States

Kentucky became the 15th state on this date in 1792.

Tennessee became the 16th state on this date in 1796.

Rhode Island, the 13th state, was mentioned here last Saturday.

Can you name the 14th state?

Pat Boone…

is 70 today. Boone had grandchildren at the same school NewMexiKen’s children attended about 25 years ago. He showed up at “Back to School Night” once or twice, and I have to admit he was about the handsomest, youngest looking grandpa you’d ever see. Of course, he was only 45.

An April article from The Washington Times brings us up to date on Boone’s politics.

A healthy society needs censorship to survive, 1950s musical icon Pat Boone said yesterday. He added that he would welcome strong content restrictions governing movies and other artistic works.

“I don’t think censorship is a bad word, but it has become a bad word because everybody associates it with some kind of restriction on liberty,” said Mr. Boone, who is in Washington making the rounds as the national spokesman for the 60-Plus Association, a conservative senior citizen lobby.

“But we do know that at some point a line that has to be drawn between one man’s liberty and another man’s license.”

Three time Oscar nominee…

Morgan Freeman is 67 today. Freeman was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Street Smart, and for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Driving Miss Daisy and The Shawshank Redemption.

Freeman complains that in all his roles, he has never been cast in a romantic lead or opposite a female love interest.

But then he did get to drive the pace car at the Indianapolis 500 Sunday.

The last Civil War widow…

died yesterday. She was Alberta Martin, born in 1906. A 21-year-old widow with a small child, she married William Jasper Martin in 1927. He was 81 and had a $50-a-month Confederate veteran’s pension. When he died in 1931, Mrs. Martin married his grandson.

The last Union widow died last year.

Americas Dreamers: The Lure of Las Vegas

On Sunday, The New York Times began a multi-part series on Las Vegas and its incredible growth. Sunday’s article, The Budget Suites, where “the city’s promise of new beginnings is regularly put to the test.” Today’s article, New Teachers, Pupils, and Classrooms With Revolving Doors, tells the travail of one of 2,000 new teachers this year.

Both articles are well done and worthwhile, as are the sidebars.

The South Fork Dam…

gave way on this date in 1889 flooding Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The Johnstown Flood National Memorial (National Park Service) describes the event:

There was no larger news story in the latter nineteenth century after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The story of the Johnstown Flood has everything to interest the modern mind: a wealthy resort, an intense storm, an unfortunate failure of a dam, the destruction of a working class city, and an inspiring relief effort.

The rain continued as men worked tirelessly to prevent the old South Fork Dam from breaking. Elias Unger, the president of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, was hoping that the people in Johnstown were heeding the telegraph warnings sent earlier, which said that the dam might go. When it finally happened, at 3:10 P.M., May 31, 1889, an era of the Conemaugh Valley’s history ended, and another era started. Over 2,209 people died on that tragic Friday, and thousands more were injured in one of the worst disasters in our Nation’s history.

How ironic

Belle Waring at Crooked Timber has a delightful post on the meaning and use of irony.

A recent post on our blog about whether any of the situations in the Alanis Morrisette Song “Ironic” were, in fact, ironic, has garnered unexpected interest. I looked at the lyrics more carefully, and I think perhaps half could be said to qualify in an extended sense, that is, they seem like dramatic irony. So: “rain on your wedding day” is unquestionably not ironic, it’s just somewhat unfortunate. But I’ll give her “death-row pardon two minutes late”, I guess, if we accept a certain notion of irony I outline below.

The comments at both Crooked Timber and John & Belle are worth perusing as well.

Judge not, lest ye be judged

From the Santa Fe New Mexican:

The chief judge of New Mexico’s largest state court was arrested Saturday on charges of drug possession and evidence tampering after being stopped near a DWI checkpoint, police said.

W. John Brennan, the well-known judicial leader of the state District Court in Albuquerque, appeared “extremely intoxicated” when he was pulled over just after midnight, police spokeswoman Trish Ahrensfield said.

Officers found what they believed to be cocaine in the vehicle, she said.

The judge had tried to evade the DWI checkpoint.

Global warming?

On Friday NewMexiKen put this headline on an entry about what people think about global warming/climate change: I believe. I believe. Even though it’s silly I believe.

The line is taken from the little girl Susan (Natalie Wood in the original) in Miracle on 34th Street. My misuse of it was an attempt to say, “Hey, it really doesn’t matter what the public thinks.” As Byron, one of two official sons-in-law of NewMexiKen, said to me, “A politically popular opinion doesn’t make it correct.” Precisely.

The climate is changing. The climate is always changing. NewMexiKen’s opinion is that we’d better find out what, if anything, we might do about it, and what, if anything, we should do to prepare for it. If there is a consensus among serious scientists, that’s good enough for me. Can’t the news media report that and quit with the man-on-the-street nonsense?

Benny Goodman…

was born on this date in 1909. Goodman was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants who thought that music might be a way out of poverty. His older brothers were given a tuba and a trombone but — just 10 — Benjamin was given a clarinet. He learned to play at a synagogue and then with a Jane Hull House band. By 16, he was in the Ben Pollack Orchestra; by 19, Goodman was making solo recordings.

