Greatest Living American, Lasusa Links, Dan Grobstein File
Google "Greatest Living American." Steven Colbert, God bless him, Google-bombed himself to the top. "Worst President Ever" produces expectable results, which I don't think had to be Google-bombed into place... Ah, the wisdom of crowds...
Tom LaSusa surfs the web so you don't have to: Iron Man and Batman Debate the Summer Movie Season.. [Also, see Craig Ferguson's Iron Man preview].Hackers attack epilepsy forum (In the words of Kevin Meany, "That's Not RIGHT!"..Origins of exercise equipment...Artist plans to draw every single person in New York City...Isabella Rossellini's 'Green Porno'...The Love Boat -- Doctor Who Style..
Dan Grobstein File
- HEALTH | May 7, 2008
Irregular Sleep Tied to Obesity, Other Health Problems
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Getting too little sleep, or too much, is linked to poor health in a new federal study.
- SCIENCE | May 8, 2008
Platypus Looks Strange on the Inside, Too
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
The platypus genome is an amalgam of genes reflecting significant branching in evolution, scientists reported.
- Dan reports:
I saw Ted Sorensen last night being interviewed about his new book published yesterday. Sounds very interesting. I would have bought a copy and had him sign it if I wanted to get home at 12:30. Sleep won out so I'm ordering it from Amazon.
He's very frail (had a stroke a few years ago) but is still sharp and speaks perfectly clearly. He's an Obama guy. He says that Obama is the only candidate since JFK who reminds him of JFK. New ideas, brings young voters into the process. He thinks that Obama has a chance to change things where the other candidates do not.
Somebody asked him what is his opinion of dubya. After a grimace, he told the story of Senator Sherman's comment about James Buchanan: "The Constitution provides for every accidental contingency in the Executive - except a vacancy in the mind of the President."
I looked it up on the google and it turns out that JFK used the story in a speech that could basically be given today:
Mr. Nixon has repeatedly stated that he intends to carry on the policies of this Administration. Let us hold him to that - because I predict on November 8th the American people are going to reject that tradition. Perhaps we could afford a Coolidge following Harding. And perhaps we could afford a Pierce following Fillmore. But after Buchanan this nation needed a Lincoln - after Taft we needed a Wilson - after Hoover we needed Franklin Roosevelt?And after eight years of this Administration, this nation needs a strong creative Democrat in the White House.
Today our very survival depends on that man in the White House - on his strength, his wisdom and his creative imagination.
We can no longer afford a William McKinley, whose backbone according to Teddy Roosevelt was "as firm as a chocolate éclair."
We can no longer afford a Calvin Coolidge, who caused a White House usher with 42 years service to say: "No other President in my time ever slept so much."
We can no longer afford a Warren G. Harding, who reportedly said he saw no real problem in the Middle East "that the Arabs and Jews couldn?t settle around a table, in the good old Christian way."
We can no longer afford a Ulysses S. Grant, complaining that he didn?t want to be President - he just wanted to be the Mayor of Galena, Illinois long enough to build a sidewalk from his house to the station?
And we can no longer afford a James Buchanan, whose performance caused Ohio?s Senator Sherman to say: "The Constitution provides for every accidental contingency in the Executive - except a vacancy in the mind of the President."
But the facts of the matter are that only a creative national party can provide a strong, creative President. The Republican Party is not a national party. It does not represent all sections, all interest groups, all voters. And that is why - historically and inevitably - the forces of inertia and reaction in the Republican Party oppose any powerful voice in the White House, Republican or Democratic that tries to speak for the nation as a whole.
Theodore Roosevelt discovered that. Herbert Hoover discovered that. And, even before he could become a candidate, Nelson Rockefeller discovered it.
But the Democratic Party is a national party - it believes in strong leadership - and, with your help, we will give the nation that leadership in January 1961.
