Thursday, February 20, 2014

"...Sticks and Stones...And Hail To The Chief..."

Today's pondering involves poultry.

Back to that shortly.

Meanwhile...

He's an American.

He's a Muslim.

He's a Socialist.

He's the Anti-Christ.

He's a floor wax.

He's a dessert topping.

Primal instinct dictates some kind of "enough, already" at this point.

But hoping for, let alone insisting on, something like that falls into the province of 60's folkie/rocker Donovan.

"Ah, but I may as well / try and catch the wind".

Or, as it might be expressed in a more 21st Century style......

"Insistence.....is futile."

Because when it comes to trashing and/or vilifying whomever happens to be picking up the mail marked "Occupant" at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue at any given time, regardless of party affiliation and/or color of state stripe...fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly and opponents/naysayers/doompeddlers...gotta play..."sobriquet".

And while the advent of social media (to wit: Facebook, Twitter, SnapChat, Pin It, Instagram and/or that oldie but goodie, Candygram) allows for a whole lot more shoveling of a whole lot more slander from a whole lot more people than ever before in our nation's history, the actual practice of applying an "AKA" to the big house of white there in downtown D.C. is as old as one of the very first incarnations of social media...

...smoke signals.

Here's a little proof flavored pudding for you to nosh on in the form of a name game.

Actual nicknames of actual Presidents of the United States of America during the actual time that they were actually in office.

And if you're going to Google, there's a name for that, too.

Lame.

Because all you have to do to get the correct answers is scroll a little in about twenty seconds.

Okay, ready?

Identify the incumbent.

1) King John The Second
2) Mad ___  (if I gave you the name, you'd immediately get it, so guess a little)
3) His Little Majesty
4) King _____ (you gotta couple of good choices, here)
5) His Accidency (actually, here, likewise, you have a pretty wide choice of options)
6) Napoleon of the Stump
7) The Do Nothing President
8) American Caesar
9) His Fraudulency
10) His Obstinacy
11) Ted The Meddler
12) Duckpin
13) Teflon ____


And, the award(s) (go)es to...

(uh, this is where you scroll, frustrated Googlers...)






























1) John Adams
2) Thomas Jefferson
3) James Madison
4) Andrew Jackson, Franklin Roosevelt
5) John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson
6) James K. Polk
7) James Buchanan
8) Ulysses S. Grant
9) Rutherford B. Hayes
10) Grover Cleveland (and they elected this guy twice with Benjamin Harrison doing four in between times)
11) Teddy Roosevelt
12) Dwight D. Eisenhower
13) Ronald Reagan


Almost without exception, by the way, if you do a little reading/research, you'll learn that in every presidency, some group statistically large enough to be recognized was convinced that the then current resident of the White House was, at any given time, not only going to bring about the end of life on the planet as we know it, but that he, (they) were.

An American.

A socialist.

The anti-Christ.

A floor wax. (if they had it back then).

A dessert topping (ditto).

Yet, 225 years after George Washington did the "I do solemnly swear" thing in front of a live, not pre-recorded, audience, here we are.

And here I am.

Writing about how we feel the need to give mean spirited, even vicious, nicknames to the guy in the Oval.

Convinced as we are, each and every time, that we are on the very brinky brink of investigation, incarceration, internment or, (big suck in of breath) extinction.

Which brings us back to poultry.

And Chicken Little.

Who requires no nickname whatsoever.

Cause that name pretty much covers this whole doom peddling business.












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