Teams with stadium names that are just too sacred to sacrifice for the big money that comes from selling naming rights.

It's an issue in the Chicago mayoral race:

‘‘Soldier Field is a sacred Chicago landmark that honors our veterans and, as mayor, Gery would be very careful to protect that,’’ said Brooke Anderson, spokeswoman for candidate Gery Chico. ‘‘He would be open to exploring creative ideas that could attract sponsors while preserving the Soldier Field name and stadium to give soldiers the respect they deserve.’’

But Rahm Emanuel, Carol Moseley Braun and Miguel del Valle are adopting the same hard-line stance as Mayor Daley, who insisted the stadium name remain untouched for his support of a $587  million renovation of Soldier Field in 2003.

Teams with stadiums names like "Giants Stadium" and "Cowboy Stadium" are in a much better position to cash in. But maybe it's better to have a name that can't be swapped for a sponsor's name, like Lambeau Field. Then you're not tempted to scramble for the money and end up with a horrible name like "Mall of America Field at Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome," which really is the name of the place where the Vikings play. You're Vikings. That's your image. Legendary conquerors... traipsing around the mall with Hubert Humphrey. What a picture!

And I love this grandiose term "metrodome." There are metrodomes, stadiums, and fields. Notice the inverse relationship between grandiosity and greatness.

ADDED: I'm just noticing that Minnesota inserted "field" into its ridiculous new name that still contains "metrodome." Make up your mind. Interesting that the big corporation wanted to associate itself with the old-fashioned charm of "field," while the politician's name is stuck with the overinflated term "metrodome." And I do mean overinflated, because remember how it collapsed? And it's a good word to associate with Hubert Humphrey, since he had quite a large dome of a head.

It has nothing to do with football, but on the subject of Hubert H. Humphrey — Hubert Horatio Humphrey — and names, this is always hilarious:



And as long as I'm descending into Humphrey-related YouTube hell, there's this:

Robert Drew's great documentary "Primary" -- about JFK and Hubert Humphrey in the Wisconsin Primary -- free, tonight, at Cinematheque.

New students, old residents, you should know about Cinematheque. Drop by tonight at Vilas Hall at 7:30 for this fine 60 minute film.

And make note of the rest of the films in the "Vote Cinema: American Politics on Film" series. There are various different series and special events this fall, including "Deviants, Delinquients, and Do-Gooders: Hollywood Social Problem Films of the 1950s."

Here's the whole fall calendar.

Cinematheque is one of the coolest things about UW-Madison. And again: It is free.

ADDED: Here is an interview with Albert Maysles (the cinematographer) about the part of the film where we see Jackie Kennedy's gloved, fidgeting hands:



And here's a long clip from [another] film that gives background on Richard Nixon. I love the charming retro "Stick with Dick" sign. And Richard Nixon, turning on the charm for Nikita Krushchev, just hilarious. Lots more too.



ADDED: Sorry, I misread the label on the second video clip, which popped up in YouTube. It has a completely different documentary style, but some great historical clips. If I remember "Primary" correctly -- I've seen it but have loaned out my DVD -- it's entirely about Kennedy and Humphrey in Wisconsin. Here's some background on the style of "Primary":

[C]inema verite -- choosing moments where action might occur instead of creating it -- ... was the brainchild of Robert Drew, an editor at Life magazine. He believed the magazine enjoyed its success because it brought into the home pictures of action in the midst of happening -- four soldiers struggling to plant the flag at Iwo Jima, for instance -- and he wanted to extend that concept to documentaries. "I thought all we had to do was put a Life photographer who valued candid photography behind a motion picture camera, and we could make a new kind of film." But thanks to an eight-man crew that had to stop and set heavy equipment on tripods, action eluded capture.

Then Mr. Drew started to experiment with lightweight cameras and sound recorders. In 1959, under the banner of Drew Associates, he put together a film crew, all of whom went on to write their names on the pages of documentary history: Albert Maysles, Terence Filgate (a film maker well known in his native Canada), Richard Leacock ("Monterey Pop") and D. A. Pennebaker ("Don't Look Back," "The War Room").

The film makers set out in the dark: they were making documentaries with no directors, no scripts, no sets, no lights, little or no narration and no interviews. To be at the right place at the right moment was everything. They considered themselves neutral observers who merely recorded ongoing events and had, as much as possible, no point of view. Their first important work was "Primary," which tracked Senators John F. Kennedy and Hubert H. Humphrey through the cold 1960 Wisconsin Democratic Presidential primarily...

