Presidential Quotes (13 of 16): Richard Nixon

Today, we quote our personal favorite Republican President, Richard Nixon (it should be pointed out that we are Democrats here). One can visit the Nixon Library Museum in Yorba Linda, Calif.

A poster of Nixon bowling in the Coen Borthers film "The Big Lebowski" has also become a part of pop culture. And, a Lebowski Fest will be taking place in Tampa, Fla., from Jan. 31-Feb.1, 2014.

But, before we quip Nixon, let's throw in one from Al Capone in the hopes that it will increase our hits from Belgium and Slovenia: "Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class."

Here is our quote from Nixon: "Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain."


http://www.nixonlibrary.gov/

http://www.nixonfoundation.org/

http://www.lebowskifest.com

Quote of the Day/Week_ John Adams

No time to make fun of Mitt Romney, Donald Trump, Bill O'Reilly or Nancy Pelosi today (we figured we would be partisan, and even Bill Griffith, the cartoonist behind "Zippy the Pinhead" had made fun of the Democratic congresswoman from California), as it's fish tacos time here in New Haven, Conn. (not really where we are).

So, we will go ahead and quote John Adams, the second American preisdent, who has in recent years been portrayed by actor Paul Giamatti in a HBO mini-series; they might actually like this one in Yozgat, Turkey* (hey, Turkey is the home country of late father, so this is fair game....well, we hope):

"I must not write a word to you about politics, because you are a woman."

*-Along with Konya, Yozgat is considered to be the most conservative city in Turkey; it is the birthplace of the late far, far right political figure Alpastan Turkes.

Quote of the Day/Week-Nastia Liukin

Today, we get back to quoting American athletes who won either or both gold and silver medals at the summer Olympics with a quote from Nastia Liukin, 22. Amazingly enough, her mother, former Soviet/Russian rhythmic gymnast Anna Kotchava, 42, is only six weeks older than me. Her father Valeri Liukin, 45, a former Soviet/Kazakh gymnast who won gold at the 1988 Seoul Olympics is Nastia's coach.

According to the May 15th edition of "The Inqusitir," Nastia Liukin, a native of Texas, intends to compete at the Olympic women's gymnastics team trials in San Jose, Calif., on June 28th. Those trials will determine which gymnasts get to compete at the 2012 London Olympics.

Here is Nastia's quote; we presume it's in regards to the 2008 Beijing Olympics (Shawn Johnson was one of her Olympic teammates) where she won gold:

"I think it's going to be a little more exciting and a little more confusing."

Bonus Road Trip (9 of 10)_ Should-Be Ivy League Schools

Today, we are asking blog readers how long this very long road trip between Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC, and Stanford University, in Palo Alto, California, would be.

We are saying these are Should-Be Ivy Leagues because they both have high academic standards, and here in the United States, major conference expansion because of major revenues sports is getting so absurd that soon San Diego State will be playing football in the Big East Conference against the likes of the University of Connecticut. For those of you Europe, this would be like Manchester United playing soccer games against teams from Dubai!

For our comparison, we are selecting two coffeeshops: Brew Nerds located in the heart of downtown Winston-Salem and California Cafe which is in Palo Alto.

Both schools lost their respective football bowl games as Wake Forest fell to Mississippi State in the Music City Bowl in Nashville, Tenn., on Dec. 30 by a score of 23-17. And, the Stanford Cardinal, which had a very succesful season, lost to Oklahoma State 41-38 at the Fiesta Bowl near Phoenix, Arizona, on Jan. 2.

Wake Forest will be playing Virginia Tech at home in men's basketball within the hour. The team's next home game in the sport will be against North Carolina State on Jan. 14 at 1:00 p.m., local time.

As for Stanford, the school has a highly competitive women's gymnastics team which has its home opener on Jan. 22 against Washington.

So, just how far apart are these two schools?

Is the answer?:

A) 39 hours

B) 40 hours

C) 41 hours

D) 42 hours

Yes, we think it would be better to fly too!

SIDEBAR: The answer to yesterday's Bonus Road Trip was C) 6 hours, 45 minutes. We forgot to mention that we used Blake's Tavern in Providence, RI, and the Ithaca Ale House in Ithaca, NY, as our points of destination.

Also, former Brown gymnast Alicia Sacramone actually posed completely nude for the ESPN Magazine photo shoot in which she was standing unclothed on a balance beam, but only the rear portion of her body was visibile to the camera.

We also wanted to clarify that Brady Quinn, the Denver Broncos quarterback she was dating (editorial comment: lucky guy!) is still on the team roster. Though we don't follow pro football very closely, we gather that the team is now starting Tim Tebow instead. The Broncos have a playoff game this weekend, but we are more likely to know how the Russian soccer CSKA Moscow is fairing!

