U.S. Presidents - John Quincy Adams

June 21, 2008 Maui Curmudgeon, U.S. Presidents No Comments

By the Maui Curmudgeon (6th in a 43-part series)

How do the U.S. Presidents stack up? I thought I’d find out by reading biographies of all 43 presidents, in the order of their administrations. Here are briefly the pros and cons of my discoveries, the interesting bits, and how I’d rank him. For comparison, I give you the 1982 Murrary-Blessing ranking, a survey of hundreds of leading historians who ranked each president by number. This survey is the gold standard of presidential rankings and is most cited when this kind of thing needs bringing up in media.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS: 1825-1829 ~ 6th U.S. President

The only elected president who was the son of a president (no, the current occupier of the White House was appointed and doesn’t count), John Quincy Adams was without a doubt one of the smartest men to hold the office. He amplified his father’s dedication to honesty, fought slavery, and was a great president - who had what most every historian considers to be a failed presidency. Read the rest…

Kalaupapa Saluted

June 21, 2008 > MAUI TODAY, > Maui Yesterdays No Comments
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Click for Kahului, Hawaii ForecastVinegar Day
Day 173 of 2008
193 days left in this year
HAWAIIAN WORD OF THE DAY — Sunny: La
 PIDGIN WORD OF THE DAY — Tulait: Very bright
 HAWAIIAN PROVERB OF THE DAY — “Unsavory is the soup made of little chickens.”
 HAOLE SAYING OF THE DAY — “Men trust their ears less than their eyes.” (Herodocuts)
WEB SURF SPOTS OF THE WEEK — All World Clock
WEB VIDEO OF THE WEEK — I’m Voting Republican
NETCAST OF THE WEEK — Podango’s Apple Phone Show
 GOOD DEED SITE OF THE WEEK — The Hunger Site
USS MissouriJune 21, 1998: The “Big Mo,” the USS Missouri, the famed World War II battleship noted most, perhaps, for being the deck on which Japan’s formal surrender was signed by the Japanese government, comes to Hawaii to rest. While it passes Kalaupapa, the peninsula on which the Hanson’s Disease (leprosy) sufferers reside, the ship stops, and dips its flag in salute.

BORN ON THIS DAY - June 21st
1732: Martha Washington, the first first lady
1892: Reinhold Niebuhr, theologian
1903: Al Hirschfeld, cartoonist
1905: Jean-Paul Sartre, philosopher/Nobel writer
1912: Mary McCarthy, novelist
1922: Judy Holliday, comedienne/actress
1925: Maureen Stapleton, actress
1927: Carl Stokes, (Cleve-Mayor)
1931: Margaret Heckler, U.S. Secy of Health & Human Services
1931: Olympia Dukakis, actress
1944: Ray Davies, singer/guitarist
1947: Meredith Baxter, actress
1965: Larry Wachowski, filmmaker
1982: Prince William Arthur Philip Louis Windsor of Wales

EVENTS ON THIS DAY - June 21st
1633: Galileo Galilei is forced by the Inquisition to “abjure, curse, and detest” his Copernican heliocentric views (never rescinded)
1684: Massachusetts Bay Colony’s charter is revoked
1768: First U.S. Bachelor of Medicine degree is bestowed on Dr. John Archer
1788: The U.S. Constitution goes into effect as New Hampshire becomes the 9th state to ratify it
1917: The Hawaiian Red Cross is founded
1945: Japanese forces on Okinawa surrender to the U.S. during WW II
1948: First stored computer program is run, on the Manchester Mark I (England) (Frank Turing made the machine)
1964: Three civil rights workers (Michael H Schwerner, Andrew Goodman & James E Chaney) disappear after release from a Mississippi jail (3 days later, their burnt-out car was found; their bodies were found buried in an earthen dam six weeks later; eight members of the Ku Klux Klan went to prison on federal conspiracy charges; none served more than six years)
1977: Former White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman enters prison
1985 Scientists announced that skeletal remains exhumed in Brazil were those of Nazi war criminal Josef Mengele.
1989: The Supreme Court rules that burning the American flag as a form of political protest is protected by the First Amendment.
2005: Edgar Ray Killen, an 80-year-old former Ku Klux Klansman, iss found guilty of manslaughter in the deaths of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Miss., 41 years to the day earlier. (He is serving a 60-year prison sentence.