Birthdays Today

Two TV birthdays today, for actors on opposite ends of the spectrum from comic to serious.   Dick Van Dyke was born today in 1925.   Van Dyke's show in the early 1960s featuring Mary Tyler Moore, Rose Marie and Morey Amsterdam is still one of the half dozen most memorable situation comedies.  



Also born today in 1957 -- it's tragic that he's only two years older than I am -- was Steve Buscemi, who's starring in the new HBO show about gangsters in Prohibition called "Boardwalk Empire."   It's a great show, and I can't wait for season 2.  

Girl Monday - SI Swimsuit Cover ca. 1967

It's very cold here in Wisconsin... probably around 5 degrees with a good wind for the walk to school for the kids.   So I thought we needed something to remind us that somewhere it's warm.  

Smile of the Day

Okay, so maybe this is unfortunate for Vikings season ticket holders.   But the collapse of the Metrodome roof after the Minneapolis blizzard was really cool.  

Special Extra Birthday - The Chairman of the Board

Frank Sinatra was born today in 1915.   Sinatra deserves his own post for the simple reason that he is probably the greatest American singer of the 20th Century, whose voice best represents a distinctly American personality and artistry.   Also an underrated actor whose work in movies like The Manchurian Candidate and From Here to Eternity has stood the test of time.   Here is Sinatra, at his best, singing the great Harold Arlen-Johnny Mercer song, "One for My Baby":

Birthdays Today

Really good birthdays today.   First, John Jay, the co-author with Madison and Hamilton of the Federalist Papers, was born today in 1745.   Jay was also President of the Continental Congress for part of the Revolutionary War, and the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court appointed by Washington.  A great American, a great man, perhaps marginally overshadowed by other founding fathers.  

Also born today, in 1821, the great French novelist, Gustave Flaubert.   Flaubert's two greatest works Madame Bovary and A Sentimental Education, probably both make my list of the greatest 25 or so novels ever written, with Madame Bovary in the top ten.  Flaubert's writing style is the main source of the best of modern fiction, with its precision and concreteness, and its avoidance of the empty or florid phrase.  

Also born today, in 1863, was Edvard Munch, whose paintings are among the most famous of the 20th Century:

Girl Sunday - Packer Cheerleader

Go Pack!

Smile of the Day

First repeat smile of the day on the blog, as far as I can remember.   But it's an obvious choice:

I think everyone forgets that Reagan really was a movie star.   What a handsome dog! 

Birthdays Today

Heavy and light on today's birthdays.   First, the heavy:  Aleksandr Sozhenitsyn was born today in 1918.   The author of the Gulag Archipelago, which chronicled the Soviet Union's system of work camps (which were truly death camps), Solzhenitsyn did as much as anyone to prove to the world that communism was an evil, and the Soviet Union was truly an "Evil Empire."  

Now, the light:  Teri Garr, the comic actress, was born today in 1946.   Her best role, of course, was in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein.   Here is a great scene from a great movie:

Girl Saturday - Donna Reed

We're going to see It's a Wonderful Life in a local theater with the kids tonight.  So Donna Reed is our Girl of the Day:

Smile of the Day - More Schadenfreude

For those of you whose German is rusty, schadenfreude is taking pleasure from someone else's misfortune.   The word seemed to fit when Obama ducked out of his own press conference to leave former President Clinton to explain his tax cut deal with the Republicans.   

Birthdays Today

Weak birthdays today.   The only one of note as far as I can tell is Emily Dickinson, born in 1830. 

I have never really gotten in to Dickinson the poet -- her work is a little too close to Hallmark card material -- but I suppose verses like this have had staying power, so there must be something to her:

Because I could not stop for Death—
He kindly stopped for me—
The Carriage held but just Ourselves—
And Immortality.
We slowly drove—He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility—
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess—in the Ring—
We passed the fields of Gazing Grain—
We passed the Setting Sun—
Or rather—He passed Us—
The Dews drew quivering and chill—
For only Gossamer, my Gown—
My Tippet—only Tulle—
We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground—
The Roof was scarcely visible—
The Cornice—in the Ground—
Since then—'tis Centuries—and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity—

Girl Friday - Margaret Sullavan

Margaret Sullavan wasn't the greatest beauty, but she was very appealing in one of my favorite movies of the 1930s, The Shop Around the Corner, with Jimmy Stewart:

Here is a nice scene from that movie:

Smile of the Day

Congressman Mike Pence of Indiana is featured in an article by George Will that came out yesterday.   I like what I hear about him:

To those who say conservatives should set aside social issues and stress only economic ones, Pence replies: Economic problems are urgent, but social problems remain important in a way that blurs the distinction between social and economic issues. With the fluency of a former talk radio host, he says: "You would not be able to print enough money in a thousand years to pay for the government you would need if the traditional family continues to collapse." This is, he says, "Moynihan writ large," referring to the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan's preoccupation with out-of-wedlock births, which now are 41 percent of all American births.

