Logical punctuation

“For at least two centuries, it has been standard practice in the United States to place commas and periods inside of quotation marks. This rule still holds for professionally edited prose: what you’ll find in Slate, the New York Times, the Washington Post—almost any place adhering to Modern Language Association (MLA) or AP guidelines. But in copy-editor-free zones—the Web and emails, student papers, business memos—with increasing frequency, commas and periods find themselves on the outside of quotation marks, looking in. A punctuation paradigm is shifting.”

Should we start placing commas outside quotation marks? Read what Ben Yagoda has to say at Slate Magazine.

Factoid of the day

If you were 65 in 1940 (in other words, born in 1875), your life expectancy was 77.7 for men and 79.7 for women.

If you are 65 today (born in 1946), your life expectancy is 83.1 for men and 85.1 for women.

While overall life expectancy is much longer, for adults it hasn’t changed all that much.

What has changed is that a lot more people get to be adults. They don’t die of whooping cough and scarlet fever and pneumonia as so many children once did. Because so many children died young in the past, the average age at death was always much lower then the age at which most adults actually died.

This is an important and widely misunderstood fact.

(The first 10 presidents lived to an average age of 77.5.)

Glacier National Park (Montana)

. . . was established on this date in 1910.

Come and experience Glacier’s pristine forests, alpine meadows, rugged mountains, and spectacular lakes. With over 700 miles of trails, Glacier is a hiker’s paradise for adventurous visitors seeking wilderness and solitude. Relive the days of old through historic chalets, lodges, transportation, and stories of Native Americans.

Glacier National Park

As of this morning:

The section of the road between Lake McDonald Lodge and Rising Sun is closed due to plowing. The hiker/biker closure on the west side is at Logan Creek due to construction, and the hiker/biker closure on the east side is at Rising Sun due to plowing operations. Visitors should use extreme caution when in avalanche areas and be knowledgeable of avalanche safety. Due to large amounts of snow accumulation in the park there is a potential for the release of large scale avalanches.

Irving Berlin

. . . was born on this date in 1888. The following is from the Irving Berlin Music Company web pages

Born Israel Beilin in a Russian Jewish shtetl in 1888, he died as Irving Berlin in his adopted homeland of New York, New York, USA, in 1989. Songwriter, performer, theatre owner, music publisher, soldier and patriot, he defined Jerome Kern’s famous maxim: “Irving Berlin has no place in American music. He is American music.” Berlin wrote over 1200 songs, including “White Christmas,” “Easter Parade,” “Always,” “Blue Skies,” “Cheek to Cheek,” “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” and “God Bless America.” He wrote the scores to more than a dozen Broadway musicals, including Annie Get Your Gun, and provided songs for dozens of Hollywood movie musicals. Among his many awards and accolades were the Academy Award for “White Christmas,” a Congressional Gold Medal, a special Tony Award and commemoration on a 2002 U.S. postage stamp.

The Library of Congress has a page on the composition of God Bless America.

Best line of the day

“There are many ways to have a good day in the magazine business as it gets stranger and stranger. Ours today at The New Yorker is to see our app has passed Angry Birds in the iTunes store. Eat your heart out, William Shawn.”

New Yorker editor David Remnick quoted at Poynter

May 9th

Today is the birthday

… of Mike Wallace; 93 today. 60 Minutes is the only place where the average age is higher than that of the College of Cardinals.

… of Glenda Jackson; 75 today. Ms. Jackson has four Oscar nominations, two of them winners for best actress — Women In Love and A Touch of Class.

… of Albert Finney; he’s 75 as well. Finney has been nominated for an Oscar five times, but no wins.

… of Sonny Curtis; 74 today. Curtis started out with Buddy Holly but earned fame as a songwriter — I Fought the Law and the Law Won. It’s Curtis who wrote — and who sang — Love Is All Around. You know, the theme song from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”

Who can turn the world on with her smile?
Who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?
Well it’s you girl, and you should know it
With each glance and every little movement you show it

Love is all around, no need to fake it.
You can have the town, why don’t you take it.
You’re gonna make it after all

… of James L. Brooks; he’s 71. Brooks won Oscars for Best Picture, Director and Screenplay for Terms of Endearment. He received nominations in various categories for Broadcast News, Jerry Maguire and As Good as It Gets, too. For my money, I like his work as executive producer of Mary Tyler Moore and, of course, The Simpsons.

