Ho Hum, Get it over with

Writing for Slate, Chris Suellentrop takes a look at Friends:

Only 21 million viewers tuned in [to Friends] last year, compared to the nearly 30 million viewers who watched during the Ross-and-Rachel heyday of Season Two. And fans haven’t been coming back for the show’s final episodes, either. During last week’s time slot, more viewers watched CSI than the penultimate episode of Friends. As the South Florida Sun-Sentinel TV writer Tom Jicha pointed out this week, seven out of eight American homes don’t watch Friends, and this season’s ratings wouldn’t have cracked the Top 20 for any show only a decade ago, in 1995. This is mass appeal?

But there’s another, more fundamental problem with hailing Friends as the last great situation comedy: It misstates the genre to which the show belongs. Friends isn’t a sitcom. It’s a soapcom, a soap opera masquerading as a situation comedy. The earworm theme song, the laugh track, and the gooey sentimentalism all conspire to fool viewers and critics into thinking they’re watching a family sitcom like Growing Pains or Family Ties updated for urban tribes (a Golden Girls for the pre-retirement set). But the beautiful people with opulent lifestyles, the explicit sexual content (everybody’s slept with everybody, Ross’s ex-wife is a lesbian, Chandler’s dad is a transvestite, etc.), the long multi-episode story arcs, and each season’s cliffhanger ending are the show’s real hallmarks. Days of Our Lives isn’t the only soap opera that Joey has a role in. And this one’s got jokes to boot.

It doesn’t matter

Al Franken and Bob Somerby were discussing Kerry’s wounds and Bush’s National Guard service a little while ago on The O’Franken Factor.

Enough already.

NewMexiKen is precisely halfway between the age of Kerry (60) and Bush (nearing 58). I wouldn’t want to be evaluated on who I was or what I said more than three decades ago. They shouldn’t be either. It’s about who they are now and going forward.

Focus guys, focus.

More Mays

Charles Einstein’s Willie’s Time (1979) is the only ballplayer biography ever to be a finalist for the Pulitizer Prize.

50 years ago today…

Englishman Roger Bannister ran the first sub-four-minute mile at Oxford — 3:59.4. Bannister’s record lasted only 46 days, when Australian John Landy ran 3:58.0. The current world record is 3:43.13

The four-minute-mile was such a symbolic barrier that Bannister was Sports Illustrated’s first ever Sportsman of the Year.

Bannister retired from running at the end of 1954 and ultimately became a neurologist.

The greatest living ballplayer…

Mays.jpgis 73 today. That’s Willie Mays, obviously.

When Joe DiMaggio died in 1999, baseball luminaries were asked who inherited the title of greatest living player. NewMexiKen had a different assumption. I thought Willie Mays became the greatest living ballplayer when Ty Cobb died in 1961.

Manager Leo Durocher, who must have been from Deadwood, once recalled a remarkable home run by Mays: “I never saw a f—ing ball go out of a f—ing park so f—ing fast in my f—ing life!”

Orson Welles…

was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on this date in 1915. The following is taken from a longer piece at The Writer’s Almanac:

He was a child prodigy. He started reading Shakespeare when he was three years old, and he had a role in Madame Butterfly the same year. While he was still in high school, he co-authored a textbook on Shakespeare that sold twenty thousand copies.

By the time he was sixteen he had been accepted to Harvard, but instead of going there he went off to Ireland, bought a donkey and a cart, and traveled around the country painting. When he got to Dublin he was completely out of money; he later said, “I guess I could have gotten an honest job, as a dishwasher or a gardener, but I became an actor.” He posed as a professional actor from New York to get a job at the Gate Theatre in Dublin, and it was there that he made his acting debut, at the age of sixteen.

Drought report

End of April snowpack reports from AP via The [Boulder] Daily Camera:

The snowpack in the South Platte River Basin, where Denver gets its water, improved to 65 percent of a 30-year average from 51 percent the previous month.

In the Arkansas River basin, where other Front Range cities draw their water, the snowpack jumped to nearly 98 percent of average, up from 60 percent a month ago.

But the Colorado River Basin, which feeds states throughout the West, got no relief in April. Snowpack there dropped to 55 percent of average, down from 64 percent.

Infamous Dave

From The Washington Post:

The nation’s top Indian affairs official has recused himself from the highest-profile issues related to his job — tribal recognition, casino gambling and related land disputes — just four months after being confirmed by the Senate.

*****

“A recusal of this kind goes to core responsibilities of his office and is very problematic legally and ethically,” [Connecticut Attorney General Richard] Blumenthal said. “This bypasses congressional oversight and scrutiny. . . . Aurene Martin isn’t confirmed by anybody. She’s not accountable in the same way.”

Widely known as “Famous Dave,” after the name of his restaurants, Anderson, a member of the Chippewa and Choctaw tribes, enjoyed the support of Native Americans.

Anderson’s office controls the bureau’s 10,000 employees, who administer almost 60 million acres of land held in trust for Indians and Alaska Natives, provide for health and human services, and run other programs for about 1.5 million Indians.

