News and Notes
Commentary From the Editors
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Jurassic Prez?
Steven Spielberg and Robert Redford are planning duelling biopics of beloved President Abraham Lincoln, according to The Guardian.Spielberg wants Liam Neeson as Abe.
The lower lip needs work, but the brow and nose look very promising, don't they?
(Images supplied by WENN.)
Labels: Abraham Lincoln, Liam Neeson, Robert Redford, Steven Spielberg
Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 9:04 AM0 comments 
Thursday, February 12, 2009
A Pair of Aces
We don't care who was born first. Happy 200th birthday, Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin.You studs.
Labels: Abraham Lincoln, Charles Darwin
Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 7:06 AM0 comments
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Which Came First: The Darwin or the Abe?
"As Aquarians, they should both be stubborn, visionary, tolerant, free-spirited, rebellious, genial but remote and detached -- hmmm, so far, so good."It's true: Scientist Charles Darwin and President Abraham Lincoln were born on the exact same day: 12 February 1809.
If you're wondering which one was actually born first: we don't know. We came up empty after a rather extensive search for the exact birth times of both men.
On the Lincoln side, we have Carl Sandburg's word for it that Lincoln was born in the morning:
One morning in February 1809, Tom Lincoln came out of his cabin to the road, stopped a neighbor and asked him to tell "the granny woman," Aunt Peggy Walters, that Nancy would need help soon. On the morning of February 12, a Sunday, the granny woman was at the cabin. And she and Tom Lincoln and the moaning Nancy Hanks welcomed into a world of battle and blood, of whispering dreams and wistful dust, a new child, a boy.This from a condensed version of Sandburg's famous six-volume biography of Lincoln. Sandburg admits that the scene was reported years later by a local boy, Dennis Hanks, "whose nimble mind sometimes invented more than he saw or heard." So: don't bank on it.
A little later that morning Tom Lincoln threw extra wood on the fire, an extra bearskin over the mother, and walked two miles up the road to where the Sparrows, Tom and Betsy, lived.
On the Darwin side, it's a pretty sure bet that nobody was throwing an extra bearskin over the mother. Darwin's father was Dr. Robert Darwin, a successful physician in Shrewsbury, Shropshire; his mother Susannah was the son of Josiah Wedgwood, the famous potter. A few days after his birth, Darwin was baptized by the parish clergyman in the local Unitarian chapel.
But we find no mention of the exact time of his birth, even in Darwin's own autobiography. (We did find a wonderful family-edited version of that book from the Stanford Library, courtesy of Google Books.)
One source does offer exact birth times for both men: the astrology site Astrotheme.com. Astrologers obsess over exact birth times in preparing their charts, and Astrotheme makes the unlikely claim that Lincoln was born at exactly 6:54 am, with Darwin coming in at 3:00 am. (Speaking of the inventions of nimble minds...) Among other things, it's doubtful that Tom Lincoln's "granny woman" checked her Timex at the moment of birth and noted that the minute hand was just passing 6:54.
Those speculations aside, one thing is in Darwin's favor: England is five time zones ahead of Kentucky. (Though formal world time zones weren't formally installed until years later.)
So Darwin, at least, had a five-hour head start.
Labels: Abraham Lincoln, Carl Sandburg, Charles Darwin, Disputed Birth Dates
Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 9:27 AM0 comments
Saturday, February 07, 2009
The Lincoln Canon
There's a joke in the publishing world. A writer asks his editor for ideas about a commercially promising topic for a book. "Lincoln's doctor's dog," the editor unhesitatingly responds.What to read for Abe Lincoln's 200th birthday?
Fred Kaplan breaks down the bios (and cracks on Doris Kearns Goodwin's "hyperbolic" Team of Rivals).
Labels: Abraham Lincoln, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Fred Kaplan
Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 6:46 AM0 comments
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
The Lincoln Bible Is Not Exactly the Lincoln Bible
At least, not the family Bible. It's a helpful impostor from 1861.Still: Good enough for Lincoln, good enough for Obama.