Bonus Road Trip- (6 of 10) Springfield, Vt., to Springfield, Mass.

First of all, our apologies to Stephen Colbert and Morgan Spurlock. We were unable to put Colbert's, a political humorist/actor, and Spurlock's names into the tags from our last blog, so we will just simply, arbitrarly mention them here.

Today, we compare the relatively short distance between Springfield, Mass., home to the Basketball Hall of Fame, to Springfield, Vermont, which actually beat out all Springfields to host the premiere of "The Simpsons Movie" in 2007. Since many believe that the Springfield in "The Simpsons" is modeled after Springfield, Mass. (though that is never mentioned), many in basketball town were disappointed.

But, the premiere screening of the film took place in a historic old cinema in Springfied, Vt., which was pleasantly pleased with the publicity.

There are also Springfields in Illinois, Missouri, Virginia, Kentucky and...ahhh, I'm getting a headache!

Of course, if one were to take this short drive, they would probably want to go in a school bus, but they may not want a person like Otto Mann, (hmmm, I wonder if this is a joke about the Ottoman Empire; I am a Turkish-American, so I suppose I should be humored or annoyed by this. Ironically, Principal Skinner is an Armenian-American!), who is voiced by the great Harry Shearer.

Shearer, who is not only known for voicing Otto and Principal Skinner, but his great acting in the 1985 cult classic "This is Spinal Tap!," recently showed his serious side with a documentary called "The Big Uneasy" about the Hurricane Katrina fiasco. Shearer is a part-time resident of New Orleans.

So, is the distance between these two zip codes?:

A) 1 hour, 20 minutes

B) 1 hour, 30 minutes

C) 1 hour, 40 minutes

D) 1 hour, 55 minutes

E) 2 hours, 10 minutes

SIDEBAR: Alas, the University of North Carolina Tarheels women's volleyball team fell to Pepperdine University on the host school's home floor in Malibu, Calif., late last night (eastern time). The score for the Waves was 3-0 (25-20, 25-22, 25-22), but junior Emily McGee of the 'Heels scared 18 kills; for her career, she now has 1,0004 kills in NCAA play.

SIDEBAR 2: Yes, it does appear that presidential campaign of fringe, far-right Republican candidate Herman Cain is now over with. But, we saw a tweet from "The Huffington Post" which said the former Godfather's Pizza baron, who has not admitted to infedelity or sexual harrassments charges, allegedly did fess up to quoting Pokemon in various campaign speeches.

Quote of the Day-Woody Allen

We are actually quoting famous playwrights this month, but even though Woody Allen might better known for his films and his clarinet, he wrote several acclaimed one-act plays early in his career.

Here is his quote:

"Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it."

SIDEBAR ONE: Sometimes, when you answer a trivia question, you just don't miss--you miss badly. That was the case when I guessed that former Somalian Prime Minister Mohamed Abduallahi Mohamed (he was only in office for eight months until June 19th of this year) was now working in Dubai.

As it turns out, according to the public radio show "The World," he is now working for the New York Department of Transportation in Buffalo!

SIDEBAR TWO: Though I am a human secularist myself, as the son of a late Turkish Muslim immigrant, I want to wish Muslims a Happy Eid al-Fitr, the conclusion of the month-long Ramadan holiday which falls on August 30th. I personally feel Muslims should be allowed to drink water during the fast to avoid dehydration for health purposes, but I respect the right for one to practice their traditional religious customs as they choose.

Irregardless of one's faith, we gather that a good place to eat Turkish food in the Sacramento, Calif. area is the Anatolian Table in the suburb of Rocklin.

Special Quote of the Day- Colin Farrell

Today's quote of the day is our final entry for the March quotes dedicated to famous people from Ireland. It was recently revealed that surprisingly Colin Farrell, 34, was close friends with Elizabeth Taylor who died last week.

The relatively young Irish actor is known for his performances in films like "Miami Vice," "Minority Report," "Phone Booth" and "In Bruges."

Here is his quote which hopefully those of you on your lunch break in Burbank, Calif., will have time to read:

"Being Irish is very much a part of who I am. I take it everywhere with me."

SIDEBAR: Well, the whole world literally came to a stand-still in places like Karachi, Pakistan, and New Delhi, India, as the two countries were watching the semi-final game at the World Cricket Championships between the two rival countries.

The game was played in Mumbai, India, and the home team won. India's Sachin Tendulkar made the game-winning score as Pakistan's wicketkeeper (we really know nothing about cricket!) Kamran Akmal looked on in disgust.

