On the Intrawebs, Part #1

To fulfill the "sharing globally" requirement, I didn't have much rhyme or reason in the online interactions I had, but I found some interesting stuff.

With Ice Rocket, I found a blog by a woman by the name of Roberta Rood. All I could find out about her was that she used to work in a library, and she loves reading and England. But she wrote a review for a biography on, of all people, James Garfield. In case you don't know - and I wouldn't blame you if you didn't - he was the 20th president of the United States, in the year 1881. A brief look at his Wikipedia page brings up some interesting things: he cleaned up corruption in the postal system, and he appointed African Americans to some high posts in governments.

He is also one of the few presidents who was actually assassinated. He was killed by Charles Giteau, a former government employee who was under the delusion that President Garfield had denied him a post in the U.S. embassy in Paris.

Roberta Rood was especially impressed with President Garfield's reluctance to be president. He once said, "This honor comes to me unsought. I have never had the Presidential fever; not even for a day." And yet, he answered the call to serve and ultimately died for it. Rood ended her review of President Garfield's biography with these lines from Julius Caesar:

"His life was gentle; and the elements

So mix’d in him that Nature might stand up

And say to all the world, This was a man!"

I didn't know all this about James Garfield before. But it reminded me of how I compared Brutus to George Washington. So, I asked her how Garfield and Washington compared to each other. (I'm still waiting for a response.)