The End Matter: The nightmare of citation

Louis Menand has written an amusing—occasionally hilarious—article in The New Yorker on citation and style.

Any of us who wrote a term paper pre-computer will be reminded of the all-nighters.

As you are typing note 65, you realize, many pages too late, that you have two note 11s. You discover that you have been op-citing a work that you never cited. You curse yourself for not buying the corrasable bond. Flakes of whiteout litter the surface of the now unpleasantly hot Smith-Corona. You have started to make corrections with a pencil. You look at the page you just pulled out of the typewriter. It looks like a ransom note.

Menard, a Pulitzer prize winning author and Professor of English, has nearly as much trouble with today’s tools.

The potential for rage and heartbreak is even greater, in fact, for the very technology that is supposed to speed the task of information-processing is now your most insidious foe.

First of all, it is time to speak some truth to power in this country: Microsoft Word is a terrible program.

He saves some of his most amusing, yet biting commentary for the newly revised Chicago Manual of Style.

The problem isn’t that there are cases that fall outside the rules. The problem is that there is a rule for every case, and no style manual can hope to list them all. But we want the rules anyway. What we don’t want to be told is “Be flexible,” or “You have choices.” “Choice” is another of modern life’s false friends. Too many choices is precisely what makes Word such a nightmare to use, and what makes a hell of, for example, shopping for orange juice: Original, Grovestand, Home Style, Low Acid, Orange Banana, Extra Calcium, PulpFree, Lotsa Pulp, and so on.

In all a delightful trip through footnotes and endnotes, then and now.

More on Mackovic

Greg Hansen in The Arizona Daily Star

Mackovic’s martinet-style personality had become a weight the athletic program could no longer bear.

Within a few weeks of his arrival in December 2000, Mackovic began an awkward process of alienating those who supported the football program. Secretaries. Boosters. Players. His own staff. Nobody wanted to be around him.

He rubbed ’em the wrong way. Jerked ’em around. Ticked ’em off.

Tough Love

Dear Abby,

I recently read your column advising grandparents on “tough love” for grandparents to give misbehaving grandchildren, whose own parents let them run wild. I have followed your advice, and enclosed a picture demonstrating my technique when my grandson just won’t behave while I’m babysitting for his parents. They have told me not to spank him, so I just take him for a ride, and he usually calms down afterward.

Sign me,

Tough Love Grandpa

[Thanks to Debby]

Papa Bush on exposing sources

Remarks By George Bush, 41st President of the United States, At the Dedication Ceremony for the George Bush Center for Intelligence:

To combat them we need more intelligence, not less. We need more human intelligence. That means we need more protection for the methods we use to gather intelligence and more protection for our sources, particularly our human sources, people that are risking their lives for their country. (Applause)

Even though I’m a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors.

Former Duke City resident seeks election in California

Performance artist Trek Thunder Kelly — former Student Body President at Albuquerque’s La Cueva High School — is running for office in California. “As Governor, I will legalize gambling, prostitution, and drugs; bringing them into the public sector where they can be regulated and taxed. The money derived would reduce the deficit and fund important programs for education, health, and the environment.” Kelly also says he doesn’t care who you marry or have sex with.

Going postal now widespread

There were 639 homicides in the workplace in 2001, making homicide the third-leading cause of fatal occupational injury in the United States. 280 of the homicides were at retail businesses.

Transportation incidents were the big work-related killer (2,517 fatalities); contact with objects and equipment was second (962). There were 5,900 total workplace deaths in 2001, not including the 2,886 work-related fatalities of September 11th.

Major League Baseball

NewMexiKen thinks it’s remarkable that Major League Baseball played all but one of the 2,430 games on the 2003 schedule. The Giants and Mets missed a game along the way. Everyone else got in all 162 games.

The Detroit Tigers won five out of their last six games to keep from matching the 1962 Mets for the most losses in a season. The Tigers ended up 43-119. The ’62 Mets were 40-120.

The Yankees and Braves each won 101 games; the Giants 100.

Final standings

The Blues

A new PBS series, The Blues, premieres tonight and runs each night this week.

Under the guiding vision of Executive Producer Martin Scorsese, seven directors will explore the blues through their own personal styles and perspectives. The films in the series are motivated by a central theme: how the blues evolved from parochial folk tunes to a universal language.

The seven-part film series includes:
Feel Like Going Home by Martin Scorsese
The Soul of a Man by Wim Wenders
The Road to Memphis by Richard Pearce
Warming by the Devil’s Fire by Charles Burnett
Godfathers and Sons by Marc Levin
Red, White & Blues by Mike Figgis
Piano Blues by Clint Eastwood

According to Scorsese, “Our goal never was to produce the definitive work on the blues. It was, from the start, to create highly personal and impressionistic films as seen through the eyes of the most creative directors around with a passion for this music.”