With the advent of Indian gambling, the BIA’s mission has become more complicated and the agency has come under increasing pressure to recognize — and not recognize — tribes. There are nearly 200 casino-owning tribes, which generate about $10 billion in annual revenue.

Yellowstone snowmobiling next winter

From The Billings Gazette:

Although the issue remains mired in legal dispute, snowmobiling is likely to be part of Yellowstone National Park next winter, Secretary of [the Interior] Gale Norton said Wednesday.

“I am certainly confident that it will be,” Norton said during a question-and-answer session with reporters in a telephone conference.

Before next winter season, National Park Service officials may have to conduct further environmental studies, examine the numbers of snowmobiles allowed into the parks and look at management practices, Norton said. She did not provide details.

“We are currently looking at our options to see what the implications of the court decisions are,” Norton said.

Beats the congeniality award

From AP via ESPN, ‘Crybaby Award’ may cost youth coach his job.

New MexiKen saw this story (a coach gives a 13-year-old a trophy with an infant on it) in this morning’s newspaper and then the story was sent to me.

Clearly this coach was insensitive and thoughtless, and the fact he had a trophy made shows me too much premeditation. But, that said, if my memory is correct, every coach I came across in high school was just as insensitive, just as ready to ridicule the athletically-challenged. That doesn’t mean it was OK then, but it didn’t become national news either. Sounds like there are a lot of crybabies.

On this date…

Lightning.jpgin 1968, NewMexiKen was leaving the area of the University of Arizona and coasted through a stop sign. A Tucson PD motorcycle officer saw the infraction and pulled me over within seconds. As he told me what he’d seen and asked for my driver’s license I said, “My wife is in labor. I’m just anxious to get to her.” He gave me that “yeah, sure” look and walked back to his motorcycle to write me up. When he came back in a minute or two he said he was just giving me a written warning (no fine, no points). And then he added, “Be careful. We haven’t lost a father yet.”

A small moment made important to me because my oldest child was born later that evening. He’s 36 today, an attorney with a prestigious law firm, a capable photographer as you can see, and a daddy himself.

How can that be? Wasn’t it just yesterday?

And giving women the vote diluted male votes by half, too

At Not Geniuses.com Matt Singer tells us:

So, at a debate over Same Sex Marriage last night here on campus, the President of the College Republican Federation of Montana made a rather specious, offensive comment. After the President of the College Dems said that only one amendment had ever been made to the Constitution to restrict rights (prohibition) and it has proven a horrible idea and needed to be repealed, Jake Eaton, the CR guy, said that the 13th Amendment, which prohibits slavery (for those of you who are unaware), was a limitation on his rights.

NewMexiKen literally misses the point

Jason is correct, NewMexiKen should have paid closer attention to the background on the Oprah complaints at The Smoking Gun .

In the wake of an Oprah Winfrey show that included explicit talk about teen sexuality (and addressed topics such as rainbows and getting one’s salad tossed), the Federal Communications Commission received more than 1600 letters complaining about the racy March 18 broadcast and demanding that the talk show host be cited for indecency. And since most FCC correspondents were prodded to write by the agency’s Public Enemy Number One, Howard Stern, and ABC late night host Jimmy Kimmel, the Oprah complaints are particularly entertaining and vituperative in their decrying of a double standard employed by the fine-happy FCC brass. Below you’ll find a sampling of the Oprah complaints, a small chunk of the stack we received via a Freedom of Information Act request. Since the commission redacts the names of letter writers, there is no way to actually confirm the true identity of letter writers like the “parent” who, having returned home from “Bible day camp” with their three-year-old twins, had to endure Oprah’s “disgusting rhetoric.” Or the “teacher” who worried about his third grade students “viewing these vulgar conversations about sex.”

Get a goat

“One typical gas-powered lawn mower pollutes as much in one year as 43 new cars, each driven more than 12,000 miles annually, according to the [Los Angeles area] air quality agency.”

Reported in The New York Times

Vote for me — I didn’t do it

Roger Ailes brings us up to date on:

John Ramsey, who was investigated by local Colorado authorities following the murder of his daughter, Jon-Benet, but never charged with any crime, is running for state legislative office in Michigan. As a Republican.

His campaign manger says Ramsey may need to run campaign commercials on recent developments that reportedly have exonerated him of the crime. Sounds like a real vote-getter to me. His campaign will focus on the five Es — economic issues, education, the enivornment and exculpatory evidence.

Rating the Rockies

More from the Los Angeles Times on the State of the Rockies Conference:

The overall best quality-of-life ratings were awarded to four Colorado counties. Gilpin, Douglas, El Paso and Larimer received A-pluses. The judgment was made based on per capita income, unemployment rate, education levels and natural amenities.

Counties receiving an F-minus were Cascade, Mont.; Valencia, N.M.; Owyhee, Idaho; and Gem, Idaho.

