Morning Update, July 1, 2009

The_Kitchen_Guy

There were no new developments in Paige's case yesterday. No news, no new developments.

In news of Candles for Paige we had 95 candles as of this post. Remember, candles go out after 48 hours so keep lighting candles for Paige, her family and her three children.

Instructions for lighting candles for Paige are in the Missing thread, in this post.

On This Day In History...

...in 1867, Great Britain recognized The Dominion of Canada with the passage of the British North American Act. The provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were united as the Dominion of Canada with John A.. Macdonald as the first prime minister.



...in 1941, NBC aired the first commercial allowed by the FCC, beginning an American institution that we all hate, except it gives us a chance to hit the kitchen for chips and dip.

...in 1898, Theodore Roosevelt led the "Rough Riders" as a part of the force that charged up San Juan Hill, near Santiago, Cuba, to take the San Juan Heights during the famous battle of the Spanish-American War. (Included in this battle was the 10th Cavalry "Buffalo Soldiers" with a young lieutenant, John J. "Black Jack" Pershing.)


Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders
at the top of San Juan Heights in 1898.

...in 1919, Dwight Eisenhower married Mamie Geneva Doud. Mamie was born in Boone, Iowa, which is on the Lincoln Highway. In 1919, Eisenhower was part of the army's first motorized convoy across the United States, on the Lincoln Highway. As President, Eisenhower would remember his two month adventure on the Lincoln when he asked Congress to build the Interstate Highway System in 1955. Eisenhower passed away in 1969, Mamie passed in 1979 at the age of 82. During the 1960s, a very liberal era, Eisenhower was derided as a "do-nothing" president and was often mocked for building a putting green on the White House lawn. Over the years, however, history has been far more kind, recognizing his considerable accomplishments while in office, including ending the Korean Conflict, creation of the Interstate Highway System, the admission of two states to the union and forceful action in the field of civil rights. The landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka came under his watch, and he supported that decision to desegregate schools by demanding the schools of Washington to be a model of desegregation for the rest of the country. He also signed two Civil Rights Acts into law (1957 and 1960) which were the first civil rights acts since 1870. Eisenhower was the first president to hire a "Chief of Staff" to act as a gatekeeper, an excellent idea to which every succeeding president has adopted. In most surveys of historians, Eisenhower is usually ranked as one of the top 10 American Presidents.


Mamie Doud Eisenhower (1896-1979) and Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (1890-1969)

...in 1956, speaking of Dwight Eisenhower, the Highway Revenue Act took effect, setting into motion the building of his Interstate Highway System. The plan was to take 12 years to complete at an estimated cost of $25 billion. The first construction began in 1956 in Kansas (or Missouri, the battle for bragging rights continues to this day) and it is generally thought that the last Interstate of the original plan was I-70 through Glenwood Canyon in 1992. Although other Interstate highways are being built as you read this, the original designated Interstate system took 36 years and $114 billion to complete. The first Interstate highway was, arguably, the Pennsylvania Turnpike, which opened in 1940 between Irwin and Carlisle. It is now badged as I-70 and I-76 and Pennsylvania refers to it as "The Granddaddy of the Pikes." ¹


The Interstate Highway System - purple lines are completed routes, blue shows certain (but not all)
three-digit designated spurs or bypass routes and green signifies proposed routes under consideration.



Even numbered highways travel east-west.
Odd numbered highways travel north-south.
3 digit highways are spurs or bypasses. Numbers come from the parent road.
Odd-leading numbers are spurs that will end away from the parent.
Even-leading numbers are loops that return to the parent.

That's it. That's all we know as of 12:31 AM, EDT.

¹ The real granddaddy of the pikes was the German Autobahn, which impressed General Eisenhower during WWII. It also impressed President Roosevelt enough for him to ask his highway commissioner, Thomas MacDonald, to lay out a proposed route of military highways. MacDonald presented his plan to FDR in 1938, and it actually isn't much different from today's Interstate Highway System.

Jolie_Paradoxe

Amazing that we can not go anywhere without a commercial...atms, free 411....everywhere!

I loved reading about the many contributions Eisenhower made....it's just sad that he did not live to see his work appreciated.

raebates

People always seem shocked when I tell them that a particular highway probably runs north/south because it's an odd number or east/west because it's even. Why, oh why am I cursed to remember minutia and trivia to which normal people seem oblivious?

The_Kitchen_Guy

Even more amazing, you can tell where a highway is situated by the numbers.

On US Highways, the lowest even numbers are in the north and the numbers get higher as you move south. Routes that end in 0 are considered cross-continent routes, although none of them really go from ocean-to-ocean anymore.

The lowest number is 2, which runs from Washington to Maine, except that it is divided into two segments because it is interrupted by Canada. It is a cross-continent route but was designated 2 to avoid having a US 0. US 10 used to run from Detroit to Portland but no longer goes that far, and it crosses Lake Michigan on the SS Badger auto ferry. (The link takes you to the Badger website. You can read more about car ferry service here.) Much of US 30 replaced the Lincoln Highway, America's first coast-to-coast highway, although at half-past Wyoming, 30 inexplicably turns north and follows the Oregon Trail. US 98 follows the Gulf Coast.

Route 66 was never a cross-country route, it went from Chicago to Los Angeles.

Odd numbered highways that end in 1 or 5 are considered cross-country Gulf- or Mexico-to-Canada routes. The lowest numbers are in the east (US 1) and increase as they go west with the highest (US 101) along the Pacific Coast.

Interstate highways are numbered the same way except the lowest to highest odd numbers are west (I-5) to east (I-99.) Even numbers are in the south (I-4 in Florida) rising to the highest numbers in the north (I-96 in Michigan.)

chefann

Speaking of, the Michigan PBS stations had a program on last night about the Lincoln Highway. We didn't watch all of it, but had it on during commercials of what we were watching. It seemed to focus on interesting locations along the route, but it jumped around wildly from east to west and back again. We did catch one segment about Mt. Vernon, IA. It was about a restaurant that wasn't there 15 years ago (and, in fact, seemed to be in the Pizza Palace store front, based on the one poor street shot they showed).

raebates

Bumping to help inform everyone about highways.

The_Kitchen_Guy

I saw the same show a few months ago. I was underwhelmed.