Some people are immortalized in cement. I have been immortalised in Blog.
Not mine. Yorkshire Pudding’s.
Which explains why I spelled immortalized with an “s”....
Yesterday, Pudding published a post in which he included some of the recently-made-public paintings by George W. Bush. Pudding doesn’t like them. Or him. He said the former president “is as good at art as he was at leading America.” You can read the whole thing here and also see W’s portraits of Vladimir Putin and Angela Merkel.
Being my lovable self, I left this comment: “Your subjects eagerly await your own art exhibition, sire (Translation: Put up or shut up.)”
Lord Pudding responded with this drawing, which was obviously based on the 2010 photo of me over there to the right in my sidebar.
I think I look a bit too grim in Pudding’s drawing. He got the lips a little too thin and clenched a little too tight. And it’s my moustache, not my mouth, that turns down. I have challenged him to come up with a happier version of moi.
But to tell the truth, I am highly flattered.
Thank you, Yorkshire Pudding!
You are a gentleman and a scholar.
Even a bit of an artist.
Of course, you’re no George W. Bush.
Showing posts with label George W. Bush. Show all posts
Showing posts with label George W. Bush. Show all posts
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Friday, October 12, 2012
Today is the real Columbus Day
...as opposed to the phony Columbus Day last Monday that was foisted upon us by our federal government during Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration to ensure that government workers enjoyed a three-day weekend every year during October, one of their many three-day weekends each year, if I may be so bold as to point out the obvious to you.
Accordingly, I have decided to dig into my archives and re-publish an old post:
American History, rhymeswithplague-style
In the European version of things, the New World (that is, actual land in the Western Hemisphere as opposed to more ocean) was discovered by the Vikings or Leif Ericson or somebody more than a thousand years ago. This event was commemorated in the British comedy film, Carry On, Norse.
(Note.The native population of the New World, who pointed out that the European version of things is not always accurate, were considered irrelevant and a bit of a nuisance.)
Later, during the year that Michelangelo sculpted this and this for Lorenzo de’ Medici, Queen Isabella I of Castile sent out one Christoffa Corombo of Genoa, Italy, and his merry men in three ships called the Nina, the Piñata, and the Santa Gertrudis. Christoffa Corombo, whose name morphed into Christoforo Columbo in modern Italian and Christopher Columbus in English, was known as Cristóbal Colón in Spain. This is fortunate, because Cristóbal and Colón are the names of two places on the isthmus of Panama, where Spanish is the predominant language, and Panamanians might otherwise have thought Cristóbal was part of a gypsy fortune-teller’s act and Colón referred to the part of the body between the stomach and the anal sphincter.
It’s not every day a person gets to use the word isthmus, and I am honored to have been able to use it today.
Lorenzo de’ Medici died in Florence, but we aren’t going to go there.
Christoffa Christoforo Cristóbal Christopher Isabella’s new friend set out from Spain on August 3, 1492, and returned a few months later saying he had claimed the entire New World for Spain on October 12, 1492, just because he had landed on a small island in the Bahamas. He returned to Lisbon, Portugal, in March 1493, and made four voyages in all to the New World, causing thousands of schoolchildren over the ensuing centuries to have to recite this little poem from memory:
“In fourteen hundred ninety-three,
Columbus sailed the deep blue sea.
He had done the same thing too
In fourteen hundred ninety-two.
He liked to sail so he sailed some more
In fourteen hundred ninety-four.
Though hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers fourteen ninety-five,
He made more trips ’til Spain said ‘Nix’;
He died in the year fifteen naught-six.”
Or something like that.
Portugal was definitely not a happy camper and wanted Pope Alexander VI to divide the newly discovered lands between Spain and Portugal. He did so, although by whose authority is a little murky, along a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, leading King Ferdinand II of Aragon, Isabella’s husband and also her second cousin, to wonder aloud, “How much is a league, exactly?”
A century later the English navy defeated the Spanish armada, Portugal had faded into obscurity, and it became a moot point how much a league is exactly, because the English, the French, the Dutch, and the Swedish (and, for all I know, the Maltese, the Luxembourgers, the Lithuanians, and the inhabitants of the Outer Hebrides) began to explore the northern part of North America and claim it for themselves. Spain had everything else in the new hemisphere from Mexico south except Brazil, which belonged to Portugal, and that is why to this day Brazilians write San Paulo as São Paulo.