Labels: Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama
Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 7:12 AM0 comments
Monday, January 12, 2009
Greatest Inaugural Story Lede So Far
"Thank God that Doris Kearns Goodwin didn't write a profile of Montezuma's cabinet. Otherwise they'd be eating human flesh at Barack Obama's inauguration!"Political Machine chuckling about the Lincoln-oriented menu for Inauguration Day.
Labels: Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama, Doris Kearns Goodwin
Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 3:19 PM0 comments
Sunday, January 04, 2009
Obama Arrives for Haunted Honeymoon
The Obamas are now staying at the historic Hay-Adams Hotel. Supposedly it's haunted:"Staff housekeepers have reported someone unseen calling their names and the sensation of invisible arms around them. Locked doors fling themselves open and the scent of Mimosa mysteriously fills the air on certain floors at night."Maybe they wanted a trial run for meeting the ghost of Abe Lincoln in the White House.
The First Daughters start school on Monday.
Labels: Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama, Malia Obama, Sasha Obama
Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 10:09 AM0 comments
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Three-State Catfight For the Lincoln Bicentennial
Speaking of the upcoming Abraham Lincoln bicentennial: No surprise that Illinois, Kentucky and Indiana all have special websites for the event.Everyone wants a piece of the old railsplitter.
In Cincinnati, where we live, you cross the bridge into Kentucky and see signs proclaiming it the Birthplace of Lincoln. Cross the Indiana state line a few miles away and the signs crow Lincoln's Boyhood Home. Somewhere there must be a Kentucky-Indiana bridge with Lincoln signs going both ways.
And Illinois, of course, is the Land of Lincoln.
Abe spent the most time in Illinois -- from age 21 on -- but he lived his first seven years in Kentucky and the next 14 in Indiana. That lets all three states grab ahold of his leg and hang on for dear life.
The websites are battling it out in the Lincoln quote department, too. Illinois tries to hog all the glory with "To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything." Kentucky counters with "I, too, am a Kentuckian."
Indiana starts with "There I grew up," then busts the chops of Illinois with an Abe counter-quote: "All I am, or can be, I owe to my angel mother." (Illinois, are you really trying to steal credit from Lincoln's own sainted mother?)
When it comes to gewgaws, would you like the Kentucky Lincoln golf ball or the Illinois stovepipe hat Christmas ornament?
At this rate, all three National Guards may be called out on February 12th to hurl insults across state lines, or maybe have a bicentennial slappy fight.
But we hope cooler heads will prevail. Lincoln was man enough to be claimed by three whole states. (And by DC too!)
Labels: Abraham Lincoln
Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 8:08 AM1 comments
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
President Barack Obama By the Numbers
Barack Obama will be the next president of the United States. Here's a by-the-numbers look ahead at this historic event.{ 1 } Obama will be the first president born in Hawaii. (Small surprise: Hawaii didn't become a state until 1959. Obama was born in 1961.)
{ 77 } Days until Obama's inauguration on 20 January 2009.
{ 47-5-16 } Obama's age in years, months and days when he takes office in January.
He'll be the fifth-youngest American president ever. Theodore Roosevelt is still the champ at age 42, followed by John Kennedy (43), Bill Clinton (46 years, 5 months), and Ulysses Grant (46 years, 11 months). Obama will bump Grover Cleveland (47 years, 11 months) from the top five.
{ 8 } Presidents, including Obama, schooled at Harvard.
Of those eight, he is the second to attend Harvard Law School. Rutherford B. Hayes was the first; he graduated in 1845, 146 years before Obama.
{ 24 } Years Michelle Obama will be older than the youngest first lady.
Michelle Obama will turn 45 on January 17th, three days before her husband takes office. Frances Folsom married Grover Cleveland at the White House in 1886, when she was only 21. There have been many youngish First Ladies; most recently, Jackie Kennedy was 31 when JFK took office in 1961.
{ 2 } Michelle Obama will be the second First Lady with a law degree. Hillary Clinton was the first.
{ 7 } and { 10 } Ages of Obama's daughters Sasha and Malia when he takes office.
Jenna and Barbara Bush were 19 when George W. Bush was inaugurated. Chelsea Clinton was 12 at the start of her father's term in 1993. Amy Carter was nine when Jimmy Carter took office in 1977.
{ 1 } Obama will be the first Columbia University undergraduate to become president. (Dwight Eisenhower was president of Columbia when he was elected U.S. president in 1952.)
{ 4 } Presidents, including Obama, with strong ties to Illinois.
Abraham Lincoln remains the state's favorite son (though he was actually born in Kentucky). Ulysses Grant was a clerk in Galena, Illinois when the Civil War broke out; he was living there again in 1868 when he received word he had been elected president. And Ronald Reagan was born in Tampico in 1911.
{ 44 } Obama will be the 44th U.S. president. (Grover Cleveland -- him again! -- is counted as both the 22nd and 24th presidents, having served non-consecutive terms.)
{ 55 } Obama's age on leaving office in 2017, if he serves two terms. That's one year older than George W. Bush was when he took office in 2001. In the year 2017, Michelle Obama will be 53. Sasha and Malia will be 15 and 18.
{ 1 } Barack Obama will be the first African-American president. It has been 138 years since the 15th Amendment guaranteed African-Americans the right to vote.
Labels: Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama, Chelsea Clinton, Dwight Eisenhower, George W. Bush, Malia Obama, Michelle Obama, Ronald Reagan, Sasha Obama, Teddy Roosevelt, Ulysses Grant
Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 9:25 PM10 comments
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Phony Presidential Trivia
Here's a swell new Onion interview with writer John Hodgman.He's the dowdy "PC" on Apple TV ads, and a regular on Jon Stewart's show. He's also the author of the fake-trivia books The Areas of My Expertise and More Information Than You Require.
Who2 has a love/hate relationship with Hodgman. Five years ago we wrote a fake trivia book of our own -- Utterly False Trivia -- and couldn't get it published. We're glad Hodgman got his out there, but full of envy and irritation that we couldn't get it done ourselves.
That's not Hodgman's fault, of course. The shame is ours.
However: In honor of the presidential elections of 2008, here are a few choice items from the "Hail to the Chief" section of our unpublished UFT.
* * *
Baseball star Babe Ruth portrayed President William Howard Taft in Big Bill, the only film in the Bambino's brief post-baseball acting career. Ruth played both the president and himself in a scene where Taft throws out the first ball to Ruth at the 1912 World Series. It was the first use of split screen in Hollywood history.
* * *
President Ronald Reagan's Four Famous Commands to Mikhail Gorbachev:
1. "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"
2. "Mr. Gorbachev, put down that maid!"
3. "Mr. Gorbachev, turn down that thermostat!"
4. "Mr. Gorbachev, make me a ham sandwich!"
* * *
The Barkley Presidential Length Index (BPLI) uses a formula of height multiplied by length of term to measure the inch-hours served by each chief executive.
William Henry Harrison, at 5'10" but only 33 days in office, has the lowest BPLI. Abraham Lincoln, had he lived, would have had the hightest BPLI of any two-term president. The all-time highest BPLI belongs to four-term president Franklin Roosevelt, if measured while standing instead of in his wheelchair. However, had Lyndon Johnson (6'4") run again for reelection in 1968 and completed 9+ years in office, he could have become the new BPLI leader.
* * *
In his 2004 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush repeatedly referred to former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein -- who had been dubbed "the Butcher of Baghdad" -- as "the Barber of Seville."
* * *
In an attempt to raise spirits during the Great Depression, President Herbert Hoover had "Hail to the Chief" replaced with "The Charleston" whenever he appeared in public. The original song was quietly reinstated by Franklin Roosevelt in 1933.
Labels: Abraham Lincoln, Babe Ruth, Franklin Roosevelt, George W. Bush, Herbert Hoover, John Hodgman, Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan, William Henry Harrison, William Howard Taft
Posted by Mr. Holznagel at 7:58 AM0 comments
