Quote of the Day/Week- George McGovern

Hmmm...for some reason, we are seemingly popular in Iraq and Slovenia these days.

Today, we start our series on quotes of men who couldn't quite become king as we profile and quip men who lost the presidency of the United States.

On our sister blog "The Daily Vampire," we quoted Bob Dole, 88, the Republican nominee who lost the presidency in 1996 to Bill Clinton.

Here, we quote George McGovern, 89, the Democratic nominee who lost the presidency to Richard Nixon in 1972. McGovern is the oldest man to have either run for or become president. He edges out Dole as well presidents George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, who are both 86.

McGovern is also considered to be the most progressive candidate to have run for president in the modern era, though some may argue that Al Gore, known for his environmental politics, is more liberal. Ironically, McGovern represented South Dakota, a conservative state in the U.S. Senate.

This quote reflects McGovern's strong opposition to the Vietnam War:

"I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in."

CLARIFICATION: Apparently, the Harvard men's basketball team is not on their way to the NCAAs quite yet. Apparently, the Penn Quakers can tie for first place with a win over Princeton tonight and force a one-game playoff. The Ivy League is the one remaining conference in NCAA Division-I basketball without a conference tournament.

Yesterday, Virginia Commonwealth, Loyola (Md.) and Davidson were among the teams to win their respective tourneys.

Quote of the Day/Week- Christopher Hitchens

On Dec. 15, 2011, the world lost a very vocal person who everyone likely either agreed or disagreed with at one point or another irregardless of where one stands in the political landscape. That was very vocal person was renown essayist/intellectual/pundit/culture critic Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011).

This month, we are quoting famous people who died in 2011. And, we start with a controversial figure as we did with Dr. Jack Kevorkian (1928-2011) on our sister blog "The Daily Vampire."

Hitchens was perhaps most known for being one of the world's leading atheists, and in the process, he outraged Christians, Muslims, Jews and even Hindus and Buddhists alike. Other atheists and many secularists were also uneasy about Hitchens' outright disdain for religion which he articulated in his book "God is not Great" (2007).

Though Hitchens was not only liberal, but even a Marxist in his younger years where he gained prominence for covering the war between Turkey and Greece over the island nation of Cyprus as a young journalist in 1974, he did end up supporting many neo-conservative causes, most notably the War in Iraq.

But, where exactly Hitchens stood politically or philosophically at the time of his death age 62 may still be a source of debate. Interestingly enough, he supported Ralph Nader (2000), George W. Bush (2004) and Barack Obama (2008) in the last three American presidential elections. Many perceive that Hitchens went from left to right, but there is some dispute to that because he was an ironic supporter of British conservative Prime Minster Margaret Thatcher, also known as "The Iron Lady," in many areas, including the UK's highly controversial war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands.

Hitchens would disagree with liberal atheist Bill Maher, whom he was reportedly close friends with, over the War in Iraq, yet he would also argue with the likes of Sean Hannity on the right about the existence of God. He was also critical of both the late Rev. Jerry Falwell and Noam Chomsky. In his lifetime, Hitchens' work took him to 60 countries, including North Korea.

Here is his quote from "God is not Great," these are the views of the late essayist, and they do not necessarily reflect the views of this blog:

"Religion is man-made. Even the men who made it cannot agree on what their prophets or redeemers or gurus actually said or did."

The Rabbit Ears Quiz (1 of 12)_ Lolek and Bolek

Today we start our The Rabbit Ears Quiz series on both of our blogs. We begin with "Lolek and Bolek," a very popular cartoon in its native Poland, but it is very obscure here in the United States. Though I was delighted to find out that Netflix actually offered collections of the Polish cartoons, which originally aired from
1963-1966.

I actually came across "Lolek and Bolek" in 1975 when our family lived in then-communist Poland as my late father Mehmet Gokbudak, a Turkish immigrant to the United States, worked for a Polish factory for six months as part of a program with General Electric, his employer.

While researching a piece about "Lolek and Bolek" a few months ago, I was stunned to learn that one of the cartoon's main novelties is the fact that it was the only cartoon shown on television in one of the following Muslim countries. Is the answer:

A) Saudi Arabia
B) Iran
C) Iraq
D) Syria
E) Egypt

There were 150 episodes of "Lolek and Bolek," which were usually about eight and a half minutes in length. One can now watch entire episodes on Youtube.

The two boys frequently traveled to other parts of the globe, including one curious to the American West! A monument to the characters was unveiled this year in Poland. The show still ranks as the most popular cartoon in Polish television history.

SIDEBAR: In case you were wondering, the answer to our last Road Trip question is "B."