Eventually the French had Quebec, downtown Pittsburgh, the federal prison in Joliet, Illinois, and Louisiana, which at that time included Montana. The English threw the French out in 1763, however, at the end of the Seven Years’ War, which had begun, conveniently, in 1756. The French got to keep Louisiana for another forty years, which is why one of the first sentences everyone learns in French is “Quelle temp est-il?” and another one is “Laissez les bons temps roulez!” Then they sold it to Thomas Jefferson, who considered going to New Orleans during Mardi Gras one of his unalienable rights.
Not to be outdone, the American colonists threw England out in 1776 after Patrick Henry cried, “Give me the Statue of Liberty or give me death” but Lord Cornwallis didn’t surrender until 1781 at Yorktown, not to be confused with York (Pennsylvania), New York (New York), or Yorkshire (home of Leeds, York, Sheffield, Bradford, and Hull, which, despite what you may think, is not the name of a Wall Street law firm).
Shortly after that, everything became George W. Bush’s fault.
[Editor's note. “American History, rhymeswithplague-style” was originally published on August 23, 2010, which was not Columbus Day either. --RWP]
Accordingly, I have decided to dig into my archives and re-publish an old post:
American History, rhymeswithplague-style
In the European version of things, the New World (that is, actual land in the Western Hemisphere as opposed to more ocean) was discovered by the Vikings or Leif Ericson or somebody more than a thousand years ago. This event was commemorated in the British comedy film, Carry On, Norse.
(Note.The native population of the New World, who pointed out that the European version of things is not always accurate, were considered irrelevant and a bit of a nuisance.)
Later, during the year that Michelangelo sculpted this and this for Lorenzo de’ Medici, Queen Isabella I of Castile sent out one Christoffa Corombo of Genoa, Italy, and his merry men in three ships called the Nina, the Piñata, and the Santa Gertrudis. Christoffa Corombo, whose name morphed into Christoforo Columbo in modern Italian and Christopher Columbus in English, was known as Cristóbal Colón in Spain. This is fortunate, because Cristóbal and Colón are the names of two places on the isthmus of Panama, where Spanish is the predominant language, and Panamanians might otherwise have thought Cristóbal was part of a gypsy fortune-teller’s act and Colón referred to the part of the body between the stomach and the anal sphincter.
It’s not every day a person gets to use the word isthmus, and I am honored to have been able to use it today.
Lorenzo de’ Medici died in Florence, but we aren’t going to go there.
“In fourteen hundred ninety-three,
Columbus sailed the deep blue sea.
He had done the same thing too
In fourteen hundred ninety-two.
He liked to sail so he sailed some more
In fourteen hundred ninety-four.
Though hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers fourteen ninety-five,
He made more trips ’til Spain said ‘Nix’;
He died in the year fifteen naught-six.”
Or something like that.
Portugal was definitely not a happy camper and wanted Pope Alexander VI to divide the newly discovered lands between Spain and Portugal. He did so, although by whose authority is a little murky, along a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, leading King Ferdinand II of Aragon, Isabella’s husband and also her second cousin, to wonder aloud, “How much is a league, exactly?”
A century later the English navy defeated the Spanish armada, Portugal had faded into obscurity, and it became a moot point how much a league is exactly, because the English, the French, the Dutch, and the Swedish (and, for all I know, the Maltese, the Luxembourgers, the Lithuanians, and the inhabitants of the Outer Hebrides) began to explore the northern part of North America and claim it for themselves. Spain had everything else in the new hemisphere from Mexico south except Brazil, which belonged to Portugal, and that is why to this day Brazilians write San Paulo as São Paulo.
Eventually the French had Quebec, downtown Pittsburgh, the federal prison in Joliet, Illinois, and Louisiana, which at that time included Montana. The English threw the French out in 1763, however, at the end of the Seven Years’ War, which had begun, conveniently, in 1756. The French got to keep Louisiana for another forty years, which is why one of the first sentences everyone learns in French is “Quelle temp est-il?” and another one is “Laissez les bons temps roulez!” Then they sold it to Thomas Jefferson, who considered going to New Orleans during Mardi Gras one of his unalienable rights.
