Cocoposts

Cowboy King

Kate Nash wrote about how Governor King rode a horse to the Roundhouse and I remembered this great biography cover photo on him riding in a parade.  He died last night - just rode off to heaven from his Stanley ranch. 

It seemed sometimes that Governor King knew most every one of his constituents by name.  He had a masterful memory and was a marvel at the warm handshake and sincere expression of regard.  We were so sorry to hear about your mama.  He was frequently  surrounded by admirers he would greet in the first person.  Undoubtedly more than one was thinking, Now there is a great New Mexican.

Il Divo

Just watched the film about a notorious Italian politician - Giulio Andreotti.  It may be appropriate to call him Italy's Richard Daley but we've already established that I see Daley's ghost in all public corruption.  And in the grocery store. 

Andreotti was interviewed last spring about the portrayal in the London Times Online here. The film is reviewed there too.  From the first link:

Despite its popularity Andreotti dismisses the film, saying he believes he will in the end be judged “on his record”. So the mysteries remain. I asked him if was true that when he turned 90 he had said he would “take his secrets to the grave”.

“True. In my life I have made many, shall we say, delicate choices. Some people played a double game, claiming to be on one side while being on another. Some things you don't see at the time because you are blinded by the light. You think you understood everything, then you see you didn't. But the past is the past. It is better to look to the future.”

CO County Hearts Fracking

Durango Herald reports that the three member County Commission of Garfield, Colorado has decided they don't want the feds to regulate hydraulic fracturing. 

The concern about regulating the practice is being trumped up by the oil and gas industry.  I'm so shocked.  They've worked county boards into a tizzy with a model resolution endorsing a continuation of the fat frack exemption that Cheney snuck in for Halliburton and the rest of the industry boys in 2005.

Colorado Independent covers this, as does the Aspen Times.  From the Times:

In a wide-ranging discussion before the vote, Martin and Samson [Commissioners voting for anti-reg resolution] framed their decision in terms of upholding states rights against unwanted federal interference, arguing that the state could regulate the industry better. (...)

Samson, who represents voters on the western end of the county, submitted a resolution that essentially mimicked a resolution adopted on Sept. 11, 2009, by Club 20, a Western Slope business organization. The organization lists a number of well-known energy companies as its sponsors, and nine of its 22 member counties have come out against the FRAC Act.

States rights - to do what the industry tells them to do.

Random Motor

Between the frustratingly few showings of my for-sale home, for which I scurry to tidy and exit for the coco and goat movies,  I inhabit my house thoroughly - reading and packing and reading AND READING.  Shh!  

Among the other interruptions are the barking dogs, covered previously, and the sound of traffic.  The engine noise is a background constant punctuated by astonishing roars and rackets.  It ebbs and flows with the rush hours but never goes away entirely.

Mighty mistake to leave the house in the car in this mood.  I drove the speed limit to Santa Fe and nearly died risked getting rear-ended in the right lane.  Remember when it was 55 mph?  Now 75 is not fast enough.   No soft driving.  No calm traffic.  No hypermiling here.  People I wouldn't trust crossing a parking lot are hurdling by me at 95 mph.  I've an imaginary ray gun mounted on the dash to turn them into rickshaws.

The ability to accelerate alone does not constitute a driving skill.  Oh, and if I can hear a motor over a half mile away it is too damn loud.  :wags finger: 

Men Who Stare at Mules

The "goat movie," as people buying tickets referred to it, was great.  Goats, Clooney and it was filmed in New Mexico.  What is not to love?  White Sands National Monument is a Middle Eastern desert again.  Just like in the 80's Sean Connery movie bomb, Wrong is Right.

In downsizing and packing there is a growing pile of must read books - books that can not possibly be packed before they're read.  These join the many borrowed books which must be read before they get returned.  Once this system was established it seemed imperative to apply it retroactively and begin unpacking already packed boxes.  Luckily, I don't have time.  I'm too busy reading and watching goat movies.

Reading versus Blogging

It's hard to do both.  A good book can eclipse everything - bathing, cooking, blogging. The most recent addition to my retirement reading list* is The Death of a President by William Manchester.  I was intrigued about it after reading the October 2009 Vanity Fair story, A Clash of Camelots.  It describes the controversy over the publication of the book and how Jackie (or Mrs. Kennedy, as Manchester refers to her throughout the book) attempted to get it stopped. 

