Andrew Jackson

A LINE from Andrew Jackson has been making the rounds lately: "One man with courage makes a majority." This aphorism is today known as Jackson's most famous saying. It adorns T-shirts, mugs and posters. The ACLU and the Christian Coalition invoke it. Politicians repeat it endlessly, including, recently, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. But did Jackson really say it? Curiously, although everyone has heard it quoted from him and therefore "knows" that he said it, no one can pinpoint when or where.

Before the era of the 24-hour news cycle and weekly televised debates, the predominant and most creative outlet for presidential candidates to communicate their vision was the campaign poster. With "Presidential Campaign Posters" (Quirk Books), the Library of Congress takes a look back at two centuries of memorable election art. The book begins with the 1828 Andrew Jackson / John Quincy Adams race, spanning through 2008's Barack Obama / John McCain battle - including Shepard Fairey's memorable Obama "Hope" poster - and covering every campaign in between.

This being New York, where everything except a hot dog is cruelly, wildly expensive, perhaps it was inevitable that a ticket to the Museum of Modern Art would rocket to $20, making it the most expensive urban art museum to visit in the country. Remember, this is the home of the $50 gourmet hamburger, the $100 Broadway ticket, $1-million average co-op price. So for a dose of culture, naturally, you fork over an Andrew Jackson.

This engaging new book about Andrew Jackson, our first up-from-nowhere president, takes its place on a crowded shelf in the library of national leadership. Jackson has not been overlooked heretofore. Just in the last few years there have been useful new works on Jackson and the age of Jackson from Sean Wilentz and Daniel Walker Howe; and scholars such as Andrew Burstein, whose "The Passions of Andrew Jackson" appeared in 2003, continue to air provocative theories.

Analysis of hair from President Andrew Jackson suggests that many of his chronic disorders were caused by exposure to lead and mercury, but that he probably didn't die from heavy metal poisoning as many historians have speculated. Jackson suffered excessive salivation, rapid tooth loss, colic, diarrhea, pallor, hand tremor, irritability, paranoia, violent mood swings and chronic kidney failure--all of which could be caused by exposure to mercury and lead. Dr. Ludwig M.

The next offering at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, the world premiere of the musical "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson," can be traced to a cafe in New York's East Village, where director Alex Timbers and composer Michael Friedman met a couple of years ago on a "professional blind date," as Friedman puts it.

This engaging new book about Andrew Jackson, our first up-from-nowhere president, takes its place on a crowded shelf in the library of national leadership. Jackson has not been overlooked heretofore. Just in the last few years there have been useful new works on Jackson and the age of Jackson from Sean Wilentz and Daniel Walker Howe; and scholars such as Andrew Burstein, whose "The Passions of Andrew Jackson" appeared in 2003, continue to air provocative theories.

Andrew Jackson's uncertain birthplace may be a simple footnote to history, but to the folks living in the two counties straddling the North and South Carolina border, it is as important as Sunday dinners and high school football. Road signs and murals in both counties--Union to the north and Lancaster to the south--proclaim Jackson a native son in a controversy whose intensity is matched only by the annual late summer gridiron clash between area high schools.

'Is he a president whose accomplishments we should celebrate or a president whose failures we should apologize for?" It's a question certain to spark a fierce debate about our current chief executive. But before we begin lamenting the divisiveness of modern politics, it's worth remembering that Americans have elected more than a few presidents through the years who have been celebrated by some even as they have been deeply detested by others.

I found Brian Richard Boylan's Feb. 2 review of Gordon S. Wood's book, "The Radicalism of the American Revolution," almost supernatural. Let me quote from the review: (1) "Thomas Jefferson, for instance, was deeply disillusioned by the failure of the American people to appreciate and follow the enlightened government and society he had given so much to bring to power. He could only shake his head when the violently passionate Andrew Jackson became President." (2) "He was horrified, for instance, that Jackson would throw open the doors of the White House and invite all and sundry to stop in for a drink with the new chief executive."

Indie rock stars come in a variety of styles, but not many wear tight, blood-soaked T-shirts as they plunder Native American lands. But in "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson," the sardonically frolicsome, unabashedly sophomoric emo musical that premiered Sunday at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, America's seventh president is transformed into a moody hipster icon with a strange penchant for mutilation, both of himself and others.

The next offering at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, the world premiere of the musical "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson," can be traced to a cafe in New York's East Village, where director Alex Timbers and composer Michael Friedman met a couple of years ago on a "professional blind date," as Friedman puts it.

'Is he a president whose accomplishments we should celebrate or a president whose failures we should apologize for?" It's a question certain to spark a fierce debate about our current chief executive. But before we begin lamenting the divisiveness of modern politics, it's worth remembering that Americans have elected more than a few presidents through the years who have been celebrated by some even as they have been deeply detested by others.

A LINE from Andrew Jackson has been making the rounds lately: "One man with courage makes a majority." This aphorism is today known as Jackson's most famous saying. It adorns T-shirts, mugs and posters. The ACLU and the Christian Coalition invoke it. Politicians repeat it endlessly, including, recently, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. But did Jackson really say it? Curiously, although everyone has heard it quoted from him and therefore "knows" that he said it, no one can pinpoint when or where.

This being New York, where everything except a hot dog is cruelly, wildly expensive, perhaps it was inevitable that a ticket to the Museum of Modern Art would rocket to $20, making it the most expensive urban art museum to visit in the country. Remember, this is the home of the $50 gourmet hamburger, the $100 Broadway ticket, $1-million average co-op price. So for a dose of culture, naturally, you fork over an Andrew Jackson.

President's Day is coming, so be prepared to hand over an Andrew Jackson if you're heading to Dumont Dunes. The federal government will collect fees Feb. 11-18 at the off-road-vehicle destination near Baker. The Bureau of Land Management will charge $20 per primary vehicle and for campsites, or you can save $2 through advance purchase. So many people are using the dunes that more revenue is needed for maintenance, road access, toilets, medical aid and staff, the bureau says.

President's Day is coming, so be prepared to hand over an Andrew Jackson if you're heading to Dumont Dunes. The federal government will collect fees Feb. 11-18 at the off-road-vehicle destination near Baker. The Bureau of Land Management will charge $20 per primary vehicle and for campsites, or you can save $2 through advance purchase. So many people are using the dunes that more revenue is needed for maintenance, road access, toilets, medical aid and staff, the bureau says.

The 1988 Democratic nominating contest can be looked on as a kind of big-ticket scavenger hunt in which contestants race around the country picking up delegates and claiming that they have achieved some political state of grace like "inevitability" or "momentum." The media, with their penchant for emphasizing novelty, reinforce in the mind of the public the seeming randomness of the process by dwelling on the unusual: Jackson's race, Dukakis' ethnicity or Gore's family background.

Call the man dim, call him corrupt, but call him president until 2008. George W. Bush certainly has vulnerabilities, but he's been smart enough to model himself on a man who pioneered the fine art of political image-making: Andrew Jackson. Democrats, as a result, are doomed. In 1819, as the dust settled from his bloodthirsty and blatantly unconstitutional attack on the Seminole Indians, Jackson, then one of the nation's most revered generals, found himself on the congressional hot seat.

From now on the new crisp $20 bills pumped out by the ATMs won't be greenbacks anymore. They've been slid toward the pastel. This move to stymie counterfeiters has spread among the populace a miasma of misgivings: Has tradition been offended? Has tough old Andrew Jackson been coloristically insulted? Has the $20 bill, as widespread rumor has it, been turned into something pink? "No, it's not pink," says Tom Ferguson, authoritatively. Ferguson directs the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.