From the Morning Briefing in the Los Angeles Times
Age-old problem: Paul Newman, a guest on “Late Show With David Letterman” this week, said he is still driving in endurance races.
“How much longer are you going to do this?” asked Letterman.
Newman, 78, said, “I’m not worried about the racing, I’m worried about getting in and out of the cars.”
From ESPN.com
TCU was unable to land a spot in the Bowl Championship Series. Now it appears the Horned Frogs may turn down the next best thing.
The school is planning to decline an expected invitation to the GMAC Bowl because of academic considerations, athletic director Eric Hyman told The Washington Post on Wednesday night.
TCU had its sights sets on a BCS bowl, but those hopes were dashed by a loss to Southern Miss on Nov. 20. As a result, the Horned Frogs will likely finish second in Conference USA and earn an invitation to the GMAC.
However, Hyman says the school will likely decline the bowl bid because the game falls in the middle of their exam period (Dec. 18). The bowl could have pitted a pair of impressive mid-majors (TCU and Miami-Ohio) against each other.
“I can’t do that,” TCU Athletic Director Eric Hyman told the Washington Post on Wednesday night. “I have to be sensitive to our young people. They are student-athletes, but they are also students, and they are coming to school to get an education. We cannot disrupt their exams. It’s not fair to them.”
were married on this date in 1582. He was 18, she 26. As with many facets of Shakespeare’s life, there is some confusion about the marriage. Among other things, Shakespeare received a marriage license with an Anne Whatley the day before. Secondly, relatives of Anne Hathaway (or Hathwey) posted bond so that her marriage to Shakespeare could proceed with only one reading of the bans. Perhaps the confusion is best resolved by noting that on May 26, 1583, William and Anne’s daughter Susanna was christened. It appears the Bard had a shotgun wedding.
began broadcasting on this date in 1925. Initially called the WSM Barn Dance (it was broadcast then, and now, on WSM in Nashville), it received the name Grand Old Opry three years later.
was designated on this date in 1990. The reservoir, at the confluence of the Rio Grande, Devils and Pecos rivers, was created by Amistad Dam in 1969.
From The New Yorker
How out of whack are baseball salaries? New Angel pitcher Kelvim Escobar, who was 13-9 with a 4.29 earned-run average for the Toronto Blue Jays last season, will have a salary of $5.5 million next season.
Warren Spahn, the winningest left-hander in major league baseball history, never made more than $87,500. Spahn, who died Monday, pitched in the majors until 1965.
From Morning Briefing in the Los Angeles Times.
Thomas Boswell on Warren Spahn: “So long, Spahnie. All things considered, you may have been the very best.”
From The New York Times
Traditionally, of course, a proper table is covered with a cloth. Tablecloths originated in Rome and represented wealth and dignity during the Medieval period. Damascus in Syria produced the best cloths, called damask, like my family heirloom. Centuries ago, several tablecloths were laid one on top of another, each to be removed after a course. This practice is still followed today in some cultures, in North Africa, for example. Then in early 18th century England, very fine wood tables were meant to be shown off, so doilies, named for D’Oyley, a London draper who is said to have invented them, came into use. These in turn became place mats.
On to the plates. The plate is the flat dinner plate, which evolved from wooden trenchers, which were in turn preceded by slabs of stale bread.
The plate is then flanked by knife and tablespoon on the right and usually two forks on the left. Utensils are placed to make picking them up and using them efficient and simple. The knife should be turned so the blade edge is on the left, next to the plate, a consideration dating from when knives were razor sharp. The forks, a larger dinner fork and a smaller salad fork, are placed in order of use from the outside in. In France the forks and spoons are usually turned so the tines and bowls face down.
was born on this date in 1922.
Now at NFL.com
was born on this date in 1893. He graduated from the University of Tennessee and received an M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia. He became an author and lecturer and was drama critic for The Nation during the years 1924-1952. He wrote two criticially acclaimed biographies, Samuel Johnson (1944) and Henry David Thoreau (1948).
