Presidential Sons

Might it be the case that a lack of sons among most of the early presidents led to a more orderly transition of power?  Washington established the peaceful handoff, but the lack of sons may have aided in keeping the tradition going.

Founding Fathers

George Washington had no children of his own.  Martha had been widowed at age 26 and brought 2 children with her when she married Washington: John and Martha.  John became ill during the Siege of Yorktown (1781) and died shortly after the British surrendered.  Had Washington become a monarch, he had no progeny to benefit.

By contrast, John Adams had three son who survived to adulthood.  The eldest, John Quincy Adams, pursued a career in government and eventually became president during his father's lifetime.

Thomas Jefferson had only daughters.

Like Washington, James Madison had no children.  However, his wife, Dolley Payne Madison, had a child from her previous marriage.  John Payne impoverished his mother after James Madison died.

James Monroe's only son died in infancy.  Monroe is the last of the Founding Fathers to serve as president.

Antebellum Presidents

Almost 50 years after the Declaration of Independence, John Quincy Adams became the first to follow his father's footsteps into the White House.  Like his father, he had three sons.  Two died tragically and young (suicide and alcoholism), but Charles Francis Adams sought the Vice Presidency in 1848.

Andrew Jackson had no children, nor did his wife, Rachel, who had been previously married.  They adopted a nephew who proved to be a lot of trouble.

Martin Van Buren had two sons: Abraham and John.  Abraham served as personal secretary while his father was president.  John became the Attorney General of New York, an office his father had held.

William Henry Harrison had 10 children, but only 1 son outlived him.  Interestingly, that son, John Scott Harrison, was the father of President Benjamin Harrison.

John Tyler had the most children of any president, but he and his sons joined the Confederacy during the Civil War.

James Knox Polk had no children.

Zachary Taylor had one son, Richard, who went on to be a general in the Confederate Army.

Millard Filmore had one son, also named Millard, who a became a lawyer.

Franklin Pierce had 3 sons, all of whom died before he was inaugurated.

James Buchanan never married, earning his title as the bachelor president.

Abraham Lincoln had 4 sons, only 2 of whom survived him.  Of those, only Robert lived beyond the age of 18.  Robert became Secretary of War for President Garfield and Minister to the UK under Benjamin Harrison.

Post Civil War Presidents

Andrew Johnson had 3 sons, 2 of whom predeceased him and all of whom died of alcoholism.  Yikes.

Ulysses S Grant had three sons.  The eldest followed his father's footsteps by going to West Point and joining the military.  The younger two did pursue politics but without success.

Rutherford Hayes had 4 sons who survived him, none of whom pursued politics.

James Garfield had 3 surviving sons, one of whom went on to be Secretary of the Interior for President Theodore Roosevelt.

Chester Arthur had two sons, only one of whom made it to adulthood.  Chester Jr. proved to be a playboy, a man who lived a life of leisure.

Grover Cleveland had 2 sons by his wife.  As he married late in life, the boys were only 11 and 5 at the time of his death.

Benjamin Harrison's only son, Russell, became the US Consul for Mexico and Portugal.  Though he did become a politician, it was only at the state level in Indiana.

William McKinley had only two daughters, both of whom died by the age of 3.

20th Century Presidents

Theodore Roosevelt had four sons.  The youngest was shot down during WWI.  Two others died (heart attack & suicide) while in the military during WWII.  The last lived until 1979.  None followed their father into politics.

William Howard Taft had two sons.  Robert Taft became a noted Senator and sought the nomination for president several times but never won it.

Woodrow Wilson had only daughters.

Warren Harding had no children with his wife but did have a daughter by his mistress.

Calvin Coolidge had 2 sons, one of whom died during his presidency.  When Coolidge's father said that the business of government is business, his son, John, took it to heart and became a businessman.

Herbert Hoover had 2 sons, neither of whom pursued elective office.

FDR had several sons.  Two pursued elective office but never achieved anything close to their father's success.  The youngest son, John, did not seek office but he did become a Republican.  Yes, the youngest is usually the rebel.

Harry Truman had only one child, a daughter.

Dwight Eisenhower had two sons.  One died of scarlet fever at the age of three.  The other, John, followed his father example by joining the military but not politics.  John's son, David, would go on to marry Richard Nixon's daughter.

JFK had one son survive to adulthood.  JFK Jr. died in a plane crash when only 38.

LBJ had only daughters.

Richard Nixon had only daughters.

Gerald Ford had 3 sons, none of whom pursued politics.  Steven Ford is an actor.

Jimmy Carter had three sons. Jack Carter was the nominee for the Senate from Nevada but lost to the Republican.  The other sons have not pursued politics.

Ronald Reagan had two sons.  Michael was adopted with his first wife.  He followed his father into entertainment, notably talk radio.  I listened to his show a few times when I lived in Southern California.  Ron Jr. is his son with Nancy.  Ron is the rebellious son who became a Democrat.  Though he went into entertainment like his father, he didn't parley that into political office.

