{"id":351,"date":"2010-02-02T20:17:58","date_gmt":"2010-02-03T01:17:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/?p=351"},"modified":"2010-03-20T16:55:34","modified_gmt":"2010-03-20T21:55:34","slug":"presidential-reading-aka-goal-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/2010\/02\/presidential-reading-aka-goal-26\/","title":{"rendered":"Presidential Reading aka Goal 26"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So, one of the birthday goals<\/a> is to read a biography of each US President. This goal came from writing a poem or two starring a few of our Presidents. Then someone asked me if I was going to write a poem about each US President. I thought that it sounded like a good challenge. The problem, however, was that I just didn’t know enough about them to write about them. And a project was born.<\/p>\n

It turns out that there are a whole bunch of people doing a Presidential Reading Project<\/a> of some sort.<\/p>\n

So far, I have read about Presidents Lincoln, Polk, Clinton and Kennedy. I have started in on Presidents Adams (the father), Wilson and Madison.<\/p>\n

Gretchen Rubin<\/a>, the author of The Happiness Project<\/a>, another book that I am reading right now wrote 40 Ways to Look at JFK<\/a><\/em>, which I finished reading last night. Being of a generation that was not a direct witness to this personality and relies solely on the images that seem to be everywhere, my mind was blown by this bio. The presentation alone was interesting, reminding me that people all look different depending on how we look at them. \u00a0I’ll say this, I came away from that book seeing Kennedy as very human, as opposed to a sterile icon. This is actually most of the point of this particular goal. You see, the original poems that started it all were about those moments that these men had, which we don’t think about much. We think of them in terms of their jobs, what they represented, but hardly as people like us, people who did things like blow their noses and occasionally burn toast.<\/p>\n

I have about eight months to complete this project. It is ambitious, but I feel sure that I can do it. Actually, I \u00a0hear President Madison calling right now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, one of the birthday goals is to read a biography of each US President. This goal came from writing a poem or two starring a few of our Presidents. Then someone asked me if I was going to write a poem about each US President. I thought that it sounded like a good challenge.… Continue reading Presidential Reading aka Goal 26<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[],"tags":[64,63],"class_list":["post-351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-books","tag-presidents","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p33KTw-5F","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1278,"url":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/2011\/12\/goal-12\/","url_meta":{"origin":351,"position":0},"title":"Goal 12","author":"admin","date":"December 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"So, as most people who know me know, I have been working on a project to read a biography of each US President. The original goal was to do it within the year when I set the goal. I got off to a respectable start, but then I stalled out.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "projects"","block_context":{"text":"projects","link":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/category\/projects\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/presidential-seal.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2245,"url":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/2013\/02\/president-biographies-project-done\/","url_meta":{"origin":351,"position":1},"title":"President Biographies Project = Done.","author":"admin","date":"February 3, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, it's done. I have read (at least) a biography of each United States president. I feel just how I felt after I crossed the finish line of the marathon I completed. Well, not exactly, reading doesn't make you so sore you have to wonder how you're going to step\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/IMG_3374.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/IMG_3374.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/IMG_3374.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4459,"url":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/2015\/03\/the-decision-point\/","url_meta":{"origin":351,"position":2},"title":"The Decision Point","author":"admin","date":"March 13, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"As I\u2019ve gotten closer, and closer to the present, it has become more of a challenge to figure out how to approach these cupcakes. This is more true for the last two presidents. In the preface to the book The Faiths of the Postwar Presidents, David Holmes says, \u201cNo president\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "baking"","block_context":{"text":"baking","link":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/category\/baking\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"wbush1","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/headofstatecakes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/wbush1.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4363,"url":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/2015\/02\/in-an-open-letter-to-the-many-old-people-i-saw-at-the-jimmy-carter-presidential-museum\/","url_meta":{"origin":351,"position":3},"title":"In an open letter to the many old people I saw at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Museum,","author":"sherlonya","date":"February 22, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cY\u2019all come out in force, don\u2019t you. You didn\u2019t fool me though. You wanted to learn President Carter\u2019s secret to longevity, no?\u201d","rel":"","context":"In "Presidents"","block_context":{"text":"Presidents","link":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/category\/presidents-2\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2634,"url":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/2013\/06\/the-rough-and-ready\/","url_meta":{"origin":351,"position":4},"title":"The Rough and Ready","author":"sherlonya","date":"June 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Zachary Taylor has the hottest of all presidential nicknames. Seriously. Old Rough and Ready. That name alone is reason enough to go along with his agenda. Okay, that\u2019s out of the way. Lest you think that I am the singular person who, despite a deep love for the presidents, often\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "coffee"","block_context":{"text":"coffee","link":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/category\/coffee\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"roughandready","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/headofstatecakes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/roughandready.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3460,"url":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/2014\/07\/presidential-quote-1\/","url_meta":{"origin":351,"position":5},"title":"Presidential Quote #1","author":"admin","date":"July 23, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"","rel":"","context":"In "Presidents"","block_context":{"text":"Presidents","link":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/category\/presidents-2\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/trumanquote.gif?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":359,"href":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351\/revisions\/359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sherlonya.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}