Yesterday, my home country swore in its 44th president for his second term. Because a president’s term of office always ends at noon on January 20th (because this government is nothing if not inconsistent about the importance of setting specific dates for important shit – our presidential elections don’t have a set date, but are always on the Tuesday that falls between November 2nd and November 8th), Obama was actually sworn in yesterday, but since we do all of our official government shit on Mondays, he gets sworn in twice. He’ll actually be the only president to ever be sworn in four times for two terms, because last time he was inaugurated, the dude who swore him in botched it and they had to do it over the next day.
But you know what’s really cool about the second swearing in and the inauguration festivities happening today? One of the floating holidays here in America is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. It’s beyond fair to say that without the work of Dr. King, Barack Obama would not be president, so I thought it was so cool when Allison Morris got in touch with me and asked me to take a look at an infographic she helped create. I thought it would be awesome and appropriate to share it with you guys today (from http://www.onlinecollegecourses.com/life-of-mlk):
So, thanks, Allison, for sharing this with us!
I also want to take this opportunity to point out that many public schools don’t close on this day, and people like John McCain and Ronald Reagan were at one time opposed to this holiday. There are people in the United States vehemently opposed to honoring the sacrifices of a civil rights leaders, but the majority of people still somehow support Columbus day, when we honor the legacy of slavery and genocide that Christopher Columbus left us when he “discovered” America.
Juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust
sayin’.
Okay, this 6 million mile figure makes zero sense and I can’t find anyone explaining it. Googling showed that the figure is only for the last 11 years of his life–which means he averaged almost 1500 miles a day. So if he was in a car traveling at 70 mph, he did that 21 hours a day. For 11 years. Sure, some flying would boost the number, but also, he did a sh**-ton of walking and standing still (you know, to march in protests and to make speeches, respectively). I call BS, and I don’t know why I can’t find anyone else doing so anywhere on the internet.
End very belated rant. Great infographic regardless; it’s not the creator’s fault this fact seems to be pervasively out there with no explanation of where it comes from.