Neat bit of trivia....

I have gmail, and the little banner above the inbox occasionally has cool bits of trivia, like so:

(The original to be found here.)

Dear Yahoo!:
Who was the last U.S. president who was neither a Democrat nor a Republican?
George

Dear George:
We had to set the Way Back Machine to "1850" to find an American president who was not a member of either of today's prominent political parties. Reaching back in time, we pulled up Millard Fillmore, Whig party member who served as the 13th president of the United States.

The Whigs were an American political party that took its name from an older English party. The first Whigs were opposed to the British monarchy. Similarly, the American Whigs were united against the kingly actions of President Andrew Jackson.

The Whigs elected a few presidents in their time. First was Zachary Taylor, who died in office. His vice president, John Tyler, took over. Tyler started as a Whig, but once he got the top job, he turned Democrat. Next, the Whigs elected William Harrison, who also died in office (not a great reflection on the party, huh?). That's how Millard Fillmore became president in 1850. Even though he'd been a Whig all his political life, he didn't receive his party's nod for reelection in 1852.

The Whigs didn't win another election, and the party fell apart before the Civil War. Many Whigs joined the new Republican party, which soon elected its first U.S. president, Abraham Lincoln. Americans have had elephants and donkeys as president ever since.

Media Roundup

Advocates of 'Intelligent Design' Vow to Continue Despite Ruling

Bless them, they just won't quit. I have two fundamental (ha, ha) points of confusion rising from this article. One, why do the ministers quoted in this article think that anybody's religious faith rests on this one point of theology? Christianity survived one of the greatest superpowers the world has ever known--Imperial Rome at its height. One judicial ruling is going to bring it down? Either they don't have much faith in their religion, or they don't want tolerance, they want precedence.

Secondly, as I commented in arakasi1's journal the other day, they could could make their position so popular--or at least a hell of a lot more palatable--if they'd just plug into the multiculturalism craze and, along with the God of the People of the Book, include various other creation mythologies, such as Tepeu and Gucumatz of the Apache Native Americans, or Shuzanghu and Zumaing-Nui of northern India. Heck, what about Nyx, the black bird who laid the egg that hatched Eros? The top half of the shell became the Greek proto-god Uranus, the bottom transformed into Gaia, they were made to fall in love by Eros, and as a result they produced the Greek pantheon. The fact that proponents of Intelligent Design won't reach for this basic strategy that would immediately shoot down many of their opponents is what really tells me that they're trying to further fundamentalist Christian goals, and that poor, deluded Dr. Behe is being used.

From yesterday, Their Own Patriot Act.

Here's my favorite, E. J. Dionne, again. Read it, it pretty much speaks for itself. What happened next can be found here. It's not that we don't want police and law enforcement to be able do their jobs. We just want to make sure that they make sure that they're on the right track, first. We don't want their tool box taken away: we just want to make sure that they only go into it in times of necessity.

Richard Cohen's "Trust Him With Our Rights? No." is a very good list of why not to trust Bush. When a conservative starts asking why I shouldn't let the president do whatever he wants if it keeps me safe, I'd love to whip this article out of my purse and hand it to him/her.

And, wow, when even George F. Will is starting to ask questions...

And Jim Hoagland gives a pretty good year-end recap of the presidency, encouraging democratic debate, whether it means to or not.

New Community...

Community Theatre Techs

As it says in the blurb:


This is a community for the craziest of the crazy: stage managers, light ops, set designers, et al who do what they do for fun.

Even though there's another tech journal out there, it's based in the UK, and is geared more towards professionals. This community is for those of us who have to grapple with less-than-ideal spaces, ancient instruments, actors with fourteen other demands on their time, and, oh yeah, our own real lives, families, and careers.

Anyone's welcome to join (I'm moderating membership primarily to keep the whack-jobs out). Please pass the word.

(Oh, and if anyone can point me towards some really neat theatre icons, community theater particularly, I'd be very grateful.)