Ouch!

“The University of Colorado football team has signed a big TV deal,” says Jay Leno. “All their games will be on Court TV next year.”

Via Morning Briefing

Marathon Result Is an Age-Old Story

From Morning Briefing in the Los Angeles Times:

Tatyana Pozdnyakova’s performance in the Los Angeles Marathon was unbelievable. After inspecting the results, reader Ken Feldman of Granada Hills made these points about the 49-year-old Ukrainian:

• Her time of 2:30:17 was faster than all men 40 and over.

• Only 15 men had better times.

• The next-closest woman to her who was at least 40 finished nearly an hour behind her in a time of 3:18.27.

• When she is 50 next year, she might beat the next-closest female 50-year-old by more than one hour. On Sunday, the best female age 50-54 had a time of 3:33.07.

Go Tatyana Go!

Five Worlds at Once

From Space.com:

All five planets that can be visible to the naked eye will appear together in the evening sky later this month in a viewing opportunity that won’t be matched for 32 years.

Going in order from West to East, the cast of planetary characters will be Mercury, Venus, Mars, Saturn and Jupiter. All but Mercury are already visible. The winged messenger is the most elusive of the five, being so close to the Sun that it never gets very far above the horizon, and always only near dawn or dusk.

By late March, Mercury will be about as high as possible at dusk for viewers at mid-northern latitudes, setting the stage for a memorable few weeks of easy-to-do backyard skywatching.

Where to look

Mercury will hover above the setting Sun in the West. Higher up, brilliant Venus already dominates the stage, outshining all stars and planets. Mars, much dimmer than it was last summer, is high in the southwestern sky. Saturn is nearly overhead now at dusk and to the south. Jupiter, now stunningly bright, is king of the eastern evening sky, rising just as the Sun goes down.

The story continues, telling us that this is the best viewing of all five naked-eye planets at dusk until 2036.

Venus has been extraordinarily beautiful of late.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. …

was born on this date in 1841. Three times wounded in the Civil War, Holmes survived to become a prominent legal scholar, Chief Judge of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, and Justice of the United States Supreme Court, 1902-1932. He is considered one of the greatest of the Supreme Court justices.

But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done…. The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. It does not even protect a man from an injunction against uttering words that may have all the effect of force…. The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Schenck v. United States, Baer v. United States, 249 U.S. 52 (1919).

But when men have realized that time has upset many fighting faiths, they may come to believe even more than they believe the very foundations of their own conduct that the ultimate good desired is better reached by free trade in ideas—that the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market, and that truth is the only ground upon which their wishes safely can be carried out.
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, dissenting, Abrams et al. v. United States, 250 U.S. 630 (1919).

The February Revolution…

began on this date in Russia in 1917.

The February Revolution was the first stage of the Russian Revolution and led to the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II. Ultimately the regime instigated by the February Revolution was usurped by the October Revolution.

[Russia was still using the Julian Calendar in 1917. Hence, March 8 elsewhere was February 23 in Russia; November 7 was October 25 .]

Omarosa

Sorry folks who got here from a search for Omarosa. Google “Omarosa lawsuit” and NewMexiKen is number three on the list.

Isn’t the Internet mysterious and grand?

If your interests extend beyong The Apprentice please stay and look around. You may find a thing or two of interest. Take a moment if you will and leave a comment — it would be fun to see what all the Omarosa folks have to say.

And if I learn anything about Omarosa’s lawsuit I promise to post it right here on NewMexiKen.

John McPhee…

was born on this date in 1931. The Writer’s Almanac has this about McPhee:

It’s the birthday of writer John McPhee, born in Princeton, New Jersey (1931). He’s the author of over twenty books, and he’s been a staff writer for many years for The New Yorker magazine. In his book Oranges (1967), about the orange growing business, he wrote: “An orange grown in Florida usually has a thin and tightly fitting skin, and it is also heavy with juice. Californians say that if you want to eat a Florida orange you have to get into a bathtub first. California oranges are light in weight and have thick skins that break easily and come off in hunks. The flesh inside is marvelously sweet, and the segments almost separate themselves. In Florida, it is said that you can run over a California orange with a ten-ton truck and not even wet the pavement.”

John McPhee won the Pulitizer Prize for General Non-Fiction in 1999 with his Annals of the Former World.

McPhee has long been one of NewMexiKen’s favorites.

I was told there would be no math

Via Sideline Chatter in The Seattle Times:

Among the 20 multiple-choice questions on the final exam in the “Coaching Principles and Strategies of Basketball” course taught by since-fired Jim Harrick Jr. at Georgia in the fall of 2001:

  • How many goals are on a basketball court?
  • How many halves are in a college basketball game?
  • How many quarters are in a high-school basketball game?
  • How many points does a three-point field goal account for in a basketball game?

Record your score in Comments.

This Appears to Have Been a Red-Letter Day

T.J. Simers’ column in the Los Angeles Times sports section is about as caustic — and funny — as anything going. Today he reviews his mail. A couple of choice exchanges:

“Do you go into any of the L.A.-based sports locker rooms anymore? Do players threaten to kick your butt?”

I’ve had the feeling on occasion that a few Dodgers would like to take a poke at me, but I’ve just taken for granted they’d swing and miss.

” … Our only son is named after [Davis Love]. I’m insulted by your article. You have neglected the talent on the PGA Tour. This isn’t WWF or some stupid reality show. Concentration actually matters. Before you write about something you know nothing about, do some homework.”

You’re right, I just took it for granted no one named their kid after a wimp. Do you have any other kids named after athletes that I should know about?

“You get hate mail from Kato Kaelin? Classic.”
Better than getting it from O.J. Simpson.

Contracts Take Alaska to Iraq

From the Los Angeles Times:

Snow-covered Alaska is a long way from the deserts of Iraq, but that doesn’t worry Janet Reiser, the president of an Anchorage-based company planning to help rebuild the war-torn country.

Because of the efforts of Sen. Ted Stevens, Alaska Native-owned businesses like Reiser’s are allowed to receive government contracts of unlimited size without going through the normal bidding process. Pentagon officials are turning to them to speed up the rebuilding of Iraq.

“If you exchange snow for sand, work in Iraq is similar to the work we’ve done in Alaska,” said Reiser, whose Nana Pacific engineering company is in the final stages of negotiating a multimillion-dollar contract that will be awarded without competitive bidding. “We know how to do logistics in remote areas.”

Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth

Her bio from The Apprentice.

Omarosa is a former political appointee in the Clinton and Gore White House. She currently works as a political consultant in Washington, DC. Omarosa had a humble youth, growing up in the projects of Youngstown, Ohio, but she eventually graduated from Central State University. She also earned a Master’s degree from Howard University and is now working toward her Ph.D, which should be awarded to her in the spring of 2004. Omarosa’s hobby is pageantry and she enjoys working as an image consultant who has successfully trained a Miss USA, Miss Taiwan and Miss Guyana.

Omarosa update

Omarosa continues to generate a lot of visits from the search engines.

NewMexiKen is considering an all-Omarosa format.

Serious pop culture question: Do you think Omarosa would be as well-known if she had a name like Amy or Lisa?

Another serious pop culture question: Is “serious pop culture” an oxymoron?