… of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Richie Furay; 67 today. Furay, Dewey Martin, Bruce Palmer, Stephen Stills and Neil Young were the founders of Buffalo Springfield.

There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down

… of Candace Bergen; she’s 65. Ms. Bergen was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 1980 for Starting Over.

Kermit.jpg

… of Billy Joel; 62 today. If you need a couple notes of Billy Joel, click here.

… of Kermit (yeah, that Kermit). He’s 56 today. Maybe it is easy being green. The original Kermit was made from a coat belonging to Jim Henson’s mother.

… of Tony Gwynn, 51.

A star baseball and basketball player in college, Tony Gwynn opted for the diamond and fashioned a stellar 20-year career with the San Diego Padres. Gwynn’s mastery of slapping the ball between the third baseman and shortstop, what the lefty called the “5.5 hole,” propelled him to 3,141 career hits, a lifetime .338 batting average and eight batting crowns, an NL record he shares with Honus Wagner. A true student of hitting, Gwynn was an early advocate of using videotape to study his swing, while his five outfield Gold Glove Awards, 319 career stolen bases and 15 All-Star Game selections attest to his superior all-around play.

Baseball Hall of Fame

John Brown was born on May 9th in 1800. The American Experience has a good biographical essay on Brown.

He has been called a saint, a fanatic, and a cold-blooded murderer. The debate over his memory, his motives, about the true nature of the man, continues to stir passionate debate. It is said that John Brown was the spark that started the Civil War. Truly, he marked the end of compromise over the issue of slavery, and it was not long after his death that John Brown’s war became the nation’s war.

J. M. (James Matthew) Barrie was born in Scotland on May 9th in 1860. His Peter Pan first appeared in 1902 in a book of children’s stories, The Little White Bird. In 1904 Barrie produced the play “Peter Pan, the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up.”

And on May 9th, 1950:

A fire crew fighting the Capitan Gap fire in Lincoln National Forest rescues a bear cub clinging to a tree. The burned animal later became known as Smokey Bear and the cub grew into a national symbol for the prevention of forest fires. The bear lived on and later died of natural causes and his body was returned from Washington, D.C., to be buried in the same area of the Lincoln fire.

New Mexico Magazine

Best line of the day

“Osama was living here in this bullshit compound inside a military base with a TV from 1994!”

Jehangir Ahmad, Abbottbad realtor, quoted in Comment by Eliza Griswold in May 16, 2011, issue of The New Yorker. The realtors estimate the total current value of the property “at under three hundred thousand dollars,” not the million quoted by John Brennan (who misspoke a lot, didn’t he?).

[The New Yorker iPad app as of today enables subscribers to access the full magazine (and the archives). The cost for a digital subscription is $5.99 for a month, $59.99 for a year (47 issues). However, you can get the paper magazine and full digital access for $39.99 a year if you’d prefer. I subscribed to the iPad app for a month, but now think I’ll play their silly game and save money by subscribing to the paper magazine and throwing it in the recycle bin on the way in from the mailbox. What a waste.]

[Apparently a full page ad in The New Yorker goes for $141,000. Advertisers won’t pay that for digital subscribers.]

No-no

Jason Verlander of the Detroit Tigers pitched a no-hitter against the Blue Jays in Toronto today. It is the second of his career. Only 27 pitchers ever have pitched two or more no-hitters — only three among active players: Verlander, Mark Buehrle and Roy Halladay (and that includes Halladay’s postseason gem last year).

Of the 27, three pitchers tossed three, Sandy Koufax four and Nolan Ryan seven.

Iraqi Child in Acclaimed War Photo Tries to Move On

You will remember the photo taken by the late Chris Hondros in Iraq in 2005. I posted a variation of it here as Today’s Photo on April 20th.