Krutch moved to Tucson in 1952 and turned his focus primarily to nature writing. Among his notable works were The Desert Year, The Voice of the Desert and The Great Chain of Life.
From The Voice of the Desert:
Here in the West, as in the country at large, a war more or less concealed under the guise of a “conflict of interests” rages between the “practical” conservationist and the defenders of the national parks and other public lands; between cattlemen and lumberers on the one hand, and the “sentimentalists” on the other. The pressure to allow the hunter, the rancher, or the woodcutter to invade the public domain is constant and the plea is always that we should “use” what is assumed to be useless unless it is adding to material welfare. But unless somebody teaches love, there can be no ultimate protection to what is lusted after. Without some “love of nature” for itself there is no possibility of solving “the problem of conservation.”
was named in honor of Saint Catherine of Alexandria by Sebastián Vizcaíno on this date in 1602, her feast day.
In 310, Emperor Maximus ordered Catherine broken on the wheel for being a Christian, but she touched the wheel and it was destroyed. She was beheaded, and her body whisked away by angels.
According to The Catholic Community Forum, Saint Catherine is the patron saint of “apologists, craftsmen who work with a wheel (potters, spinners, etc.), archivists, attornies, barristers, dying people, educators, girls, jurists, knife grinders, knife sharpeners, lawyers, librarians, libraries, maidens, mechanics, millers, nurses, old maids, philosophers, potters, preachers, scholars, schoolchildren, scribes, secretaries spinners, spinsters, stenographers, students, tanners, teachers, theologians, turners, unmarried girls, wheelwrights.”
The Los Angeles Times is publishing a three part series on Wal-Mart.
The first article was yesterday:
An Empire Built on Bargains Remakes the Working World;
the second today:
Scouring the Globe to Give Shoppers an $8.63 Polo Shirt.
Whether one thinks of Wal-Mart as a corporation or as a place to shop, these seem to NewMexiKen to be informative, well-done articles well worth reading.
NewMexiKen had a visit earlier today from a computer in Iceland.
Also from Stewart Mandel
The BCS standings were officially intended to determine only the two participants in the national championship game and the eligible teams for a BCS at-large berth. A couple of conferences, however, have adopted them for their own use, which will make for a pretty strange finish to their respective races.
In the Big East, should Pittsburgh beat Miami and West Virginia beat Temple next weekend, the Panthers and Mountaineers would finish tied for first at 6-1. Seeing as West Virginia beat Pittsburgh 52-31 just last week, the Mountaineers should hold the tiebreaker, correct?
Nope. Apparently to avoid situations just like this one, in which a four-loss West Virginia team could be the Big East’s BCS representative, the league included a clause that the team that won head-to-head must also be within five spots in the standings of the team it beat. In Palm’s latest projections, Pittsburgh stands 26th, West Virginia 30th, but the Panthers’ schedule will be boosted by playing Miami, the Mountaineers’ hurt by playing Temple. So it looks like West Virginia is out, which, if the Panthers end up winning, would be a shame.
The SEC is using the same rule to break its likely three-way tie between Georgia, Florida and Tennessee in the East. The Dawgs are seventh, the Vols, whom Georgia beat, eighth and the Gators, who beat Georgia but lost to Tennessee, 11th, so Tennessee would need Georgia to lose to Georgia Tech, and the Gators would at the very least need to beat Florida State and probably also have the Vols lose to Kentucky.
That’s right, two non-conference games could determine who plays for the SEC championship.
What a strange sport.
SI.com’s Stewart Mandel makes the case for LSU.
From Slate
For sheer entertainment value, this is a fantastic commercial. Visually arresting. Engrossing narrative. (And an unexpectedly wussy, un-Hummer-y art-house pedigree: It was directed by the guy who did Shine, and the ad’s cinematographer worked on Amélie.) Plus, of course, the kick-ass Who song. My problem is with its underlying ethics.
1. The Hummer kid cheats….
2. He endangers other racers….
3. What about the poor dog? We see it left abandoned in its now-useless doghouse, peering sadly through gaping holes where the slats the kid stole used to be. Conclusion: The Hummer kid hoards earth’s precious resources, sating his own vanity at the expense of less fortunate, voiceless members of society….
