Presidential Quotes: Barack Obama

This week, we are posting quotes from the eight last presidents of the United States on this blogs as well as quips from the first eight presidents on our sister blog "Politics, Culture and Other Wastes of Time" http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com
Today, we start with President Barack Obama, who was visiting Tanzania this week:

"If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress."

SIDEBAR: Perhaps one can thank the respective French and Uzbeki soccer teams for preventing World War III, though we are a bit miffed that France beat Turkey 4-1 in the Under-20 World Game. To make things worse, France won on Turkish soil as the game was played in the southeastern city of Gaziantep, which is also known for its pistachio nuts.

Earlier in the day yesterday, in a game that was also played in Gaziantep, Uzbekistan beat Greece 3-1. Thus, there will be no Turkey-Greece match which could have started the third great international war (we are joking of course_ well, to an extent).

Today, American soccer player Maurice Edu, who has played pro soccer in Turkey and is of Ghanaian heritage tweeted that Ghana upset Portugal 3-2 in a U-20 game that was played today in Istanbul (we believe).

Of course, I am not going to suggest a boycott of Asterix and Lucky Luke (know as Red Kit in Turkey), the world's two most famous French comic book heroes. In fact, one can find these comic books at Chapel Hill Comics in Chapel Hill, NC.

http://www.chapelhillcomics.com

And, for more on the U-20 cup, one check our friend Ahmet Bob Turgut's soccer blog at: http://www.turkeyfootball.blogspot.com

Happy 76th Birthday, Daffy Duck

We want to wish Daffy Duck a Happy 76th birthday. The beloved Looney Tunes cartoon character, who is arguably among the fussiest and most negative of cartoon characters, first appeared in the cartoon "Porky Goes Duck Huntin" on April 17, 1937.

Daffy Duck was the subject of a brilliant Jeff Greenberg column which said that political candidates who were more like Bugs Bunny, such as Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama, were more likely to win elections than ones who were more like Daffy Duck, such as Walter Mondale and John McCain, who is coincidentally talking about guns in America in the U.S. Senate today.

One famous quote from Daffy Duck is from the cartoon "Duck Amuck" (1953): "Thanks for the sour persimmons, cousin"

We are going to wish Daffy Duck a happy birthday in six different languages:

1. Grattis pa fodelsedagen (Swedish, ironically Donald Duck is very popular in Sweden)

2. Dogum gunun kutlu olsun (Turkish)

3. feliz compleanos (Spanish

4. joyeaux anniversaire (French)

5. Alles Gute zum Ceburtstag (German)

6. furaha ya kuzaliwa (Swahili: a language spoken in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda)

Casualties of Modern Technology- The Payphone (Entry 1 of 12)

Earlier this year when I was in Athens, Ga., I went looking for this cool payphone I saw the last time I was in town, which was back in 2008. This particular payphone near the University of Georgia campus had all sorts of funky grafitti and bumper stickers around it. But, low and behold, the thing had vanished like a rare elephant breed in Tanzania.

A similar experience happened to me when I was a rest stop near Kannapolis, NC, on I-85. Every single payphone in the place had been removed though tehir booths still remained, and all that was left were these Yellowbook pages for phones which no longer existed.

Today, it is safe to say that Clark Kent will now need to find other ways to become Superman. Though Wikipedia states that payphones are still popular in developing countries, such as Uganda where one can find bicycle payphones, the same is not true here in the United States.

According to Wikipedia, there were over two million payphone here is les etats unis in the year 2000. Today, that number has dwindled to 700,000 as both Verizon and AT & T have ceased payphone services.

Hence, the payphone, which first became popular circa 1925, is our first 'Casualty of Modern Technology,' and with ever-expanding communication methods, a person traveling down a highway without a cellphone may just have to resort to using smoke signals.