Donald Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American businessman, politician, television personality, author, and the probable nominee of the Republican Party for President of the United States in the 2016 election. He is chairman of The Trump Organization, which is the principal holding company for his real estate ventures and other business interests. After graduating from college, Trump was given control of his father’s real estate development firm and has since built casinos, golf courses, hotels, a New York City neighborhood, and other real estate properties, many of which bear his name, and founded Trump Entertainment Resorts. Listed by Forbes as one of the world’s wealthiest people, Trump and his businesses, as well as his three marriages, have received prominent media exposure. He hosted The Apprentice, a popular reality television show on NBC, from 2004 to 2015.
Exactly four years ago, on February 29, 2012, I created the 8-bit Purple Squirrel in honor of Leap Year. The story behind that character is one of eye-catching strangeness and an unsettling fear of its existence. The reason for creating 8-bit Donald Trump is kind of the same. This orange-tinted populist con-artist is the absolute worst, and he may be the world’s greatest troll. Trump is a racist, sexist, authoritarian narcissist who represents the culmination of 30 years of antipolitics. And he doesn’t seem to be going away, because evidently America made him unstoppable. Happy Leap Year?
Update: It got even worse. I had to add this 8-bit character to my U.S. president series as #27 of 44.
Deadpool (real name Wade Winston Wilson) is a fictional antihero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by artist/writer Rob Liefeld and writer Fabian Nicieza, the character first appeared in The New Mutants #98 (February 1991). Initially Deadpool was depicted as a supervillain when he made his first appearance in The New Mutants and later in issues of X-Force, but later evolved into his more recognizable antiheroic persona. Deadpool is a disfigured and mentally unstable mercenary with the superhuman ability of an accelerated healing factor and physical prowess. He is known as the “Merc with a Mouth” because of his talkative nature and tendency to break the fourth wall, which is used by writers for humorous effect and running gags.
Harper Lee, born Nelle Harper Lee (April 28, 1926 – February 19, 2016), was an American novelist widely known for To Kill a Mockingbird (1960). Immediately successful, it won the 1961 Pulitzer Prize and has become a classic of modern American literature. Though Lee had only published this single book, in 2007 she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her contribution to literature. She was also known for assisting her childhood friend Truman Capote in his research for the book In Cold Blood (1966). The plot and characters of To Kill a Mockingbird are loosely based on Lee’s observations of an event that occurred near her Monroeville, Alabama hometown in 1936, when she was 10 years old. The novel deals with the irrationality of adult attitudes towards race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s, as depicted through the eyes of two children.
Note: Lee died in her sleep three days ago, on on the morning of February 19, 2016, aged 89. Last year another novel, Go Set a Watchman (2015), written in the mid-1950s, was controversially published as a “sequel,” though it was later confirmed to be To Kill a Mockingbird‘s first draft.
Billy the Kid, also known as William H. Bonney, was born William Henry McCarty Jr. (November 23, 1859 – July 14, 1881). He was an American frontier gunfighter, thief and murderer who participated in New Mexico’s Lincoln County War. Bonney is known to have killed eight men. After murdering a blacksmith during an altercation in 1877, Bonney became a wanted man in Arizona Territory and joined a group of cattle rustlers in New Mexico. He took part in the Lincoln County War and joined the Regulators, making him a well-known outlaw in the region. After one of many prison escapes, Bonney was ultimately shot and killed by Sheriff Pat Garrett in Fort Sumner in 1881. Over the next several decades, legends grew that Bonney had not died that night, and a number of men claimed to be him.
Jesse James (September 5, 1847 – April 3, 1882) was an American outlaw, guerrilla, gang leader, bank robber, train robber and murderer from the state of Missouri. He was the most famous member of the James-Younger Gang, who were Confederate guerrillas or bushwhackers during the Civil War. They were accused of participating in atrocities committed against Union soldiers, including the Centralia Massacre. After the war, as members of various gangs of outlaws, they robbed banks, stagecoaches and trains. The James brothers were most active as members of their own gang from about 1866 until 1876. In 1882, Jesse James was killed by a member of his own gang who hoped to collect a reward. Already a celebrity when he was alive, James became a legendary figure of the Wild West after his death.
Frederick Douglass (c. February 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an African-American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement from Massachusetts and New York, gaining note for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writings. Douglass wrote several autobiographies in which he described his experiences as a slave and promoted the cause of abolition. After the Civil War, Douglass remained an active campaigner against slavery. Douglass also actively supported women’s suffrage, and held several public offices. In 1872, without his approval, Douglass became the first African-American nominated for Vice President of the United States as the running mate of Victoria Woodhull, on the Equal Rights Party ticket. Douglass was a firm believer in the equality of all peoples, whether black, female, Native American or recent immigrant.
