August 31, 2008
Maui Curmudgeon, National Election
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So, anyway, I get this email from friends who are high on Obama and his convention speech, and in it they tell me that right wing Republican Pat Buchanan – yes, even he – has to admit that Obama’s speech was one of the greatest in convention history. I write back, smugly, that I am pleased not to agree with Buchanan.
Then came today’s New York Times. In a piece titled, “The Audacity of Hype” William Safire lays out his complaints against Obama.
– Maui Curmudgeon
August 31, 2008
> MAUI TODAY
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 Nat’l Waffle Day
Day 244 of 2008
122 days left in this year
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HAWAIIAN WORD OF THE DAY —
Makani pahili: Hurricane
PIDGIN WORD OF THE DAY
— Hariap: Hurry
HAWAIIAN PROVERB OF THE DAY
— “Watch until the black tapa cloth covers Maui.”
HAOLE SAYING OF THE DAY — “If hypocricy were gold, the Capitol would be Fort Knox.” (John McCain)
WEB SURF SPOT OF THE WEEK —
MAPA
Today: Hurricane Gustav threatens the Louisana coast exactly 3 years after the criminal disregard and incompetence of the Bush/Cheney administration. Category 4 Gustav is also diverting attention from the Republican Convention starting tomorrow. Bush, Cheney and coast governors mow say they will not attend the event in Minnesota’s Twin Cities.
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EVENTS ON THIS DAY — August 31st
1842: The U.S. Naval Observatory is authorized by an act of Congress
1887: Thomas A Edison is granted a patent for the Kinetoscope (produces moving pictures)
1955: The first sun-powered automobile is demonstrated (Chicago)
1957: Malaya (Malaysia) gains independence from Britain (National Day)
1965: The U.S. House of Representatives joins the Senate to establish the Dept. of Housing & Urban Development (HUD)
1982: The first giant squid is captured alive off the coast of Bergen Norway
1994: The Irish Republican Army declares a cease-fire
1997: Diana, the Princess of Wales, is killed in an automobile accident in a tunnel by the Seine in Paris
2005: Tens of thousands of stranded residents thorughout New Orleans, including many thousands of whom are located in the Superdome and convention center, spend the nights amidst gunfire, looting and incidents of rape & murder, without rescue, evacuation or supply efforts by the city, state or federal governments.
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BORN ON THIS DAY — August 31st
12: Caligula (Gaius Caesar), 3rd Roman emperor
1908: William Saroyan, novelist/playwright
1916: Daniel Schorr, broadcast journalist
1918: Alan Jay Lerner, lyricist composer
1928: James Coburn, actor
1945: Itzhak Perlman, violinist
1945: Van Morrison, singer
1949: Richard Gere, actor
1970: Zack Ward, actor
1974: Chris Tucker, actor
1975: Sara Ramirez, actress
August 31, 2008
Maui Curmudgeon, U.S. Presidents
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By the Maui Curmudgeon (32nd 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.
FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT: 1933-1944 ~ 32nd U.S. President
The offspring of the fabulously wealthy patrician families Delano and Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt seems to have been molded for his time and the position of presidency from the very start. A graduate of Groton, FDR was strongly influenced by its president, Reverend Endicott Peabody, who called FDR to a life of social responsibility through public service.
He graduated from Columbia Law School, but law bored him, and in 1910 FDR gained a state senate seat in New York in the party of his father (not his great cousin Teddy), the Democratic Party, which, beginning with Grover Cleveland, had made its way through education and hard work to realize the values embodied in the likes of Abraham Lincoln were the ones who had to guide the country for it to thrive, values which the Republican party, beginning with Warren G. Harding, rebuked.
Read the rest…
