Poem: [Life Is Not A Hardy Novel]

Life is not like a Hardy novel,
'Though it seems so at times.
God's not mad at us;
But his patience is stretched
To a molecule thick.
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Photograph Of Pope Benedict XVI With Daryle Conners

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My friend Daryle Conners met the new Pope a few years ago, when she produced a five-hour documentary, Vatican II: The Faithful Revolution for the PBS. She interviewed over 180 Catholics from all over the world, including Cardinals, Bishops, a Catholic priest in Texas named Father Church and a nun in Rome named Sister Ellen Guilty.

She is pictured above with Cardinal Ratzinger aka Pope Benedict XVI. He was known during his long tenure as "The Darth Vader Of The Vatican."

Until 1968 his office was known as The Office of the Inquisition. It was renamed Office of Doctrine For The Faith after Vatican II.
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Dire Predictions For The Administration Of President Thomas Jefferson

Murder, robbery, rape, adultery and incest will be openly taught and
practiced, the air will be rent with cries of distress, the soil soaked with blood, and the nation black with crimes. Where is the heart that can contemplate such a scene without shivering with horror?

- New England Courant newspaper, 1801, on the election of Thomas Jefferson

Painting: Self Portrait No. 4

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Poem: Seven

It's too slow to see.
It happens right under
My nose.
Every molecule in every person
Changes every seven years.

I'm completely rebuilt
Seven times now
And working on the eighth.
The dormant features redeploy,
Installing themselves
On millions of fresh molecules,
And altered but happily,
I trudge on.
---o0o---

jack brummet

The Man Who Should Have Been King, 2: Senator Robert Francis Kennedy

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Bobby. He went from a cold-blooded streetfighter to tenderly compassionate big brother about as fast as a car goes from 0 to 60. He did the big turnabout. And he stayed there. I often wonder just how far he would have gone, just where he would have taken it if the Nixon Years had been replaced by The Bobby Years. How far we might have gone?

He was killed at the height of his personal and political power. For a man earlier in life always described as ruthless, it was amazing to watch him jump the rails. /jack
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Index to the Paintings And Thumbnail Biographes of The Presidents Of The United States

This series is now complete. All the Presidents have had their turn. The list below provides links to the paintings and thumbnail bios, in order! /jack


POTUS 1: The First President Of The United States, Pres. George Washington a/k/a The General a/k/a The Father Of Our Country
POTUS 2: President John Adams, The Only President Defeated For Re-election By His Own Vice-President
POTUS 3: Pres. Thomas Jefferson
POTUS 4: President James Madison, The First President To Wear Pants
POTUS 5: Pres. James Monroe
POTUS 6: President John Quincy Adams - First Son Of A President To Become President And The First President To Become A Congressman Post-White House
POTUS 7: Pres. Andrew "Old Hickory" Jackson - The Star Of The $20 Dollar Bill
POTUS 8: President Martin Van Buren
POTUS 9: Pres. William Henry Harrison - The Drive By President
POTUS 10: Pres. John Tyler - The First Accidental President
POTUS 11: Pres. James Polk - The Man With The Mullet
POTUS 12: Pres. Zachary Taylor - The President Who Mostly Closely Resembled Mel Brooks
POTUS 13 - Pres. Millard Fillmore: Another Partial Term President
POTUS 14: Pres. Franklin Pierce - The Most Handsome President?
POTUS 15: President James Buchanan, The Man Who Left A Divided Country And War For Pres. Abraham Lincoln
POTUS 16: Pres. Abraham Lincoln - The Most Beloved President?
POTUS 17: Pres. Andrew Johnson - The Worst President Ever
POTUS 18: Pres. Ulysses Grant - The Man Inside Grant's Tomb
POTUS 19: Pres. Rutherford B. Hayes - "Rutherfraud"
POTUS 20: Pres. James Garfield
POTUS 21: Pres. Chester Alan Arthur - Accidental, Partial One-Term President, Owner Of Some Impressive Muttonchops, And Dandy
POTUS 22: President Grover Cleveland - The Man Who Was President Twice
POTUS 23: Pres. Benjamin Harrison - The Last Bearded President
POTUS 24: President Grover Cleveland - The Man Who Was President Twice
POTUS 25: President William McKinley - Puppet Or Visionary?
POTUS 26: President Theodore Roosevelt - The Roughrider
POTUS 27: Pres. William Howard Taft - Who Preferred To Be Remembered As Chief Justice
POTUS 28: President Woodrow Wilson - The President Who Short-Circuited & POTUS 28A: President Edith Wilson
POTUS 29: Pres. Warren G. Harding - He Never Lived To Rue The Day
POTUS 30: President Calvin Coolidge "Keep Cool With Coolidge"
POTUS 31: President Herbert Hoover - The Scapegoat
POTUS 32: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt - The Man In The Wheelchair Who Lifted The Country On His Shoulders; The Only POTUS To Win Four Terms
POTUS 33: President Harry Truman - "The Buck Stops Here"
POTUS 34: Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower - A Most Detached President
POTUS 35: Pres. Jack Kennedy - Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye
POTUS 36: Pres. Lyndon Baines Johnson - Majority Leader, Accidental President, Hawk
POTUS 37: Pres. Richard Milhous Nixon - Tricky Dick And The Comedy Of Errors
POTUS 38: Pres. Gerald R. Ford - Pardon Me, Mister President!
POTUS 39: President James Earl Carter - Not As Bad A President As You Have Been Led To Believe, But Rather A Victim Of Circumstance
POTUS 40: Pres. Ronald "Dutch" Reagan - B Movie Actor To President
POTUS 41: Pres. George Herbert Walker ("Read My Lips") Bush
POTUS 42: Pres. William Jefferson Clinton - The Comeback Kid
POTUS 43: Pres. George W. Bush - One Of The Nearly 5% Of Presidents Who Are Sons Of Presidents

