thousands of dollars by the time the boy turns 18.

American Indians are discovering that one possible route out of poverty is joining a tribe with a successful casino, a transfer that’s allowed if they can show they have blood ties to that tribe.

Not good, but is it really that bad?

The New York Times has an article today, Many Feeling Pinch After Newest Surge in U.S. Fuel Prices. Centered on Denver, the article describes sacrifices and changes people are needing to make as a result of $2 gasoline.

In the CBS survey, 85 percent of the 1,113 respondents said they had been affected measurably by higher gas prices, and 56 percent said they had been affected a great deal.

Can this be true? Today, according to AAA, regular gasoline averages $2.04 nationwide. A year ago it was $1.48. That’s 56 cents a gallon. Even 30 gallons a week amounts to only $16.80. Are any but the seriously poor “affected measurably” by $16.80? Is this not mostly psychological because gasoline prices are posted so conspicuously?

Keep in mind that we were paying $2.81 a gallon in today’s dollars in 1981.

It was 37 years ago today

Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play.

Arguably the most influential album ever, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, was released by The Beatles on this date in 1967.

Norma Jeane Mortenson…

was born on this date in 1926. She was baptized Norma Jeane Baker (her father was unknown) and we know her as Marilyn Monroe. The following biographical information is taken from Marilyn Monroe’s Official Web Site.

Norma Jeane spent most of her childhood in foster homes and orphanages until 1937, when she moved in with family friend Grace McKee Goddard. Unfortunately, when Grace’s husband was transferred to the East Coast in 1942, the couple couldn’t afford to take 16-year-old Norma Jeane with them. Norma Jeane had two options: return to the orphanage or get married.

On June 19, 1942 she wed her 21-year-old neighbor Jimmy Dougherty, whom she had been dating for six months. “She was a sweet, generous and religious girl,” Jimmy said. “She liked to be cuddled.” By all accounts Norma Jeane loved Jimmy, and they were happy together until he joined the Merchant Marines and was sent to the South Pacific in 1944.

After Jimmy left, Norma Jeane took a job on the assembly line at the Radio Plane Munitions factory in Burbank, California. Several months later, photographer David Conover saw her while taking pictures of women contributing to the war effort for Yank magazine. He couldn’t believe his luck. She was a “photographer’s dream.” Conover used her for the shoot and then began sending modeling jobs her way. The camera loved Norma Jeane, and within two years she was a reputable model with many popular magazine covers to her credit. She began studying the work of legendary actresses Jean Harlow and Lana Turner, and enrolled in drama classes with dreams of stardom. However, Jimmy’s return in 1946 meant Norma Jeane had to make another choice- this time between her marriage and her career.

Norma Jeane divorced Jimmy in June of 1946, and signed her first studio contract with Twentieth Century Fox on August 26, 1946. She earned $125 a week. Soon after, Norma Jeane dyed her hair blonde and changed her name to Marilyn Monroe (borrowing her grandmother’s last name). The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

NewMexiKen posted items about Monroe’s marriage to Joe DiMaggio here and here.

Hard to imagine Marilyn Monroe at 78.