01/12/2013 archive

The AFC is shaping up as a Ponies/Patsies showdown if teams play to form.

Last week the Ravens dispatched the Bolts kinda decisively, 24 – 9 in what is more accurately described as an offensive rather than defensive struggle.  Flacco and the Ravens finally put something together while Luck wasn’t able to.

A big deal will be made about the last match-up between Payton Manning and Ray Lewis with Lewis retiring after the season, but the game is more likely to turn on the Ravens offense or lack thereof.  The Ravens changed offensive coordinators just last month because they were so ineffective.

Payton Manning is Payton Manning, not Tebow, and the Broncos are likely to make this a very tough game for Lewis because they don’t suck and can put up a score or two.  On the other hand it bespeaks a kind of institutional idiocy that they hired him in the first place so there is hope for the Carrion Crows.

Still, the Ponies won 34 – 17 in their match-up 4 weeks ago, in part because running back Ray Rice has fumble fingers and didn’t get many calls, and they have one of the best records against the pass in the league.

I’m missing both games today for a holiday party with some of the people I know through my other life as a community organizer.  As always it’s up to you to make your own fun though I’ve tried to encourage a couple of folks to stop by.

 Young Magazine pulls ‘inappropriate’ AKB48 breast pic

Image shows a topless Tomomi Kasai being fondled from behind by a young Caucasian boy

A weekly comic book magazine has delayed the release of its upcoming issue after editors deemed a lurid photo of a member pop group AKB48 to be “inappropriate,” reports the Sankei Shimbun (Jan. 11).

Shukan Young Magazine, which is published by Kodansha, announced on Friday that its issue originally scheduled to hit newsstands on January 12 will be delayed over the inclusion of an image featuring a topless Tomomi Kasai being fondled from behind by a young Caucasian boy.

The magazine, which typically features gravure (pin-up) idols in bathing suits on its covers, offered readers an apology on its Web site. “The photo contains an inappropriate expression,” read a statement from the editorial staff. The message also said that the site would provide an update as to the publication date of its next issue.

Welcome to the Stars Hollow Health and Fitness News weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here and on the right hand side of the Front Page.

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Every once in a while I revisit the cuisine of a particular part of the world (usually it is located somewhere in the Mediterranean). This week I landed in Sicily. I was nosing around my cookbooks for some cauliflower recipes and opened my friend and colleague Clifford A. Wright’s very first cookbook, “Cucina Pariso: The Heavenly Food of Sicily.” The cuisine of this island is unique, with many Arab influences – lots of sweet spices, sweet and savory combinations, saffron, almonds and other nuts. Sicilians even have a signature couscous dish, a fish couscous they call Cuscusù.

!Martha Rosw Shulman~

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

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Jonathan Alter: The Platinum Coin Wouldn’t Have Been Goofy to FDR

I love the trillion-dollar platinum coin solution to the debt-ceiling blackmail threat, though lots of people find it too gimmicky. They say that a serious government can’t pull stunts like that to bolster the financial system.

Oh, really? Ask Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Roosevelt took the oath of office on March 4, 1933, at the bottom of the Great Depression. The nation was in the fetal position. Almost three-quarters of the states had already closed their banks. As president-elect, Roosevelt wanted his predecessor, Herbert Hoover, to close the rest. Hoover refused, and Roosevelt signed an executive order to do so on his first day in office.

Rev. Richard L. Kilmer: President Obama, Do Not Let Your First Promise Be Your Last Deed

As President Barack Obama prepares to be inaugurated for his second term, he re-enters the Oval Office with several challenging tasks in front of him. One of the most challenging, and most important, is his unfulfilled commitment to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay.

Today marks the 11th anniversary of the first detainees being taken to Guantanamo Bay. [..]

President Obama, I urge you: Do not let your first promise be your last deed. Use your executive power to close Guantanamo Bay and once and for all, lead us out of the dark shadow of September 11th and restore our moral standing as a nation that can be a light unto others.

This is your morning Open Thread. Pour your favorite beverage and review the past and comment on the future.

Find the past “On This Day in History” here.

January 12 is the 12th day of the year  

On this day in 1932, Hattie Ophelia Wyatt Caraway (February 1, 1878 – December 21, 1950), a Democrat from Arkansas, becomes the first woman to be elected to the U.S. Senate.

Hattie Wyat was born near Bakerville, Tennessee, in Humphreys County, the daughter of William Carroll Wyatt, a farmer and shopkeeper, and Lucy Mildred Burch. At the age of four she moved with her family to Hustburg, Tennessee. After briefly attending Ebenezer College in Hustburg, she transferred to Dickson (Tenn.) Normal College, where she received her B.A. degree in 1896. She taught school for a time before marrying in 1902 Thaddeus Horatius Caraway, whom she had met in college; they had three children, Paul, Forrest, and Robert. The couple moved to Jonesboro, Arkansas where she cared for their children and home and her husband practiced law and started a political career.

The Caraways settled in Jonesboro where he established a legal practice while she cared for the children, tended the household and kitchen garden, and helped to oversee the family’s cotton farm. The family eventually established a second home Riversdale at Riverdale Park, Maryland. Her husband, Thaddeus Caraway, was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1912, and he served in that office until 1921 when he was elected to the United States Senate where he served until he died in office in 1931. Following the precedent of appointing widows to temporarily take their husbands’ places, Arkansas governor Harvey Parnell appointed Hattie Caraway to the vacant seat, and she was sworn into office on December 9. With the Arkansas Democratic party’s backing, she easily won a special election in January 1932 for the remaining months of the term, becoming the first woman elected to the Senate. Although she took an interest in her husband’s political career, Hattie Caraway avoided the capital’s social and political life as well as the campaign for woman suffrage. She recalled that “after equal suffrage I just added voting to cooking and sewing and other household duties.”

n May 1932 Caraway surprised Arkansas politicians by announcing that she would run for a full term in the upcoming election, joining a field already crowded with prominent candidates who had assumed she would step aside. She told reporters, “The time has passed when a woman should be placed in a position and kept there only while someone else is being groomed for the job.” When she was invited by Vice President Charles Curtis to preside over the Senate she took advantage of the situation to announce that she would run for reelection. Populist Louisiana politician Huey Long travelled to Arkansas on a 9-day campaign swing to campaign for her. She was the first female Senator to preside over this body as well as the first to chair a Committee (Senate Committee on Enrolled Bills). Lacking any significant political backing, Caraway accepted the offer of help from Long, whose efforts to limit incomes and increase aid to the poor she had supported. Long was also motivated by sympathy for the widow as well as by his ambition to extend his influence into the home state of his rival, Senator Joseph Robinson. Bringing his colorful and flamboyant campaign style to Arkansas, Long stumped the state with Caraway for a week just before the Democratic primary, helping her amass nearly twice as many votes as her closest opponent. She went on to win the general election in November.

On the Third Day was the third album released by the band, issued 197311 in the US on United Artists and 197312 in the UK on Warner Brothers (they had previously been contracted to Harvest).  It made #52 in the US but did not chart in the UK.

Jeff Lynne produced the record and wrote all of the material with one exception, and you can tell that immediately.  I did not think that it was a very good album, but that is just an opinion.

That is not to say that it was a bad album, but I sort of hold a band like ELO to a higher standard.  In all fairness, they had some stiff competition, since The Who released Quadrophenia that year, The Rolling Stones released Goat’s Head Soup, and Pink Floyd released Dark Side of the Moon!