Typing Monkeys And The Shakespeare Simulator

"If you have enough monkeys banging randomly on typewriters, they will eventually type the works of William Shakespeare."

The Monkey Shakespeare Simulator seems to have fallen on hard times...but it is still working. I have no idea if the simulation is real. . .or an incredible simulation of a simulation. It runs in the background just like the SETI (Search For Extra Terrestial Intelligence) application.

In the simulator, time passes 86,400 times faster than real life. 'The odds against monkeys typing Shakespeare by chance are astronomical. With about 80 typewriter keys, the chance of getting the first letter right is about 80 to 1. The chance of getting 2 letters right is 1 in 80×80, or 6400 to 1. Each letter increases the odds against by 80 times. The odds of getting 10 letters right is about 11 million million million to1."

Here are examples of a four letter hit and a long 24 letter hit.

4 letters from "The Winter's Tale" after 195 monkey-years.
Sent in by Matt Greer on 26 July 2003.
"Archan:jdTAQ]Mu:.jt "gm3dw.jhVHw.V2..." matched "Arch. If you shall chance (Camillo) to visit Bohemia, on the like occasion whereon my seruices are now on-foot, you shall see (as I haue said) great difference betwixt our Bohemia, and your Sicilia"

24 letters from "The Second Part of King Henry IV" after 2,737,850 million billion billion billion monkey-years.
Sent in by Darren Eggett from Bountiful, Utah on 3 Jan 2005. "RUMOUR. Open your ears; 9r"5j5&?OWTY Z0d "B-nEoF.vjSqj[..." matched "RUMOUR. Open your ears; for which of you will stop The vent of hearing when loud Rumour speaks?..."

24 letters? That's a lot of billion billion billion monkey years. But, hey, we're making progress!
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POTUS 5: Pres. James Monroe

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Monroe succeeded James Madison, and was easily elected with little opposition. He won re-election in 1820 by a landslide: he took every electoral vote except one. Best deal of his Presidency: he bought Florida from Spain for around $5 million.

Monroe also had a long career as a soldier, diplomat, governor, senator, and cabinet official. His two terms in office were generally prosperous and uneventful. He is best known for the Monroe Doctrine, which became a backbone of U.S. foreign policy. The Monroe Doctrine basically said that America would resist European intervention in the Western Hemisphere. In other words: "not in our house!," and "keep out!"
--o0o---

POTUS 26: President Theodore Roosevelt - The Roughrider

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He coined the phrase "my hat is in the ring" and ran for President as a Progressive (aka The Bull Moose Party).

Theodore Roosevelt is remembered as POTUS 26, but this cat also held dozens of other fascinating jobs and posts: New York State Assemblyman, Governor of New York, Vice President, President, deputy sheriff in the Dakota Territory, Police Commissioner of New York City, U.S. Civil Service Commissioner, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and Colonel of the Rough Riders.

At 42,he became President. He was a conservation President (and an ouitdoorsman and hunter), and during his White House years from 1901-1909, he designated 150 National Forests, 51 Federal Bird Reservations, 5 National Parks, 18 National Monuments, the first 4 National Game Preserves, and 21 Reclamation Projects. He provided federal protection for almost 230 million acres. That's a lot of real estate.

President Roosevelt "busted" trusts and helped control large thieving corporations, began the Panama Canal and negotiated an end to the Russo-Japanese War for which he won the Nobel Peace Prize.

He talked about a "Square Deal" for all Americans, enabling millions to earn a living wage, and built up the Navy as our Big Stick ("speak softly, but carry a...").

