February 6th, 2008

10-K, 10-B

Ten random things: February 5

Ten things I learned from the 2008 Schott's Almanac Page-A-Day Calendar:

  1. The siege of Leningrad lasted 872 days.
  2. The first legal divorce in the Republic of Ireland was granted in 1997.
  3. Wynkyn de Worde was the first printer in England to employ italic typefaces.
  4. St. Bride is the patron saint of poets, blacksmiths, and healers.
  5. In a fox hunt, when all the hounds are accounted for, the whipper-in says "All on!"
  6. The London Underground map was the brainchild of Henry "Harry" C. Beck.
  7. The national anthem of Moldova is Lîmba Noastra.
  8. An excessively intense enthusiasm is called pteridomania.
  9. The first McDonald's in the Soviet Union opened in 1990.
  10. The presidency of the U.N. Security Council rotates monthly through the members, based upon the alphabetical (English) spelling of country names.

A appropriate icon today! I'm pleased to see Clinton and Obama both doing well in the Super Tuesday primaries; I was woried that one or the other might sew things up today, rendering my own primary next Tuesday meaningless.

  • Current Music
    A Cook's Tour
community, tv

Public notice

Attention whoever did the closed captioning for tonight's episode of Law & Order: it's a QUIT claim deed, not a QUICK claim. You dumb asses.
  • Current Music
    Law & Order
10-T, 10-C

Ten random things: February 6

Ten things John F. Kennedy did in his first three months as President of the United States:

  1. Sent Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson on a goodwill tour of Africa
  2. Appointed Robert C. Weaver as administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency
  3. Directed the Department of Agriculture to increase food distributions to the unemployed
  4. Named Clifford R. Wharton ambassador to Norway
  5. Instructed the Secretary of the Treasury to integrate the United States Coast Guard
  6. Established the Peace Corps
  7. Ordered active-duty military officers to clear public statements through the White House
  8. Held weekly press conferences
  9. Created the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity to eliminate discrimination in Federal hiring
  10. Deployed 500 U.S. Marines on the Thai-Lao border

I'm in the middle of John F. Kennedy: An Unfinished Life, 1917-1963, Robert Dallek's 2003 biography of the 35th President of the United States. The account of the 1960 Democratic primary race presents an interesting contrast to the current primary. For one thing, only 14 states held primary elections, and three of them were won by people who were not serious candidates, but were rather running only in their home states in hope of using their delegates to gain leverage at the convention. And Adlai Stevenson mounted a relatively credible run at the nomination at the convention, without having competed in any primary elections at all. Wacky!