Not to be outdone, the American colonists threw England out in 1776 after Patrick Henry cried, “Give me the Statue of Liberty or give me death” but Lord Cornwallis didn’t surrender until 1781 at Yorktown, not to be confused with York (Pennsylvania), New York (New York), or Yorkshire (home of Leeds, York, Sheffield, Bradford, and Hull, which, despite what you may think, is not the name of a Wall Street law firm).
Shortly after that, everything became George W. Bush’s fault.
[Editor's note. “American History, rhymeswithplague-style” was originally published on August 23, 2010, which was not Columbus Day either. --RWP]
Saturday, February 12, 2011
Lo, how the mighty are fallen!
Not Hosni Mubarak.
I’m talking about someone born 202 years ago today, someone everyone in the United States used to take notice of every year on February 12th, someone whose name probably won't even be mentioned today by what conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh calls “the drive-by media,” who prefer to report about Lindsay Lohan and LeBron James (each of them has a Wikipedia article, but I am not going to include the links; you can make the effort yourself to look them up if you are really that interested in drug-using actresses and self-absorbed basketball players).
Give up?
I’m talking about the sixteenth President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.
When I was a boy, everyone knew that Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in a log cabin in Kentucky. Everyone knew his parents were Tom Lincoln and Nancy Hanks Lincoln. Everyone knew his first love was Ann Rutledge, who died of typhoid fever. Everyone knew he married Mary Todd and had four children, Robert, Edward, Willie, and Tad. Everyone knew of the debates between Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, and the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Second Inaugural Address, and the assassination by John Wilkes Booth.
Some of the myth surrounding Lincoln’s birth and childhood is questioned today. The Wikipedia article about him does state that he was born in a one-room log cabin, but it also states that his father Thomas enjoyed considerable status in Kentucky, where he sat on juries, appraised estates, served on country patrols, and guarded prisoners. By the time his son Abraham was born, Thomas owned two 600-acre farms, several town lots, livestock and horses. He was amongst the richest men in the area. Makes you wonder why little Abe was born in a one-room log cabin, then, unless one-room log cabins were all the rage, that era’s equivalent of the McMansions we see about us today. Mostly foreclosed-on McMansions, he hastened to add. But I digress.
We were forced as students, forced I tell you, to memorize Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. The entire Gettysburg Address. All ten sentences and 271 words. Here they are:
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
When I was a boy, we observed Lincoln’s birthday on February 12th and George Washington’s birthday on February 22nd. Nowadays, we lump them together and have “Presidents Day,” ostensibly to remember all the presidents of the United States at once (although, to be fair, Washington and Lincoln are usually the ones mentioned most often) but really to give federal employees a three-day weekend. As Lincoln once said, it is altogether fitting and proper that we do this, and we have Lyndon Baines Johnson to thank for the change.
So forget about Abraham Lincoln as an individual. Forget about George Washington. Instead, on a Monday in the near future, spend your day thinking about Millard Fillmore, Warren G. Harding, and George W. Bush.
You might even think about Jimmy Carter.
And if you do, and you know your history, you might think about Menachem Begin. And Anwar Sadat.
And then, and only then, should you think about Hosni Mubarak.
I’m talking about someone born 202 years ago today, someone everyone in the United States used to take notice of every year on February 12th, someone whose name probably won't even be mentioned today by what conservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh calls “the drive-by media,” who prefer to report about Lindsay Lohan and LeBron James (each of them has a Wikipedia article, but I am not going to include the links; you can make the effort yourself to look them up if you are really that interested in drug-using actresses and self-absorbed basketball players).
Give up?
I’m talking about the sixteenth President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.
When I was a boy, everyone knew that Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809, in a log cabin in Kentucky. Everyone knew his parents were Tom Lincoln and Nancy Hanks Lincoln. Everyone knew his first love was Ann Rutledge, who died of typhoid fever. Everyone knew he married Mary Todd and had four children, Robert, Edward, Willie, and Tad. Everyone knew of the debates between Lincoln and Stephen Douglas, and the Emancipation Proclamation, and the Second Inaugural Address, and the assassination by John Wilkes Booth.
