Lincoln’s Fake Kentucky Home: Now It Belongs To The Ages

All The People, All The Time  lincoln-cabin-penny-design.jpg

The US Mint clambers aboard the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial with an offering of four exciting new designs to replace that tired old Lincoln Memorial.

Most problematic is the salute to Lincoln’s Kentucky birthplace, whose centerpiece is a cabin sometimes billed as the place of Lincoln’s birth.   lincoln-cabin-postcard.jpg     The National Park Service administers the site, but even they acknowledge the building is a fake.

Remembering Woodrow Wilson: Now With Visceralness!

Little Professor wilson-man-of-the-hour.jpg

Presidential Memorializing continues spinning backwards in time, with the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library the latest fatuous exercise.

Wilson was born in Staunton Virginia, but his parents left town when he was four. From these slender roots the town has metastasized a Presidential Library, now to receive federal funding.

The Library represents double or triple dipping for Wilson. The Wilson Center was created four decades ago as a “living memorial” to Wilson. South of Washington lies a Wilson Bridge. wilson-bridge.jpg It’s opening happened to fall during his centennial year, so he got the slot, despite having no known ties to the region or river.

Staunton needs the money, ’cause they got nothing. He spent more of his childhood elsewhere, his papers are elsewhere [“The archives microfilm collection includes the Wilson holdings at the Library of Congress and the National Archives. “]

What’s the answer? Showmanship!

Rather than a timeline of facts and dates, the museum aims to turn history into a visceral experience.

wilson-page-black-people.jpg The magic begins on their web page, where a lovely photo of black children is adorned with a lofty Wilson quote. His real feelings about black people were rather different, as reflected in his plug for “Birth of a Nation”. wilson-b-of-nation-graphic.jpg

New Fun From Founding Fathers

Zoned Out? mccain-views-of-the-panama-canal.jpg

Time to dust off those crumpled copies of the Constitution every old coot pol seems to carry in their pocket for all occasions, and read up.

Specifically, Article II and the 14th Amendment, the portions demanding that presidents be a “natural born citizen” and the mid 19th Century amendment, which may or may not have clarified this.

Infant Alien mccain-father-grandfather.jpg

A law prof has a new analysis on what this all means to Panama Canal Zone born John McCain. Gabriel J. Chin says Congress’s many attempts to change the status of Zonians since the 1930s can’t overcome the plain language of the Constitution.

“It’s preposterous that a technicality like this can make a difference in an advanced democracy …But this is the constitutional text that we have.”

This would leave McCain out of luck if anyone bothered to pay attention to The Founders except as it benefits grits.

Another reason to ignore the 14th Amendment: It’s a Commie Plot anyway. 14th-the-redamendment.jpg

From the Land of Myth

Boyhood Home Revealed! washington-ferry-farm-home-illustration.jpg

Excitement reins at Ferry Farm, scene of George Washington cannoting to tell a lie washington-tree-grant-wood.gif and other legends. An archaeological dig has revealed the foundations of what is thought to be his childhood home.

The Ferry Farm drawing bares a remarkable resemblance to the house built near Washington’s birthplace in the early 20th Century. washington-home-repo.jpg That house was built on a site misidentified by Washington’s adopted son, George Washington Custis.

Telltale Ferry Farm remnants include a masonic pipe and a type of gem often traded from India to West Africa, and presumably brought to Virginia through some path coming out of the slave trade.

You can go back to near the birth of the Father of Our Country, but you can’t escape Original Sin!

Roh Your Own

New Light on Old Presidents korea-dark.jpg

One former Korean President is pursuing Carter-ization, demonstrably simple living joined with good works, while a murder has called attention to a dead former President’s political afterlife.

roh-moo-hyun-walks1.jpg The New York Times reports that Roh Moo-hyun’s just plain folksiness is wowing em back in his hometown, and he’s remaining visible elsewhere through his web site.

park-chung-hee-head-shot.gif Former strongman Park Chung-hee park-movie-poster.jpg

[took power in a coup, killed in office by head of KCIA] is back in the news after a murder at his former home, park-chung-hee-home.JPG preserved as a monument to his humble roots.

park-chung-hee-japanese-army.GIF And, um, service to Korea’s former Japanese overlords.