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Facts and trivia about US presidents
Some interesting facts and trivia about US presidents: Eight presidents were born before the founding of the nation Every president was born in one of only nineteen (arguably twenty) of the fifty states: these states are Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont and Virgina. The arguable one is that some believe Andrew Jackson was born in South Carolina and not North Carolina. Of the nineteen, thirteen states produced a single president – so the remaining six states produced multiple presidents. The most presidents -eight – were born in Virginia. Surprisingly, only one president – Richard…
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Funny – and not so funny moments – during spelling bees
Spelling bees are fascinating and puzzling. The former because it is a pleasure to see young children being successfully tutored to a point that they are able to spell the most esoteric words which most people have never heard before and certainly few would use in either oral or written communication. It is the limited value in learning these rarely used words that makes the whole competition puzzling – these kids, their parents and tutors must spend endless hours and perhaps money trying to master these words. It reminds me of the old joke by Billy Connolly: “I don’t know why I should have to learn Algebra… I’m never likely…
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Turning points in presidential debates
I am a political junkie and have been one since I was a teenager in Kenya during the height of the independence movement in that country. To give you a sense of how much of a political junkie I was even then, I attended a political gathering with my parents being addressed by Tom Mboya and Mwai Kibaki at a time when the release of Jomo Kenyatta was being sought from detention. ,After the speeches were over and hundreds of people were awaiting the departure of Mboya and Kibaki, I got around the police cordons and entered the building where Mboya and Kibaki were drinking tea after their speeches. I…