Presidents Archives - Page 6 of 9

Presidents Day 2014

From JEOPARDY show 6666: MY “SON”, THE PRESIDENT (each answer has the word “son” in it)
*Chronologically, he was the first who fits the category
*He was preceded & succeeded as president by the same man
*He beat Clinton–DeWitt Clinton–in 1812
*For refusing to shine the boots of a British officer as a child, he got a saber across the face
*He whipped 2 former presidents in the same election by an electoral score of 435-88-8

Another quiz question: Who was the last president to outpoll non-voters in a presidential race?

Some music trivia: What blues legend, who performed under a pseudonym, was actually named after a US President?

(Answers at the end)

“Nixontapes.org is the only website dedicated solely to the scholarly production and dissemination of digitized Nixon tape audio and transcripts. We have the most complete digitized Nixon tape collection in existence–approximately 2,300 hours spread over 2.5 terabytes of hard drives that contain more than 7,000 audio files. This is the only website in the world that makes the complete collection of Nixon tapes available directly to the public in a user-friendly format, free of charge.” There are a total of 3,700 hours of tapes, so the job is only 2/3s done!”

The song The ’68 Nixon (This Year’s Model)- Denver, Boise & Johnson [LISTEN]. And here are the LYRICS.

Thomas Jefferson’s Silent Armies. Also, re TJ: Esopus Spitzenburg and the Newtown Pippin.

James Garfield: good at math.

Former President George H.W. Bush and his wife, Barbara, were the official witnesses of a marriage between two women in Maine last September. “Several other notable Republicans have voiced support for gay marriage, including Bush’s son, former President George W. Bush.” That last sentence I did not know; didn’t seem evident during his administration.

If Hillary Clinton becomes President, will she name Bill as Secretary of State? No, she can’t, unless they get divorced. And I gather the law banning it was in reaction to John Kennedy naming his brother Bobby as Attorney General.

“Expansionism and intervention are oppressive forms of activism. From that perspective, it’s easier to arrive at the four worst Presidents.

Five-year-old kid who knows more about US Presidents than most people I meet.

And a 12-year-old girl who showed that all the Presidents, save for one, have a common, royal, ancestor; that would be 42 of 43 Presidents, despite what the article headline reads. And there is only one President whose native language was not English, and that would be that same outlier, the guy pictured.

ANSWERS –
Who was:
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
James Madison
Andrew Jackson
Woodrow Wilson

and Theodore Roosevelt.
I had guessed LBJ, who beat Barry AuH2O badly in 1964. Dan reminded me that “Johnson got the highest vote total of the century, but the non-voters still beat him. Goldwater’s veep went to Albany Law School. He was also the first Catholic veep nominee for the Re-pubs. His name? [which I DID remember] ‘Here’s a riddle, it’s a killer/ Who the hell is William Miller?’ His daughter is comedienne and talk show host Stephanie Miller.”

The musical answer is Howlin’ Wolf, who was born Chester Arthur Burnett.

Oh, the guy pictured: Martin Van Buren, whose native language was Dutch. This was a quiz on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanapoulous earlier this year, and NONE of the panelists got it right.

ARA: The way my mind works

The hardest Presidents to remember were Taylor, Fillmore and Pierce, which sounds like a law firm

CHRIS: Ooo, what does the infinity symbol symbolize?

Gee, I thought it was a sidewards eight.

Good on you with the presidents’ thing. The three presidents in one year has happened twice and three in two years but more than one year happened once (by my count using http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States), none of which I knew before the discussion came up.

Three in one year was 1841 and 1881, that’s correct. Hadn’t thought about three in two years, but that would be 1849-1850, with Polk, Taylor and Fillmore.

Which brings me to my next question: how do you learn so many random things? Did you, for example, set out to memorize all the presidents and the years? Or does your brain do that “naturally”?

After minutes of self-psychoanalysis, this is what I’ve concluded

1) As a child, I had the foolish notion that should know all the knowable things in the universe.

2) To that end, I used to read encyclopedias – the Americana as a child – dictionaries, and especially the World Almanac, which I have received for Christmas almost every year since I was nine or ten.