Birthdays Today

Some really interesting birthdays today.   In 1608 on this date, the poet John Milton was born.  Where does Milton rank in English poets?  For my money, just below Shakespeare, and even with Wordsworth and Tennyson.   In other words, he's in the pantheon of the greatest poets.   His great work, of course, is Paradise Lost, and his greatest creation was the romantic, seductive Satan that dominates the action in the poem:               

                          Hail horrours, hail
Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less then he
Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n.

Also born today, in 1916, the actor Kirk Douglas.   Douglas doesn't make the top tier of Hollywood actors in my view, but he starred in two of my all-time favorite movies, Paths of Glory, Kubrick's great anti-war movie, and Spartacus.   Here is his great speech near the end of Paths of Glory:



Finally, it is also the birthday of the second greatest football player ever, the great middle linebacker of the Chicago Bears, Dick Butkus.   Second, because, well, there's Jim Brown.  

Girl Thursday - Jan Smithers

OK, so this one will be obscure.   Jan Smithers' only role of note was the geeky (but sneaky cute) girl in the late 1970s-early 1980s TV show WKRP in Cincinnati.   I always thought they had to work really hard to hide the fact that she was a lot hotter than the "hot" girl on the show, the blonde bombshell Loni Anderson.  

Here she is, a decade earlier, as a 16 year-old model on the cover of Newsweek.   Whatever happened to that magazine, by the way?  

Smile of the Day - Coach K

Mike Krzysewski of Duke passed Adolph Rupp last night for #3 in coaching victories in NCAA basketball history, as Duke rolled over Bradley.  Coach K will pass Dean Smith of North Carolina with two more victories, and then will likely get close to passing or pass Bob Knight of Indiana by the end of the year for #1 on the all-time list.   It's hard to believe that the year I went to Duke, the fall of 1983, he was on the verge of being run out of town after consecutive losing seasons.  

Noël Blanc

My buddy Ira lives in Paris with his wife and daughter.   It looks like he'll be having a White Christmas:

Looks a lot like Milwaukee, except for that tall thing in the middle. 

Little Man's Lynx

A miracle of parenthood is that your children often exceed your wildest expectations to do things even wilder.   For instance, my thirteen year-old has developed a fairly ridiculous ability to draw, which results in things like this drawing of a lynx:

When we say someone has "God-given" talent, it is well to remember that, beneath the cliche, there is truth, which is that our talents really are gifts from God.  

Birthdays Today

The artist Paul Klee was born today in 1879.  I've always liked Klee's abstract paintings; they are among the most beautiful in modernism.   Klee was a friend and colleague of Wassily Kandinsky, who I've recently blogged about too.  

On a slightly less highbrow note, it's also David Carradine's birthday (1936).   Hard to imagine he's 74, but then we're all getting older, aren't we?   His best work is still Cain in Kung Fu:

Girl Wednesday - Clara Bow

The original "It" girl, Clara Bow, was perhaps the greatest silent film actress, but faded soon after talking pictures came in:

Smile of the Day - Schadenfreude Version

Oh, boo-hoo, Nancy Pelosi doesn't like the tax cut deal Obama "negotiated" (read: "caved in and accepted").   Where has the love gone?

We're in the Very Best of Hands

Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit has often had items he labels with the phrase, "We're in the Very Best of Hands," about the federal government's various idiocies.  Here's another example.  You may have seen the story about the U.S. Mint's botched printing of $1.1 billion in $100 bills, which will likely all have to be destroyed.   Here's an article about it in the Boston Herald.  See if you catch the problem:

There’s something funny with the newest batch of American money - and it may pose problems for the Massachusetts-based company that provides the paper for all U.S. currency.

Dalton-based Crane & Co. says it’s not responsible for a printing gaffe that has affected $1.1 billion worth of new hundred-dollar bills and could cost taxpayers up to $120 million.

“Crane manufactures the paper to the government’s specs, but I don’t know if it’s a problem with the paper,” said Peter Hopkins, a spokesman for Crane & Co., which has produced the paper for dollar bills since 1879. “I haven’t seen any finger-pointing yet.”

The new bills, bearing Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s signature, have been printed and remain uncirculated in vaults in Texas and Washington, D.C. Many may be unusable, because the paper folded over during production, creating a blank, uninked portion on the bill face.

Hopkins said the paper for the new $100 bill - which features a 3-D security strip and a color-shifting image of a bell designed to foil counterfeiters - is an extremely complex product, and Crane has been working with the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to resolve the issue.

The bureau will likely be able to salvage a majority of the $100 bills printed, a federal official familiar with the matter said yesterday.