George Bush had four sons, two of whom became governors of major states (Texas and Florida).  George W Bush became the first son of a president since John Quincy Adams to become president.  JEB sought the Republican nomination in 2016.  George Bush himself was the son of Senator Prescott Bush.  Yes, here is the makings of a family dynasty to rival the Adams.  That's not a good thing, BTW.

Bill Clinton has only a daughter.

21st Century Presidents

George W Bush has only daughters.

Barack Obama has only daughters.

Donald Trump has three sons, 2 of whom followed their father into business.  Both Donald Jr. and Eric have also become activists since their father jumped into politics.  His third son, Barron, is still in college.

Joe Biden had two sons.  The older son, Beau, died while his father was Vice President.  The younger son, Hunter, has been on long source of scandal for his father.

One thing to note is how many of these presidential sons became alcoholics or drug abusers.  Several committed suicide.  It must be quite hard to live in the shadow of a presidential father.

Reconquista

In this short video, Professor Casagranda once again tries to mislead the viewer.  Oh, how can a different people reconquer a region?  You aren't the Germanic people who were kicked out by the invading Arabs.  It was never yours, so this is just a landgrab.  Casagranda has chosen the framing of Germanic people being displaced by Arabs rather than Christian people displaced by Muslims.  With that change in framing, the previously Christian Iberian Peninsula was once again Christian.  Hey, now Reconquista makes perfect sense.  I could figure that out and I don't have a PhD.

Damsel (2018)

In the middle of the Utah desert, two men sat at a peculiarly situated stagecoach stop.  The younger man (David Zellner) said he was heading West to make a new start.  The older man, a preacher (Robert Forester), scoffed at that idea.  The West would be just as bad as where he had come from, though perhaps bad in a new way.  He had enough of the West and was returning to the East.  The old man grew impatient for the stagecoach.    Eventually, he stripped off most of his clothes, handed his tattered bible to the other man, and marched into the desert in his long johns.

At a barn dance, Samuel Alabaster (Robert Pattinson) and Penelope (Mia Wasikowska) were partners with wide grins.  The music was energetic and the dancers stamped the ground like an Irish river dance.

On a lonely northwestern shore, a man rowed a boat a shore.  He unloaded a crate that contained a miniature horse!  The man was Samuel and the horse was Butterscotch.  He made his way to a town and sought Parson Henry.  He found the drunken Parson Henry on the beach.  Notably, Parson Henry proved to be the younger man from the stagecoach stop and he wore the preacher's clothes and carried his tattered bible.  Samuel hired him via telegram for unspecified purposes.  After making Parson Henry presentable, the pair rode into the wilderness.  Samuel eventually explained that Penelope was kidnapped and he was on a rescue mission.  As soon as she was safe, he wanted Parson Henry to marry them.

Billed as a dark comedy, there is precious little comedy to be had.  Here is a collection of motley characters who, once you get to know them, are mostly dislikeable or bad.  Parson Henry, who links the tale together, is a coward who has no direction.  He wants to latch onto something or someone.  So, he's a parasite?  Samuel is an unreliable source, painting a picture that isn't accurate.  Props to Pattinson for taking such a role and doing a great job in it, but Samuel gets less and less likeable as time goes on.  Penelope is a sympathetic character but fails to be likeable; she's a very masculine character, destroying all the men she encounters.

What was the point of this story?  Parson Henry is unchanged from when met at the stagecoach stop.  The other characters have been dislodged from the lives they had, but the future is unknown.  It's like a story about a house that burned down that ends with the family staring at the ashes before walking away.  Uh, okay.  Throughout the movie, there are bits that ruin the setting.  That stagecoach stop in the middle of the desert was one such instance.  There is litterally nothing else in sight and it isn't a crossroad.  How would the potential rider get to the stop?  When leaving the town, Samuel had a chicken in a birdcage on top of Butterscotch.  What's that about?  On their first night out, they eat the chicken and the birdcage is not seen again.  Oh, okay.

Hard pass on this one.  Zellner made a much better movie: Kumiko the Treasure Hunter.  Watch that instead.

March or Die (1977)

Major William Sherman Foster (Gene Hackman) returned to Paris at the conclusion of the Great War.  Though an American, he was a member of the French Foreign Legion.  Clearly, he suffered PSTD from the experience.  Not long after the return, he was dispatched to Morocco.  Francois Marneau (Max von Sydow) wanted to resume digging at a ruin.  Foster warned against it, saying that El Krim (Ian Holm) would not take kindly to such activities.  Nonetheless, Foster and his legionnaires were sent.  Among the legionnaires were some new recruits: Marco Segrain (Terence Hill) the cat burglar, Top Hat the musician (he got his name on account of his headgear), Ivan the Russian (Jack O'Halloran), and Hastings the runaway Englishman who had never traveled less than first class before.  This clique provided a view of life in the legion.  There was also Simone Picard (Catherine Deneuve), whose father was a colleague of Marneau and last seen at the ruins.  The ship voyage to Morrocco saw the beginning of romance between Marco and Simone.  Marco is not the only one interested in Simone; she has several suitors.  Eventually, the legionnaire's travel to the ruins, Marneau begins excavating, and soldiers go missing.  El Krim is not pleased.  Conflict is imminent and Foster doesn't have enough men to hold the position.