Another wanderlist

NewMexiKen assumes every place is as pretty today as Albuquerque and — ironically I suppose — feels wanderlust. Or at least, wanderlist.

Rough Guides has this list of the Best of USA:

  • Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
    The national park that started it all has it all, from steaming fluorescent hot springs and spouting geysers to sheer canyons and meadows filled with wild flowers and assorted grazing beasts.
  • Hawaii’s volcanoes
    Hawaii’s Big Island grows bigger by the minute, as the world’s most active volcano pours molten lava into the ocean.
  • Driving Highway 1
    The rugged Big Sur coastline, pounded by Pacific waves, makes an exhilarating route between San Francisco and LA.
  • Monticello, Virginia
    A squirrel’s hop from the Blue Ridge Mountains, this elegant plantation was the home and final resting place of Thomas Jefferson, author of the Constitution and third US president.
  • Skiing in the Rocky Mountains
    The site for some of the best skiing anywhere, from glitzy resorts to atmospheric mining towns.
  • Country Music Hall of Fame, Tennessee
    Everything you ever wanted to know about country music, enshrined and explained in loving detail.
  • New England in the fall
    Fall in the northeast is a breathtaking spectacle, the copious foliage presenting an ever-changing palette of color and light.
  • Aurora borealis, Alaska
    Winter visitors to Alaska see the skies ablaze with the shimmering veils of the Northern Lights.
  • Savannah, Georgia
    Mint juleps on wide verandas, horsedrawn carriages on cobbled streets and lush foliage draped with Spanish moss; this historic cotton port remains the South’s loveliest town.
  • Ancestral Puebloan sites
    Scattered through desert landscapes like Arizona’s magnificent Canyon de Chelly, the dwellings of the Ancestral Puebloans afford glimpses of an ancient and mysterious world.

Arizona attractions

Arizona attractions of “exceptional interest and quality” from AAA.

  • Canyon de Chelly National Monument
  • Casa Grande Ruins National Monument
  • Chiricahua National Monument
  • Amerind Foundation Museum (Dragoon)
  • Glen Canyon National Recreation Area
  • Grand Canyon National Park
  • Tusayan Ruin and Museum

  • Lake Mead National Recreation Area
  • Hoover Dam
  • Lake Mead National Recreation Area

  • Montezuma Castle National Monument
  • Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park
  • Navajo National Monument
  • Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
  • Petrified Forest National Park and Painted Desert
  • Phoenix
  • Arizona State Capitol Museum
  • Desert Botanical Garden
  • Hall of Flame Museum of Firefighting
  • Heard Museum

  • Sharlot Hall Museum (Prescott)
  • Oak Creek Canyon (Sedona)
  • Havasu Canyon
  • Boyce Thompson Arboretum State Park (Superior)
  • Tombstone
  • Tucson
  • Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
  • Arizona State Museum
  • Mission San Xavier del Bac
  • Tucson Mountain Park
  • Saguaro National Park

  • Tumacácori National Historical Park
  • Tuzigoot National Monument
  • Walnut Canyon National Monument
  • Wupatki National Monument

New Mexico attractions

In its 2002 TourBook AAA lists the following attractions of “exceptional interest and quality” in New Mexico.

  • Space Center (Alamogordo)
  • Albuquerque
  • New Mexico Museum of Natural History
  • Old Town
  • Rio Grande Zoological Park
  • Sandia Peak Aerial Tramway
    •
  • Vietnam Veterans National Memorial (Angel Fire)
  • Aztec Ruins National Monument
  • Bandelier National Monument
  • Capulin Volcano National Monument
  • Carlsbad Caverns National Park
  • Cumbres and Toltec Scenic Railroad (Chama)
  • Bradbury Science Museum (Los Alamos)
  • Roswell Museum and Art Center
  • Santa Fe
  • Mission of San Miguel of Santa Fe
  • Museum of International Folk Art
  • Palace of the Governors
  • War Eagles Air Museum (Santa Teresa)
  • White Sands National Monument

‘Burque

Like all places Albuquerque has much to love and much to be disgruntled about. On a morning like this, however, NewMexiKen is reminded of Ernie Pyle’s fine words.

Yes, there are lots of nice places in the world. I could live with considerable pleasure in the Pacific Northwest, or in New England, on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, or in Key West or California or Honolulu. But there is only one of me, and I can’t live in all those places. So if we can have only one house — and that’s all we want — then it has to be in New Mexico, and preferably right at the edge of Albuquerque where it is now.