3) Realizing at some point that “all the knowable things in the universe” a) was impossible to know and b) was not interesting to me, I tended to concentrate on things like sports (Willie Mays hit .211 in his last season, with the New York Mets), and American history and politics.

4) My specific interest in Presidents, and the Constitution, now that I think about it, probably came from the trauma of the assassination of JFK. “Oh, no, what happens now?” Oh, they have a contingency plan for that! (I’m not sure I could have told you we HAD a Vice-President on November 21, 1963, when I was 10 and a half, let alone that Lyndon Johnson was that guy.)

5) Even more specifically, when JFK was killed, there were all these coincidences with Lincoln that showed up in the newspaper – oh, I used to read the newspaper even then:
a) Lincoln was elected in 1860, JFK in 1960
b) both had Vice-Presidents named Johnson
c) Lincoln reportedly had a secretary named Kennedy, and Kennedy a secretary named Lincoln (I never confirmed that, BTW)

6) This got me thinking about all those previous “accidental Presidents,” starting with Tyler, then Fillmore, A. Johnson, Arthur, T. Roosevelt, Coolidge, and Truman. So it was a small step to get all their dates in order. The hardest ones to remember were Taylor, Fillmore and Pierce, which sounds like a law firm. My daughter tests me regularly with weird stuff like “Who’s the 27th President?” I don’t know, but I remember Cleveland was the 22nd AND the 24th, so I get to Taft soon enough.

7) It seemed a natural progression to start reading the Constitution. (Sidebar: I got to talk to another Chinese delegation at work on the 5th of July. I just happened to come across a box of booklets with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, that I found while sorting things in the attic, so I gave them copies. I also gave a copy to a guy on the bus I know in the context of what the Supreme Court’s June decision on the Defense of Marriage Act did, and did not do.)

8) Of course, the interpretation of the Constitution came from the Supreme Court, and in the 1960s, the Court was dealing with a lot of significant issues involving freedom of the press, the rights of defendants in criminal trials, and civil rights. I could not have cited, e.g. New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) or Gideon v. Wainwright (1962) or Loving v. Virginia (1967), but I believe I was more aware of their implication than most of my classmates at the time. (Hey, speaking of Taft, which I did a couple of paragraphs back, did you know he became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? Or that he’s the guy pictured?)

9) Conversely, there are plenty of things I DON’T know, starting with the makes and models of automobiles. I recognized a ’66 Ford Mustang recently, but in general, cars have two doors or four and are cars or those larger things (SUVs, minivans). All midsize silver-gray cars look the same to me.

ARA: Sports and superheroes

I know all the Presidents, year inaugurated and political party.

Chris Honeycutt asked:

Do you like sports other than baseball? Which ones?

I like to play volleyball and racquetball but haven’t played either for a while. I like to bowl, but my knee is inhibiting that.

I enjoy watching football, and believe it is the PERFECT sport for instant replay. But I tend to follow the NFL, rather than college, and generally only from the end of the World Series on.

Basketball I don’t watch until the games leading to the men’s college basketball March Madness, pretty much after the Super Bowl. Used to follow the NBA, but not much since Michael Jordan retired.

There was a period I was really into tennis, in the early 1990s, when there was live, free pro play at the Schenectady Open. I’m off it, mostly, but will watch the semifinals and finals of the majors, if I get the chance.

I’ll view track in the Summer Olympics.

Almost every sport I would rather see live, none more so than soccer and hockey, which I HATE watching on TV, but find much more interesting in person.

What random fact are you most proud of that you could just recall it by choice?

I know all the Presidents, year inaugurated and political party; there were four Whig Presidents, who held the Oval Office for only eight years, all in a twelve-year span. I can name the two years we had three Presidents, and of course, who they were. (Can you?) I know the vote in the House in the disputed 1876 election was RB Hayes 185, Sam Tilden, of New York, 184.

In general, anything on JEOPARDY! that nobody gets but I know pleases me greatly. The truth is that I know so many obscure things that I don’t even know what I know until I’m called upon to produce them.

Any opinion on new superhero movies vs. old superhero movies?

Haven’t seen that many.