Jules Verne (February 8, 1828 – March 24, 1905) was a French novelist, poet and playwright best known for his adventure novels and his profound influence on the literary genre of science fiction. Early in life Verne wrote for magazines and the stage. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the Voyages extraordinaires, a widely popular series of scrupulously researched adventure novels including Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870) and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873). Verne has had a wide influence on the literary avant-garde and on surrealism in France and most of Europe. Verne has been the second most-translated author in the world since 1979, ranking between Agatha Christie and William Shakespeare.
Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh and raised in Oakland, Stein moved to Paris in 1903, and made France her home for the remainder of her life. She hosted a Paris salon, where the leading figures in modernism in literature and art would meet, such as Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sinclair Lewis, Ezra Pound and Henri Matisse. Stein’s books include Q.E.D. (1903), Fernhurst (1904), Three Lives (1905-06), The Making of Americans (1902-1911) and Tender Buttons (1912). In the latter work, Stein comments on lesbian sexuality. In 1933, Stein published a kind of memoir of her Paris years, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, written in the voice of Alice B. Toklas, her life partner. As a Jew living in Nazi-occupied France during World War II, Stein may have been able to save her life and sustain her lifestyle as an art collector through the protection of powerful Vichy government official Bernard Faÿ.
Ada, Countess of Lovelace was a British mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on the Analytical Engine, an early mechanical general-purpose computer invented by Charles Babbage. The engine was to be programmed using punched cards. Lovelace’s notes on the engine include what is recognized as the first algorithm intended to be carried out by a machine. Specifically, she developed an algorithm to calculate a sequence of Bernoulli numbers. As a result, she is often regarded as the first computer programmer. Lovelace was born on December 10, 1815 and died on November 27, 1852 at the age of 36.
Ellen DeGeneres is an American comedian, television host, actress, writer and producer. She starred in the popular sitcom Ellen (1994-98), and has hosted her syndicated TV talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, since 2003. Her stand-up career started in the early 1980s, culminating in a 1986 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. DeGeneres starred in several feature films during the 1990s and provided the voice of Dory in Finding Nemo (2003). During the fourth season of Ellen in 1997, she came out as a lesbian in an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show. Shortly afterward, her character also came out to a therapist played by Oprah Winfrey, and the series went on to explore various LGBT issues. DeGeneres was born on January 26, 1958.
Steve Prefontaine, nicknamed “Pre,” was an American middle- and long-distance runner who competed in the 1972 Summer Olympics. He was born on January 25, 1951, in the coastal logging town of Coos Bay, Oregon. Prefontaine once held the American record in seven different distance track events, from the 2,000 meters to the 10,000 meters. He was recognizable for his mustache and his long locks of hair that parted as he ran. Following his collegiate career at the University of Oregon, Prefontaine was preparing for the 1976 Summer Olympics. He died on May 30, 1975, at the age of 24, in an automobile accident near Hendricks Park in Eugene, Oregon.
Hypatia, often called Hypatia of Alexandria, was a Greek mathematician, astronomer and philosopher in Egypt, then a part of the Eastern Roman Empire. She was the head of the Neoplatonic school at Alexandria, where she taught philosophy and astronomy. According to contemporary sources, Hypatia was murdered by a Christian mob after being accused of exacerbating a conflict between two prominent figures in Alexandria: the governor Orestes and the Bishop of Alexandria. For some historians, Hypatia’s death symbolized the end of Classical antiquity. She was born born c. AD 350-370 and died in 415.
Eartha Kitt was an American actress, singer, cabaret star, dancer, stand-up comedian, activist and voice artist. She’s known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 recordings of “C’est Si Bon” and the enduring Christmas novelty smash “Santa Baby.” In 1967, she starred as Catwoman in the third and final season of the television series Batman. Orson Welles once called her the “most exciting woman in the world.” Kitt began her career in 1943 and appeared in the 1945 original Broadway production of the musical Carib Song. In the early 1950s, she had six U.S. Top 30 hits, including “Uska Dara” and “I Want to be Evil.” In 1968, her career in America suffered after she made anti-war statements at an LBJ White House luncheon. Kitt was born on January 17, 1927 and died on December 25, 2008.
The Groke is a character in the Moomin series of books authored by Swedish-speaking Finn Tove Jansson, appearing in four of the nine novels. She appears as a ghost-like, hill-shaped body with two cold staring eyes and a wide row of white shiny teeth. Wherever she stands, the ground below her freezes and plants and grass die. She leaves a trace of ice and snow when she walks the ground. Anything that she touches will freeze. On one occasion, she froze a campfire by sitting down on it. She seeks friendship and warmth, but she is declined by everyone and everything, leaving her in her cold cavern on top of the Lonely Mountains.
The 1990 Japanese-European anime television series Moomin is one of the few shows we sometimes let our two-year-old watch. Our daughter is obsessed with the Groke. She often says, “The Groke is too scary. See her?” She feels the exact same way about the big blue elephant from the Super Simple Songs animation of “Hickory Dickory Dock.” Ditto for Bumble the Abominable Snow Monster. On that note, other shows/movies we’ve recently let her watch are various Rankin/Bass holiday movies, Charlie Brown holiday shows and (probably more than anything else) the animated 1982 short The Snowman, including the special David Bowie introduction. David Bowie, who died two days ago, is one of the few musicians my daughter knows by name. Sad times that Bowie has departed Earth.
