Also, persuading people that nonsense is sense

Harry S Truman was born on this day in 1884.

"I sit here all day," Truman said, "trying to do the things they ought to have sense enough to do without my persuading them. That's all the powers of the President amount to."

Sounds modest enough, but to read another take on the matter, see Gore Vidal on Truman

More birthdays missed

Rough week -- hospital stay, family travails. To catch up:

July 11: American humorist/essayist E. B. White was born July 11, 1899. He wrote:

"Our idea of a cultured person is a person who doesn't want to live in a community of cultured persons."



July 12: Henry David Thoreau was born on July 12, 1817. He wrote in Walden:

"I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors."



July 13: Julius Caesar born in 100 BC.

"So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly rise and make them miserable." -- Aldous Huxley.

July 14: Gerald Ford was born July 14, 1913.

"Gerry Ford was a nice guy, but he played too much football with his helmet off." -- Lyndon B. Johnson.

July 15: Rembrandt was born on this day in 1606.

"That which probably hears more stupidities than anything else in the world is a painting in a museum." -- Jules de Goncourt.

Hickory's a tree, Bush is a shrub

Andrew Jackson was born today in 1767.

"(Jackson is) one of the most unfit men I know of for such a place (the Presidency)." -- Thomas Jefferson.

Birthday of the Month - Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan was born on February 6, 1911.

"Ronald Reagan is a triumph of the embalmer's art." -- Gore Vidal.

Snow way he trusted FDR

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born on this day in 1882.

"No one is fit to be trusted with power...no one." -- C. P. Snow.

Give 'im hell, Harry

Richard Nixon born today, 1913.

"Nixon is a shifty-eyed goddam liar." -- Harry Truman.

Nixon said Truman used to fart in the White House bathtub

"I am not a crook," said Richard Nixon, today in 1973.

"Nixon is a shifty-eyed, god-damn liar," said Harry Truman.