Happy Birthday, President Jefferson!

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How Do People End Up At Blogspot?

The counter that I have on this web site also tracks how people got here. If you did a search on Yahoo or Google or any search engine, it grabs the text of the search. People come here for a lot of reasons--usually some specific topical reference. Today I noticed several people come from what turned out to be a porn site. It seems the site had All This Is That as a favorite link because of a couple of stories: mainly Frank Zappa's story of how he never ate s**t on stage, and the piece where I talked about the low esteem the Catholic Church was held in in Baptist churches.

Other sites have linked to the story about fishing with my old man, and some of the My Worst Jobs stories. One site on the presidency, has links to several of the digital paintings and thumbnail bios of the Presidents.

A lot of people come here from searches on poetry, the phrase Heroes And Villains (which was the title of 50 posts over time); searches on The President, and on POTUS; and various political topics. References to the Grateful Dead draw a lot of customers. Clearly it's titles of posts and names that draw people here.

Anyhow it's fascinating some of the twisted searches that draw people here too--sex with dogs has popped up a couple of times, although I have never addressed that subject (or engaged in the act)...but it must be in some quote or something.

For months, you couldn't find topics I'd addressed directly, but now that I am in the crawlers line of sight, even slight phrases buried in the middle of a posting will come up in a search. And in searches where you don't understand exactly why it was "googled." Yahoo and Google are by the far the most common search referrals, with Yahoo referring slightly more people.

The majority of referrals, however, come from Blogspot itself. People click the next blog button and are taken on a blind ride. People apparently do that a lot.

The third most common referral here seems to be either people who know me, or who have read the blog before and bookmarked it.

POTUS 43: Pres. George W. Bush - One Of The Nearly 5% Of Presidents Who Are Sons Of Presidents

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What can you say about The President? I guess he's a better President than David Duke would have been.
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John Edwards Speaks Up

Ex-Senator and VPOTUS candidate John Edwards speaks out about Terry Schiavo, Hillary Clinton, and Condy Rice. Click on the title for a link to the article.

“I think talking about a front-runner four years before an election is ridiculous."

“We saw the memo that went out to Republican leaders about how they could take political advantage of Terri Schiavo. That’s disgusting. They will pay a price for this in the 2006 and 2008 elections.”

POTUS 36: Pres. Lyndon Baines Johnson - Majority Leader, Accidental President, Hawk

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I've written a couple of times about Lyndon Johnson, the hero, and Lyndon Johnson, the paranoid and bellicose monster. When I did my series on Heroes And Villains, I considered using a picture of him as both the hero and the villain.

Some of my favorite political books have been Lyndon Johnson biographies and studies. Recently, the movie Fog of War was an fascinating rehash of LBJ, the unwitting inheritor of an unwinnable (as he seemed to know from the get-go) war.

If you get a chance, the LBJ museum in Austin, TX, is worth an afternoon visit.
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POTUS 22 And 24: President Grover Cleveland - The Man Who Was President Twice

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The New York Times obituary of him on 6-25-1908 is full of praise from all quarters and in 1908, many people placed Cleveland at the very top of Presidents, right up there with the men on Rushmore (which, of course, didn't exist yet).

From his stint as mayor of Buffalo, to his time as Governor of New York, he was considered a hard working and honest man known for his sense of duty. He took on Tammany Hall when it was risky to do so, and despite the machine having backed him for Governor. He was one of the good guys.

President Cleveland had a sex-scandal or two to live down: he was accused of fathering a son out of wedlock--a charge that he admitted might be true (!), because of his affair with Maria Halpin in 1874. By 'fessing up, Cleveland pulled off what we might think of as a "Bill Clinton" and won the election by a slim margin.

After two years as a bachelor President, Cleveland announced his marriage to his twenty-one-year-old ward, Frances Folsom, the daughter of his former law partner. The press had a field day satirizing the relationship between the old bachelor and the recent college graduate, who quickly became the most popular first lady since Dolley Madison.