It is now out of print.  So I paid $45 on ebay for a first edition without a dust cover.  It was filthy - the book itself, not the content. It looked like it had been taken on a picnic and used as a cheese plate.  But I still couldn't put it down.  If it wasn't so dirty and hadn't cost so much, I would have taken it everywhere and eaten on it too.  I nearly didn't go anywhere until I finished it. 

Curiously, two sections of the 40 year old book appear to be from a separate printing( P173-266 and 365-394).  They are discolored - or rather, they remain ivory tone while the majority of the book's pages have yellowed.  This might not be suspect in any other book but in light of the fight over this one it may indicate that changes were made to books that had already been printed, if not already bound.  Hard to know what the excluded material contained, although VF suggests it may be as mundane as how much Jackie smoked and how Caroline was told her father had died. 

* The List is growing precipitously.  Soon I won't keep track.  Right now I'm enjoying How to Be Idle by Tom Hodgkinson.  It's keeping me busy. 

Halliburton Fracking Loophole

This New York Times editorial notes Cheney's gift to Halliburton in the 2005 energy bill - free-for-all-fracking - and what it is doing to water supplies.  There's a bill in Congress to study the risks, which are poo-pooed by the industry.  And another important bill to restore EPA's regulation of the matter. 

The industry argues that the chemicals are proprietary secrets and that disclosing them would hurt their competitiveness. It also argues that the process is basically safe and that regulating it would deter domestic production. But if hydraulic fracturing is as safe as the industry says it is, why should it fear regulation?

Because pleading ignorance and asking forgiveness is a lot easier than doing the right thing and having to ask  permission before putting the nation's water at risk. 

Shirley Does Daley

Joe Shirley Jr. is channeling Mayor Richard J. Daley.  Although to be fair, since reading the aforementioned 600 page biography my head feels thick, my face feels jowly and everyone sounds like Daley.  I think I saw him in Smith's yesterday.

The New Mexico Independent and the Arizona Republic told us recently about how the Navajo President was suspended by the Tribal Council and is being investigated for shenanigans involving  tribal contracts.  (Can you say kickbacks?) 

Now he's complaining about outsiders coming in and stirring up trouble about his pet Desert Rock.   So Daleyesque! 

From the Arizona Republic:

"They came onto our land," Shirley said. "They didn't tell me, 'Here, Mr. President. Here are other green jobs.' They just shut us down, put more people into impoverishment. You want me to accept that? 

Last month, Shirley criticized the Sierra Club, Grand Canyon Trust and other green organizations for interfering with Navajo sovereignty and caring more about insects or fish than the lives of Native Americans. The rebuke was especially stunning from the leader of a tribe that has for years aligned itself with green groups in political causes.

And I hear a tinge of the old boss in Shirley's global warming denial. 

"There's no signs that have told me it's a problem," he said. "There's a lot of people running around out there saying, 'The sky is going to fall down. It's going to be the end of the world.' I don't believe that. I don't know what global warming is about. . . . Maybe I'm blind, I don't know. Maybe I don't have the intelligence. But where are the signs?"

Chamber's Discount Drug Card

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is - like the news in the Journal of the discount prescription drug card generously offered by the Chamber of Commerce.  What's in it for them?  A dollar a card for marketing and distribution.  What's in it for the company?  Data Mining.  Here's how it works.   And you thought a prescription was private. 

American Pharaoh

Just finished reading American Pharaoh, Mayor Richard J. Daley:  His Battle for Chicago and the Nation, by Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor.   

This is not just a biography.  Because of his position as boss and builder of Chicago for so long, Daley's story is a geopolitical history of that city and an examination of machine politics  -  not to mention a dramatic account of the 1968 Democratic National Convention.  There are also all sorts of juicy stories about Daley's use and misuse of planning powers and federal War on Poverty and Model Cities program funds.

Daley had a knack for avoiding issues and events that didn't help him politically.  In the heat of a segregation battle in which Martin Luther King had engaged, Daley effectively positioned the real estate brokers as the bad guys for not selling and leasing to blacks - side stepping the elephant in the room - his public housing policies and the policies of the school board he controlled.

In the final pages of the book the authors come to this somewhat remarkable conclusion - he did it all for power, not for money.

Daley may have presided over a system that was inherently corrupt.  Jobs were given out on the basis of political work, not ability to perform, and workers were fired if they did not fulfill their political obligations.  Work for the Democratic machine was routinely done on city time, and patronage employees were expected to kick back part of their salaries to their ward organizations.  Votes were stolen, and decisions of government bodies on matters like zoning were for sale.  But there is no evidence Daley ever gained financially from it.  