“The bureau has sorted through a sample of the $1.1 billion in notes, and a large majority of those notes are likely to be used,” the source said. “It’s great that the bureau was able to detect those notes before they made it into circulation.”

The federal source confirmed that it cost $120 million to produce the $1.1 billion, about 11.8 cents per note, but added that the loss to taxpayers will be less depending upon how many notes are salvaged.

Okay, maybe I'm a little more arithmetically-oriented than most people.  And maybe it's too much to ask a reporter to catch this sort of thing; after all, if they were numerically-proficient, they'd likely have done something different than sign up to be a cub reporter in a dying industry like newspapers.   But it shouldn't be too much to ask that the federal source, presumably at the Treasury Department, have some basic numeracy.   To wit:

$1.1 billion in $100 bills = 11 million notes

11 million notes times 11.8 cents per note = approximately 120 million cents, or $1.2 million, not $120 million. 

Given the complexity of the process of printing currency and the special papers and inks that are used to foil counterfeiters, it should have been obvious that the cost per bill to print was $11.80, not 11.8 cents, which would, in fact, make the cost of the printing run $120 million.   (Putting aside the fact that 11.8 cents per note is about what you would pay Kinko's to do it.)

Sheesh!

The Deal on Taxes

The centerpiece of the deal on taxes that Obama and the GOP leaders in Congress reached yesterday is an extension of the Bush 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for all filers, which means that the dreaded "rich" -- people who make more than $250,000 -- will not have their taxes increased as of January 2011.   That, of course, is a good thing in itself and, at the rates that still apply (35%, which would have gone up to 39.6%), I suspect will actually generate more revenue for the Treasury, not less.   (That is, I think we have been on the right side of the Laffer curve, where higher rates at the margins mean less revenue, not more, because they disincentivize efforts by individuals to increase their marginal income.)   So far so good.  

I also like the modicum of restraint that's going to be put on the onerous "death tax" on estates over $5 million for individuals or $10 million for couples.  Look, I probably won't get there, but some of my friends will, and it seems to me grossly unfair that someone can work their whole life, make a lot of money (by doing services for customers, i.e., the community), save and invest assiduously, likely defer a good deal of gratification in the hope of passing something on to their kids, and then the government will essentially vilify them and confiscate 55% of what they made.   It's organized thievery, and the only reason it's legal is because it's done by the government.   Otherwise, it's just a shakedown.   The moral tax rate on estates is 0%, and Republicans who have the wisdom and courage to say so will get my vote. 

I also don't have a big problem with reducing the payroll tax by 2% for 2011.   I don't think this will have much of a stimulative effect, but it will have some.   But it's also marginally hurting Social Security solvency at a time when we ought to be trying to solve that monster.   On the other hand, since current workers are likely going to get screwed when that solution comes, it's a bit of a nice gesture (albeit unspoken) to give them a little back now.  

I do have a big problem with the extension of unemployment benefits for another 13 months, which will provide up to 99 weeks of federal unemployment benefits to workers -- I use the term loosely -- who have exhausted their 26 weeks of state unemployment benefits.  Thus, a "worker" can have not worked for 125 weeks, nearly 2.5 years, and still be getting paid.   Wow!   Does anyone really believe that doesn't have an effect on incentives to seek work?  To take jobs offered at wages that might not be ideal?  To move to look for work?  Does anyone really believe that there aren't hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of "workers" who are gaming the system?  Who are working "off the books" on the side while getting federal benefits?  Who are using this time to go on vacations?  To start side businesses?  To remodel their houses?  To be a paid "stay at home" Mom? 

But, on the whole, this isn't a bad deal for now.   In 2012 we need to elect a Republican Senate and a Republican President who will have the real "audacity of hope" to vote for changing the whole corrupt system of federal taxes to a lower, flatter, fairer, simpler system.

UPDATE:

On NRO:  

Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) tells NRO he likes the tax deal. “All things considered, I think it’s the best deal we were going to get,” he says. “It’s clearly not a good as we would’ve wanted, but far better than the alternative route.”

He stressed the importance of not decoupling the tax rates for upper-income earners, and thus rejecting the “class-warfare economic doctrine” that is harmful to economic growth.

He says the two-year extension was expected, and while he would much rather have seen a permanent arrangement, it’s still a good start. Ryan says he is ready to lead a debate over taxes starting in 2012. “I see this as a great way to set the stage for fundamental tax reform in 2013,” he says.

Good enough for Paul Ryan, good enough for me. 

Why Have the Last Three Recessions Been Relatively Longer?

Here is an exceptionally interesting chart via Hot Air:

If I am reading this right, the three recessions that appear to be of the longest duration are the last three:  the recession of 1990-1991 that arguably led to George Herbert Walker Bush being a one-term President (even though it had ended by the time of the election); the recession of 2000-2002 (including the bursting of the tech bubble in 2000 and 9/11/01); and the current recession, which began in late 2007 and accelerated with the crashing of the mortgage finance market in the fall of 2008.   Why?  

