Word: rooseveltisms
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...York Times described the Lily Dale Assembly, a gated compound in far western New York State, as "the most famous and aristocratic spiritualistic camp in America." Freethinking, forward-leaning, this was a place for prophets of all kinds. Susan B. Anthony visited half a dozen times; Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt came, and Harry Houdini and Mae West, and seekers from around the world looking to explore the continuity between life and what locals refer to as "so-called death...
...President Franklin D. Roosevelt said about then Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza. "But he's our SOB." That lesser-evil outlook might just as easily have described the U.S. attitude toward Pakistan's General-turned-President Pervez Musharraf, who resigned on Aug. 18 in the face of looming impeachment. Nor was it only the West that saw Musharraf as preferable to the chaos and venality of the political system he overturned to seize power in 1999. He carried the support of the urban middle class, which was desperately looking for the stability and modernity that had eluded a political system dominated...
...shall never surrender!" Then came footage of McCain's push for George W. Bush's re-election: "Keep that faith. Keep your courage. Stick together. Stay strong. Do not yield. Do not flinch. Stand up. ... We're Americans, and we'll never surrender!" There was a snippet from Teddy Roosevelt, then McCain, then more Churchill, then more McCain. And then the theme from Rocky announced the candidate's entrance, McCain's Straight Talk Express bus drove into the York Expo Center, and thousands of adoring fans cheered...
This is terribly shortsighted; hero-to-the-everyman Franklin D. Roosevelt probably wore fancier shoes than McCain does, and it's a safe bet that he was an even worse bowler than Obama is. But punishing candidates for wealth or élitism is still less crazy than punishing candidates for talent. The McCain campaign has been mocking Obama's rhetorical skills, as if speech-making were not a job requirement for the presidency. McCain's latest Web ad ridicules Obama for inspiring passion among his supporters, as if real Presidents were supposed to make Americans completely unenthusiastic. The candidates have...
...Smith and Bovill are part of a long and illustrious line of spelling malcontents. Benjamin Franklin, Andrew Carnegie, Teddy Roosevelt and even Noah Webster, father of American lexicography, all lobbied for spelling reform, their reasons ranging from traumatic childhood spelling experiences to the hope that easier communication would promote peace. In 1906, Mark Twain lobbied the Associated Press to use phonetic spelling. "The heart of our trouble is with our foolish alphabet," he once wrote. "It doesn't know how to spell, and can't be taught...