American Library Association January 13, 2003
The best-selling Harry Potter series of children’s books by J.K. Rowling tops the list of books most challenged in 2002, according to the American Library Association’s (ALA) Office for Intellectual Freedom. The Potter series drew complaints from parents and others concerned about the books’ focus on wizardry and magic.
The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom received a total of 515 reports of challenges last year, a 15 percent increase since 2001. A challenge is defined as a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness. The majority of challenges are reported by public libraries, schools and school libraries. According to Judith F. Krug, director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom, the number of challenges reflects only incidents reported, and for each challenge reported, four or five remain unreported.
The “Ten Most Challenged Books of 2002” reflect a wide variety of themes. The books, in order of most frequently challenged are:
- Harry Potter series, by J.K. Rowling, for its focus on wizardry and magic.
- Alice series, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, for being sexually explicit, using offensive language and being unsuited to age group.
- “The Chocolate War” by Robert Cormier (the “Most Challenged” book of 1998), for using offensive language and being unsuited to age group.
- “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou, for sexual content, racism, offensive language, violence and being unsuited to age group.
- “Taming the Star Runner” by S.E. Hinton, for offensive language.
- “Captain Underpants” by Dav Pilkey, for insensitivity and being unsuited to age group, as well as encouraging children to disobey authority.
- “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain, for racism, insensitivity and offensive language.
- “Bridge to Terabithia” by Katherine Paterson, for offensive language, sexual content and Occult/Satanism.
- “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry” by Mildred D. Taylor, for insensitivity, racism and offensive language.
- “Julie of the Wolves” by Julie Craighead George, for sexual content, offensive language, violence and being unsuited to age group.
Off the list this year, but on the list for several years past, are the “Goosebumps” and “Fear Street” series, by R. L. Stine, which were challenged for being too frightening for young people and depicting occult or “Satanic” themes, “It’s Perfectly Normal,” a sex education book by Robie Harris, for being too explicit, especially for children, “Of Mice and Men,” by John Steinbeck, for using offensive language and being unsuited to age group, “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger for offensive language and being unsuited to age group, “The Color Purple,” by Alice Walker, for sexual content and offensive language, “Fallen Angels,” by Walter Dean Myers, for offensive language and being unsuited to age group, and “Blood and Chocolate” by Annette Curtis Klause for being sexually explicit and unsuited to age group.
From washingtonpost.com
Here are three propositions that sit together uneasily: 1) The United States is a deeply religious country. 2) Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins. 3) Americans are the fattest people in the world.
The absolute fattest? Well, there may be a few South Sea islands where the people are heavier. But the United States, with 61 percent of its adults — and one-quarter of its children — overweight, certainly beats out everyone else. And that means there is a moral irony to be confronted, especially as we look forward to a national holiday later this week in which ritual overeating is deemed a gesture of gratitude for divine providence.
According to a 1998 Purdue University study, obesity is associated with higher levels of religious participation. (Broken down by creed, Southern Baptists have the highest body-mass index on average, Catholics are in the middle, and Jews and other non-Christians are the lowest.)
From Boston.com
From the Santa Fe New Mexican
The lake, which is a reservoir in the San Juan River east of Four Corners, “is at 42 percent of capacity and 53 percent of its historic average.”
was born in Florence, Italy, on this date in 1826. As C. Collodi, he wrote a timeless story about a wooden boy named Pinocchio, whose nose grew with every lie and whose most ardent wish was to become “a real boy.”
It seems that Mickey Mouse doesn’t hold as much appeal as he used to now that he’s older than toddler’s grandparents. An article from The New York Times tells of the Walt Disney Company’s efforts to rejuvenate the Mouse.
NewMexiKen always liked Mickey Mouse comic books but was really more of a Donald Duck fan. Mickey was somewhat supercilious while Donald was always in trouble, at least until the end of the story. Mickey was often a detective; Donald someone trying to fake Uncle Scrooge out of his money.