The Who2 Blog

Who2 often gets letters meant for celebrities. Jesse Jackson and The Jonas Brothers seem to be favorites, but by far the greatest number of letters come in for Oprah.

Lots of people are talking about the Abraham Lincoln bicentennial on February 12th. But you don’t hear much about today being the 200th birthday of Andrew Johnson.(Well, there will be a cake at a Greenville shopping center.)

“I think we’ll all be glad when there’s no special interest in that restroom.”So says the PR man for the Minneapolis Airport. “One person had offered to buy the restroom stall for $5,000, Hogan said, but airport officials ‘don’t sell fixtures for novelty purposes.'”

Eric Mangini fired as coach of the New York Jets after three seasons.

Zorthian agreed to teach Feynman to draw, and Feynman agreed to teach Zorthian physics. The scientific instruction did not continue long, but Zorthian’s influences on Feynman led to the physicist’s life-long involvement in art making.One of 2008’s more interesting art displays: the Pasadena Armory Center’s exhibition on the art of physicist Richard Feynman, as influenced by muralist Jirayr Zorthian.

The world’s timekeepers are adding one extra second to 2008 — Wednesday at 11:59:59 PM in London, 6:59:59 pm in New York — “to help match clocks to the Earth’s slowing spin on its axis.”What will you do with that precious extra second?

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and supermodel Gisele Bündchen are engaged yet again. Fox Sports has decreed it.

Direct invasion of a sovereign state has never in fact been America’s favoured method. In the main, it has preferred what it has described as ‘low intensity conflict’. Low intensity conflict means that thousands of people die but slower than if you dropped a bomb on them in one fell swoop. It means that you infect the heart of the country, that you establish a malignant growth and watch the gangrene bloom.

Tour de France champ Lance Armstrong has announced that his girlfriend, Anna Hansen, is expecting a child in June of 2009.

We’ve just posted a new profile of Timothy Geithner, nominee for Secretary of the Treasury under Barack Obama.Trivia tidbit: Both were born in August of 1961. Geithner on the 18th and Obama on the 4th.

So says Obama.He could have dunked on James Madison, at least.

After our earlier puzzlement over the birth name of Madeleine Albright, we wrote to the offices of her consulting firm, The Albright Group, asking for help.That letter has now been answered politely by Jen Friedman, director of communications. She writes:

A hooded burglar stole $2 million in jewels from Paris Hilton’s bedroom on Friday morning.Luckily, when the burglars broke in at 5 a.m., Paris wasn’t home.

We’ve just had an interesting exchange with Who2 reader Martin Bennett about the birth name of baseball legend Willie Mays. We had it listed as William Howard Mays, Jr., but Mr. Bennett wrote:Willie Mays was my boyhood hero and remains my all-time fave, so I’m writing this kind of in defense of him. You have his real first name as William… [but] he was actually named Willie (Howard Mays Jr.), not William.Upon further review, we think Mr. Bennett is right.

But if [George had] hung out for a while, had a few drinks in the Indian Club, dropped a couple dimes in the dance hall, maybe checked out the action at the burlesque, he would have gotten a whole new take on the situation. Pottersville has its problems… but compared to the snooze-inducing Bedford Falls, it jumps.Why Pottersville beats Bedford Falls in It’s A Wonderful Life.

…Emily Brontë, you one-novel-writing genius!

Mark Felt, the Watergate informant known as “Deep Throat” who helped uncover the lies and lawbreaking of Richard M. Nixon, has died. “Secret Tips Toppled Presidency” is how The Washington Post subheads its six-page obituary. The Post also has awesome Watergate story archives.