Happy Birthday to Abe

Happy actual birthday to lawyer Abraham Lincoln, holder of patent number 6,469.  He also ran for president — and somehow the Illinois and national electorates looked past the fact that his name was “too ethnic,” certainly more than names like that of James K. Polk and his wife.  Abe would be 198 today, if not for temperamental actor types or, eventually, the inevitable effect of trans fats.  Smart man generally, but should not have attended any theatre across the street from a house named that.  [Alan Childress]