Bold Berlusconi

The Italian PM says he won't resign even if convicted of any of the multiple charges of crookedness against him.  Of course he doesn't really say it, he lets a new book say it for him.  From the New York Times:

The book containing the full interview, "Donne di Cuori" (Queens of Heart), was written by one of Italy's best-known television journalists, Bruno Vespa, and will be published on November 6.

His counter-attack against "communist" judges is classic.  So is this snippit of rationale: 

"If there were a conviction in trials like these, we would be facing such a big subversion of the truth that I would feel even more duty bound to stay in my post to defend democracy and the rule of law," he said.

Udall Nukes

Colorado's US Senator Mark Udall says we really need nukes, the natural gas industry says natural gas is really clean, and the radio says martians have really landed in New Jersey.  From the Durango Herald:

  "For some, news that a Udall is speaking favorably about nuclear power will come as a stark - and perhaps unpleasant - surprise," Udall said.

Or a Halloween joke where Mark Udall is dressed as John McCain and other Udalls spin in their graves.

Udall had hinted at his new thinking in recent statements, including at a congressional hearing in Estes Park with Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on the effects of climate change on national parks.  McCain ran for president last year on an "all of the above" energy policy, language Udall borrowed Thursday to highlight the economic boost from building plants.

"As we face perhaps our greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, we also need an 'all of the above' solution to jump-start our economy," Udall said. "And that means that nuclear energy - and new nuclear power plants - must be part of the mix." Udall restated his strong support for more renewable energy, like wind and solar. ...

"Uncertainty about a long-term and permanent solution to waste storage is not a reason to halt nuclear power," he said.

That problem will just have take care of itself. 

After Chanel

Loved Devin O'Leary's Alibi review of the new Coco movie, Coco Before Chanel, especially the subtitle:

Fashion icon biopic looks fabulous but hangs kinda funny

Here's a bit:

Eventually trading her French sugar daddy for a handsome young Englishman (Alessandro Nivola from Face/Off and Junebug), Coco explores her matrimonial options but keeps running up against the age-old Jane Austen dilemma: Stinking-rich Europeans only marry other stinking-rich Europeans.

Coco and fashion were obsessions with my mother and her sisters.  They sewed a lot, like many other women of their day and  would create tailored originals by customizing McCall or Butterick patterns.  I can still hear rustling onion skin-thin brown pattern paper pinned to fabric for cutting.  I was always spooked by the dress form at night - my headless mother in the latest fashion. 

She sewed until the last years of her life and left closets full of dresses, coats, shoes, belts, scarves and hats.  Apparently sewing is not hereditary but playing dress-up, or fashion, is.

I'll be seeing the film whenever it gets here.  I think it is tomorrow but that would have been helpful info for Devin to add.

Ernie Pyle's View

Descriptions of the Pyle's Albuquerque home include how Ernie got building fever when he was there in 1941 and converted the garage and constructed a 280' long picket fence.  The home had been built the previous year while he was away so he missed out on the major construction. 

He reported that his fence had taken two and a half weeks and required 30 post holes, 1000 pickets and 400 nails.  Photos show Pyle in his yard with the white pickets and a huge expanse of mesa in the background.

You can see the fence today at the Albuquerque library branch that was his home. The view from that little yard sure has changed.

Great Grace

California Pianist Grace Fong performed Sunday in a solo recital for Chamber Music Albuquerque at the Simms Center.  

She spoke to the appreciative audience frequently, telling us about herself and describing each of the pieces she played: Prokofiev's first piano sonata, five pieces by Chopin, Liszt's second Ballade, Mozart's "twinkle twinkle little star" variations and a stunning sonata by modern Australian composer Carl Vine. 

After a standing ovation with boisterous bravos she played an encore so elegant I wept. You can hear it on her website "Schedule" page and I'm listening to it over and over.   Not crying.  Update:  It is Schumann's Träumerei.  

Grace hadn't been to Albuquerque before.  As she was introduced it was noted that her first actual performance in town was at Presbyterian Hospital where she played for patients and families immediately after her flight arrival. 

She is modest, personable and a true virtuoso not to be missed.  Best of all, she'll be coming back December 6th to play with the Santa Fe Symphony at the Lensic.