Some of the myth surrounding Lincoln’s birth and childhood is questioned today. The Wikipedia article about him does state that he was born in a one-room log cabin, but it also states that his father Thomas enjoyed considerable status in Kentucky, where he sat on juries, appraised estates, served on country patrols, and guarded prisoners. By the time his son Abraham was born, Thomas owned two 600-acre farms, several town lots, livestock and horses. He was amongst the richest men in the area. Makes you wonder why little Abe was born in a one-room log cabin, then, unless one-room log cabins were all the rage, that era’s equivalent of the McMansions we see about us today. Mostly foreclosed-on McMansions, he hastened to add. But I digress.
We were forced as students, forced I tell you, to memorize Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. The entire Gettysburg Address. All ten sentences and 271 words. Here they are:
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain--that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom--and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
When I was a boy, we observed Lincoln’s birthday on February 12th and George Washington’s birthday on February 22nd. Nowadays, we lump them together and have “Presidents Day,” ostensibly to remember all the presidents of the United States at once (although, to be fair, Washington and Lincoln are usually the ones mentioned most often) but really to give federal employees a three-day weekend. As Lincoln once said, it is altogether fitting and proper that we do this, and we have Lyndon Baines Johnson to thank for the change.
So forget about Abraham Lincoln as an individual. Forget about George Washington. Instead, on a Monday in the near future, spend your day thinking about Millard Fillmore, Warren G. Harding, and George W. Bush.
You might even think about Jimmy Carter.
And if you do, and you know your history, you might think about Menachem Begin. And Anwar Sadat.
And then, and only then, should you think about Hosni Mubarak.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Smile when you say that, pardner, or it may be wet noodles at 30 paces at dawn....
I am indebted to two individuals for the data in the quiz in the previous post. The statements of President Barack Obama arrived in an email from my 80-something-year-old neighbor, Rube (his real name; it isn’t short for Reuben or anything else). I don’t know where he found them, but I know they are true because I remember hearing the president make them when he made them. The statements of President George W. Bush were compiled by a woman named Sarah Baxter and published in a copyrighted article in The Sunday Times of January 18, 2009.
Okay, here are the answers to the little quiz:
Statements #1 through #10 were uttered by Barack Obama; statements #11 through #30 were uttered by George W. Bush. I purposely didn’t intersperse them because I thought you would think I had [interspersed them] and so I figured that if I didn’t [intersperse them] it would make the game even more fun (translation: difficult) for you.
In a comment, Yorkshire Pudding added another of President Bush’s statements: “Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?” Good one, YP!
Lord Pudding then implied -- no, he said -- that by including gaffes of both presidents I was participating in the vilification of Barack Obama. I quote from his comment: “Mr. Obama is a far more intelligent man and a more natural orator than George W. Bush ever was. Your amusing quiz puts them on a par - as if they were equally prone to gaffes. That isn’t the case. It is so sad to see, from afar, the vilification of Barack Obama.”
The juxtaposition of those particular sentences is, I think, no accident.
I think Lord Pudding is participating in the vilification of anyone who would even dare to suggest that Mr. Obama is anything less than perfect, a saint, the Savior of the world. Moreover, I think that Lord Pudding’s remarks are a perfect example of the intolerance of the liberal mind toward any but its own thoughts.
Well, I do not want to get into a war of words with Lord Pudding about Barack Obama or anyone else because both of them are world travelers and little old moi has been in only 8 countries and 33 of the 57 states, which is neither here nor there, but if Lord Pudding wants to get into a war of words with me he has -- how shall I put it in a way everyone can understand? -- completely misunderestimated me.
Before Lord Pudding fires off another salvo in my direction, I would like to see him try to diagram the previous sentence.
[P.S. - Did you ever notice that in today’s climate of political correctness it’s absolutely okay to critize people on the right but people on the left, free speech notwithstanding, are supposed to be spared such an atrocity? Well, I for one didn’t care for either Hitler on the right or Stalin on the left. Come to think of it, to believe that fascism is on the right and communism is on the left is to believe that the earth is flat. I have news: the world is round, and tyranny of both extremes eventually meet. And that statement has nothing to do with either Barack Obama or George W. Bush; I just think it needs saying from time to time. --RWP]
Okay, here are the answers to the little quiz:
Statements #1 through #10 were uttered by Barack Obama; statements #11 through #30 were uttered by George W. Bush. I purposely didn’t intersperse them because I thought you would think I had [interspersed them] and so I figured that if I didn’t [intersperse them] it would make the game even more fun (translation: difficult) for you.