"Of all the public men that I have known, on both sides of the Atlantic (and there are few that I have not known in the past thirty years), he stands out the greatest, and as the most potent influence for good upon the life of his generation." Viscount Lee of Fareham, English statesman

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The Man Who Should Have Been King: Governor Mario Cuomo

I wish I could create a POTUS picture and bio for Mario Cuomo. I don't know why he didn't run for President. I wish he had. I can guess:

a) The best guys never run for president.
b) The timing was never right. This is a perennial problem in Presidential politics--when do you make the run? There are scores of factors and infinite variations to consider.
c) Skeletons rattling in the closet? Those skeletons are often alluded to, but we have yet to see any substance. He ran for Mayor of New York and Governor of New York and nothing emerged. I never believed in those skeletons.
d) He didn't want to know if he would win or not. He wanted to keep that certain aura, which he would have sullied by jumping in.

In 1984, We ran Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro. We lost. I'm not sure anyone, even Mario could have beaten President Reagan.

Michael Dukakis was our '88 candidate. I was a delegate for Jessie Jackson at the state convention, where we were rolled over by the other sides. Would Mario have had a shot at George Bush? I think so...

Could Mario have beaten Clinton in 1992? I don't know...but I'm pretty sure he could have beaten George Bush in the main event.

My favorite speech by Governor Cuomo (and he didn't give many bad ones) was at the Democratic Convention in San Francisco in 1984. I lived there at the time. I didn't get to see Mario (I came close to a ticket, but I blew it!) I did get to see speeches by VPOTUS candidate Geraldine Ferraro and Mayor Tom Bradley of Los Angeles. Here is an excerpt of Mario's 1984 stemwinder. Read the speech, or better, listen to the audio here:

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/cuomo1984dnc.htm

excerpt:

It's an old story. It's as old as our history. The difference between Democrats and Republicans has always been measured in courage and
confidence. The Republicans believe that the wagon train will not make it to the frontier unless some of the old, some of the young, some of the weak are left behind by the side of the trail. The strong, the strong they tell us will inherit the land.

excerpt:

Maybe, maybe, Mr. President, if you visited some more places. Maybe if you went to Appalachia where some people still live in sheds, maybe if you went to Lackawanna where thousands of unemployed steel workers wonder why we subsidized foreign steel. Maybe, maybe, Mr. President, if you stopped in at a shelter in Chicago and spoke to the homeless there; maybe, Mr. President, if you asked a woman who had been denied the help she needed to feed her children because you said you needed the money for a tax break for a millionaire or for a missile we couldn't afford to use.

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POTUS 32: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt - The Man In The Wheelchair Who Lifted The Country On His Shoulders; The Only POTUS To Win Four Terms

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FDR admired his distant cousin Teddy Roosevelt, and set out to emulate him (but as a Democrat!). He was in the New York Senate, and was an assistant Navy Secretary under President Wilson. He was the democratic candidate for VPOTUS in 1920.

In 1921, he was stricken with polio. He fought to regain the use of his legs and at the 1924 Democratic Convention he dramatically appeared on crutches to nominate Alfred E. Smith as "the Happy Warrior." In 1928 Roosevelt was elected Governor of New York. The crutches were used mainly for photo ops and he was confined to his wheelchair.

FDR became President in 1932, succeeding Herbert Hoover. He helped the American people regain faith. He brought hope as he promised prompt, vigorous action, and in the very pit of the depression, told America in his Inaugural Address:

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Two years into his first term as President, the Nation began a slow recovery. But the fat cats turned against Roosevelt's New Deal. They feared his social experiments, and his removing the nation from the gold standard. And they feared the deficits he was running up (which Republicans now pile up at the greatest rate ever).

Roosevelt's response to the fat cats: a new program of reform: Social Security, heavier taxes on the wealthy, new controls over banks and public utilities, and an enormous work relief program for the unemployed.

In 1936 (and in 1940 and in 1944) he was re-elected by huge margins. And he blew it for a bit. Sure that his mandate in '36 gave him carte blanche, he sought to pack the Supreme Court (which had invalidated numerous New Deal programs) by increasing the number of justices (all of whom would be his nominees). He lost that battle, but now the government itself could and did regulate the economy.

When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt led uns into a global war and worked closely with England and Russia and their leaders Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin to take out the Axis.

President Roosevelt felt the future of the world depended on relations between the Americans and Russians, and he devoted much thought to the planning of a United Nations organization.

As war drew to a close, Roosevelt's health declined, and on April 12, 1945, while at Warm Springs, Georgia, he died of a brain hemorrhage, reportedly with his girlfriend.
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