Wonkette
WAPO EKES 729-WORD ARTICLE OUT OF 43-WORD NOTE FROM LINCOLN: “Did it fall out in transit? Was it torn out by a mischievous clerk 100 years ago? No one knows.” Blah blah blah Lincoln Lincoln Lincoln. [Washington Post]
PRESIDENTIAL EPHEMERA
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10:57 AM
on Fri May 29 2009
By
Sara K. Smith
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Beautiful handwriting = ghey
In High School I wrote a three or four page paper on Hemingway’s “A Very Short Story.” Curiously the paper was somewhat “self referential” as it was basically little more than a sarcastic commentary on how I intended to milk this one page story for a three page paper (My English teacher was not very amused, alas).
In grad school, of course, you’d be laughed out of class if you turned in anything less than twenty dense, theory laden, pages on that same Hemingway short story.
“Stevens was eventually fired in 1863, but the president wanted the son-in-law of his friend to have access to pertinent information.”
A Republican fired a subordinate and gave him access to information without a FOIA suit? Those were different times indeed.
brng home a dozen eggs, two loaves of bread and five slaves - that leaves 31 words remaining
Big deal. In Freshman Comp I had to write a 2000 word essay on a subject picked out by the guy sitting in the desk behind me.
“Navel Lint.”
Somehow the WAPO reporter screwed up the relatively easy job of transcribing the letter into the article the way it was written (hint: it’s at the end of the missive). Yet another reason why I’m no longer a subscriber.
Lincoln? Wasn’t he the white Obama?
Yet these are the symbols and concepts that define us as Americans. Uh…what?
Gorillionaire: “When a delegation from San Francisco traveled to Washington to oppose this patronage, Lincoln flew into a rage and threw their written complaints in the fireplace.”
Pissy queen. Also.
Serolf Divad: For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.
“Please shave my beard”
Actually it was just found taped to the back of his other jacket after he died. Handwriting analysts to this day debate whether it was actually written by The Great Emancipator.
What the Post failed to report was another, similar note written by Lincoln that was also recently found:
“I am getting most exhausted at the continued practice of several members of the newspaper press who blather on in their stories and use 10 words when two would have been adequate; who consistenly bury the lead behind unnecessary babbling; who fail to report the news and instead constanly write leads that, again, bury the real news at hand; and who consistently, constantly tend to ‘dumb down’ the days’ news. Hopefully, this distasteful newspaper trend will end soon, lest the newspaper industry shall see its days soon numbered! –A. Lincoln”
Yet another reason why I’m still a subscriber.
Lincoln’s note = Twitter FAIL.
Cheney would have had the miscreant waterboarded and sent to Andersonville, the Gitmo of its time.
Why was Lincoln against a safe America?
Actually, “please oblige him in one way or another” might not have been a request for information at all. You know what I mean.
Lascauxcaveman: Hopefully the next paper was suggested by the person seated in front, and your idea was “Your Imminent Death.”
Lazy Media:
Goddamn you Lazy Media… that little story always brings tears to my eyes.
germansteel: My mother starred at age 6 (1938) in a newspaper photo (and accompanying story) with her great (great great?) grandfather on the occasion of his 99th birthday. This was notable because he was a veteran of the Civil War & had been held at Andersonville. Obviously this was at war’s end as he was 17 and actually survived his short stay there. He did not make it to 100, dying 8 months later. My mom has those genes in her, which means she’ll be around to annoy me another 20+ years.
hobospacejunkie: Lifetime of storytelling math FAIL. Mom says story says he was transferred to Andersonville at end of the war, otherwise he likely would’ve died there. I failed math (the first of several times) as early as 4th grade. I am a dumb.
nbawriter: Oddly enough, the guy inadvertently did me a favor, that navel lint essay was the easiest ‘A’ I got all year. As it turns out, I was pretty good at the stream-of-consciousness bullshit my teach was into at the time.
She downmarked me a just tad for the overly long digression on the wear capabilities of cotton/poly blends, but gave me many !!!! for the ‘etiquette’ section where I delineated the why’s and wherefores of navel cleaning in the event one is expecting to have a lover snorting coke or doing shots out of one’s “innie.”
I’m surprised WaPo didn’t widen the margins and spread the words out a bit.
Further proof that Lincoln didn’t care fuck all about slavery, and was merely interested in “saving the Union.” If he had objected to slavery WOULDN’T HE HAVE SAID SO IN EVERY LETTER?