In a comment, Yorkshire Pudding added another of President Bush’s statements: “Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?” Good one, YP!
Lord Pudding then implied -- no, he said -- that by including gaffes of both presidents I was participating in the vilification of Barack Obama. I quote from his comment: “Mr. Obama is a far more intelligent man and a more natural orator than George W. Bush ever was. Your amusing quiz puts them on a par - as if they were equally prone to gaffes. That isn’t the case. It is so sad to see, from afar, the vilification of Barack Obama.”
The juxtaposition of those particular sentences is, I think, no accident.
I think Lord Pudding is participating in the vilification of anyone who would even dare to suggest that Mr. Obama is anything less than perfect, a saint, the Savior of the world. Moreover, I think that Lord Pudding’s remarks are a perfect example of the intolerance of the liberal mind toward any but its own thoughts.
Well, I do not want to get into a war of words with Lord Pudding about Barack Obama or anyone else because both of them are world travelers and little old moi has been in only 8 countries and 33 of the 57 states, which is neither here nor there, but if Lord Pudding wants to get into a war of words with me he has -- how shall I put it in a way everyone can understand? -- completely misunderestimated me.
Before Lord Pudding fires off another salvo in my direction, I would like to see him try to diagram the previous sentence.
[P.S. - Did you ever notice that in today’s climate of political correctness it’s absolutely okay to critize people on the right but people on the left, free speech notwithstanding, are supposed to be spared such an atrocity? Well, I for one didn’t care for either Hitler on the right or Stalin on the left. Come to think of it, to believe that fascism is on the right and communism is on the left is to believe that the earth is flat. I have news: the world is round, and tyranny of both extremes eventually meet. And that statement has nothing to do with either Barack Obama or George W. Bush; I just think it needs saying from time to time. --RWP]
Saturday, January 8, 2011
I refudiate the notion that I can’t spell potatoe, or why teleprompters can sometimes be a plus
Politicians, who are human after all, say really dumb things occasionally. Okay, maybe more than occasionally. But we all do. The only difference between us and them is that their mistakes are heard by great numbers of people and then published far and wide.
In fact, the title of this post includes two well-known examples, one by Sarah Palin (former governor of Alaska) and one by Dan Quayle (former Vice President under George Herbert Walker Bush).
My theory when people get their tangs all tongueled up is simple: their tongues have gotten in the way of their eye teeth and they can’t see what they’re saying.
Here are 30 examples of rather odd statements made in public by the last two presidents of the United States. So who said the following, Barack Obama or George W. Bush?
1) “Let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
2) “I’ve now been in 57 states I think I have one left to go.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
3) “On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes and I see many of them in the audience here today...”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
4) “What they’ll say is, ‘Well it costs too much money,’ but you know what? It would cost, about. It it it would cost about the same as what we would spend. It. Over the course of 10 years it would cost what it would costs us. [nervous laugh] All right. Okay. We’re going to. It. It would cost us about the same as it would cost for about hold on one second. I can’t hear myself. But I’m glad you're fired up, though. I’m glad.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
5) “The reforms we seek would bring greater competition, choice, savings and inefficiencies to our health care system.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
6) “I bowled a 129. It’s like -- it was like the Special Olympics, or something.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
7) “Of the many responsibilities granted to a president by our Constitution, few are more serious or more consequential than selecting a Supreme Court justice. The members of our highest court are granted life tenure, often serving long after the presidents who appointed them. And they are charged with the vital task of applying principles put to paper more than 20 centuries ago to some of the most difficult questions of our time.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
8) “Everybody knows that it makes no sense that you send a kid to the emergency room for a treatable illness like asthma, they end up taking up a hospital bed, it costs, when, if you, they just gave, you gave them treatment early and they got some treatment, and a, a breathalyzer, or inhalator, not a breathalyzer. I haven’t had much sleep in the last 48 hours.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
9) “It was interesting to see that political interaction in Europe is not different from the United States Senate. There’s a lot of I don’t know what the term is in Austrian wheeling and dealing.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
10) “I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
11) “Will the highways on the internet become more few?”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
12) “It’s a time of sorrow and sadness when we lose a loss of life.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
13) “I appreciate the fact that you really snatched defeat out of the jaws of those who are trying to defeat us in Iraq.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
14) “I remember meeting a mother of a child who was abducted by the North Koreans right here in the Oval Office.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
15) “We’re concerned about Aids inside our White House -- make no mistake about it.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
16) “I’m honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
17) “I’ve coined new words, like ‘misunderstanding’.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
18) “I recently met with the finance minister of the Palestinian Authority, was very impressed by his grasp of finances.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
19) “It’s in our country’s interests to find those who would do harm to us and get them out of harm’s way.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
20) “One year ago today, the time for excuse-making has come to an end.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