The image of Samar, then 5 years old, screaming and splattered in blood after American soldiers opened fire on her family’s car in the northern town of Tal Afar in January 2005, illuminated the horror of civilian casualties and has been one of the few images from this conflict to rise to the pantheon of classic war photography. The picture has gained renewed attention as part of a large body of work by Chris Hondros, the Getty Images photographer recently killed on the front lines in Misurata, Libya.

The girl, now 12, had never seen the photo until this past week. Interesting article.

Iraqi Child in Acclaimed War Photo Tries to Move On

War Dog

Dogs have been fighting alongside U.S. soldiers for more than 100 years, seeing combat in the Civil War and World War I. But their service was informal; only in 1942 were canines officially inducted into the U.S. Army. Today, they’re a central part of U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan — as of early 2010 the U.S. Army had 2,800 active-duty dogs deployed (the largest canine contingent in the world). And these numbers will continue to grow as these dogs become an ever-more-vital military asset.

So it should come as no surprise that among the 79 commandos involved in Operation Neptune Spear that resulted in Osama bin Laden’s killing, there was one dog — the elite of the four-legged variety. And though the dog in question remains an enigma — another mysterious detail of the still-unfolding narrative of that historic mission — there should be little reason to speculate about why there was a dog involved: Man’s best friend is a pretty fearsome warrior.

Above from the introduction to An FP Photo Essay By Rebecca Frankel | Foreign Policy. Check out the pups.

6 May

Baseball Hall of Fame inductee Willie Mays is 80 today, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Bob Seger is 66, and five-time Oscar nominee (one win) George Clooney is 50.

Willie Mays, the Say Hey Kid, played with enthusiasm and exuberance while excelling in all phases of the game — hitting for average and power, fielding, throwing and baserunning. His staggering career statistics include 3,283 hits and 660 home runs. The Giants superstar earned National League Rookie of the Year honors in 1951 and two MVP Awards. He accumulated 12 Gold Gloves, played in a record-tying 24 All-Star games and participated in four World Series. His catch of Vic Wertz’s deep fly in the ’54 Series remains one of baseball’s most memorable moments.

Baseball Hall of Fame

Orson Welles was born on this date in 1915. To many who grew up with television, Welles was simply the larger-than-life spokesman for Paul Masson Wines — “We will sell no wine before its time.” But at age 23 Welles had scared thousands of Americans with his realistic radio production of War of the Worlds. At 25 he wrote, produced, directed and starred in what many consider the best film ever made, Citizen Kane. For that film alone, he was nominated for the Oscar for best actor, best director, best original screenplay and best picture (he won, with Herman Mankiewicz, for screenplay). Welles was nominated for the best picture Oscar again the following year — The Magnificent Ambersons.

Rudolph Valentino was born on May 6 in 1895.

The founder of the Bank of America and hero of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake recovery, Amadeo Peter Giannini was born on May 6 in 1870.

Sigmund Freud was born on May 6th in 1856.

Englishman Roger Bannister ran the first recorded sub-four-minute mile — 3:59.4 — 56 years ago today. Bannister’s record lasted only 46 days, when Australian John Landy ran 3:58.0. The current world record is 3:43.13 held by Moroccan Hicham El Guerrouj (who also holds the 1500 and 2000 meter world records). The four-minute-mile was such a symbolic barrier that Bannister was Sports Illustrated’s first ever Sportsman of the Year.

74-years-ago today the German passenger airship LZ 129 caught fire during mooring. 36 were killed — 13 of the 36 passengers, 22 of the 61 crew, and one ground crew member. The Hindenburg did not explode because it was filled with hydrogen as long thought. The outer skin of the aircraft — longer than three 747s — was painted with an iron oxide, powdered aluminum compound to reflect sunlight (to minimize heat build up). The powdered aluminum was highly flammable and was ignited by an electrostatic charge in the imperfectly grounded zeppelin.
How flammable is iron oxide and aluminum? It’s the fuel used to launch the Shuttle.

And Ken, official oldest child of NewMexiKen, celebrates his birthday today. Happy Birthday Ken!