Cleveland would lose in his re-election bid, and is the first and last president to bounce back from a loss to retake the White House.

Historians consider him a President who strengthened the executive branch, but made no dramatic accomplishments, and had no real vision for the future. He is most remebered as being a bridge to the modern strong presidency as it would be practiced by Teddy Roosevelt and those to follow.
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Chicken Cacciotare

Jack’s Chicken Cacciatore With Bay Leaves (And No Tomatoes)

1 chicken, or parts if you don't like to dismember chickens
3 Tbs. E.V. Olive Oil
4 cloves garlic
2 teaspoons dried rosemary, or, preferably, 2 Tbs fresh
5 Bay leaves
3 Tbs. Italian Parsley
2 Celery Stalks (with some leaves)
1 Cup dry white wine
1/3 cup Apple Cider or Red Wine Vinegar
¼ cup Chicken stock
salt and fresh ground black pepper


Cut the chicken into eight or ten pieces. I like to skin it. Season it with salt and fresh ground pepper.

Make a battuto of the parsley, rosemary, celery and garlic (that is, chop it fine).

Add the olive oil to a pot. When it is hazy, add the chicken and bay leaves. Brown the chicken, turning once in a while, for ten minutes over medium high heat. Add the battuto, and cook for a couple of minutes, stirring so the veggies don’t stick.

Deglaze the pan with the wine, stirring up the brown bits, and cook off the alcohol. Add chicken stock, and reduce it a couple of minutes. Add the vinegar. Cover the pot, and simmer the chicken over a medium low flame until tender…about 15 minutes. Check the seasoning and add a bit of salt and pepper. We usually serve this with Italian or French bread and put out small bowls of the de-fatted sauce for bread dipping.
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Evil Rubbish

From Engrish.com, another great sign. This web site specializes in wacky English and words and phrases that are extremely lost in translation. This is a fascinating and deep collection.
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POTUS Bush, Clinton, and Bush Conclave At The Pope's Funeral

Comparing himself favorably to Mr. Clinton is the latest in a series of recent moves by Mr. Bush to strengthen relations with the man who vanquished his father in 1992. The thaw comes after years in which Mr. Bush talked of the need to 'restore honor and dignity to the White House' in the post-Clinton era. Click here to link up to the full story of The Three Presidential Pals.

POTUS 13 - Pres. Millard Fillmore: Another Partial Term President

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Unlike elevators, they don't skip the number 13 for Presidents. Not that President Fillmore experienced bad luck. . .or much good luck either. . .

President Zachary Taylor konked out early in his second year in office and Millard Fillmore finished his term. As President, he signed the Compromise Measure of 1850, which included the Fugitive Slave Act.

The Compromise Measure may have helped stave off the Civil War for ten years. It was unpopular with both factions, and The President was not nominated by his party for another term.
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The Greatest Generation?

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Tom Brokaw wrote The Greatest Generation about the generation preceding mine; the generation that fought World War II and stomped The Nazis (eventually). We saw a great show of unity briefly, in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks, but in World War II the entire country solidified to go to war. Republican and Democrat, rich and poor, black, yellow, red, white, men and women, college educated and high school dropouts all signed up to fight The Axis. That includes my parents, a city girl and a farm boy. Above, in the pictures on the left and the right. . .is my father, Corporal John Brummet. He was discharged from the army shortly before the war. After Pearl Harbor, he then enlisted in the Navy, and served in the South Pacific.

In the middle, in the Marine uniform, is Betty Brummet, my mom. During the war, she worked for a time as a riveter at Boeing; she was Rosie The Riveter. She later enlisted in the Marines, following the footsteps of her father, William Jennings Bryan Jones. He served in World War I, and when we entered World War II, he enlisted again even though he was in his mid-40's. The Seattle 'paper published pictures of my mother and grandfather together in uniform. That picture caused my mom's mom (divorced from WJB Jones) to disown her. They later reconciled. More or less. From my family, at least, everyone came home in one piece.
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A Salute To The Republican Party

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