India will now play Sri Lanka, the tournament's co-host, in Mumbai on Saturday.

Apparently, no work was done in either India or Pakistan today so everyone could watch the mid-week game.

And, we thought Goodyear executives were presumably horrified that the opening round NCAA men's basketball game between the Akron Zips and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish would result in lost productivity a few weeks back.

Goodyear Tires are based in Akron, Ohio; Notre Dame won that game.

Things We Learned on Twitter Today- England to Compete in Water Polo

According to a tweet from OlympicNews2012, Great Britain will compete in both men's and women's water polo at the 2012 London Summer Olympics. The country has not fielded an Olympic team in the sport since 1956.

For an image to go with this entry, we were hoping to post a photo of a very attractive Katie Zakula, a sophomore from San Mateo, Calif., who is a member of the University of Cal State Santa Barbara women's water polo team, but that proved to be very complicated.

Along with her teammates Kristin Kulakowski and Michelle Beaudrau, both seniors, Zakula and the Gauchos (love that nickname) have two matches in Los Angeles tomorrow, including a day game with rival Loyola (Calif.).

In other tweeterville news, WTJU (91.1-FM, Charlottesville, Va.), the student run college radio station for the University of Virginia said that the bluegrass band Bearfoot, which performed in Roanoke last night, will be playing at Mockingbird in Staunton tonight.

On the band's web site (www.bearfootband.com), the group describes themselves as 'string band music for the 21st century.' I was also quite surprised to learn that the band is not from Virginia, North Carolina or Tennessee, but Alaska!

Things We Learned on Twitter Today- Movie Critic Talks Politics

One may assume that legendary Chicago film critic Roger Ebert might be tweeting about how much he hates "Jackass 3-D," but instead he was talking politics tonight.

Ebert has made headlines for his groundbreaking surgery which allows a new artificial voice-box to speak for him since he lost his real voice to cancer as well as criticism of California high school students who were wearing American flag t-shirts on Cinco De Mayo. Of course, those t-shirts were probably made in Honduras (hmm...., we probably lost some members of the Tulsa Tea Party for that remark!).

Here was the tweet from Ebert which was in reference to (he provided a link) a column from Frank Rich of "The New York Times" about how President Barack Obama is perceived by many Americans to be subservient to elitists even though he provided a tax break for 95 percent of all Americans. This was the exact tweet from Ebert:

"Obama won't go after Wall Street thieves: GOP should be applauding. Ordinary people get screwed."

Perhaps, tomorrow Ebert will tell us who will win the World Series between the Texas Rangers and the San Francisco Giants. I suppose I am a bit of a fervent center-left political person because I'll be rooting for the Giants merely because the Rangers were once owned by George W. Bush!

Quotes of the Week- Neil Simon

For those of us on the east coast of les etats unis, a venture to San Diego might be very difficult, but for those who venture or reside there, The Old Globe Theatre in San Diego will be performing two acclaimed Neil Simon plays at the same time!

Both "Brighton Beach Memoirs" and "Broadway Bound" will be staged there from Sept. 14-Nov. 7.

There is also a Neil Simon Festival in Cedar City, Utah, which is also quite far from the New York settings of Simon's play. They have already announced their 2011 schedule even though the plays will not be performed until the July 14-Aug. 11 production run. The plays are two from Simon "Barefoot in the Park" and "Rumors," and one from the late Larry Shue "The Nerd," which is perhaps one of the funniest plays I've ever read (have yet to see it performed!).

Simon turned 83 on the Fourth of July.

Here is the quote from the man who also wrote "The Odd Couple" and "Plaza Suite:"

"Take care of him. And, make him feel important. And if you can do that, you'll have a happy and wonderful marriage. Like two out of ten couples."

Things We Learned on Twitter Yesterday PM- Barbara Boxer Winning Senate Race

According to a tweet from HillBallotBox, a Twitter site related to "The Hill," a Congressional journal covering all things DC, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) is winning her race against her opponent Carly Fiornia, the former CEO of Hewett-Packard.

The Twitter site said that a new "Los Angeles Times" poll indicates that Boxer is winning the race 45 to 41 percent among likely California voters.

One might think Fiornia would be stumping at a flea market in Long Beach, or visiting a community college campus in Santa Barbara, given that the election is just a few months away in November.

But, she was actually in Washington, DC, yesterday. Fiornia told reporters in the nation's capital that she wanted to focus on jobs. She added that she was actually opposed to repealing the new federal healthcare laws that have Sarah Palinites up in arms.