Many of the lowest-rated counties included Indian reservations such as the Navajo of Arizona and New Mexico. McKinley County, with a per capita income of $13,896 and 37% of residents living in poverty, was ranked as the most distressed.

Boulder County, Colo., home to the University of Colorado, was chosen as the most-educated place in the Rockies, with 21% of its population holding a graduate degree or higher compared with the regional average of 9%. Summit County was listed as the healthiest place to live. Santa Fe, N.M., was tops in arts and culture. Teton County, near Yellowstone National Park, was No. 1 for the best quality public lands. It was recently named the richest county in America.

The West

From the Los Angeles Times, a report on the first State of the Rockies Conference, held this week at Colorado College:

The myths and paradoxes of the new American West were explored Tuesday as experts here released a comprehensive report highlighting sweeping changes in population, growth and the environment across the Rocky Mountain region.

Most Westerners don’t live off the land, aren’t especially rugged and like big-box stores and lattes as much as anyone else, the statistics show.

They are, however, better educated than most Americans, younger and living in a beautiful region that’s become the fastest growing in the country.

Lube up

Only Dan Neil would begin a review of the Toyota Camry Solara convertible with:

I am a white man. Ethnically Caucasian, yes, but the term hardly does justice to my tragic lack of melanin. In God’s Sherwin-Williams paint-chip display, I am in the upper left-hand corner, between Easter Lily and Eyeless Abysmal Sea Creature.

I’m Powder.

At 44, I am also a member of the last generation to have sunbathed without a full appreciation of the possible consequences, which include premature aging and premature death, which is worse. Today’s sun worshippers head to the beach or pool well equipped with sunblock, hats and moisturizers. When I was in college the only thing we took was a Quaalude.

And so, the clock is ticking. When will I start to sprout festive bits of runaway tissue on my lip or ear or schnozzle? Or worse. I did a lot of skinny dipping back when I was a lad. Wouldn’t that be a priceless bit of poetic justice?

Read Dan Neil from the Los Angeles Times.

BTW Neil does mention the importance of sun screen when that convertible top is down or the sun roof is open.

Cinco de Mayo

The holiday of Cinco De Mayo, The Fifth Of May, commemorates the victory of the Mexicans over the French army at The Battle Of Puebla in 1862. It is primarily a regional holiday celebrated in the Mexican state capital city of Puebla and throughout the state of Puebla, but is also celebrated in other parts of the country and in U.S.cities with a significant Mexican population. It is not, as many people think, Mexico’s Independence Day, which is actually September 16.

MexOnline.com

And on the seventh day it became a tent show

The Library of Congress tells the story of the Monkey Trial:

On May 5, 1925, high school science teacher John Scopes was arrested for teaching evolution in one of Tennessee’s public schools. Scopes had agreed to act as defendant in a case intended to test Tennessee’s new law prohibiting the teaching of evolution in its public schools. On May 4, the day before Scopes’s arrest, the Chatanooga Times had run an ad in which the American Civil Liberties Union offered to pay the legal fees of a Tennessee teacher who was willing to act as a defendant in a test case. Several Dayton residents hatched a plot at a local drugstore. They hoped that a trial of this type would bring much needed publicity to the tiny town of Dayton.

The men enlisted several local attorneys and one easy-going teacher who believed in academic freedom and in Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution which states that all organisms developed from earlier forms through a process of natural selection. While volumes of scientific evidence support the theory of evolution, many felt that it contradicted the story of creation as described in the Bible and thus did not want evolution taught in schools.

The trial pitted famous labor and criminal defense attorney Clarence Darrow against former senator and secretary of state William Jennings Bryan, who worked for the prosecution. The trial was such a media circus that, on the seventh day in the courtroom, the judge felt compelled to move the proceedings outdoors under a tent due to the unbearable heat and for fear that the weight of all the spectators and reporters would cause the floor to cave in.

As Judge John T. Raulston incrementally disallowed the use of the trial as a forum on the merits or validity of Darwin’s theory, the trial swiftly drew to a close. The jury took only nine minutes to return a verdict of guilty. After all, Scopes had admitted all along that he had, in fact, taught evolution. As the trial came to a close, reporter and critic H.L. Mencken explained to readers of the Baltimore Sun and the American Mercury:

All that remains of the great cause of the State of Tennessee against the infidel Scopes is the formal business of bumping off the defendant. There may be some legal jousting on Monday and some gaudy oratory on Tuesday, but the main battle is over, with Genesis completely triumphant. Judge Raulston finished the benign business yesterday morning by leaping with soft judicial hosannas into the arms of the prosecution.

When the defense appealed the verdict, the Tennessee State Supreme Court acquitted Scopes on a technicality but upheld the constitutionality of the state law. Not until 1967 did Tennessee lawmakers overturn the law, finally allowing teachers to teach evolution. The trial did bring Dayton, Tennessee a great deal of publicity, mostly comprised of reinforcements of a stereotype of the south as an intellectual backwater, certainly not the type Daytonians had hoped to attract.

The University of Missouri, Kansas City has all the details you could ever want.