Their approach, says Mr. Filgate, offered an alternative to the Edward R. Murrow style of documentaries. "It was as if we were butterfly hunting. We knew there were butterflies in the woods, but we didn't know what kind, and we didn't know how we were going to catch them; whereas in the journalistic documentary, a reporter says, 'On my left, hidden in the bushes, are thousands of butterflies.' And then the camera cuts away to the bushes. Drew, with 'Primary,' broke that mold."

Come on, everybody, pay attention to Wisconsin.

Ours — on the 19th — is the next big primary. The Cap Times marshals the historical evidence of the importance of the Wisconsin primary:

• As upstart contender Franklin Roosevelt did when he beat previous party nominee Al Smith in the 1932 Wisconsin Democratic primary.
• As Willkie did with his audacious but failed 1944 bid.
• As backers of Gen. Douglas MacArthur did when they tried unsuccessfully to build a boomlet for the Milwaukee native with an unsuccessful Republican primary bid in 1948.
• As backers of Dwight Eisenhower did when they upset the campaign of conservative Robert Taft in the state and created an opening for the general to enter the contest for the Republican nomination of 1952.
• As Massachusetts Sen. John Kennedy did when the state put him on track for the party nod in 1960.
• As Minnesota Sen. Eugene McCarthy did when his anti-Vietnam War challenge to President Lyndon Johnson forced the incumbent to quit on the eve of Wisconsin's 1968 Democratic primary.
• As South Dakota Sen. George McGovern did when the state gave him a critical Democratic primary win in 1972.
• As liberal Mo Udall did when he narrowly failed to derail Jimmy Carter's bandwagon in the Wisconsin Democratic primary of 1976.
• As liberal John Anderson and moderate George H.W. Bush did when they tried to block conservative Ronald Reagan's candidacy in the intense Republican primary of 1980.
• As Mike Dukakis and Jesse Jackson did when they fought the essential battle of the 1988 Democratic nomination race in Wisconsin.
• As Bill Clinton did when he used a slim win in the state to prevent challenger Jerry Brown from threatening his "comeback kid" status in the campaign for the 1992 Democratic nomination.

If you need something to fill your empty hours as you wait for the 19th, may I recommend the documentary "Primary," which shows John F. Kennedy campaigning here in Wisconsin in 1960, fighting off his rival Hubert Humphrey. This is a very low key but highly-regarded film by Robert Drew. It's nowhere near as fun as "The War Room" and "Journeys with George," but it's specifically about a primary, and it takes place in Wisconsin and it's got John F. Kennedy.

ADDED: A test to see if you know your blogger: Is Althouse voting in the Wisconsin primary? If so, will she choose to vote in the Republican or the Democratic primary? If she votes in the Republican primary, who will she vote for? If she votes in the Democratic primary, who will she vote for?

AND: Another question. Assume you're a filmmaker, making a documentary about one of the candidates in the 2008 election season. Which one do you wish you'd picked? That is, knowing what you know now, which campaign would have yielded up the footage for your idea of the best documentary?

At the junk shop.

I love a good junk shop, with items expressively arranged. This one, found in Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, expressed something unsettling:



Disturbing:



Much of the store was full of furniture that looked like the things that seemed elegant to my mother-in-law in the 1970s. I had to try to imagine someone who didn't have those associations putting this items in a hip, ironic context, and yet... maybe that was more depressing.

But I got extremely absorbed by a stack of Life magazines from 1960. Each issue plunged me into an amazing, weird world that I'm old enough to remember as real and normal. I found it endlessly entertaining. This -- comparing "old" and "new" creamed corn -- made me laugh hysterically:



(Enlarge.)

I bought two old issues, one with a cover photo of John Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey campaigning in Wisconsin and another with a smoldering closeup of Sal Mineo staring into the eyes of his "Exodus" co-star. Of course, Kennedy in Wisconsin appealed to me, but why the Sal Mineo? What tipped me toward the Sal Mineo issue was that there was an entire illustrated article about the guiche. And don't Google that word to find out what it means, because that's not what it meant in 1960.

ADDED: From the December 12, 1960 issue:

The Guiche

NOT A DANCE OR A DISH, IT'S THE NEWEST FRENCH CURL

Being on top of the new fashions this winter, at least in Paris, means literally starting at the top. The latest in hairdos is the guiche -- which means "curl" -- a sharp twist of hair curving forward over the cheek. Usually worn with smooth, short hair, sometimes so sort it is a shingle, the new style completely outdates last season's full, big-headed look....

The guiche must be set securely and separately from the rest of the hair... Clear nail polish is sometimes used to keep its razor edge and cellophane tape will keep it in place overnight. For those whose hair won't behave, false guiches cost only $6 a pair.

There was a shortage of hair products then. Nail polish... cellophane tape.... You know there is special hair tape now, but back then, we really did stick plain, shiny Scotch tape on our face to hold the piece of hair out over the cheek.