I would offer two potential theories, neither of which I am entirely comfortable with, but both of which I think have at least some plausibility.

First, our economy has increasingly moved from a manufacturing-based economy to a knowledge-based economy (or, less charitably, from an economy that makes things to an economy that pushes paper).   But, as anyone who has worked in a large, "knowledge-based" company could tell you, there are a lot of "knowledge workers" who don't work very hard, who don't produce very much, and who are, therefore expendable.   When a recession comes, then, it's easy to justify laying people off from knowledge-based companies, because everyone knows they are expendable anyway, and it becomes harder to justify hiring them back, because you don't need them to actually make anything.  

Second, I would hazard the guess that unemployment benefits have been extended far longer in the past twenty years than in prior recessions.   Thus, people who are out of work don't have to look for new jobs (or take jobs in a different field or with less benefits or at less pay), because they don't have to.   Ironically, then, the government's remedy for unemployment actually creates more unemployment, or at least lengthens the period of unemployment for those it tries to help.  

A third theory occurs to me:  it may very well be that the length of recessions is contingent on the degree to which the government has distorted the marketplace.   If relatively low (as in the 1950s), recessions will be relatively short, because the market will rebound.   If government distortion (intervention) is relatively high (as it is now), recessions will be relatively longer, because the market will react slowly because of uncertainty about what the government might do next. 

Alarming

A new study of science, math and reading aptitude comparing 15 year-old students from different countries should be alarming to American educators.    Here's the money graph:

Birthdays Today

The great Reds catcher, Johnny Bench, was born today in 1947.   Bench was the catcher on the Cincinnati Reds championship teams in the 1970s, and is generally thought of as the greatest catcher in baseball history, both defensively (he had a great arm) and offensively (he hit for power with a lot of RBIs).    His lifetime totals of 1091 runs scored, 2048 hits, 389 HRs, 1376 RBIs, a .267 average and an .817 OPS, are very very good for a catcher.  

However, a pet peeve of mine:  they aren't that much better than the Cardinals' catcher in the same era, Ted Simmons.  Simmons finished his career with 1074 runs scored, 2472 hits, 248 HRs, 1389 RBIs, a lifetime .285 average, and a lifetime .785 OPS.   So, slightly fewer runs scored (he played on much poorer teams with much poorer hitters around him), fewer HRs (he played in a bad hitter's park -- Busch Stadium in the 1970s was 414 to center, 386 in the gaps).   Simmons' career numbers are also better than Gary Carter of the Mets, who everyone later labeled as the best catcher of the next era in baseball, but Carter and Bench were easy Hall-of-Famers and Simmons didn't get a whiff.   Perception versus reality.  

Today is also the birthday of Larry Bird.   If I were making an all-time team in the NBA (my son and I do this all the time), I would have Wilt Chamberlain at center, Tim Duncan at power forward, Bird at small forward, Michael Jordan at shooting guard, and Magic Johnson at point guard.  

My second team:  Bill Russell, Karl Malone, Elgin Baylor,Kobe Bryant and Bob Cousy.  

Girl Tuesday - Veronica Hamel

The first of many cop shoes I have loved over the years was Hill Street Blues -- it's a direct line from there to NYPD Blue, The Shield, and The Wire (which is the best of them all).    Veronica Hamel played the Assistant DA/love interest of the Police Captain on Hill Street Blues, and she was easily the best looking gal on the show:

Smile of the Day

President George W. Bush's approval rating according to Gallup is now at 47%, one point higher than... you guessed it, President Barack Obama.   Well, well, well.  

Birthdays Today

Ira Gershwin, the great lyricist brother of George Gershwin, was born today in 1896.   Gershwin wrote the lyrics for some of the most memorable tunes in American music, including "I Got Rhythm," "The Man I Love," "They Can't Take That Away From Me," "'S Wonderful," and one of my all-time favorites, a song I used to sing to my little girls at bedtime, "Someone to Watch Over Me."   Here's Linda Rondstadt singing it:



Also born today in 1962 was the actress Janine Turner, who starred in the romantic TV comedy Northern Exposure  with Rob Morrow.   Turner played a tough-talking Alaskan girl pilot, with Morrow as a young Jewish doctor from New York who is required to serve as the town doctor in a remote Alaskan village to pay off his student loans.   My wife and I used to watch it all the time when we were first dating.   Here's a funny scene witih Turner and Morrow:

Girl Monday - Diane Keaton

Not really a great actress and not classically beautiful, Diane Keaton was in a remarkable series of movies in the 1970s -- the Godfather movies on the one hand, and all of the great Woody Allen comedies on the other.   She won the Academy Award for Annie Hall, and that's the role I remember her best in: