Presidential Quotes (11 of 16): Rutherford B. Hayes, a Forgotten Man

If one takes the Mental Floss "Name All 43 Presidents Quiz," we have a feeling Rutherford B. Hayes, a one-term Republican president from Delaware, Ohio, might be one of the half-dozen a person would forget.

Hayes (1822-93; president from 1877-1881), did have a better fate than his successor, President James Garfield, who was the second of four American presidents to be assasinated.

Here is a quote from Hayes, which those of us who are capital punishment opponents can identify with:

"One of the tests of the civilization of people is the treatment of its criminals."

http://www.miller.org/president/hayes

http://www.vadp.org (Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty)*

Both the Miller Center and the VADP are based in Charlottesville, Va.

http://www.mentalfloss.com

Presidential Quotes (9 of 16): The Man who Followed Honest Abe

Greetings to our blog readers in Brazil, the Czech Republic and Thailand.

We're not sure how well a quote from Andrew Johnson, the 17th president of the United State, will do overseas, but unlike our entries on Turkish soccer* and women's college volleyball, we can assume someone reading this entry in the year 2024 will find that this entry will not be dated.

Here is Andrew Johnson's quote, a man who became president after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theatre, which will follow with a link from the Miller Center in Charlottesville, Va.:

"If I am shot at, I want no man to be in the way of the bullet."

http://www.millercetner.org/president/johnson

*- Kudos to Istanbul powerhouse GalataSaray for upsetting Juventus 1-0 today in Turin, Italy, a city which saw some snowfall today, and congrats, to Fethiyespor, a lower level Turkish team, which pulled 'an upset of the century' by beating another Istanbul powerhouse Fenerbahce 2-1 in Turkish Cup play two weeks ago. As I jokingly tweeted, my dream UEFA final in the year 2020 would be between Fethiyespor and Barcelona. Hopefully, Lionel Messi will be retired by then.

Presidential Quotes (5 of 16): Millard Fillmore...........not the duck

Greetings to our blog-readers in Dubai, France and Norway, where the English soccer team Tottenham Hotspur traveled all the way to Tromso, a city inside the Arctic Circle, in which the visitors prevailed 2-0.

Though he may not be a household name in France or even here in les etas unis, President Millard Fillmore was the fourth and final Whig Party member and the 13th man to rise to the presidency. In Fillmore's case, it was not an election but the death of President Zachary Taylor which allowed him the presidency. Fillmore was later on a 1938 postage stamp, and his time in office lasted from 1850-53. He was also a political conservative.

This brings us to Mallard Fillmore, a right-wing cartoon duck whom we must admit is quite amusing even though we prefer the progressive politics of comic strips like "Doonesbury" and "Knight Life" (by the ever-kewl Keith Knight), which is the brainchild of Bruce Tinsley.

"Mallard Fillmore" first became syndicated in 1994, and Tinsley got his start as a political cartoonist for "The Daily Progress" newspaper in Charlottesville, Va., which is ironically the most progressive zip code in Virginia.

Stephen Colbert made fun of Mallard Fillmore in 2006 saying that the duck was to right-wing media as Garfield was to lasagna.

Here is Pres. Millard Fillmore's quote: "It is not strange to mistake change for progress."


http://www.millercenter.org/president/fillmore

http://www.millardfillmore.org

http://www.mallardfillmore.com

Presidential Quotes (4 of 12): Zachary Taylor

Greetings to those of you in Poland, Mexico and Japan.

Our quote today is from Zachary Taylor (1784-1850), the 12th president of the United States who was one of four American presidents from the Whig Party and one of four American presidents to have the dubious distinction of dying in office from natural causes.

Taylor was born near Charlottesville, Va., and he apparently had little formal education. He was replaced by his veep Millard Fillmore.

Here is Taylor's quote:

"It would be judicious to act with magnanimity towards a prostrate foe."

Yeah, one does not hear the word magnanimity much today!

http://www.millercenter.org/president/taylor

Quote of the Day- Thomas Jefferson

Greetings to our blog readers in Jamaica, Japan and Jordan, as well domestic visitors from Iowa, Indiana and Illinois; today, we continue our series of quotes from the first eight and last eight American presidents (quotes are also on our sister blog "Politic, Culture and Other Wastes of Time: http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com ).

Today, we feature our third president Thomas Jefferson, from our home state of Virginia. Amazingly enough, despite going to Charlottesville, Va., many times, I have yet to visit Monticello http://www.monticello.org), his historic home located there.

Jefferson also founded the University of Virginia, where Ralph Sampson was a star basketball player in the early 1980s (he was the subject of a recent "Washington Post Magazine" cover story), and the school's college radio station is affectionally called WTJU-FM (http://www.wtju.net)

And, Jefferson is one of four presidents who are mascots for the Washington Nationals, along with George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, which seems a bit ironic (he was infamously assassinated at Ford's Theatre), and Theodore Roosevelt, who seldom wins the mascot derby (http://wwwblog.letteddywin.com).

Yesterday, the Nationals won their home game over the San Diego Padres 8-5.

Here is TJ's quote: "I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend."

http://www.washington.national/mlb.com

Record Store Day is Saturday

Albums from David Bowie, Herbie Hancock and the late Cem Karaca (1945-2004), a Turkish psychedelic music icon are among the selections one may find on any given day at an independent locally-owned record store, but Saturday is a day that has been marked as Record Store Day.

Some of the stores you may want to check out, depending on where you reside, may include Wuxtry Records in Athens, Ga. (with two other locations in the Atlanta-area), All Day Records in Carrboro (Chapel Hill), NC, Enterprise Records in Portland, Maine, and Plan 9 Records with locations in Charlottesville and Richmond, Va.

Folk/rock singer Billy Bragg who we mentioned a few entries back is also performing a regular concert at The Cat's Cradle, which is in close proximity to All Day Records, on Friday, but we imagine he will be too busy with soundchecks to stop in that store. Hopefully, if you live in Chapel Hill, that will not be the case with you.


http://www.wuxtry-records.com

http://www.alldayrecords.com

http://www.catscradle.com

http://www.billybragg.com

http://www.davidbowie.com

http://www.recordstoreday.com

http://www.enterpriserecords.net

http://www.plan9music.com

Quote of the Day/Week- Thomas Jefferson

Today, we continue quoting the first eight American presidents in honor of the up-coming presidential election in the United States in November. Egypt just had elections over weekend, and Mexico is expected to hold them this week.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), one of eight presidents to come from Virginia and the first one from the Democratic Party, has approximately 16 high schools named after him, including ones in Alexandria, Va., Brooklyn, NY, and Dallas, Tex.

The late comic actor Danny Kaye (1913-1987) who our sixth grader teacher mistakenly told us was dead (this was 1982, he did indeed die five years later) graduated from the JHS in Brooklyn, while actress Brenda Vaccaro, who is alive and presumably well, graduated from the school of the same name in Dallas.

Jefferson's historic home Monticello is a major tourist destination in Charlottesville, Va. I was supposed to go there on an ninth-grade field trip, but I overslept (the bus left at circa 7:30 p.m.) ...oh well!

Here is Jefferson's quote:

 "A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit."

http://www.monticello.org

Quote of the Day- Neil Simon

We continue with our series of quips from famous playwrights this month with a quote from Neil Simon. Though "The Odd Couple" is my favorite Simon play, "Barefoot in the Park" appears to be the most popular one. There is a great audio version of the play with Laura Linney (tv's "The Big C") from Los Angeles Theatre Works (LATW).

Here is the quote:

"If no one ever took risks, Michaelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor."

SIDEBAR ONE: Various sources have said that the following joke from stand-up comic Nick Helm was considered to be the funniest one at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland: "I need a password eight characters long, so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."

SIDEBAR TWO: Though I am a human secularist, as the son of a late Muslim Turkish immigrant, I want to wish everyone in the greater Muslim community in the United States, Turkey and around the world a Happy Eid ul-Fitr, which falls on August 30th this year. Eid ul-Fitr, also known as Seker Bayrami (Sugar Holiday) in Turkey, marks the end of the 30-day Ramadan period. We imagine those who faithfully followed the fast in places like Austin, Tex., which was very hot this week, were tempted to go for the Dasani or Gatorade.

The alt weekly "C'ville Weekly" in Charlottesville, Va., has an interesting story about how Ramadan is being celebrated by Muslim inmates in Virginia prisons, which agreed after pressure from the Virginia ACLU to adjust dinning schedules for Ramadan for those following Islam.

And, irregardless of one's faith, Turkish food is always among the finest cuisine one can have. In the Philadelphia area, Divan Turkish Kitchen is considered to be among the best Turkish restaurants in the City of Brotherly Love.

The Great Virginia Earthquake of 2011

"Yes, we felt it here in North Carolina," I told a friend of mine who lives near my hometown of Roanoke, Va., via Facebook. "In fact, it knocked over a framed photograph of Dean Martin on my mantle."

I'm not sure admitting that I have a framed photograph, which is actually a still from a western film, from Dean Martin (he was a lounge crooner superstar in the '50s and '60s for those of you born when George H.W. Bush was president) is a good idea. But, the 10-12 second tremor I felt at a public library near Greensboro, NC, yesterday, was quite surprising.

I have friends and family members who were at the scene during the great Los Angeles earthquake and the horrific 1999 earthquake which devastated Istanbul, Turkey, and nearby areas, so this was nothing of that magnitude (pardon the pun). No books were flying off the library shelves nor did anyone panic. We just all starred at each other as if we were in costume at a medevial fair.

Of course, since this is the first earthquake I've experienced, and it was a surprinsgly strong 5.9, making it the strongest earthquake in Virginia since 1875, the image of the reportedly over-the-top '70s natural disaster movie "Earthquake" with Charlton Heston and Ava Gardner seems appropriate.

"The Daily Tarheel" ironically reported (it is the student-run newspaper for The University of North Carolina" that University of Virginia Kyle Guest was taking a catnap at 1:52 p.m. earthquake when a strong tremor was felt on the UVA campus. Guest said that he felt like a spaceship had landed in his house. There was reportedly far less drama on the campus of UNC in Chapel Hill, though the quake was felt there. In fact, they even felt in Bath, Maine!

The earthquake happened relatively close to Charlottesville, Va., where UVA is, in the town of Mineral in Louisa County, Va., where it completely toppled groceries at Miller's Mart.

"The Collegiate Times," the student-run newspaper for Virginia Tech, reported that Newman Library on the Virginia Tech campus was evacuated when someone pulled the fire alarm in response to the tremor. Julia Delgaudio, a Hokie student, told the CT that she thought someone was shaking her chair, but there was no one there!