21) “I promise you I will listen to what has been said here, even though I wasn’t here.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
22) “You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
23) “I don’t particularly like it when people put words in my mouth, either, by the way, unless I say it.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
24) “[The Taliban] have no disregard for human life.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
25) “When the governor calls, I answer his phone.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
26) “Those who enter the country illegally violate the law.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
27) “I think we agree, the past is over.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
28) “America stands for liberty, for the pursuit of happiness and for the unalien alienable right of life.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
29) “My job is a decision-making job, and as a result, I make a lot of decisions.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
30) “One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
[End of quiz]
What do you think? Every one of the 30 statements is genuine. How many A’s and how many B’s did you wind up with?
I will divulge the answers in my next post.
In fact, the title of this post includes two well-known examples, one by Sarah Palin (former governor of Alaska) and one by Dan Quayle (former Vice President under George Herbert Walker Bush).
My theory when people get their tangs all tongueled up is simple: their tongues have gotten in the way of their eye teeth and they can’t see what they’re saying.
Here are 30 examples of rather odd statements made in public by the last two presidents of the United States. So who said the following, Barack Obama or George W. Bush?
1) “Let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
2) “I’ve now been in 57 states I think I have one left to go.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
3) “On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes and I see many of them in the audience here today...”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
4) “What they’ll say is, ‘Well it costs too much money,’ but you know what? It would cost, about. It it it would cost about the same as what we would spend. It. Over the course of 10 years it would cost what it would costs us. [nervous laugh] All right. Okay. We’re going to. It. It would cost us about the same as it would cost for about hold on one second. I can’t hear myself. But I’m glad you're fired up, though. I’m glad.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
5) “The reforms we seek would bring greater competition, choice, savings and inefficiencies to our health care system.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
6) “I bowled a 129. It’s like -- it was like the Special Olympics, or something.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
7) “Of the many responsibilities granted to a president by our Constitution, few are more serious or more consequential than selecting a Supreme Court justice. The members of our highest court are granted life tenure, often serving long after the presidents who appointed them. And they are charged with the vital task of applying principles put to paper more than 20 centuries ago to some of the most difficult questions of our time.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
8) “Everybody knows that it makes no sense that you send a kid to the emergency room for a treatable illness like asthma, they end up taking up a hospital bed, it costs, when, if you, they just gave, you gave them treatment early and they got some treatment, and a, a breathalyzer, or inhalator, not a breathalyzer. I haven’t had much sleep in the last 48 hours.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
9) “It was interesting to see that political interaction in Europe is not different from the United States Senate. There’s a lot of I don’t know what the term is in Austrian wheeling and dealing.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
10) “I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
11) “Will the highways on the internet become more few?”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
12) “It’s a time of sorrow and sadness when we lose a loss of life.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
13) “I appreciate the fact that you really snatched defeat out of the jaws of those who are trying to defeat us in Iraq.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
14) “I remember meeting a mother of a child who was abducted by the North Koreans right here in the Oval Office.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
15) “We’re concerned about Aids inside our White House -- make no mistake about it.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
16) “I’m honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
17) “I’ve coined new words, like ‘misunderstanding’.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
18) “I recently met with the finance minister of the Palestinian Authority, was very impressed by his grasp of finances.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
19) “It’s in our country’s interests to find those who would do harm to us and get them out of harm’s way.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
20) “One year ago today, the time for excuse-making has come to an end.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
21) “I promise you I will listen to what has been said here, even though I wasn’t here.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
22) “You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
23) “I don’t particularly like it when people put words in my mouth, either, by the way, unless I say it.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
24) “[The Taliban] have no disregard for human life.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
25) “When the governor calls, I answer his phone.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
26) “Those who enter the country illegally violate the law.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
27) “I think we agree, the past is over.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
28) “America stands for liberty, for the pursuit of happiness and for the unalien alienable right of life.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
29) “My job is a decision-making job, and as a result, I make a lot of decisions.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
30) “One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures.”