In 1934, Goodman put together his own band and they played on a live NBC radio program “Let’s Dance” during the late hours in New York. It was not until the band played before a live audience at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles that it found its fans — because of the time difference, the Goodman band that was on so late in the east was heard during prime dancing time on the west coast. (It’s a good scene in the 1955 film The Benny Goodman Story.) Some date the beginning of the Swing Era to that August 21, 1935, appearance in Los Angeles.

On January 16, 1938, Goodman brought jazz to Carnegie Hall. This great concert was recorded (with one microphone), but the original disk was lost. In 1950, Goodman discovered a copy in a closet. It quickly became a best-selling record and the CD is an absolute essential.

But NewMexiKen’s favorite Benny Goodman appearance was on December 30, 1966, at the Tropicana in Las Vegas. That’s because I was there.

Mel Blanc…

the voice of Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Private Snafu, Sylvester, Tweety, Yosemite Sam, Pepe Le Pew, Foghorn Leghorn, Speedy Gonzalez, Marvin Martian, Wile E. Coyote, Tasmanian Devil, Barney Rubble, Tom, Jerry, Woody Woodpecker’s laugh and Jack Benny’s Maxwell automobile was born on this date in 1908.

Blanc was in a serious automobile accident in 1961 that left him comatose. Unable to bring him out of the coma for weeks, in desperation the doctor finally said to him, “How are you today, Bugs Bunny?” Blanc reportedly answered, “Eh…just fine, Doc,” in his Bugs voice and began to recover.

Mel Blanc died in 1989. His epitaph reads: “That’s All Folks!”

Memorial Day

According to the Library of Congress:

In 1868, Commander in Chief John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic issued General Order Number 11 designating May 30 as a memorial day “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.”

The first national celebration of the holiday took place May 30, 1868 at Arlington National Cemetery, where both Confederate and Union soldiers were buried. Originally known as Decoration Day, at the turn of the century it was designated as Memorial Day. In many American towns, the day is celebrated with a parade. …

In 1971, federal law changed the observance of the holiday to the last Monday in May and extended it to honor all soldiers who died in American wars. A few states continue to celebrate Memorial Day on May 30.

Can you hear me now?

Watching a prolonged sports championship on TV, such as the current NBA playoffs, becomes an ordeal about now. It’s not the games, which generally increase in drama and tension. (Tonight’s Lakers-Timberwolves game is a great example.) No, it’s the commercials. The same commercials are shown over and over and over and over. How many times have we seen Lance Armstrong riding with the Harley guys, etc.? Worse, how many times have we seen the three people text messaging “it’s over,” “so over,” “now it’s over”? (And, by the way, where do you get your hair cut while basketball is being shown on TV? Most hair cut places are closed for several hours before these games end.) How many more inane discussions must we see between people and jilted Budweiser bottles?

For the most part, the cost of producing a 30 second spot is minor compared to the cost of buying the television time to show it. Why can’t they have at least a handful of different ads for us to see?

And don’t even get me started on the network promos. They’re repeated even more often.

Guess what it is

Click on this item from Kevin Drum and see if you can guess what the map represents. As he says, it’s not related to politics. DO NOT LOOK AT THE COMMENTS BELOW THE MAP UNTIL YOU GUESS. Click on the map to see what it is.

Look into my eyes

From Kevin Drum:

COSTCO….I was over at CostCo yesterday and they were selling gasoline (regular unleaded) for $2.27 a gallon. Cars were lined up ten deep at each service bay, waiting about 20 minutes each to get to the pump.

On my way home I passed four gas stations. The posted price for regular unleaded at each one was $2.33, $2.34, $2.35, and $2.39. So that’s an average of $2.35, or eight cents higher than CostCo.

The CostCo lines had the usual mix of big cars and little cars. Figure the average tank size was about 15 gallons. At eight cents a gallon, that’s a savings of $1.20 compared to other gas stations.

That means these folks were all willing to idle away in line at CostCo for 20 minutes in order to save about a dollar. It’s amazing, isn’t it? It’s almost like CostCo has them hypnotized or something.

Rats

The University of Arizona softball team lost to Oklahoma and to Louisiana-Lafayette last Saturday to end their season at 55-6. Oklahoma went on to advance to the Women’s College World Series.

Arizona had been to the Series every year since 1988, 16 straight, a record.

Four PAC-10 teams are in the WCWS even without Arizona — UCLA, Cal, Stanford and Washington.

Tenzing Norgay…

of Nepal and Edmund Hillary of New Zealand become the first to reach the summit of Mount Everest (29,035 feet/8,850 meters) on this date in 1953. The mountain is called Chomolungma (“goddess mother of the world”) in Tibet and Sagarmatha (“goddess of the sky”) in Nepal. It’s growing/moving about 6 cm a year.

George Everest (1790-1866) was the British Surveyor General of India (1830-1843). (He pronounced his name E-ver-est, not Ev-er-est as we know it.) Everest’s successor named the mountain for the surveyor.