Saw the first two Superman films with Chris Reeve, and mostly enjoyed them, but haven’t seen one since.
Saw the Batman movie with Jack Nicholson; too much Jack. Haven’t seen the others, I don’t believe, except the Adam West version, which, of course, was pure camp.
Saw the first Fantastic Four film; pretty much hated it.
Saw the second X-Men film on cable, at a hotel. Liked it, but haven’t seen the others, or the Wolverine films.
I saw and LOVED the first two Spider-Man films with Tobey Maguire. Didn’t see the third one or the reboot.
Saw the movies leading to The Avengers film on video. Liked Captain America and the first Iron Man. Less taken by the second IM and Thor. Still haven’t seen the Avengers.
Didn’t see either recent Hulk film, the Ghost Rider series, Daredevil, Watchmen. What am I forgetting? Howard the Duck wasn’t a superhero, was he?

If you were a superhero, what would be your costume? Cape or no cape?

Well, CLEARLY it would be green. With an infinity sign. Yes to the cape.

The Presidency; home alone

I alternate: I read newspapers, work on the computer, clean, watch TV while riding the stationary bike.

Scott is back with more questions: In the first one hundred years of the US, which president do you find the most fascinating?

Who do you find the most fascinating US president after those first one hundred years?

It occurred to me that, depending on how you measure the first 100 years, one could put Grover Cleveland in both chronological camps, since the first President under the current Constitution was elected in 1789, and Cleveland’s terms were 1885-1889 and 1893-1897. Not that I would, but I COULD.

There are a number of early Presidents who I find fascinating: Jefferson, Madison, JQ Adams, Jackson (for the wrong reasons), but primarily for their service before (or in Adams’ case, after) the Presidency. It’s hard to argue with choices such as Washington or Lincoln.

Still, I’ll pick Chester A. Arthur, the 21st President (pictured), who became President upon the death of the assassinated James Garfield in 1881. He was a real patronage guy earlier, but when he moved into the Oval Office, he became a reformer. From whitehouse.gov: “Publisher Alexander K. McClure recalled, ‘No man ever entered the Presidency so profoundly and widely distrusted, and no one ever retired … more generally respected.'” He was an upstate New Yorker, BTW, though born in Vermont. He died only a couple of years after his term ended.

More recently, it’s probably Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th President, who succeeded the assassinated John Kennedy in 1963. The Texan was SO right on many civil rights issues. Of course, he was SO wrong on Vietnam, and his expansion of the war cost too many lives. He suspected that Nixon was interfering with the peace talks in 1968, yet did not want to weaken the Presidency and kept his own counsel.
***
Jaquandor is back:

You are alone for an entire day, as in, your family has to go somewhere and you’re on your own. And it’s your day off. What do you do, and what do you eat?

I alternate: I read newspapers, work on the computer, clean (vacuum and/or wash dishes), watch TV while riding the stationary bike. I’m always listening to music, except when the television’s on.

I’ll make some elaborate omelet, made with whatever I can find in the refrigerator, for breakfast; if I haven’t had any lately, buy Indian takeout for lunch; scour for leftovers – it might be the Indian food again – for dinner.

There are lots of ‘black’ stereotypes. Which one or ones irritate you the most?

It’s what black people are supposed to sound like. My father was very fussy about his children not speaking with street lingo, but rather with standard English. So people have said that I don’t “sound” black. Well, I AM black, and this is what I sound like; ipso facto, I sound black, Jack.

You asked this of me, so I’m turning it back: Are we really in a ‘post-racial’ society, and if not, how attainable IS such a thing?

Oh, goodness, no. In some ways, the myth that the Obama election meant that we as a nation are beyond race, has temporarily slowed progress. The narrative is belied by any number of bits from the last thing I wrote in answer to a question of yours.

Racism, and homophobia, and a lot of bigotry become mitigated only by knowing people who are not like yourself. It gets chipped away a little at a time, like the sea gradually wearing down a sandcastle on the beach. It doesn’t go away at once; sometimes, things get worse before they get better. Maybe in another 50 years?

Are there any countries you think you’d like to visit if not for the fact that you’re pretty sure you wouldn’t find anything you liked eating there?

Garrison Keillor has made me nervous about Scandinavia; all that talk about lutefisk, which I had once and found to be awful.