A. Barack Obama
B. George W. Bush
[End of quiz]
What do you think? Every one of the 30 statements is genuine. How many A’s and how many B’s did you wind up with?
I will divulge the answers in my next post.
Monday, August 23, 2010
American History, rhymeswithplague style
In the European version of things, the New World (that is, actual land in the Western Hemisphere as opposed to more ocean) was discovered by the Vikings or Leif Ericson or somebody more than a thousand years ago. This event was commemorated in the British comedy film, Carry On, Norse.
(Note.The native population of the New World, who pointed out that the European version of things is not always accurate, were considered irrelevant and a bit of a nuisance.)
Later, during the year that Michelangelo sculpted this and this for Lorenzo de’ Medici, Queen Isabella I of Castile sent out one Christoffa Corombo of Genoa, Italy, and his merry men in three ships called the Nina, the Piñata, and the Santa Gertrudis. Christoffa Corombo, whose name morphed into Christoforo Columbo in modern Italian and Christopher Columbus in English, was known as Cristóbal Colón in Spain. This is fortunate, because Cristóbal and Colón are the names of two places on the isthmus of Panama, where Spanish is the predominant language, and Panamanians might otherwise have thought Cristóbal was part of a gypsy fortune-teller’s act and Colón referred to the part of the body between the stomach and the anal sphincter.
It’s not every day a person gets to use the word isthmus, and I am honored to have been able to use it today.
Lorenzo de’ Medici died in Florence, but we aren’t going to go there.
Christoffa Christoforo Cristóbal Christopher Isabella’s new friend set out from Spain on August 3, 1492, and returned a few months later saying he had claimed the entire New World for Spain on October 12, 1492, just because he had landed on a small island in the Bahamas. He returned to Lisbon, Portugal, in March 1493, and made four voyages in all to the New World, causing thousands of schoolchildren over the ensuing centuries to have to recite this little poem from memory:
“In fourteen hundred ninety-three,
Columbus sailed the deep blue sea.
He did the very same thing too
In fourteen hundred ninety-two.
He liked to sail so he sailed some more
In fourteen hundred ninety-four.
Though hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers fourteen ninety-five,
He made more trips ’til Spain said ‘Nix’;
He died in the year fifteen naught-six.”
Or something like that.
Portugal was definitely not a happy camper and wanted Pope Alexander VI to divide the newly discovered lands between Spain and Portugal. He did so, although by whose authority is a little murky, along a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, leading King Ferdinand II of Aragon, Isabella’s husband and also her second cousin, to wonder aloud, “How much is a league, exactly?”
A century later the English navy defeated the Spanish armada, Portugal had faded into obscurity, and it became a moot point how much a league is exactly, because the English, the French, the Dutch, and the Swedish (and, for all I know, the Maltese, the Luxembourgers, the Lithuanians, and the inhabitants of the Outer Hebrides) began to explore the northern part of North America and claim it for themselves. Spain had everything else in the new hemisphere from Mexico south except Brazil, which belonged to Portugal, and that is why to this day Brazilians write San Paulo as São Paulo.
Eventually the French had Quebec, downtown Pittsburgh, the federal prison in Joliet, Illinois, and Louisiana, which at that time included Montana. The English threw the French out in 1763, however, at the end of the Seven Years’ War, which had begun, conveniently, in 1756. The French got to keep Louisiana for another forty yłears, which is why one of the first sentences everyone learns in French is “Quelle temp est-il?” and another one is “Laissez les bons temps roulez!” Then they sold it to Thomas Jefferson, who considered going to New Orleans during Mardi Gras one of his unalienable rights.