The setting is interesting and has a Beau Geste or Alamo feel to it.  Terence Hill is much too lighthearted and comical for his role.  Yes, he is charming, but he lacks the dangerous edge that Marco needed.  Perhaps I have seen too many of his comedies to take him seriously here.  The arc of Foster is hard to discern.  On the one hand, he has this fatalistic air where he expects to die in the desert.  He waited almost too long to resist an attack.  When not being gloomy, he's an insufferable jerk.  Even as a bad guy, Hackman is usually likable, but here he isn't.

Mediocre.  Skip.

Moonlighting (1985)

Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd) awakens to the sound of shattering glass.  Jumping out of bed, she finds that her personal chef is destroying her fine China and anything else breakable.  His paycheck bounced and he is furious.  Maddie soon discovered that her accounting firm had vanished along with all her money.  However, she still had some assets.  Of course, there was the house, cars, and so forth, but she also had a series of small businesses, all that existed to lose money for tax purposes.  One of those businesses was a detective agency headed by David Addison (Bruce Willis).  Though Maddie fired David and all the staff, he repeatedly pressed her to reconsider.  Like a bad penny, he kept turning up.  Then, a man fell dead at their feet.  Flung together in a case of Nazi diamonds, Maddie warms to the detective life despite - or maybe because of - the many dangers.

This TV movie was the pilot for the successful goofball series that followed and launched Bruce Willis' career.  It does have quirky comedy though it is often slow.  The scenes where side characters are pursued last far too long.  Rather than building tension, it felt more like an effort to fill time.  The climactic scene where the villain follows Addison onto a precarious ladder was beyond belief.  In fact, much of the mystery remains unexplained at the end.  Who was Simon and how did he figure into the background?  Doesn't matter.  Why did Blond Mohawk (that is how he is listed in the credits) not have his gun, thus allowing himself to be an easy target later in the episode?  Of course, all the mystery stuff is just there to provide background for the comic interactions between Maddie and David.  Success.

Good popcorn fun.

It Takes Two to Tango

The big story is the fraud among Somalis in Minnesota.  There are countless daycare and health centers that have received millions to billions in government funding, yet they are shown to provide no services.  Clearly, this is bad.  Obviously, the Somalis receiving the money are aware that they are skirting the rules of the program.  Absolutely, they should be prosecuted and/or deported.  However, there is another facet to this.  Who approved all of these daycares and health centers?  Though the saying goes not to blame malice when incompetence could be to blame, that doesn't hold water here.  It's too big.  This level of incompetence is too obvious to continue long term.  Indeed, if some random YouTuber was able to uncover massive fraud in a couple of days, how did the agencies overseeing these programs not notice?  Some of those overseers need to be prosecuted too, if only to encourage other overseers to do the job.

On a related issue, many of these bogus daycares and health centers made political donations to... Democrats.  Huh.  Probably not a quid pro quo, right?  Blame aside, this is why government should be as limited as possible.  Larger government inevitably leads to greater corruption and waste.

The Long Good Friday (1980)

Colin (Paul Freeman) delivered a suitcase of money, but not before pocketing some of it.  Soon after, his driver and date are killed and left on the side of the road.  Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) returned to London from the United States.  Harold is a gangster with a beautiful girlfriend (Helen Mirren), an extensive network of goons & thugs, a police chief on the dole, and even a councilman in his pocket.  His trip to America was to arrange a joint venture with the mafia.  Everything was going his way.  Then his Roll Royce exploded, killing the driver.  Colin turned up stabbed to death at a swimming pool.  Who was making a move against him?  His deal with the mafia was being threatened.  Strong measures were needed.  However, every effort came to naught.  No one knew from where the threat originated.  When the full story is finally revealed, many of the mysterious events become clear.  Even so, Harold thinks he can handle this threat the way he has handled other gangsters.  He cannot.  Of course, virtually everyone in the film is a criminal, a corrupt official, or a hapless victim.  Many of them get their just deserts.

Bob Hoskins is terrific as the gangster, a great performance.  Sure, he's clearly a bad guy but you can't help but root for him to come through this trial.  The rest of the cast is quite good, but this is Hoskin's movie and he carries it perfectly.  Paul Freeman had surprisingly high billing for someone with almost no lines who dies early in the film.  He followed this movie by playing the chief villain, Belloq, in Raiders of the Lost Ark.  Pierce Brosnan makes his movie debut as an IRA assassin, his only line being 'Hi' before stabbing Colin to death.  His IRA partner, Daragh O'Malley, would go on to play Sgt. Harper in the Sharpe series.

Terrific film that grows to a crescendo of an ending.  Highly recommended.