Ramblin' with Roger

The Missing Presidents

I know an astonishing amount of information about the 43 men who’ve served as the 44 Presidents of the United States: party affiliation, terms of office, even, for many, major Cabinet officers.

But I know almost nothing about these fellows:
* Samuel Huntington (March 1, 1781– July 9, 1781)
* Thomas McKean (July 10, 1781–November 4, 1781)
* John Hanson (pictured) (November 5, 1781– November 3, 1782)
* Elias Boudinot (November 4, 1782– November 2, 1783)
* Thomas Mifflin (November 3, 1783– October 31, 1784)
* Richard Henry Lee (November 30, 1784– November 6, 1785)
* John Hancock (November 23, 1785– May 29, 1786)
* Nathaniel Gorham (June 6, 1786– November 5, 1786)
* Arthur St. Clair (February 2, 1787– November 4, 1787)
* Cyrus Griffin (January 22, 1788– November 2, 1788)
Hanson became the first President of Congress to be elected for an annual term as specified in the Articles of Confederation, although Huntington and McKean had served in that office after the ratification of the Articles. There’s even a website seling coins of The Forgotten Founders.

I fully recognize that the powers of the Presidency were far different (i/e., weaker) under the Articles of Confederation than under the Constitution. still, I don’t think they should be totally forgotten.
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The 44 Presidents

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12 Things You Don’t Know About the White House. Actually, I knew four.
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Barack Obama’s historic victory probably ended any chance that someone born during the 1930s will become president. This makes it the only decade from the 1730s to the 1940s that failed to produce either a president or vice president.
The 1940s already have given us two presidents — Bill Clinton and George W.Bush — and four vice presidents — Dan Quayle, Al Gore, Dick Cheney, and Joe Biden…Presidential contenders from the 1930s included John McCain, Michael Dukakis, Ted Kennedy, Ross Perot and Gary Hart.
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U.S. Grant obit from the New York Times
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During the frenzy over whether Barack Obama was a “natural born citizen, I came across this, FWIW: Chester Arthur was a British subject at the time of his birth.
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Presidents of the United States: Resource Guides
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Debunking the Presidents

ROG

VIDEO REVIEW: WALL*E

I really needed to see the new Pixar film WALL*E because the first two people I know who saw it really disliked it. Given its otherwise high critical praise, this was a real motivator. I also decided to see if I could, for the first time, have my daughter watch a full-length movie; we’ve failed with Enchanted, Stuart Little and a couple others.

So, for that first 20 minutes, I was a bit distracted. I was taken in by the charms of the cleaning and collecting robot but would the child be like-minded? Actually, she was OK until EVE came and started blasting all over the place. And when she started blowing things up in the vicinity of our hero, that was the end of that. For her.

For me, it’s when it really started getting interesting. Sure it has those somewhat heavy-handed apocalyptic imagery. Ultimately, though it was a story of heroism, changing from a state of inertia to a state of action. And of course, it was a love story.

In this economic climate, the fact that we ARE producing so much garbage, and that we should think about consuming and producing less of it, is a timely lesson that I got without feeling as though I’d been ho=it over the head with it.

I “get” the less than enthusiastic early reviewers, though. Perhaps too intense for some younger kids, though other kids really like it. On the other hand, animation is not just for kids, and perhaps never was.

ROG

Valentine’s Day QUESTIONS

About a month ago, I stopped at the florist shop and got my wife some flowers, for no reason at all except that she likes flowers, I hadn’t gotten her any recently, and I happened to be walking by the shop (Saturday buses take a while in Albany). I the same way I was inspired to celebrate her last month, I’m rather disinclined to do much about “Valentine’s Day” this month.

I think it’s what Frank Zappa said in a different context, “enforced recreation.” And while I’m cooll with Thanksgiving being set aside for thanks, I’m less inclined to want to set aside a day to romance. Maybe it’s because there’s been enough years where February 14 was merely a reminder of relationships past.

In any case, all my wife wants for Valentine’s Day are some Lindt’s chocolates and for me to organize my armoire so that all of the doors actually close. She actually finds orderliness to be romantic.

This is not to say that we won’t have our monthly date. The child’s daycare is open on Washington’s Birthday, and we both have the day off, so we’re going out to lunch and a movie – together!

1. What, if anything, are you doing for Valentine’s Day?

2. What do you consider romantic? What does your partner (or previous partner) think?
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How You Can Be Romantic Every Day from About.com
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For the cynical only: Unverified factoids, stolen from who knows where

Valentine’s Day is the busiest day of the year for private investigators, it seems that 80% of external ‘affairs’ spend at least a portion of the day with the other person, making this a great day to get caught.
The unofficial ‘record’ for multiple secret “long-term relationships” at the same time is believed to be 6 by a traveling salesman and 3 by a woman. Just thinking about that probably scares most of us and proves that men are the larger idiots! (Although women seem to be catching up!)
Contrary to popular belief, Valentines Day and selecting February as the romantic month was a man’s selection, something about if we must have a romantic month, it should be after the Super Bowl, before March Madness and definitely the shortest month of the year.