Not to be outdone, the American colonists threw England out in 1776 after Patrick Henry cried, “Give me the Statue of Liberty or give me death” but Lord Cornwallis didn’t surrender until 1781 at Yorktown, not to be confused with York (Pennsylvania), New York (New York), or Yorkshire (home of Leeds, York, Sheffield, Bradford, and Hull, which, despite what you may think, is not the name of a Wall Street law firm).
Shortly after that, everything became George W. Bush’s fault.
(Note.The native population of the New World, who pointed out that the European version of things is not always accurate, were considered irrelevant and a bit of a nuisance.)
Later, during the year that Michelangelo sculpted this and this for Lorenzo de’ Medici, Queen Isabella I of Castile sent out one Christoffa Corombo of Genoa, Italy, and his merry men in three ships called the Nina, the Piñata, and the Santa Gertrudis. Christoffa Corombo, whose name morphed into Christoforo Columbo in modern Italian and Christopher Columbus in English, was known as Cristóbal Colón in Spain. This is fortunate, because Cristóbal and Colón are the names of two places on the isthmus of Panama, where Spanish is the predominant language, and Panamanians might otherwise have thought Cristóbal was part of a gypsy fortune-teller’s act and Colón referred to the part of the body between the stomach and the anal sphincter.
It’s not every day a person gets to use the word isthmus, and I am honored to have been able to use it today.
Lorenzo de’ Medici died in Florence, but we aren’t going to go there.
“In fourteen hundred ninety-three,
Columbus sailed the deep blue sea.
He did the very same thing too
In fourteen hundred ninety-two.
He liked to sail so he sailed some more
In fourteen hundred ninety-four.
Though hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers fourteen ninety-five,
He made more trips ’til Spain said ‘Nix’;
He died in the year fifteen naught-six.”
Or something like that.
Portugal was definitely not a happy camper and wanted Pope Alexander VI to divide the newly discovered lands between Spain and Portugal. He did so, although by whose authority is a little murky, along a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands, leading King Ferdinand II of Aragon, Isabella’s husband and also her second cousin, to wonder aloud, “How much is a league, exactly?”
A century later the English navy defeated the Spanish armada, Portugal had faded into obscurity, and it became a moot point how much a league is exactly, because the English, the French, the Dutch, and the Swedish (and, for all I know, the Maltese, the Luxembourgers, the Lithuanians, and the inhabitants of the Outer Hebrides) began to explore the northern part of North America and claim it for themselves. Spain had everything else in the new hemisphere from Mexico south except Brazil, which belonged to Portugal, and that is why to this day Brazilians write San Paulo as São Paulo.
Eventually the French had Quebec, downtown Pittsburgh, the federal prison in Joliet, Illinois, and Louisiana, which at that time included Montana. The English threw the French out in 1763, however, at the end of the Seven Years’ War, which had begun, conveniently, in 1756. The French got to keep Louisiana for another forty yłears, which is why one of the first sentences everyone learns in French is “Quelle temp est-il?” and another one is “Laissez les bons temps roulez!” Then they sold it to Thomas Jefferson, who considered going to New Orleans during Mardi Gras one of his unalienable rights.
Not to be outdone, the American colonists threw England out in 1776 after Patrick Henry cried, “Give me the Statue of Liberty or give me death” but Lord Cornwallis didn’t surrender until 1781 at Yorktown, not to be confused with York (Pennsylvania), New York (New York), or Yorkshire (home of Leeds, York, Sheffield, Bradford, and Hull, which, despite what you may think, is not the name of a Wall Street law firm).
Shortly after that, everything became George W. Bush’s fault.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
This picture reminds me of something...
Oh, I know!: The Five Little Peppers And How They Grew! Well, they do have something in common, sort of: the Five Little Peppers lived in a little brown house, and the photo above is of people who lived (or soon will live) in a little white house.
And it reminds me of Rodney King of Los Angeles, California, who said, “Can’t we all just get along?”
And it reminds me of ’N Sync, but I can’t decide whether President Clinton is Justin Timberlake, Lance Bass, or Joey Fatone.
And it reminds me that I live in the greatest nation on the face of the earth (my apologies to all who respectfully disagree).
What does it remind you of?
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<b> Don’t blame me, I saw it on Facebook</b>
...and I didn't laugh out loud but my eyes twinkled and I smiled for a long time; it was the sort of low-key humor ( British, humour) I...
