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

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John Quincy Adams, the son of POTUS No. 2, attended Harvard and held several diplomatic posts over the years. He was elected to the Senate in 1803 and from 1809 on, held many other dipolomatic posts. As Secretary of State for James Monroe, he worked closely with POTUS 5 to formulate The Monroe Doctrine.

In 1825, no presidential candidate received a majority of electoral votes. Adams, with the support of Henry Clay, was elected President by the House over Andrew Jackson. His independence did not sit well with The Federalists, who kicked him out of the party.

Leaving the White House, Adams ran for the House as a Whig, and stayed there many years, and in fact, experienced a stroke on the floor of the House and died two days later.
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VPOTUS Nelson Rockefeller Gives The Finger To Protestors

This is one of my favorite political photos. At a campaign stop for Senator Bob Dole (on the VP's left) in '76, Nelson Rockefeller was heckled by protesters over his Vietnam war policy. Rocky ricocheted it. Soon after this, and unrelated to the famous finger, an appellate court ruled that giving the finger was not legally obscene.
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Myth # 8: The Consumer

provenance unknown

I don't know where this came from, but it's true. At least about videogames.
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POTUS 25: President William McKinley - Puppet Or Visionary?

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William McKinley has often been considered a lame President; a marionette controlled by cronies who was pressured into war with Spain by a hysterical press. Historians now lean toward seeing him as a decisive President who launched America on the road to world power through his use of tarriffs, his policy toward trade with China, his war against Spain over Cuba, and by annexing real estate we picked up in our adventures.

He was a populist president, usually taking the side of The People over the side of "private interests," e.g., business.

In the 100-day war over Cuba, the United States destroyed the Spanish fleet outside Cuba, seized Manila in the Philippines, and occupied Puerto Rico. He also picked up Guam for his troubles.

His second term began well, but came to a tragic end in September 1901. He was standing in a receiving line at the Buffalo Pan-American Exposition when a deranged anarchist shot him twice. He died eight days later and was succeeded by his VPOTUS, Teddy Roosevelt.
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POTUS 39: President James Earl Carter - Not As Bad A President As You Have Been Led To Believe, But Rather A Victim Of Circumstance

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I remember how proud I was of Jimmy Carter, that Tuesday in November, 1976, when he stomped President Gerald R. Ford. It was my second Presidential election, and my first election had been a disaster, for me, and for the country.

With Ford's departure, the White House would finally be swept clean of the detritus of Dick Nixon. President Carter was my kind of people. Even among hillbillies, there are a few who rise above their mean beginnings. Of course, his brother Billy Carter was more my kind of people with his constant beer infusions, improvident talk, and public urination.

I didn't take long before things didn't go so well for President Carter, even though he would win the Nobel Peace Prize eventually. The last year of his admininstration was scarred by the Iranians holding a large number of Americans hostage. They would not be freed until the moment Dutch Reagan took the oath of office. Runaway inflation didn't help his election either. Since his forced retirement, the former President has worked tirelessly for various causes, most notably Habitat For Humanity.

He is the only person to be sworn in as president using his nickname. President Carter was also the first president born in a hospital. Jimmy Carter caused quite a stir when he said he had lusted many times in his heart after seeing pictures of women such as those in Playboy magazine. He instituted the first live televised phone-in broadcast from the White House in March 1977. He also began regular Saturday morning radio addresses to the American public.
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Poem: Coyote Comes Home Like A Salmon

Crossing real estate lines
That mean nothing to him,
Coyote traverses the pale fog
Driven in from the sea.
He has a loan of time
To walk through his old salal tangled home.
Sneaking through nettles and Oregon grape,
He carries his battered canoe
Along magnolia darkened clay
Back where he grew from whelp to pup.
Down whitewater roiling over boulders
He feathers the current with his paddle,
Turning in the current like a leaf.
The spent river slinks into the sea.
Pipers spoon their bills in the sand for clams
And robins claw at earthworms.
A diving hawk sends smaller birds
Tumbling into hysterical flight.
His bones feel fragile as obsidian
As he watches the green Kalopanish stop
And they all come to the end:
The river, the creek, and God's old friend.
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Jack Brummet
poem started in 1983, finished 4-23-2005.
That took a while!

Jack Brummet And Keelin Curran On The I.R.T. Local, 1982

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Happy Birthday Bill!

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William Shakespeare was born April 23, 1564, 351 years ago. Although he was writing fairly early in the development of modern English, no one has come within spitting distance of the master.
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Poem: Shorts For Jerry Melin ca. about 1988

1
A dim crescent
Hung cockeyed
On cathedral skies.

2
An orchard of salt pillars
Circles Gomorrah's ashes:
Lot's Wife had no name.

3
Two vultures flap
Side by side into the sun.
Calcutta awakes.

4
The wine in this cup
Has a tide all its own.
I am the sucking moon.
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POTUS 15: President James Buchanan, The Man Who Left A Divided Country And War For Pres. Abraham Lincoln

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James Buchanan rose from the state legislature to representative, senator and cabinet member. He made a run at the White House in 1844, 1848, and 1852 before finally winning in 1856.

In the 1850s, the question of slavery divided the United States. People hoped that the new President, "Old Buck," was the man to prevent a national crisis. He failed miserably. During his administration, the Union broke apart, and when he left office, civil war was just around the corner.

By 1856, the debates over slavery had reached hysterical intensity, with abolitionists and proslavery forces alike advocating violence and resorting to it frequently.

Two days after Buchanan's inauguration, the Supreme Court announced the Dred Scott decision. Influenced by the new President's pro-southern interests, the Court ruled that because slaves (and former slaves) were not citizens, they had no right to sue for freedom. The court also invalidated the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which banned slavery in the portion of the Louisiana Purchase above 36 degrees latitude. Republicans denounced the decision and vowed to repudiate it.

America was a hopelessly divided nation. The Republicans were anti-slavery Northerners, and the Democrats, mostly Southerners with Northern allies who defended states' rights.

In 1859, John Brown seized the Southern town of Harpers Ferry in Virginia in an attempt to spark an uprising of slaves. Brown was captured and hanged but his action only fanned the flames.

The Democratic Party finally snapped in two. An unknown lawyer from the insurgent Republican Party--Abraham Lincoln--won the White House. The election of a Northerner opposed to the extension of slavery outside existing Southern states was the straw that broke the camel's back.

Six weeks after Abraham Lincoln's election, South Carolina left the Union, and six other states soon followed. Lame Duck Buchanan did nothing to stop the secessions, which strengthened the young Confederacy and gave seceding states time to set up a government. Buchanan was eager to depart the White House before the real disaster. On leaving office, he saw only close friends until his death in 1868.
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Sasquatch Sighting In The Great White North

A Manitoba ferry operator has filmed what many people feel is a real Bigfoot.

What he captured, according to his sister, Sharness Henry, is the image of a massive creature that stands eight, nine, maybe 10 feet (three metres) tall, walking along the edge of the water through some bulrushes. Near the end of the video, the creature turns and appears to stare into the camera, but the details of its face are impossible to make out.

Click on the title to link to the article.
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The Pope: Number One With A Bullet

The Yahoo Buzz Index is a cool web site, which tells you on any given day what's hot on the internet. The Pope is big this week. Out of the top 20 searches, four of the top 7 are Pope-related. Divas like Mariah Carey, Jennifer Lopez, Gwen Stefani, and Britney take four as well. Tupac Shakur, Eminem, Akon, and Fiddy Cent get one slot each. Paris Hilton is in the top 20 too. . .she seems to appear there whenever pictures of her naked or in flagrante appear on the 'net.
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