So, if you haven’t been wished a Happy Valentines Day, allow me. If you have been, consider yourself lucky, and if you received several cards, gifts or candies, enjoy the month and don’t get caught!

ROG

Is it bad luck?

I have long been fascinated with all things related to the calendar. Last February, I received three biweekly paychecks, a phenomenon that’s possible only once in about every 56 years.

This year, we’re having two Friday the 13ths in a row, in February and March. This only happen when February 1 is on a Sunday AND February is NOT a leap year, or about thrice every 28 years. (I say “about” because the non-leap year century marks such as 1900 and 2100 throw off the calculation.)

I was born in 1953, which was one of those years. Subsequent paired Friday the 13th years were in 1959, 1970, 1981, 1987, and 1998. The next ones will be in 2015, 2026, 2037, 2043, and 2054, when I’d be 101.

This means my birthday will be on a Saturday, same as my birth day. (Hey, hearts players, game at my house on that day.) This would be more special had I not made the decision years ago to take off my birthday from work anyway. So this year, I’ll take off the day before my birthday and get a massage.

The one downside is that I was unable to go to the annual MidWinter’s party in the MidHudson of New York State, about an hour and a half south of Albany. Usually, the first Saturday of February is followed by the first Sunday of the month, and I can blow off that one church service. However, this year, the first Saturday is followed by the SECOND Sunday, which begins our church’s Black History Month celebration.

In fact, I was leading the conversation in the Adult Education class this past Sunday, using that NAACP timeline as a starting point. Conversations about whether to show the D.W. Griffith movie “Birth of a Nation” or how public education has become resegregated in the decades after Brown vs. Board of Education ensued.

All in all, I’m feeling pretty lucky today, all things considered.
I’m Lucky by Joan Armatrading, from the Walk Under Ladders album

I’m lucky
I’m lucky
I don’t need a bracelet
No salt
For my shoulder
I don’t own a rabbit
No clover
No heather
No wonder
I’m lucky
ROG

The NAACP and Abraham Lincoln

Today marks the centennial of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The linkage to Lincoln was more than coincidental. Mary White Ovington, one of the founders, wrote in 1914: “In the summer of 1908, the country was shocked by the account of the race riots at Springfield, Illinois. Here, in the home of Abraham Lincoln, a mob containing many of the town’s ‘best citizens,’ raged for two days, killed and wounded scores of Negroes, and drove thousands from the city. Articles on the subject appeared in newspapers and magazines. Among them was one in the Independent of September 3rd, by William English Walling, entitled “Race War in the North.” She and others heard Wailing’s call to address the issue, and it was decided “that a wise, immediate action would be the issuing on Lincoln’s birthday of a call for a national conference on the Negro question.”

I will recommend to you the timeline of the organization’s history. You may also be interested in reading Chairman Julian Bond’s 2008 NAACP Convention speech, where among other things, he castigates virtually every US President of the 20th Century, save for LBJ, on the issue of race. I note this only in the context of those who believe that “freedom” was achieved in 1865 or shortly thereafter.

It feels to me, though, that the group is probably more known these days for its Image Awards (airing again tonight on FOX, feting Muhammad Ali) than for its import in the civil rights movement. The current president lays out the goals for the next century.
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This is also the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln. Has there been anyone in the last 1900 years written about more often?

So, I was interested to note that the Library of Congress will digitally scan “The Heroic Life of Abraham Lincoln: The Great Emancipator” as the 25,000th book in its “Digitizing American Imprints” program, which scans aging ‘brittle’ books often too fragile to serve to researchers. The program is sponsored by a $2 million grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. The Library, which has contracted with the Internet Archive for digitization services, is combining its efforts with other libraries as part of the open content movement. The movement, which includes over 100 libraries, universities and cultural institutions, aims to digitize and make freely available public-domain books in a wide variety of subject areas.

All scanning operations are housed in the Library’s John Adams Building on Capitol Hill. Internet Archive staff work two shifts each day on 10 “Scribe” scanning stations. The operation can digitize up to 1,000 volumes each week. Shortly after scanning is complete, the books are available online at www.archive.org. Books can be read online or downloaded for more intensive study. The Library of Congress is actively working with the Internet Archive on the development of a full-featured, open-source page turner. A beta version, called the Flip Book, is currently available on the Internet Archive site.
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With Malice Toward None: Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Exhibition

ROG