I decided that I wouldn’t back any more Kickstarter items for a while. Then Elaine Lee and Michael William Kaluta, who had had an unjust run-in with Disney/Marvel not long ago over their creation, Starstruck, are putting out a new Starstruck item. OK, after that one, NO MORE Kickstarter for a while.

Jane Henson 1934-2013, widow of Jim, and a force in her own right.

Presidents Day 2013: books, 1912, and longevity out of office

Which four presidents were assassinated?

JEOPARDY! Show #6451 – Monday, October 8, 2012

THE 1912 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

With his opponents dividing the vote, this Democratic challenger was elected
This incumbent president accepted the Republican nomination & did no campaigning; electoral votes: 8
Theodore Roosevelt used this metaphor when announcing his run, hence the button seen here
Eugene V. Debs garnered almost 1 million votes representing this left-leaning party
*Everyone wanted change even back then; the opposing campaign slogans were The ____ Freedom & The ____ Nationalism (same word)

2012 was a big year for Abraham Lincoln. He was featured in two movies, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and that other one. But he did NOT invent Facebook. And secede from the Union? Lincoln has something to say about THAT.

The other guy who got a lot of play was Thomas Jefferson. There was Master of the Mountain: “The real truth about Thomas Jefferson. Forget Sally Hemings — a historian discovers the ugliest side of a founding father in his ledgers.” Jon Meacham, author of Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, and previously, American Lion [Andrew Jackson] and Franklin and Winston, insists he’s not letting Jefferson off the hook.

The Meacham book was one of the Good Reads’ best history & biography, along with Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard: “A riveting historical narrative of the shocking events surrounding the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and the follow-up to mega-bestselling author Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Lincoln.” Also selected: The Passage of Power (The Years of Lyndon Johnson #4) by Robert A. Caro.

In 2013, HBO will air a documentary about Bill Clinton, who is giving his full cooperation. It will be directed by Martin Scorsese.

As of early September 2012, Jimmy Carter became the U.S. president who lived the longest after leaving the office, overtaking Herbert Hoover. Navigate the length of retirement field on this Wikipedia page, and you’ll see that they are followed by Ford, J. Adams, Van Buren, Fillmore, GHW Bush, who just passed Truman, then after him, Nixon, and Madison, the first person this list who served two full terms (though Truman practically did). If I Google for the answer, John Adams often comes up as the answer. That was accurate until Hoover overtook him in 1958.

Carter, incidentally, is severing his ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, because of the church’s choice “to interpret holy teachings… to… subjugate women.”

America’s Greenest Presidents. The tease said the top two were Republicans, which made it very easy to pick. Carter was third.

The “Checkers” speech was the making of Richard Nixon. Speaking of the 37th President, Throughout Richard Nixon’s presidency, three of his top White House aides obsessively documented their experiences with Super 8 home movie cameras.” A Kickstarter campaign will help the documentarians “launch OUR NIXON out into the world.”

JFK campaign stamps and Vintage anti-JFK GOP Coloring Book from Early 60s. You don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to conclude, as RFK, Jr. did, that the Warren Commission Report was “a shoddy piece of craftsmanship”.

There was a What’s Your White House IQ quiz in Parade magazine. The print version was better. It would ask “Which four presidents were assassinated?”, whereas the online version would make it multiple choice. I DO know the answer, BTW, without the prompts.

Girl discovers all US Presidents except one are related to a former king.

President Obama, again. Plus Obama and his predecessors.

This is a comedy bit: 26 Ways President Obama Has Completely Ruined The Country.

Hard Times – George H.W. Bush Campaign Song. During the 1992 election, Fresh Bush and the Invisible Man released this single.

National Review outraged that Obama called Holocaust ‘senseless violence’; he was essentially quoting Ronald Reagan.

The 2012 Chester A. Arthur Presidential Dollar was finally released after a lengthy delay. It was the first Presidential coin not minted for circulation and struck only in very limited quantities for collectors only. Still hate that; the next three are out now, Cleveland 1, B. Harrison, and Cleveland 2. More on Chester A. Arthur.

JEOPARDY! answers

Woodrow Wilson
William Howard Taft
Throwing his hat into the ring
The Socialists
New