Alexander Hamilton was a Founding Father of the United States, one of the most influential interpreters and promoters of the U.S. Constitution, the founder of the nation’s financial system, the founder of the Federalist Party, the father of the United States Coast Guard and the founder of The New York Post. As the first Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton was the primary author of the economic policies of the George Washington administration. Hamilton was born on January 11, 1755 (or 1757) in the British West Indies in the Caribbean. He died on July 12, 1804, following a famous pistol duel with Vice President Aaron Burr, his political rival, in which he was mortally wounded.
Note: Since the beginning of the American Civil War, Hamilton has been depicted on more denominations of U.S. currency than anyone else. He has appeared on the $2, $5, $10, $20, $50 and $1,000. His portrait has continued to appear on U.S. postage and currency, and most notably appears on the modern $10 bill.
George Washington Carver was an American botanist and inventor. He is known for his agricultural advances and for the promotion of alternative crops to cotton, such as peanuts, soybeans and sweet potatoes, that would help sustain poor farmers. The most popular of his 44 practical bulletins for farmers contained 105 food recipes using peanuts. He also developed and promoted about 100 products made from peanuts that were useful for the house and farm, including cosmetics, dyes, paints, plastics, gasoline and nitroglycerin. He received numerous honors for his work, including the Spingarn Medal from the NAACP. In 1941, Time magazine dubbed Carver a “Black Leonardo.” Carver was born into slavery in Missouri in the early 1860s. He died on January 5, 1943 and was buried next to longtime colleague Booker T. Washington at Tuskegee University.
Michael Stipe is an American singer, songwriter, musician, film producer, music video director and visual artist. He was the lead singer of the alternative rock band R.E.M. from their formation in 1980 until their dissolution in 2011. The band was pivotal in the development of the alternative rock genre. R.E.M. released 15 studio albums, including Out of Time (1991) and Automatic for the People (1992), as well as numerous live albums and compilation albums. Stipe was in charge of R.E.M.’s visual image, often selecting album artwork and directing many of the band’s music videos. Outside the music industry, he runs his own film production companies, C-Hundred (C-00) and Single Cell Pictures. Stipe is also noted for his social and political activism. He was born on January 4, 1960.
Ksitigarbha is a bodhisattva, or “saint,” primarily revered in East Asian Buddhism and usually depicted as a Buddhist monk. In Japanese culture, where Ksitigarbha is known as Jizō or Ojizō-sama, he is the guardian of children in limbo. Jizō is also the patron deity of children, expectant mothers, travelers and aborted/miscarried fetuses. Jizō statues are a common sight in Japan, especially by roadsides and in graveyards. Ksitigarbha means “womb of the earth” and this deity is known for his vow to take responsibility for the instruction of all beings in the six realms between the death of Gautama Buddha and the rise of Maitreya, as well as his vow not to achieve Buddhahood until all hells are emptied. He is therefore often regarded as the bodhisattva of hell-beings, or savior of hell’s torments.
Jizō Bodhisattva is one of two garden sculptures in our backyard. Jizō, which I purchased as a gift for my wife, is a 15.5″ figure made of volcanic stone with an antique brown finish. My two-year-old daughter refers to the dense Jizō statue as “the heavy baby.” The other sculpture, Saint Francis of Assisi, is a 20″ white stone/resin sculpture that was in the yard when we bought our house. Alongside these two sculptures is our 10″ plastic garden gnome of many travels, Dingledodger VonFefferhedge. Together they preside over our backyard cat cemetery, which includes the recently deceased The King. Happy New Year!
Donald Trump – No. 965
Donald Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American businessman, politician, television personality, author, and the probable nominee of the Republican Party for President of the United States in the 2016 election. He is chairman of The Trump Organization, which is the principal holding company for his real estate ventures and other business interests. After graduating from college, Trump was given control of his father’s real estate development firm and has since built casinos, golf courses, hotels, a New York City neighborhood, and other real estate properties, many of which bear his name, and founded Trump Entertainment Resorts. Listed by Forbes as one of the world’s wealthiest people, Trump and his businesses, as well as his three marriages, have received prominent media exposure. He hosted The Apprentice, a popular reality television show on NBC, from 2004 to 2015.
Exactly four years ago, on February 29, 2012, I created the 8-bit Purple Squirrel in honor of Leap Year. The story behind that character is one of eye-catching strangeness and an unsettling fear of its existence. The reason for creating 8-bit Donald Trump is kind of the same. This orange-tinted populist con-artist is the absolute worst, and he may be the world’s greatest troll. Trump is a racist, sexist, authoritarian narcissist who represents the culmination of 30 years of antipolitics. And he doesn’t seem to be going away, because evidently America made him unstoppable. Happy Leap Year?
Update: It got even worse. I had to add this 8-bit character to my U.S. president series as #27 of 44.